Chapter 41

There are quite a few of us on Levi’s doorstep: Keagan, Tom, Elle, Nikita, Suhani, Michael, Greg, and some random boys I don’t know but assume are from the shop. Elle’s carrying two packs of beers, the twins brought non-alcoholic beverages, and Tom’s got three bags of chips. One of the boys I don’t know is carrying two movies and a video game that he claims is the sequel to Levi’s favorite.

I realize, quite gloomily, that I didn’t know Levi likes playing video games, that he likes them enough to have a favorite.

The sun’s already gone down and Suzie has turned on all the lights. (We waited until later in the evening for two reasons: to not interfere with family dinner plans, and to make him think he’s getting out of a birthday surprise this year.) It only takes a few seconds after we knock before Suzie swings open the door, her smile as wide as I expected it to be.

“Oh, he’s going to love this, you guys.” Suzie hops excitedly (three times exactly) before letting us in. I hang back, letting the others go ahead of me. Suzie shuts the front door and yells, “Hey, birthday boy, come see your present!”

“Mom, you already got me something!” Levi shouts back. A second later, he runs into the room. His bare feet skid on the wood as he sees us and comes to a startled halt. “What. Is. Going. On?”

“Ha!” Keagan shouts. “You thought you were getting out of it this year.”

Levi rubs a hand over his face, chuckling. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know, man.” Keagan clasps his hand and smacks the back of his head. “Happy birthday.”

Levi still hasn’t seen me, but I know the moment is inevitable. He looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes and his clothes slightly askew, but he also looks relatively happy. He goes through the group, passing out hugs and laughing with each person as they wish him a happy birthday.

It isn’t until he reaches for a hug from Elle that he sees me, and my heart flips, and my throat strangles. I hadn’t really thought about how this moment would go, just that it would go one of two ways: good or bad. But in reality, it’s neither. (Or a little bit of both.) His eyes land on me at the back of the group, and his smile fails us both, and I want to sink into oblivion.

But then he shakes his head and, taking the last few steps toward me, embraces me fully. Sighing, as if he’s so happy to have me and so unhappy that we fought, he kisses me full on the mouth.

Of all the things I expected, it was not this. With his arms around my waist, my hands automatically weave through his hair. It doesn’t matter that all our friends are watching, or that I feel like I don’t deserve something so wonderful.

It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t smiled at me.

What does matter: that I missed him, that he’s holding me like he missed me, and that we’re together. That’s it. That’s everything.

Tom whistles (I’d be thoroughly pissed if I weren’t so preoccupied) and Keagan loudly proclaims, “Well, his first birthday celebration with a girlfriend was bound to be a little different, right?”

And Elle. “That’s a little steamy, you guys.” (Oh, Elle, you’re one to talk.)

At that, Levi steps back, tucking me into his side. Then he smiles at them (still not at me), laughs at them, shakes his head like they’re funny and he hasn’t just jumbled up our already confused hearts.

Elle tosses her blue hair over her shoulder. “I just want a beer. Who’s with me?”

Suzie clears her throat by the doorway to the kitchen. “Hello, again,” she says, looking closely at Elle (who gives a sheepish smile and hides the beer behind her back) before turning to her son. Everyone stands remarkably still as she crosses over and kisses Levi’s cheek. “Drink responsibly, baby. I’ll be in my room if you need anything.” She waves at us, pressing my hand once before disappearing.

Elle grins. “I mean, she gave her permission, so it’s totally legal, yeah?”

Levi rolls his eyes. “At least Albert isn’t here to throw glitter on me.”

“Actually—” Elle hands the beer to Keagan and reaches into her pockets. “This is from him,” she says gleefully, and tosses two handfuls of glitter into the air.

“Happy twentieth, Levi!” Keagan shouts, and Michael and Tom and the rest of the boys join in, with me and Elle and the twins right behind. Then the house goes up in cheers, and Levi’s rubbing glitter out of his hair, laughing. He’s so beautiful, standing there with his heart on his sleeve.

(I don’t want to break it, but I think I already have.)

We end up on the roof.

