Ten & Levan

15. Fifteen

LEVAN

I wake up with a start, sweat gliding down my forehead, my neck and my back. I'm drenched; I almost drowned. I take deep breaths and stare at the ceiling as I rub my face with both my palms. I stand up, wondering why and how I fell asleep on the floor. My back aches but my head feels lighter, more silent than it had been before. It's been a hectic week, the black and white same old, same old of school, dad and Ava.

I hear the clock on the wall of the hallway tick like a time bomb, and my nerves start to spike. My stomach growls because of the aching emptiness inside it. As much as I'd love to go downstairs and grab something to eat, I know that can wake my father up, who must be sleeping like a flexible plastic doll all twisted up on his bed. He smelled so bad I wanted to throw up after I dumped him into his bed ritually.

Surprisingly, he said nice things to me tonight. I mean, comparatively nicer things that usual. He told me he was tired and he wanted to sleep. He told me that he never wanted to wake up again. I told him me too. He said I make the most horrible coffee on this planet and I actually laughed at him. I told him that he can make his own coffee from tomorrow. He immediately apologized for his rude comment.

I wanted to punch him and ask him to say horrible things to me so I can hate him even more than I already do, for nothing in the world shall make me love him again. Even if he sobers up, and that's the least possible thing to happen on this planet. Maybe the fact that he didn't curse at me, talk about mom, or hit me was why I fell asleep. Because I wasn't seething, like I usually am after spending even ten seconds with him.

I dump myself on my bed just like I did dad. I search for my phone and the light from it blinds me in the dark. I see that it's one fifty-two in the morning. Okay, maybe what I took was only a nap. But it felt like a dream nonetheless, lucid and transparent.

My phone also tells me that I have a missed call from Ten. Why would Ten call me in the middle of the night? Given that we haven't really talked ever since I dropped her home last Monday, I didn't think she'd ever try to reach out again. It's not like we don't see each other at all. She smiles at me just the way she does if she passes me down the halls at school. Sometimes, she sits next to me, but doesn't say a word, which is very unlike Ten as far as I know her. Sometimes, I find her laughing her throat out in the lawn with Athena Breeland, but she doesn't notice me being the weird-ass creep that I'm trying not to be.

But what's surprising is that these four days spent without speaking to Ten have felt like I was trying to walk through quicksand and failing so hard that I wanted to cry. These four days have been simply the worst; even more awkward than the days with her in them.

Maybe I miss watching her smiling like a loon all the time. Maybe I miss watching myself laughing and smiling, because I swear I had an outer-body experience with each laugh that bubbled out of me. Or maybe, just maybe, I miss the insanity that I felt with the girl who calls me the wrong name, who launches insults people's way on my behalf, the girl who calls me in the middle of the night, the girl who I might never call back, because I'm out of my mind.

That's when I hear it, a continuous sound so weirdly close to me that I almost think it's a rat. But rats don't sound like hailstorms. I jump out of my bed when the sound comes again. What the hell? Somebody just threw a freaking pebble at my window. I walk over to the window and slide it up before leaning over. I take a deep breath in and my heart comes up into my throat and jams it.

Why the hell is Tenerife Cohen throwing rocks at my window at two in the morning?

"Ten..." I blurt, rather rudely. Then she starts to perform a very random hand dance. I wonder if she's tutting or something. I realize several seconds later that she's trying to communicate. "I'm sorry, I don't understand sign language," I say, it's loud enough to travel to her ears and soft enough to not wake the neighborhood up.