Ten & Levan

25. Twenty Five

TEN

I hear mom talking in a muffled voice in her room as I stand in the kitchen, splattering mayo on my sandwich. I can hear her, I can but I don't, it's a choice. A few minutes ago she was going on and on about this new case with her lawyer friend, and then when she finally put the phone down, it started ringing again. It rang and rang and rang; it was ignored several times, and the damn thing still rang like a stubborn kid.

Mom groaned, shot a look at me, and I knew instantly that it was ex-daddy doing what he does best, something he learnt soon after he ran; bugging. So she decided to give it a go and slouched into her room. And now she's been there for over ten minutes. It's boiling my blood and breaking my bones.

If anything, mom and I have basically thrown glitter and confetti in the air and put bold banners outside the house, which scream for him to never come back. We're okay, we're okay, we're fucking okay. Why doesn't he get it? Why does he have to call every now and then to ask if we're damned okay? It's like mom and I are on a joyride and he just pops up like a bump in the road which it not cool because we don't need him.

"We're okay," I mumble to myself. Oh yes, we are okay. We've mourned, and cried, and moved on. We're beyond okay. He needs to swallow it.

I groan into the fridge as I take a bottle of orange juice out. I take my food supplies up to my room and leave mom to it, she definitely knows better than entertaining ex-daddy for more than a few minutes. At least I hope she does. Even though Heather is someone who can be persuaded easily, she's crazy rigid about ex-daddy. She's probably just giving him some kind of legal warning right now. But that's not new.

I plop down on my bed, munching on my sandwich as I get back to finishing my song for the musical. In the last three days, I've written a few pointers about what could I include, I read the script thoroughly to understand Lucille better, and now that I know just how Lucille feels, I want to channel her feelings through this finale song. Lucy is shy and she has never spoken her mind, so I decide that the song needs to reflect her thoughts on everything she wants to do. It needs to be liberating.

I spill onto the paper like wine all over a dress. I paint it gold, all gold, until it's reflecting my face, reflecting me, reflecting Lucy. And that's when I see it, we're one. I frown at the words I've written and my face begins to burn, my throat tightens. I take a sharp breath in.

Be calm Ten, don't feel Ten, don't breathe. I chant inside my head. I rip the page out and fold it into a small square. I shove it in my pocket and ricochet down the staircase, across the living room, past Heather sitting at the kitchen counter with her head in her hands and scurry to the door.

"Ten! Where are you going?" she asks me, stumbling to her feet as I make it to the door.

"Just out, be back in a bit," I blurt as I start to run. She can take of herself, I'm sure.

I run because I want to. I run because I need to. I run because I can, and no one's entitled to stop me. I'm young and bold, limitless and headstrong. So I keep running, to feel my legs hurt, my lungs burn, and heart beat out of control. But the one thing I don't do is stop. I never stop. I will never.

I melt onto the road around corner, taking deep breaths, watching myself run away from me. So go Tenerife, run away. I watch the air turn blue as I suck it in and straighten up. What's wrong with me? I wonder and scratch the back of my head as I walk the rest of my way on my two little feet, they felt huge when I ran, which is weird.

When I round the corner to Levan's house, the night's silence gets shaken. And it reverberates around me like it's experiencing an earthquake. A loud noise fills the air around me, I watch the particles shake with terror. Everything is shaking, shuddering, trembling with fear, so I start to run again, toward the shadow house. Because that's where the sound came from.

I don't run like I ran my way here, I sprint. My mind sprints. My heart sprints. And my lungs encourage all this sprinting because my heart, squished between them, is shaking too, just like the air, just like the silence, the shadow house.

I burst through the door, numb of all the sprinting, and take off into the house that is a massacre. There's broken glass on the floor near the kitchen, and it crunches under my feet as I make my way to the living room, my eyes frantically craving a sight of him, a touch of blue in all this darkness. And just as I step into the living room, I find Mr. Emery lying on the couch, grumbling something unintelligible. He smells like something rotten. I don't know what, but something really ill.

My heart starts to fill up with water, it's drowning inside me chest. Because huddled in the corner is Levan.

And he's red, holy heavens.

He's staring distantly at the floor, his chest rising and falling, his face sweaty, his eye purple, his nose bleeding. Several pieces of shattered glass lie at his feet, all around me. I can't move, I'm frozen. He's frozen too. He's a wreck. He's a nightmare in reality. But isn't he exactly what I thought Levan would be on the inner fold? A mess and a lot of broken bones? Move Levan, why won't you move?

I take a step towards him, and doing it feels dangerous, as if I'll break more than just the glass. I don't want things to break anymore, it already looks like a havoc, it already resembles hell.

"Levan?" I manage to spill, quiet like a whisper. He doesn't hear me, he keeps seething at the floor, brows creased. I take another step toward him, carefully. For every inch of his skin screams of his vulnerability.

The glass crunches under my feet again and his eyes dart to me, filled with angst and hate and loathing. This is not who I thought he would be. I admit, he might just have scared me. I want to run, now, more than ever.

"Ten?" he says through his gritted teeth as he scrambles to his feet. I stay put on the spot. Turns out, I haven't moved at all. The shadow house has rooted me to it. "You can't be here, go home," he bites out, grabbing me by the elbow and hurling me across the living room with him. My heart starts to beat faster than it had been while I was running.

"Who did that to you, Levan?" I say, struggling to free myself as I look him in the eyes. Why does it feel like this for the first time, like there's no disguise?

"That's none of your business, Ten. Leave." He seethes, his usual baby blues have turned azure. I can't breathe.

"I'm not leaving until you tell me who did that to you!"

"None of your fucking business, Ten!" he yells, his face turning red, his eyes afire. Why do you burn yourself and not make a sound, Levan? "Please leave, I'm begging you," he says, his voice cracking and falling apart. I don't budge, I only look away, running my hands over my face; my warm, burning, melting face.

Calm down Ten, don't frown Ten, don't cry. Everything will be alright.

Levan's body sways before he takes control. He's waiting for me to leave him alone, and I would, if his eyes weren't screaming for me to take him out of his own home. He's scared too, and he has been, for a long time. He's terrorized. Maybe it's because this house is a mess or maybe because the pungent smell that surrounds Levan's father is still all around us, all over us. And it hits me hard, that he smells like dirt, blood and alcohol.

My eyes fly to his sluggish body lying on the couch as he snores, and then I whip back to Levan, to his swelling eye, his bleeding mouth, his battered body. His scars, his bruises, his silence, it makes sense. My heart shudders inside me, I let it die.

"Levan," I say, the words barely slipping out of my mouth, "did he do this to you?" I ask him and wait. I wait a century for the reply I know would never arrive. Levan, don't you know I can read you like an open book? Everything falls in place, but eventually, it all blows up again.

I watch him turn pale.

"Yes..." the voice comes from the top of the stairs. Ava stands there shaking, a blubbering mess, before she hurries down and crashes into me like a wave. Her arms belt around me, she starts to shudder in my side, "Yes, yes, yes, he does!"

Levan's body sags as he sighs, his hand flies to his eyes.

I watch him as breaks.

I watch him as he cries.