I saw Duke Callahan and first thought he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever know.
That was stupid, of course. I was merely a girl of twelve, and I couldn't even have understand what the significance of what I was thinking.
The night before, my parents had drunk wine in front of our fireplace and kissed, safe in the knowledge that I was asleep between them. I wasn't, and that must have been where I heard that line, whispered reverently against my mother's mouth.
It shouldn't have made sense then, but Duke helped it trigger meaning to me. He had seemed so painfully perfect, curly hair and large eyes and the cleft in his chubby chin that dimpled when he did even the smallest things with his facial muscles. The most beautiful thing.
Many things have changed since then. Everyone sees what only me used to see. Like me, they have experienced their downfall while faced with the icy violets of his eyes. (Even those fucking orbs want the world to know their owner is royalty.) The world can now see his stature, six and a half feet of powerful male, and understand that something can cause a man to feel a plethora of emotions in the space of two seconds. Duke makes you come face to face with your flaws with one glance, and he's aware of it. He capitalizes on it, because he knows he draws people in.
It's not something physical. No, you don't see Duke and think of something as basic as lust.
Even I don't know what exactly he's about. More times than I can recall, I've caught myself wondering what precisely it is about him that evokes this reaction from everyone. It's not his beauty or his height. Maybe not anyone can look like the descendant of a Nordic god, but it runs deeper than that. It's not even his blue blood family, with money that came from owning one of the largest diamond mining conglomerates in the world. I school in the heart of England, so this school boasts a confederation of kids from elite families. Duke's wealth does not intimidate me.
It's nothing eyes can see, or hands can touch. But it is something. And I've come to the realization that it's his arrogance. Nobody can do Duke like Duke, and he fucking knows it. He could be floating, floating, for the way he saunters across the hallways like he's above us all.
It can't be patented — there's nothing superficial about the disdain he has for the rest of the world. He's not one of the sulky boys that fake aloofness for clout. He's truly feeling it, and by extension, so can I whenever he's near.
It's raw, spiritual, and has always been. He's growing into his height? Even his awkwardness is egotistical — let me see you overcome puberty and do it this good, his body is telling us. His hair is falling all over the place from the harsh wind? He couldn't be bothered to brush it all away. He allows the elements do their thing, because at the end, it makes him look like a fucking airbrushed model with all that mass of sooty curls.
And he knows it.
But it's fact, isn't it? So by a stroke of luck, I happen to have a combination of the better genes, he'd said once in the flat way a tired mother of six might tell the unfortunate fourth born to eat your peas so you can grow tall.
And maybe that's what's messed up about this whole thing, that Duke doesn't care about what he looks like. Duke doesn't want to have an aura that pulls people in, but he has it anyway. Duke doesn't want to be seen, but he is, anyway. And he hates it.
But now that he has it, he won't let it waste away. No. He's glorious to watch, slowly cementing his place in the world using what was given freely to him.
I'd be happy for him if I wasn't so envious.