Ten & Levan

27. Twenty Seven

TEN

"If you weren't you," says Levan, his eyes have never been a clearer blue. Why does this make me feel like I'm about to finally hear some truth? "Maybe if we weren't here, maybe if I wasn't me...maybe then I'd tell you, Ten," he tells me. It's as if he's been telling me the same thing over and over again for the past ten minutes, and all I've been doing is trying comprehend.

"If," I say, toying with the idea, "if we were in a different world? Like an alternate universe?" He watches me, probably wondering what I'm wondering. He wonders too much and he wonders too hard.

"Yes," he says, "yes, maybe." He shrugs and looks around. It's as if he's telling me that we're still inside this house and we will forever be, for there's no way out, we're caged. He's sure he'd never have to tell me, never peel his skin off for me.

"Lie down," I say, which earns me a weirded out look from him immediately. "Quick!" His eyes follow me as I squirm in his bed until I'm on my back.

"What are you doing?" he asks, afraid, nerve-wrecked, deranged.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to assault you, so please just trust me and lie down," I say, pulling him by the hand, and as soon as he's floating on the mattress alongside me, I pull the sheets over our heads.

Levan's sheets are blank just like his room, stripped of any color or personalization. It feels like we've stepped into white heaven, like we've left the chaos behind. And it's all around us, wrapping us in its skin.

"It's the closest to an alternate universe I could think," I tell him, he watches me with his mouth agape, "shut your mouth and soak the new surroundings in, Number Eleven!"

"Why won't you let me be, Ten?" he blurts and it's a sweet surprise. I need him to keep blurting like this, "what are you doing?" he asks.

"I can't let you be because I'm just a leech like that, so suck it the fuck up," I tell him, "and I'm getting you to talk," I say, running my fingers on the sheet dangling right over my face. "I've learnt that talking is the best way to let go of the pain...there's no point in keeping it to yourself if it's only going to eat at you."

Levan gulps, his breath starts to quicken, he turns to stare into our makeshift alternate universe. It's endless and gold as I speak.

"So here, I'm not Ten and you're not Levan. We don't know each other. Whatever we tell each other in here, stays in here...I promise," I tell him before turning back to tracing my fingers down the veins of our small, new world. "So, if you trust me and the laws of our universe, let go...and talk to me."

Honestly, it does feel better to not be me even for a while. It feels lighter to have shed my skin and left it behind, outside of these sheets, back in the universe where we belong. Well maybe it's because I'm not bound here, maybe because I'm not sick here, maybe because here, I'm free. I could be whoever I want to be and never return.

I melt into the sheets beneath and above us, and there's everything; the soil, the grass, the mist, the bodies of two strangers, the air, the sky, the stars and the moon.

How strange, there lies a world beyond the one where we reside, and oddly enough, it's always with us, in our heads. And here, in our world, our skin is made of astral remains, our bones are the stones that keep us from floating away and our eyes, they're orbs. Levan's eyes are actually the ocean and mine are the sun. Aquamarine and Citrine, ain't it fun?

"My mother..." Levan mutters, his voice airy and calm as he stares into the horizons of our tainted white sky. His eyes are running deep and shallow at the same time. And here I am, stuck inside this moment, and this moment sounds like Levan's freedom.