One of the boys requested it, so Levi got out the ladder, and we climbed the wobbly thing until we were on the house’s slightly angled roof. I laid out a blue and white striped blanket from Suzie’s linen closet and all ten of us unceremoniously piled on. The boys and Elle each grabbed a beer while the twins and I popped open Sprite cans.

Now we’re on our backs, staring at the sky. Even I (in my uncertain state of being, in my fear and doubt and anger) am enamored with the star patterns visible tonight. After a few minutes of lying beside each other, silently, Levi reaches for my hand. I feel his fingers brush mine, soft and slow, and for a moment I let him grip me. He threads his fingers through mine, squeezing tight like he means it.

But I’m not sure of anything anymore, so I untangle us.

He shifts and lifts his beer as if nothing happened. “Thanks, you guys.”

“No,” Keagan replies, “thank you.”

“Shut up,” Levi says.

“No,” Michael says, sitting up and raising his beer to Levi’s. “If there was ever a man who could singlehandedly change the world, it’d be Levi.”

“Amen to that!” someone shouts, and another whoops. We all laugh a little.

“Seriously, you guys, shut up,” Levi groans out, hand over his face in embarrassment. “You’re drunk, Michael.”

“Dude,” Michael says, in complete control of his faculties, “I’ve had, like, two sips.”

Levi shakes his head. “Thanks. But for real, that’s enough.”

I want to reach over and smack his arm like I would have before, but I’m frozen, my elbows locked. (I let go of his hand. He walked away. What am I doing here?) My voice is gone, too, so I can’t tell him how wrong he is, how it’s not enough, how we have so much more to say about him.

Hours pass under the stars. We talk about TCP and Levi and cars and Elle’s irrational fear of raccoons. (“There’s one living on the roof,” Levi tells us, and Elle curls up into a tight ball.) We discuss the stars most of all, with Elle reading off information to us from a constellation app on her phone. It reminds me of a story, a good one that I would read over and over again, and I want to stay like this forever: no cancer, no future, no fear of screwing everything up. I could be happy, forever living in this moment of now.

But then it ends. (Of course it does.) Elle screeches at the slightest sound of scraping on the roof behind us, hurriedly saying her goodbye. Slowly, our friends start to trickle off the roof, telling us to stay, that they’ll see themselves out. Sooner than later, it’s just Levi and me on the roof, lying still beneath the black expanse. It’s like they knew there was something going on, something between us that wasn’t quite right, and wanted us to fix it.

Too bad, I think. I don’t know how to fix it. Keagan said not to overthink it, but all I can do is think about it.

I start to stand, to wipe off my jeans, but Levi grabs my hand and tugs me toward him. “I should go,” I mutter. I realize, with a terrible pang, that these are the first words I’ve said directly to him all night.

“Stay,” he says simply.

I make a hmph noise.

“It’s only ten,” he adds.

“That’s supposed to make me want to stay?” I ask. And then I close my eyes because I did not want to start a fight. It’s his birthday and—

“Whatever.” He shrugs.

“Levi.” I plunk down beside him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you know what? I’m sorry. I spoke out of line the other day.” He drinks the last of his beer and balances it beside him so it won’t roll off the roof and shatter.

“You didn’t really.”

“I just…for so long, I heard my dad and the way he handled things. He always had to say something. He never let anything go, always had to be right. I’m trying so hard not to do that.”

“Trying not to rock the boat?” I ask.

He looks at me. (I want to take his pretty face in my hands and kiss away the sadness.) “You talked to Keagan, didn’t you? That’s his phrase.”

I look away. “He was at the shop and you weren’t.”

“Sorry.”

I pull my knees up to my chest and don’t say anything.

“I shouldn’t have asked you,” he says, heaving a breath. “I shouldn’t have asked if you love me. I know you love me.”

My heart hurts. “How?”

He laughs, a little bitter. The sound goes through skin and bone. “What do you mean, how? You love me.”

“How?” I repeat, quietly.

“You…” He shrugs. “You support me. You laugh at my goofy side. You kissed me—I know you wouldn’t kiss just anyone. You’re…”

“It’s not enough.” I clear my throat and repeat those words, louder. He looks at me incredulously, like he’s going to deny it, but I keep going. “I haven’t done enough, okay? I need to, though, I know that. I really want to make this right. What—who—do you want me to be? Because I don’t know how to do…this.” I wave at the air between us. “I don’t know how to do this and watch my papa dying and let my mom cry on my pillow and be everything to everyone—”

He catches my hand, fingers tracing mine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bee. You don’t have to be anything, anyone. You’re you, and I love you, so quit talking stupid.”

