The first thing you would notice about Monique was that her left eye was blue and the right was green. She was incredibly conscious about them being “strange” (as she put it), but in reality we both knew the reactions it drew from people helped her judge them. There were some who were initially taken aback, but politely chose to ignore it after a while. There were some who could never tear their eyes away from hers (she hated those). And then there were some like Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca.

Monique had been seeing Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca for about three months. Well to put it a bit more correctly : 3 months, 5 days, 4 hours and 11 minutes. She was “deeply, madly, crazily in love”. Everyday she wrote in her diary about her dreams for the two of them and the life they would share. They would have two children – a boy, named Pedro (after Micheal’s father) and a girl named Mia (after her own sister), a dog named Bosco ( although Monique was still unsure about the breed), and a house by the sea.

She would gush “He’s different! So unlike all the rest!”

And I would say “How so?”

And she would say “He says he loves every part of me! And the best part is he hasn’t said a word about my eyes being strange!”

Once Monique and Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca were sitting across from each other at one of their regular haunts when he stopped mid-sentence, burst into laughter and exclaimed “Why, Moni! Do you know that your eyes are each a different color? How very strange!”

Monique wept buckets that night. Gone were Pedro, Mia and Bosco. Gone was her house by the sea.

” I will never fall in love with another man again, ever! They are all hateful creatures! Every last one of them!”

The next day at the library, as Monique dragged her broken heart through the shelves, looking for a wildly romantic book to bury herself into, she met Alejandro Dio Beno who took one look at her and said:

“Those are by far the most beautiful eyes I have seen”

Needless to say, Monique’s dreams came rushing back.