Chapter Twelve
Levi
Sophie looked distracted as we got into my car and I turned to her.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
She nodded, but didn't look at me. I started the car and started down the driveway. I had already given up any thoughts of chopping down a real tree, so I directed the car back toward the same store where we had bought the other and all of the ornaments. She remained silent and I glanced at her again.
"It's nice to hear that you and Lori talked," he said. "She was a real bitch to you last night. I'm sorry."
She nodded again, and I realized that there was something wrong.
"Sophie, what's wrong?"
"I have to go home," she said.
I felt my face fall, but I nodded.
"I know that," I said. "You told me that you were only going to be here for a little while. I knew that you were going to go back. But maybe you can come back again soon. I'm sure that my dad will be happy to keep your room for you. And if not, you can always bunk with me."
I was teasing her, but there was nothing playful in her expression when Sophie turned to look at me. She shook her head.
"No, Levi. I won't be coming back once I go home. I'm going to leave tomorrow."
I was surprised by the dryness in her voice and the announcement that she was leaving so soon.
"What is it that your mother did to you? You came here. Is it really so bad that you can't ever come back? Even for me?"
"That's just the thing," she said. "It's not about my mother. It's about you."
"What do you mean?"
My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt my stomach turn.
"Lori," she said.
That wasn't what I would have expected her to say.
"Lori?" I asked. "What does she have to do with it? I mean, I know that she can be pretty insufferable sometimes, and she hasn't exactly been the most welcoming, but she said that you two talked. I thought that maybe you had come to some sort of understanding."
Sophie gave a mirthless laugh.
"We certainly talked," she said, "but not about what she would want you to think."
"I don't understand."
"She knows."
"She knows?"
"About us. When we heard the door at the bar at the wedding, it was her, and I'm pretty sure that those were her footsteps last night."
"Did you tell her anything?'
"Of course not," she said. "What did you want me to say? Yes, you're right, new stepsister, I fucked my stepbrother?"
"If you didn't say anything, I don't understand why you are so eager to leave. Why don't you stay here for a little while longer?"
"I can't do that, Levi."
"Why not? I'd really like to have you there when Dad makes the announcement about the company."
"That's just it," she said. "If I stay, he won't be making the announcement."
'What do you mean?"
I pulled into the parking lot of the store and turned off the car, but didn't get out. I turned to look at Sophie and saw tears starting to form in her eyes.
"How do you think that your father would feel if he found out about us?"
"He won't," I said, giving her a mischievous smile again. "That's the fun of it. I know how to be very sneaky." I leaned across the car to kiss just beneath her ear. "How do you feel about relocating and having a nice office job? Personal assistant to the CEO, maybe?"
Sophie recoiled from me, shaking her head.
"If I don't leave, Lori will tell him. She'll tell him everything that she saw and heard. Your father would never give you that position if he knew. I have to leave. I can't do that to you. I can't risk you losing anything for a three-day fling. Let's go get the tree and some decorations and at least enjoy today."
Before I could say anything, Sophie climbed out of the car and headed across the parking lot toward the entrance to the store, her arms wrapped tightly around her against the light snowfall that had continued since that morning. I sat there for a few more seconds, dumbfounded, not sure how to process what had just happened. In an instant I felt like the excitement that I had had crashed around me. The cold air from outside seeped into me and I finally got out of the car, following the path that Sophie had taken into the store. I found her waiting for me just inside the door, her eyes downcast. I reached for her hand, but she withdrew it.
"You don't know who might be here," she said. "The last thing that we need is for Lori to have any allies."
She said it with conviction, but I felt her fingertips linger on mine as she took her hand away and started toward the back corner of the store to find the trees and ornaments. I was shocked by the impact of the emotions that I felt thinking about her leaving and the thought that she would never return, that I wasn't going to have the chance to see her again. I had known from the first night that I met her that she wasn't going to be around for long. She wasn't meant for anything but a fling, exactly as she put it. I told myself that that had been a major part of her appeal. Now, though, I hated the thought of seeing her drive away. I didn't want to put her behind me and pretend that she hadn't wandered into my life.
