NonBelievers (Part 2)

Author's Note: I know this installment is written from a different point of view than the first.  Humor me.  I'm testing things out--seeing what I like and don't like.  Thanks for your patience as I work out the kinks. :)

       
        Will looked at his watch.  8:19am.  The moment obligated him to say something soon.
         “… will have to be blue.  Yes, blue will do,” Mindy mused as she contemplated the kitchen in which they now took their breakfast.  “Don’t you think?”
         Will focused on his cereal, using his spoon to force a bobbing slice of banana below the milk’s surface.  He took a thoughtful bite and as he did, milk dripped from his overflowing spoon.  Out the corner of his mouth dribbled a dab of milk, soon to be wiped away with the back of a hand.  Will took his time chewing.  Meanwhile, his right leg bounced in cut time beneath the table.  He thought idly that they were in for another unusually hot day, as even his boxers and t-shirt seemed much too warm during these early hours.  He nodded as he chewed.
         “Will!” Mindy complained.
         Will swallowed.  “What?  I was chewing!”
         But Mindy had long ago identified all his defenses.  To her, Will seemed to live  much of his life inside his own head, and only a select few were allowed there.  Currently, Marcus was the most frequent welcome visitor—a fact that often upset Mindy.  Despite her misgivings, Mindy felt confident in Will’s affection because he had recently asked her to move in with him.  Admittedly, the question had come and gone as abruptly as Will’s attention, but Mindy comforted herself saying, “Well, that’s Will.”  She had excitedly accepted his offer.  Indeed, she had called home that night.  Her seven-year-old sister, Liz, had shrieked with delight and bombarded Mindy with questions.
         “Does that mean you and Will are getting married?” she asked in awe of her adult sister.
         “Well, no, not exactly, sweetie,” Mindy explained, her smile fading slightly.
         “Ooooh!” Liz knowingly exclaimed.  “It’s like a sleep-over, a really long sleep-over.  You know, like when you used to come home during the summers.  Katie slept over for a week once.”
         Mindy explained again, “No, no, Lizzie.  I’m living with him.  Just like you live with Mom and Dad in the same house.  I’m moving out of my apartment to live at Will’s place. I will have my own closet and chest of drawers there, and I will come home to Will’s every afternoon when school lets out.”
         “Wow!  I can’t wait to see your room!”  Lizzie squeaked.
         Mindy laughed at her sister’s naïveté.  “Well, I’ll be sharing a room with Will, so I’ll have to tell him to clean up before you visit us sometime.”
         “Why is Will being so mean?” Liz asked, taken aback.  “Why isn’t he giving you your own room?”
         Mindy laughed.  “Honey, I want to share a room with Will.  Mom and Dad share a room.”
         “Mom and Dad are married.”
         “It’s only for a little while, Lizzie.  You’ll see.  Will doesn’t have cooties… How’s school going?” 
         The subject change had been deliberate.  There could be no reasoning with a seven-year-old child in their black and white world.  To them, everything was simple.  No exceptions.  Grey comes with age.
         And Mindy’s current situation was grey as ever. 
         “Will, honestly, can you tell me what I was talking about?” Having tested him before in a similar manner several times, she already knew the answer.  He couldn’t.  He never could.  She waited impatiently for the inevitable response.
         “Mindy,” he sighed.  There it was.
         She wanted to scream but settled for an aggravated sigh of desperation.  “Will!  You always, always, always do this!”  A burning sensation began to form in her throat as her voice rose.  “I-I don’t understand it!” her voice cracked.  She paused, swallowed, and took a deep breath before continuing her censure.  “I’m just… just too dull to keep your attention!”  She stood up.  The rubbers on the bottom of her chair squeaked on the linoleum floor.  “Is that it?” For Will, this outburst was enough to sufficiently divert his attention from the pressing problem of floating banana slices.
         “Look, Hon,” he began calmly.
         “The curtains, Will!  The curtains!” Mindy exclaimed.  “I was talking about replacing those 70’s style rags covering the windows with new, blue curtains!”  She laughed miserably at the inanity of the conversation. 
