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He's caught between one truth hiding another.
The truth is, he hates love.
He won't, can't, hate her. He loves her. But he hates loving her.
It starts with her eyes. Her eyes, blue and deep, as mutable as the ocean, her eyes are expressive. Windows to the soul, she calls them, and if so, he sees her soul too deeply one day, and what he sees is something almost repugnant, and yet it is not her he finds offensive. It hurts him, something needling his conscience. It's a new sensation, or one so long forgotten it's as though he's feeling it for the first time.
He never thought disappointment would hurt him, but it does, hurts something he still can't, and refuses to, name.
He loves her eyes, and hates what they express in those moments.
It starts with her eyes, and the disappointment reflected there. For the first time, he is apologizing for something he feels no guilt for. It is the first time he lies. He apologizes for killing, when what he means is 'I'm sorry you looked at me that way'. He knows the truth isn't the right thing to say, knows it is foolish because he shouldn't be sorry for what someone else feels, so he apologizes for what he can control. The disappointment fades, and he promises then and there that it will be the last time, that the sense of guilt absolved is not worth the apology, not worth the lie.
He knows now, how love makes liars.
It happens again, and he apologizes, again, for the wrong thing, but the only thing he can apologize for. But this time her forgiveness comes with concessions. 'Don't do it again. Think. Hesitate. Promise.' He promises, knowing the lie, knowing the vow will be broken, and he will forswear himself again. He is, was, a creature of pride, and his vows mean, meant, everything. And yet love coerces him into making a pledge knowing full well the next day, or the next, or the one after that, he will break it.
He knows now, how love precipitates indiscretion.
He breaks his promise, and the concessions grow. The demands grow. And that look in her eyes is no longer only disappointment, but sorrow. If disappointment is hard to bear, if he will, must, make a promise knowing he will break it, the sorrow makes him want to hold fast to those promises. It is seeing that sorrow, ocean deep and fathomless, that takes pride and shapes it into something less than what it was before. Every victory is hollow until the sorrow fades, and then they are more, and less, than what it had been before, the vague line between the two catching him, holding him inside of the indistinctions.
He knows now that love is binding, and takes prisoners with no intent of granting freedom.
He's hemmed in, like a dog in it's cage. They think love has tamed him. They think he is 'safe'. And yet they have never been more wrong, more blind to the truth. He exists within his own skin, pacing angrily, hungry for everything he has willingly denied himself. In solitary moments, he can't remember why he denies himself his own nature, why he holds back, why he checks every impulse. He can't remember until he sees her smile, because he knows he is a slave to that smile, and will do anything to ensure he is not the one that causes it's twist into a grimace.
He knows now, how love creates shadows of strength.
Resentment is bitter, salt in the wound of her smile. He loves her, and he cannot remember why, or how. He loves her, and smiles down on her even when he wants to remind her, remind himself, of who he truly is. She is fragile, and easily broken, and there are moments he wants to break her, to prove to her that her eyes cannot hold him forever. He wants to prove, if only to himself, that love has not taken everything from him, turned him into a liar, an oathbreaker, a prisoner locked tight within the walls of his own skin. But he remains silent and gives no voice to his resentment. His silence is natural, and she thinks nothing of it. And he loves her, and hates loving her.
He knows now that love makes itself a lie, makes liars. He knows that 'I love you' is the truth that hides the truth, that he is stuck between the two.
He knows now that to say 'I love You' is to say 'I hate you' on the same breath.