Imagine being childhood sweethearts with Johnny. You meet in primary school and become fast friends, spending years attached at the hip. You grow into gangly teens, long-limbed and unsure, sharing your first awkward kisses together. It breaks your heart when he leaves for the service, but he talks about his "duty" so passionately.
You keep the flowers he brings you on leave pressed between pages of your journal, little sketches of his eyes, his nose, his lips sprawled across every page. Photos of your linked hands or on holiday together dot the walls of your flat. You're in love, that deep, passionate, turbulent love that comes with youth.
But the years pass, seasons change. Every time he comes home, you know him less and less. His face is becoming unfamiliar to you, his hands belong to a man you don't know. You're 24 when you break up for good and move away from your hometown, and you don't see Johnny again.
You come home for the holidays the year you turn 29, and you ask your mum about Johnny. Your stomach drops when her face turns pale, and you run to the bathroom, your Christmas dinner spewing into the toilet. It's been years, but the love you though had died rears its ugly head. You spend weeks holed up in your flat, painting canvas after canvas with renditions of Johnny.
Your world becomes painting, breathing life into the only place you can find Johnny anymore. He's the reason you end up with your first gallery showing, a painting of his eyes in the sea catching the attention of the gallery's owner. When opening night rolls around, your champagne sweats in your grip, condensation dripping down the smooth glass. It's painful to be surrounded like this, the man you lost everywhere you look.
You're exhausted by the end of the night, worn out from socializing, just barely managing to drag yourself back to your flat. You're oblivious to the ocean eyes full of sorrow watching you from the shadows, haunted with the knowledge he's hurt you yet again. But that's the price of duty, isn't it? He was willing to pay the toll once, so what's one more?