         He glanced at the curtains in question.  His spoon teetered on the edge of his cereal bowl with only an inattentive thumb to prevent the splash.  Really, it was the first time Will had thought much of them.  Sure, the paisley pattern was outdated, but curtains were curtains.  He looked uncertainly at Mindy.  “Why?”
         Mindy pursed her already thin lips while a frustrated hand drew her bangs away from her now searing hot eyes.  The ashen strands fell back disobediently into her grey-eyed vision.  She seemed to be shaking—a shake that came from deep within the body.  She exploded.  “Do you even want me to move in?”
         Will’s eyes darted for the curtains and retreated back to Mindy again.  Her tears were obvious, despite her eyes’ dirty blonde drapes.  He considered her, standing there scared, uncertain, and most probably hurt.  Finally letting his spoon drop in the milk, he shifted in his seat to face her and clasped his palms together and brought his thumbs to his lips.  His thumbs and lips parted company to allow the escape of one honest word.  “No.”
         Mindy bit her lip.  She felt wild, reckless, and dumbfounded, but she was neither surprised nor astounded, not even by the calm delivery of Will’s reply.  It was an answer she had seen in the whites of his eyes every time his attention had been drawn elsewhere.  Initially, she had mistakenly believed Will reserved these side glances only for other women, but time revealed he was rather indiscriminate in his distractions, doling his attention out to children, aging men, and homely women.  More recently, cereal bowls, coffee mugs, saltshakers, and abandoned pens had joined the menagerie of Will’s visual festival.  She had fallen in love with those periwinkle irises.  Now, she rarely saw them.
         Mindy’s plain features had been powerless to stop the progression of Will’s wandering eye syndrome.  She was slight of build and overall pleasing, but there was something mouse-like about her small nose, narrow cheeks, and grey eyes.  In her demeanor, she had always been soft-spoken.  Indeed, had Mindy been prone to outbursts such as these, Will might not have looked up from his cereal due to their frequent recurrence. 
        As it was, Mindy became mournfully reacquainted with periwinkle.  The couple stared at each other for some time, allowing a minute of tension to pass, as though testing the other’s resolve.  Mindy’s eyes were frantic; her bodily shake had affected even her eyes.  She chewed on her thumbnail.  It was the only thing to do, as she seemed to be shivering in her boxers and tank top ensemble.  And looking down, she noticed those plaid shorts, and madly began removing them.  After freeing herself, unashamedly stripped below the waist to black, bikini-cut panties, she aimed Will’s boxers for the twin periwinkle targets. 
        Will blinked.  He remained motionless as Mindy stormed off to the bedroom, grumbling something about eight months.  The discarded pair of boxers eventually fell to the sweating floor.  Will waited patiently, staring blankly towards the door, listening silently to the pulling out of drawers and unceremonious stuffing of clothes.  The rush ended with the resolute zipping of a large duffel bag, the one Will had seen on so many nights.  He would often chuckled at its faded colors and water stained high school emblems.  The night before was the last night it would rest under his bed, he thought idly.  He might have more room in his drawers now, too.  The rifling through cabinets broke his reverie.  The bathroom—Mindy had more things in there.  When the medicine cabinet clicked shut, he thought that he would not have been so gentle in Mindy’s well-worn, long-ago discolored shoes.
        Bag slung over her shoulder, Mindy stomped across the kitchen floor, pausing only to open the front door.  Will watched silently.  Mindy’s shoulder blade protruded from the weight of the bag on one shoulder, while the weight of the bag seemed to bounce on her denim clad bottom with every swing of her right hip.  And, just as suddenly, the vision of her backside was replaced by that of a plain white door, whose rubber weather seal squelched when door met frame once more.
        Will blinked, and slowly picked up his spoon to resume his breakfast.  The crunch of oat and corn flakes echoed in his ears.  Mindy’s bowl simply sat.  Milk saturated the flakes, leading them inexorably to a soggy end.