“How can you call this stupid? I’m trying to share something with you and you’re—”

“I’m not calling this stupid!” He raises his hands in exasperation.

I stand up, easing my way toward the ladder. I can’t do this right now, I think as I lower myself down, taking each rung carefully. Levi doesn’t follow me at first, but then I hear his footsteps and the clanking metal and the thump as he lands in his backyard. I’m already inside, already heading for the front door.

“Bee,” he says. “Please stop running from me.”

I whirl on him, angrily, surprised to see he’s standing only a foot behind me. “I need to stop running from you? You were the one who walked away last time.”

“I know, and I’m sorry! I’m sorry I walked away.”

“I came here expecting it to make us feel better, to give us some sort of hope that we can work this out. And why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday? I don’t understand—” It dawns on me at the last second, something I’ve been missing since yesterday, and it makes my eyes widen and my throat strangle. “You beg me for my name for months, but you won’t tell me something as simple as your birthday?”

He groans, covering his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes like he isn’t seeing me right. “Bee, they’re completely different things. I didn’t want to make it about me, okay? Your dad is sick, and we’ve both had a long couple of weeks—I didn’t want you to think you had to do anything special for me.”

His words make me sick with disgust. Of course. Of course that’s why he didn’t tell me, because he knew I was stressed, because he’s forever selfless.

I want to leave, but he’s not done. “You, on the other hand,” he continues, “are keeping a vital part of yourself from me. Why? It’s the principle, not the name. I want to know every part of you, inside and out, and you won’t give it to me. I love you.”

I feel every word, every syllable, each one stopping my heart, slowly shelling me. I’m trying not to curl up, but I feel every inch of me shriveling, retreating.

He must see that I want to leave because he grabs me and pulls me into a hug. I can’t resist (despite my persisting fears), letting my arms snake around his waist, my ear pressed to his chest so I can hear his heart beating. I’m crying again.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say, hiccupping.

“I know. That’s okay. I should have been there more, asked more, before it got to this. I’m sorry.”

He should have been there more? I cry harder, because now he’s apologizing for things he never did. “Please, Levi. Stop.” I place a hand on his chest and use it to put space between us. “I think I just need to go home.”

Levi looks at me like he can’t figure out if he wants to let me go. But then he nods at the last second. “Okay. I understand.”

He kisses me without warning, and it’s everything I want and not enough—all at once. I gasp a little bit on his mouth, kissing him hard and quick. Our lips drift apart and I’m saying it again—I just need to go home—but I haven’t had enough of him. That kiss lingers and blurs my vision, until his eyes and hair are out of focus, and all I can see are his lips and his chin and his nose, and I want to kiss every inch of him.

He looks at me, confused, as if waiting for me to actually turn around and leave. But I can’t go now. I lift my fingers to trace his bottom lip, which pouts out at me until I replace my fingers with my own lips. He doesn’t stop me, doesn’t question me, so I pull his head down. His kiss is warm and all-consuming. It becomes me.

“Levi,” I breathe.

Then I’m pushing him backward, down the hall, where his bedroom door is slightly ajar. (Suzie’s here, I think, and then I don’t think at all.) He nudges it open with his foot, and then closes it with a fumbling hand and corners me with my back against it.

I wrap my hands around his neck, first with my thumbs brushing the skin around his ears, then his hairline. One hand slides into his hair, the other drifting past the hem of his shirt, skin on skin. His back is warm, strong.

But I am not the only one exploring. His long fingers have escaped the boundary of my shirt and now touch my skin, at first so softly that it’s like a breeze. Then his grip tightens, my shirt falling over his hands on either side. He lingers on the skin at my waist, then travels upward, causing air to whoosh out of my lungs. His nails dig into my ribcage, like he’s desperate to go higher but doesn’t know if he should.

