A first love, lost.

I always forget what color my eyes turn when I cry.

It’s this bright blue, almost turquoise color, with hints of green, a Caribbean Sea in my irises.

The first time I met him, we exchanged bespectacled glances. Black frames covered his green eyes, brown frames covered my blue. There was no way of detecting the instant comfort I would feel with him, as we rolled skeeballs or played air hockey. I couldn’t expect the circles he would draw on my skin that night or the kiss that would melt me before any of the clothes came off. I had no anticipation; I lived in the moment, savoring each touch, breath, our eyes meeting as his lips drew closer to mine.

We fought, about how he stopped treating me like a romantic prospect and instead as just a friend. I flashed anger, while he flashed humor and amusement, a smile quirking at the corner of his eyes. It was the first I had heard of his potential move back to Chicago, and I sat in his office, wearing a bathing suit, a mini skirt and a t-shirt, having just gotten back from the beach. He wore a blue shirt, jeans, and blue converses. To this day, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to buy or see a pair of blue converses without thinking of the holes that patched through his shoes. With a few boops and thumb wars, the anger dissolved; only the intensity and passion remained. I’m pretty sure we could be heard over the cacophony that is 14th and 1st.

One of our last days together before he moved back to Chicago, I sat on his bed, laughing with him. He looked at me, suddenly serious. “You have the most beautiful eyes,” he told me. “I can’t tell if they’re green or blue in this light.” I told him they were blue. He said, “They’re beautiful either way.” His white comforter absorbed our last memories in his apartment. When we would say goodbye, for the third time, having tried it twice before he left, the words unable to scribe themselves into our hearts.

He picked me up in a red station wagon, nerves tremoring through his body. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months, our conversations relegated to text, and when I could, IM and Skype. We drove around, finally stopping in the parking lot of the school he teaches at. I couldn’t see the pale green of his eyes anymore; I could only feel his lips, querulously pressed against mine, unsure, as though he had forgotten how I tasted. Once he absorbed the flavor, it was as though we had never been apart. His eyes watched mine shut as he rocked my hips against his, in the back of his wagon, a satisfied smirk at his lips.

We talked again. It had been a few weeks since he said he couldn’t do it anymore. We both said hurtful, spiteful things, after months of feeling as though we were floating on clouds. I asked him a pointed question, and saw a tear roll out of his eye. He watched the tears stream from mine. He always did love when I cried after I came, but not when it was like this. We said we’d give it another go.

I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t be made to feel like he wanted everything and he wanted it now, even after he gave me an ultimatum, after he told me we had to end if I couldn’t do what he wanted. I couldn’t be his friend and his girlfriend when he could be so little of either to me. The burnt lightbulb gave me dark in which to cry, to compose my thoughts, to realize it was time to etch him out of my heart and say goodbye. I couldn’t be friends, let alone a lover to someone whose eyes I could no longer read. The last I saw of them last night, they were tired; appreciative; wanting. Always wanting.

I always forget what color my eyes turn when I cry.

I wonder what he would say if he saw their color now.