I stepped into the aisle and saw her eyeing the trees, comparing several. This was my stepsister, I told myself. The daughter of my stepmother. I shouldn't be upset about her leaving. I shouldn't have the feelings toward her that I had at all. Maybe her leaving was the best thing for both of us. I knew that she was right. If Lori knew about us, she wouldn't hesitate to tell our father and destroy any chances that I had at controlling the company. Thought it hadn't been something that I wanted when I was younger, now that I had established my bar and had separated myself from my father's wealth, there was nothing more for me to prove. I could balance both businesses. Lori might be able to tolerate me getting the control of the business, but she would never be able to handle the competition of someone younger and more desirable like Sophie in her social group on top of it. If Sophie had to be around, she would take the business.
I picked up the tree that I thought was best and tucked it into a cart that someone had abandoned in a nearby aisle, adding another. I would spend the day with the family like we planned and deal with her being gone when it happened.
Sophie
I sat on my couch gripping a cup of coffee and staring at the miniature white Christmas tree I had set up on my coffee table. I had loved it when I chose it, seeing it as the ideal seasonal accent to my little apartment, but now that I looked at it through the prism of the memories of Jeffrey's home, it looked tiny and far less glamorous. Before leaving to visit my mother, the holidays were a time I spent with friends or by myself. The tiny tree was a way for me to not have to go through the same preparations for the holidays that I always did when I was younger. It was exclusively mine. Setting it up for the third Christmas, however, didn't have the same happy impact that it had had before. It had been a week since I left my mother's house, and nothing had gotten better.
As I looked at the tree with its white branches, white lights, and white ornaments, I couldn't help but think about Levi and our debate about the lights. I didn't know what I was supposed to feel when I was thinking about him. Part of me wanted to smile, thinking about the vibrant colored lights that glowed from the trunk of the tree or the dancing snowflakes that covered the ceiling. Another part of me wanted to cry, imagining the look on his face when I walked out of the house without saying goodbye to him and drove away. I couldn't say goodbye to him. I couldn't bring myself to admit that that was the last time that I would see him.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. I wasn't supposed to feel this. Just as I had told Levi, I would never be able to bring myself to sacrifice his future for the three days that we spent together. But that didn't change that I thought of him every morning when I woke up, before I opened my eyes, and wished that he was with me each time I went to bed at night. I had to tell myself that it was just Christmas that was doing this to me. It was the emotion of the holidays that made things harder to cope with. When they were over, when I finally found myself in a new year, it wouldn't be as hard. I could just move ahead with the life that I had intended and soon I would forget.
I brought my empty mug into the kitchen and set it in the sink, rinsing it before turning off the light. Before turning down the hallway toward my bedroom, I hit the light switch that turned off the tree. As I slipped into bed, I wished that when I opened my eyes again, the tree would be gone, and the entire holiday season would be over. I didn't want to see another tree. I didn't want to smell another cookie. In all of it all I could see was Levi.
The next morning, I opened my eyes as soon as I felt myself wake up. I didn't want to give myself the chance to think too much. As I did, though, I realized that I was smelling something. There was the hint of something fresh in the air, something different. I climbed out of bed and wrapped myself in my bathrobe as I made my way down the hallway. The early winter morning was still dark, and I could see something shimmering at the end of the hallway, glittering from my living room. Confusion settled over me. I knew that I had turned the tree off when I went to bed the night before. When I turned the corner, my hand rose to my mouth to muffle my gasp.
A huge Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room, half of it illuminated with bright multicolored lights. The branches rustled, and a figure climbed out from under it, a strand of lights draped over one arm. I felt a flicker of fear at first, but then I took a step forward. The figure stood and just enough of the light from the tree fell on his face to show me that it was Levi.
"Levi!" I gasped.
He smiled at me and then looked at the tree.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to get this finished before you woke up."
"You broke into my apartment to bring me a Christmas tree?" I asked.
"I didn't really break in," he said. "You forgot a set of keys at the house."
I winced, remembering that I hadn't seen my spare keys since getting home.
"I think that's a technicality."
He disappeared behind the tree and came around the front again to wind the lights around more of the branches. Then he looked at the tree and back at me.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
I realized then that the smell was that of fresh pine. I stepped further into the living room so that I could get a better view of the tree.
"Did you cut that down?" I asked.
Levi nodded.
"I found a better saw. You were right."
"It's beautiful." I stepped up to the tree and ran my fingers along the branches. "But I don't understand. Why did you do this? I told you that we couldn't see each other again."
