My Eyes On You

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She had stopped writing letters to Brendan some time ago. She thought about him frequently, but feared the

consequences if she were to continue to send unwanted mail.After understanding the hardships of penalties (landing

herself in the hospital), she didn‟t want to take that chance again.

She still wanted, needed, to be connected to him, but it was just too big of a risk.

She thought he‟d understand.

When she got out of the hospital, Leah resolved to live a clean life for as long as possible.

She broke connections with the friends that did drugs, focused her attention on her studies, and resolved that she was going to try to live positively.

She did a very good job. She made it most of the way through school, and didn‟t once get into trouble.

But just before she graduated, she started using pain killers and sedatives. She gathered up hoardes and popped

them like candy. She even got addicted. Without her mother‟s knowledge, she slowly weaned herself off of them.

No one ever found out. But over the.next few years, she relapsed twenty times. Eventually, however, she stopped.

She graduated. Everyone was happy. Her family patted her on the back and congratulated her.

They threw her a party that night. Non-alcoholic, of course. They said,

“We‟re glad you finally got your life back on track.”

She moved out of her parents‟ house and into her own apartment.

She had a job lined up with the local

newspaper, working as an investigative reporter.

One day, as she was typing in front of her monitor at her apartment, she looked up at the television and stopped.

All the old feelings of her youth came flooding back as her jaw dropped open.

There, on the television screen, was Brendan Caldwell.

He was wearing a doctor‟s coat, talking about aspirin.

Could it be? Leah had always known that Brendan was interested in acting, but even still, she was shocked to

see his face and hear his voice.

She was shaken. Over the next few months, she saw him in several more commercials.

Soon, he was doing television shows.

A couple of years later, the headlines read, “Brendan

Caldwell—The Next Big Thing.”

He was playing small parts in the movies. Leah felt small and insignificant. She was a small-time reporter for a small-town newspaper.

He was “the next big thing.”

She found out which movies he had parts in and went to the theaters by herself on her times off. She would sit in the stands, eating her buttery popcorn, her eyes transfixed at the paperboy #2.

She kept her eyes on him the whole time, and never let her gaze drift. She bought multiple tickets, intending to

see the films more than once. Yet again, she became obsessed.

She watched Brendan Caldwell rise to higher and higher fame. She rented the movies once they were out on DVD and played them and replayed them. One time, she

stilled the frame and kissed the screen.

Did she love him or did she hate him? Part of her wanted to think of him as a pimple that she could have gotten rid of if she‟d put the medicine on when it was small—but now it was out of control. The other part, the wilder part, passionately adored him.

That part, she kept hidden.

At work, she started saying less and less to her co-

workers. She gained the reputation as a quiet, steady worker. She poured her life-blood into her writing, but kept her thoughts on the young star that was soon to make it big.

She even thought about doing a story about him, but knew that her editor would turn it down.

She wore glasses now. Her eyesight had been steadily

deteriorating since high school, and now she was farsighted with an astigmatism.

She wore her black hair up, out of

her face, and all the ladies at work said she looked like a librarian. It was echoes from the past. Leah ignored the teasing.

At night, she let her hair down, changed into some comfortable clothes and some warm socks, and watched her DVD‟s in the darkness of her apartment. She would almost always be eating or chewing on something.

Again, echoes from the past. She was using food to comfort her. She started to gain weight. One afternoon, she stepped on the scale and gasped. She had gained forty pounds. With tears in her eyes, she balled up her fists and pounded them against the air.

She felt like she was losing control. She had to do something to gain it back.

She made several calls, identifying herself as an investigative reporter.

The closest she got to Brendan Caldwell was his agent‟s voicemail, but weeks went by, and no response came. Because she came from a small paper, no one was willing to take her seriously.

She told herself that she wasn‟t going to do this, but she found herself doing it anyway. With trembling fingers, she moved to dial the familiar digits, but stopped to first look around. She was alone in the office; it was late in the day.

She proceeded to make the long-distance call to Early Winter, shaking so horribly that she had to steady herself.

She disguised her voice. “Mrs. Caldwell?”

“I‟m sorry?”

“Mr. or Mrs. Caldwell? I‟m calling about Brendan, your son.”

A pause. “I‟m sorry, you have the wrong number.”

So they had moved. Leah clamped her eyes shut, feeling the same acute anxiety that had plagued her when she was fourteen. She never thought she would be doing this again. Not after so long. She was a grown woman now; shouldn‟t she know better?

But she knew that i could not stop herself; to try would be like standing in front of a moving train. Once it has you, it has you. It was more tenacious than any addiction that she had ever had, and more sinister: this attacked not only the body, but also the heart.