Ten & Levan

17. Seventeen

TEN

"You...did...what?" Thea's witchy green eyes shoot darts at me. I see her red hair starting to glow like fire. She's biting the inside of her cheeks and sourly tapping her foot against the floorboard. I lick my lips wet and take a deep breath.

I'm not ready to deal with her yet. My head is still exploding after all these six hours post kissing Levan. And the way he acted like it hadn't happened in the first place almost ticked me. Why the fuck wouldn't he kiss me back? Was I too quick? Did he not realize what was happening? Did he space out or something?

Thea raises her brows further high into the sky, expecting an answer.

"I've already told you three times, Thea," I say, letting my shoulders fall.

"Well, I need you to repeat it then, Ten!" she hisses out, my eyes widen, I'm petrified of the snakes in Thea's mouth, "What the hell did you do?"

"I swear it was just a peck-"

"What did you do?!" Jesus, I need help.

"I kissed him," It almost sounds like I'm crying but I'm sure I'm not.

"Like a total asshole! Would you repeat that again? What did you do?"

"I kissed him," I give Thea the puppy dog look, but she doesn't budge. She makes me repeat what I did a hundred time until I feel bad about it. I bet she's the worst best friend in the history of best friends. And just when I'm bawling about kissing Levan last night, mom bursts through the door and spots Thea pacing around my room with the facial expression close to what Hitler's must have been when he saw a Jew.

"What's going on? Why's there so much yelling involved?" asks mom.

"She kissed a boy!" Athena spits out her fire. I swear sometimes she acts more like Satan than a goddess. Instantaneously, Mom starts to have a seizure. I roll my eyes and fall onto the bed facedown, feeling horrid. I have a strict mommy for a friend and an overexcited friend for a mom. I wonder why god just wouldn't switch their bodies already.

"What!"

"I didn't!" I say into the pillows to my defense.

"You did, I just confirmed it like a million times!" Thea banters, I lift my head up and narrow my eyes at her. Mom glides over to me and smacks my butt, which almost makes me cry, she's down to humiliating me again and it's all the more embarrassing because Thea is here.

"Ow! Mother, where are your manners?" I wince and sit up straight because I'm sure there's going to be some kind of debate, I'm sure. I prepare myself for a Saturday morning as long as a jellyfish's lifespan.

"Did you?" she asks me again, raising her brows. This isn't going to end well, not for me.

"I did," I grump and quickly try to cover up because, good god if I do not, there's going to be a party in this house. "But only for a second, I swear. I'm sure he didn't even know I was kissing him," I explain.

"What kind of a guy can't tell if there are girl lips on his man lips?" argues Thea. She needs to stop playing mommy for me, for god's sake, we aren't five anymore.

"Yeah, Athena is absolutely right," says mom, nodding animatedly at me. I wrinkle my nose at her. What the hell does that even mean?

"I'm sorry to go off track, but Ms. Cohen, can you not call me Athena ever again, you know how it makes me feel," I make a face at Thea.

"Are you even serious right now? I'm going through a crisis-"

"Oh, I do know how it makes you feel, I'm so sorry honey," Mom says, cutting me off as she tilts her head to the side. I take a deep breath and rub my forehead with my fingers. What in the holy hell is even going on? I need to escape this mad house immediately and report the police.

"Guys, focus on the freaking problem!" I interrupt and both of them jump back into the debate, ready to make me feel worse than I already do. I wish they'd just say it's okay. But no, Mom's going to throw a party and Athena's going to fry me in hell. There's no in between.

"So, where were we?"

"The girl lips on man lips, how can he not know?" Thea accuses me. Even though I think it wasn't wrong, I'm starting to feel very guilty now. I shouldn't have kissed him without notice and totally out of the blue. But what the hell could I have done anyway, he was raking his finger through my hair! Good lord, I kept praying for him to kiss me but he didn't, so I took the matter in my own hands and I was so sure it wasn't wrong.

"You're dumb," says Thea. Okay thanks for making me feel horrible-er Thea. "How can you just kiss this guy and not even talk about it to him later, act like it never happened? You're so dumb Ten, I can't believe you're my best friend."

Thanks a lot, best friend, now I'm pretty sure it was all shades of wrong. R, i, g, h, t. That is how you spell wrong. End of class.

"I'm sorry," I mumble, trying to give on this conversation already, "what else can I say?" Thea rolls her eyes away from me.

"You can't fix this, Levan's going to be awkward with you, for the rest of his life now," she announces.

"Was he the guy from the grocery store?" Mom explodes, grabbing me by the shoulder and shaking my life out of me.

"Mom, Yes-"

"You met him at the grocery store?!" erupts Thea, and all hell breaks loose, "You never told me you met him at the grocery store! Thank you, Tenerife, I feel honored!"

Here we go again.

"Why didn't you tell m-" Mom starts while Thea hasn't finished with her speech about us being best friends since like ever and there it is, I see my limit as clear as ice, I've reached my frigging limit.

I grab a pillow from the bed, press it to my face and scream into it for so long that I start to lose my breath, until I've managed to silence both of them. When I put it back down, I'm pretty sure my face is red and I'm seemingly seething and taking deep breaths. I give both of them 'the look' and storm out of the room, shutting the door behind me with a bang.

I'm going to sort this shit on my own.

***

When I reach the door, I pause and decide to perform my shake off dance. Swish-swoosh-swaggity-swoosh. I continue doing it until I feel pumped enough to finally knock. I take the deepest breath I've taken in this whole year and rap my knuckles against the wood. I spend my waiting time by tapping my foot against the creaky porch floor as rapidly as I could. That's very fast in my record, by the way.

The door swings open and for once, I think I'm at the wrong house, so I lean over to the look at the number engraved on the house. 36/A, that's right. I figure that the dark haired man who looks like complete shit must be, after all, Levan and Ava's father.

"Good Morning, Mr. Emery," I say in my most good-girl resembling voice. I just act weirdly angelic in front of my friends' parents to make them believe that I use holy water as my perfume every single day.

He frowns at me and suddenly, I know all the secrets of the universe. Consider my mind blown. This is where Levan gets his frown, after all. His eyes are a warm, honey brown but god, they're just as cold as ice. His nose is crooked badly, like hella crooked and his face is kind of shadowed weirdly. I wonder if he gets into fights like his son.

"Morning, and who must you be?" he grumbles. He sounds completely rude, by the way.

"Ten, I'm Levan's friend, from school," I tell him. His cold eyes narrow at me.

"Ten?" he repeats.

"Tenerife, I mean. Ten's just short for...Tenerife," I try to explain but I'm already debating going back to my car and driving all the way back to my house. This man clearly doesn't like me.

"And what...do you want?" he asks. Is he serious?

"I'm here to meet Levan, is he home?" I ask, biting my lip. What I really wanna tell him is that I can come back, there's no problem if this is not a good time, I can really just come back later. Or never.

He keeps staring at me for so long that I almost decide to run to save my life. Then he rolls his eyes and opens the door wider.

"He's in his room, probably," he tells me before retreating into his den. I sigh.