Eye contact

Daphne's frustrations and lack of general activity made her review her memories and she began to see things in a different light.

Mostly due to her being at a different point in life, she saw things differently. She had realized that she had been paying attention to her husband for a few years, but that she was almost stubbornly refusing to look at him or interact with him.

She recognized this flaw in her behavior as being due to her pride. She knew she was wrong, but she had subconsciously not wanted to be the first one to take a step to improve things, probably because, it somehow felt like she would be opening herself up to being hurt.

Her defensiveness and complete and utter unwillingness to be emotionally weak was admittedly, compulsive.

Daphne did not hate her ex, Anton; and their breakup was her mostly ignoring him and telling him she no longer had feelings for him, and that she thought that would not change, no matter how much time would pass.

She had reached a point where she was even remembering some of her time together with him, just because she craved physical touch. This understanding had been driving her crazy and this was also why she was so fast in touching Ezra.

Daphne had already decided that today would be the day where she would no longer be passive. The day where she would start making the plan for the rest of her life. She had always been an active person, but her activities were always endeavors where emotional input was not required. In most cases, wearing a mask of indifference was one of the most acceptable choices, as it could be seen as professional or singularly-passionate, if you had success in whatever you were striving for.

Initially, she had planned to divorce Ezra, as he seemed disinterested in her. But since the man wanted to work things out, she had to know if he was adverse to her touch or not.

She acted on impulse, and she did not regret it.

Ezra was content with the silence that permeated between the two of them. He wanted to speak more with Daphne, but he also wanted to think out his topics of conversation. He could not do so with her in front of him as his brain was not cooperating and simply focusing on her. He was also afraid he might out himself, and that she will figure out just how much attention he had been paying to her.

Because she looked comfortable in his arms at that moment and because she had her arms around him— he was content.

Daphne kept hugging Ezra for a good twenty minutes, after which she pulled back to look at him again. After being lost in her thoughts for a while, she wanted to see his gorgeous face again. Ezra was just following her lead — whatever she did, he conformed.

They stayed like that for another ten minutes, just looking into each other's eyes.

Making eye contact for so long was making both of them experience feelings of detachment from one's body and from reality, they felt like they, as people, no longer existed, and that only the other person did. It was magical, and incredibly intimate, but also slightly frightening — in a way that neither of them had experienced before.

Prolonged eye contact was a near-magical state where two brains simultaneously processed one another, each aware of being, at that very instant, the center of the other's mental world. Studies had shown that eye contact is such an intense experience it even seems to consume extra brain power, making it difficult to perform other challenging mental tasks at the same time.

While looking into Ezra's eyes, a quote from an article Daphne had once read came to her mind "extreme eye contact can lead to some very strange psychological effects. If you and a partner look into each other's eyes for ten minutes while sitting in a dimly lit room, you are likely to experience odd sensations that resemble mild `dissociation`."

Had it already been ten minutes? She wondered.