He’s never touched me like his—he’s always been good, always held me gently. Knowing this winds me up, suddenly and forcefully. I nudge him backward, not stopping until he’s hit the bed, and even then we don’t stop, because he’s sitting and pulling me down. I roll onto my back, still kissing him, and let him take control. When he does, he moves from my lips to my chin to my neck, where his teeth graze my skin and his lips are so soft and his breath is hot.

I nudge him until his mouth is on mine again and gingerly slip my hands under his shirt. (New territory! my mind screams. Forbiddenforbiddenforbidden, it warns.) My fingers travel across the expanse of his back, marveling at every tense muscle, every ridge and smooth plane. I linger over a mole beneath his right shoulder blade, and then the tiny scar I find at the waistband of his jeans. He kisses me harder in response, as if I’ve undone him, just as he’s undone me, over and over and over again.

Finally, I think, sighing. I wonder how I could have lived without him, how I could have fought with him or held back at all, because the way we are now is perfect and I never want to go back, never. I slip my hands further up and grab the hem of his shirt and start to tug, wanting it off.

Levi stills, retreating some, lips paused. He’s poised above me, our noses touching, his eyes still closed—and then he sighs heavily. He lowers his head so he can kiss my collar bone, but it’s chaste and light and leaves everything wanting.

“What—” His voice breaks with a heavy breath. “—are we doing?” he asks. He shakes. His breath and heart and arms and voice. My Levi, my strong, steady fortress: he trembles.

The words tumble through the fog, tripping the alarm in my brain, making me gasp with the understanding of where we’re headed. “Oh, my God.”

“I thought…I thought you wanted to wait.”

“I did,” I say, clumsily. “I do.” My cheeks are hot, my body in panic mode, not because we were kissing, but because I grabbed him and pushed him into his bedroom and kissed him on his bed—and almost did everything I said I wasn’t going to do.

Still, his skin shivers and his heart pounds, same as mine. “This isn’t going to fix anything, Bee.” He presses another kiss to my throat, holding on to the moment, as if he’s not ready to stop yet. As if he wants to keep going.

I want to keep going. Of course I do.

I wiggle, and he rolls his weight to the side, propping his head up on one hand. He kisses my sleeveless shoulder. “You know, we could have everything we wanted right now, but afterward our problems would still be there. I don’t want to do that because I know we’ll regret it. I don’t want us to be that couple.”

“Neither do I,” I whisper thinly. I’m feeling two things exactly, and both are sharp. The first is guilt, because I was the weaker one. (Sure, he went along with it, but he also stopped it. He reminded me of everything I’ve been so careful about, everything I’ve stood for.) The second is loneliness. I know he loves me, I know he wants me—I felt that in every kiss, in his hands as they explored my skin—but it’s over, abruptly, and everything is unfinished, and the hole inside me is wider.

I made it wider.

I roll away and sit up, hands shaking. I grip the edge of the bed to steady myself. “I’m so sorry, Levi.”

He sits beside me and reaches out to touch my cheek, moving my hair behind my ear, kissing just next to my eye. “Why are you sorry?”

“This isn’t what I wanted.”

“But…we…we didn’t…”

It doesn’t matter, I want to say, but I don’t know how to explain it to him because it’s not even clear to me. I shake my head, standing. “I need to go home now.”

His expression tells me he wants to say something else, but he is also intuitive. He knows I’ll break if he breathes another word about it, so he stands with me instead. “I understand,” he breathes, his eyes closing briefly with—I can’t place it. Is it sorrow? Regret? I try not to think about it; my heart hurts too much already.

Levi walks me to the door, where I squeeze his hand once and start to turn around. When he grabs me and kisses me again, I think I might cry. But instead I let him hold me. I let him take what he can. After a few minutes, when I can’t breathe or think clearly, when I’m tempted to go right back to what we just stopped, I disentangle myself.

“Call me soon?” he asks.

“Yeah, of course.” I don’t give him a final happy birthday, because it feels useless to say anything now. Here his birthday ends on a sad note, on a confused and exhausted note, and I don’t want to remind him that I put him there. I drop my hands to my sides and head to my car. This is the third day in a row where we’ve parted empty-handed, mixed up, broken; where we’ve come no closer to a conclusion or a solution. This can’t keep happening. I’ve got to do something, or else stop trying altogether.