"I know," Levi said, "but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since you left."
"Levi…"
"Please, Sophie, just listen to me for a minute. You've been arguing with me since the night we met. Can't you just listen to me for once?"
I stopped silent and looked at him.
"OK," I said.
"You said that you couldn't let me give everything up for a three-day fling, but you are more than that to me. You are so much more than that. I was telling the absolute truth when I told you that nothing would have changed if I had known who you were when I first met you. I knew that there was something different about you the moment that I saw you, and that I needed to be near you. I thought that I was only going to get that night, maybe one more, but that's not how it has to be."
"Levi, stop." My throat ached with the emotion that was in it, the tightness brought by the struggle to hold back what I was feeling. "I can't listen to anymore. Please."
"But you have to listen to it. I need you to hear me."
I shook my head.
"No. I've heard enough. I can't do it anymore. You're my stepbrother, Levi. It doesn't matter what I might be thinking or feeling. The reality is that you have a life that I have no part of. I can't take that from you. Lori would destroy you and I would never be able to forgive myself for that. Thank you so much for this. It means so much to me. But I need you to go. Please."
Levi stared at me for a few seconds and I thought that he was going to protest. I wanted him to protest, and yet I knew if he did it would only hurt me more. Finally, the strand of lights fell from his fingers and he pushed past me out of the living room and through the door. In the silence of the morning I could hear the door to his car slam in the parking lot and the scream of his tires as he left. I sat on the couch with my face in my hands, sobbing out everything that I had been holding inside me since I walked away from him. When I felt empty, I walked across the room, turned off the Christmas lights, and went back to my room. Drawing the curtains against the rising sun, I got back into bed and tucked my blankets up over my head, wanting to disappear back into sleep and wait for the rest of the year to simply be gone.
I avoided the tree for several more days, keeping my eyes averted any time that I walked past the living room and spent most of my time in my bedroom. Finally, I glanced at it and noticed that the ends of some of the branches were turning brown. The tree needed water. I filled a pitcher with water and brought it over, knowing that I couldn't bear to just throw the tree away. As I crouched down to pour the water into the base, I noticed a small wrapped box sitting beneath the lowest branches. I added the water to the tree and the took the box over to the couch.
The tag on top of the box had my name on it in shimmering silver ink, but there was nothing else. I hesitated for a few seconds. Levi was the only one who could have left this, but he hadn't mentioned it. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me and I carefully released the ribbon, then opened the tape on one side, easing the box out from the wrappings. It was a simple white box, no markings on it and no indication of what might be inside. I removed the top and set it beside me. On top of a piece of folded white tissue paper was a letter. I picked it up and read through it, feeling my heart swell as I did.
Dear Sophie,
You told me that you didn't know who you were because you don't remember your father. There may be nothing that I can do about the years that you've lived or anything that you've gone through, but I hope that, with Gloria's help, now I can help you, in some way, find peace, because I know exactly who you are…
I set the letter aside on the top of the box and pushed the tissue open. My lips parted, and I gasped as I saw what lay inside the box. I felt my fingers tremble as I picked up slightly faded pictures of a man holding a baby, then sifted through them, finding the same man with a gradually aging child that I quickly recognized as myself. The man was smiling, laughing as he played with me. When I reached the last picture, I put the stack to the side and picked up the next item, a stack of letters that had been written to me from my father. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I read the words that he had written before I was born, the thoughts that he had had about the child that was coming, and then the newborn who he had watched come into the world. The letters continued, chronicling the earliest months and years of my life. Finally, there was a letter apologizing. He told me that he loved me, but that he couldn't bear to be with my mother and her ways any longer. He shared his hopes for me, and promised that he would never stop thinking about me. Several unopened envelopes followed, the postmarks telling me that they had come after he had left. My mother had just never given them to me.
I didn't open those letters. I couldn't bear it yet. I set them aside and saw that the next item in the box was my birth certificate. I picked it up, stunned to be looking at it. Over the years I had only seen one that had been modified after my father left, when my mother changed it to not have him listed. Now I was finally seeing the original, and the name of my father.
The tears were streaming down my face at such a torrential pace that I almost didn't notice that there was one last piece of paper in the box. I reached in and picked it up. It was written in Levi's handwriting and it had only one simple sentence.
"You are Sophie Delacroix, the woman I love."