I wasn't breathing.
I realised then that Levi represented everything I was. He was the family I'd lost, the family I'd managed to make. He was my repair, the example of how I'd mended myself, healed, just to be around him. He was at the very peak of my heart break, and the very middle of the repair. He consumed my mind, my being, my everything. In him, I found myself. The honest self. He deserved to know everything.
"And..." Levi carried on slowly, unclear of the very words echoing through my mind at that moment- what decision I had come to.
"They're dead." My voice was harsh in the silence, and to my own ears they sounded like a door of a thousand years finally being opened.
I heard Levi's breath as it sucked in. And it was like a damn, torn through my heart and everything fell through the cracks. "My mom, my brother, my dad." My voice cracked. "My mom died during birth. She was ill, and it weakened her too much. My brother was in a car accident on my 9th birthday. He was in a coma for 14 weeks but he had so much internal bleeding and a brain hemorrhage, they couldn't keep him alive any longer. And then my dad."
I was crying. Everything single wall I had was torn. There was nothing I could do to stop the words coming out. I don't think I would if I could, anyway.
"He died 11 months ago." I whispered. "Cancer. Late diagnosis, too far gone for treatment. I mean, he had chemotherapy, but it was just to ease the pain a little.
"We lived in Sommerset. We were going to travel when I left high school, go around the world but... When I finally left, he was too I'll to even walk. When he died I moved here, but I didn't... I knew nobody. I didn't have any family, any friends worth staying in touch with."
Levi was still silent, but I saw out of the corner of my eye as he reached out with his hand to hold mine. I pulled away. "I need to keep going before I can't." I saw him nod slowly.
"And then I met you. You were just this arrogant, charismatic son of a bitch who I really wanted to dislike." Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, wetting my lips and my chin. I reached up and wiped them away. "But I couldn't. And that was the worst thing. I could feel myself growing attached to you, and that was the one thing I couldn't let happen. But it couldn't be stopped, no matter how much I tried.
"And then you told me that you liked me too and I had to push you away. I told you I needed time but that was a lie. Right then I'd made a decision that you were better off without me- you still are-"
"No I'm not."
"Shut up." I said with a ghost of a watery smile. "But, things changed and now we're here." I took a deep breath. "And I lied to you, so many times. I told you my family were alive but you have to understand I only said that because I only wanted you to see me the way I was. I didn't want all that bad coming in and poisoning everything."
I paused, and I needed him to talk. He did. "I'm sorry." He said slowly. "If I had known..."
"But you didn't." I said almost harshly. "Because I neglected to tell you."
"Lake... This is why you think you don't deserve? Because you've suffered?" I didn't say yes, but the answer was clear. "No." He said sternly. "You know what that makes you? Not a bad person, or less deserving, it makes you a goddamn saint. It makes you stronger than a million men and women out together. I know you don't want to hear all of that 'you're a warrior' crap, because that's not you. But believe me you, there is not a single spec in you that cries unworthy."
"You don't know the full story."
"I don't need it. What you've gone through is enough for me to know."
"No, it isn't. When my brother died, I wasn't... Me. I wasn't even recognisable, not at all. I was always out, drinking, sleeping around, partying." I bit onto my bottom lip. "My dad hated it, god I'm surprised I didn't give him a hernia. And Meghan... The Meghan we just saw?" He nodded. "I slept with her boyfriend. I was out and he was there and I was just a mess. I couldn't even remember doing it."
Levi wasn't looking at me. He couldn't. The news was disgusting to him, I knew.
"But I sobered up. I made sure I did when my dad was ill. But it... Couldn't be undone."
The night had reached it's peak. Few cars passed by, and only the dark surrounded us. "What are-"
"I don't care." He said suddenly.
"What?"
"I don't care about any of that. We all make decisions. Some decisions make us, some change us, and some ruin us. As far as I can see, yours made you. Because without them, you wouldn't be you. And the you you are is pretty spectacular."
"But I lied." I whispered. "I lied to you and I was such a bad person."
"Choices." He said airily. "They're just choices."
Just choices? Was that really all they were? "But..." I couldn't find any words to speak.
"I need to say something now."
"Okay."
"This is... Gonna sound weird."
"Okay."
"I've liked you since the day you told me I was a moron. I thought you were... Odd, in an intriguing sort of way. So I tried getting closer to you. But after that first date night, when you told me you were only 19, and how you lived alone, I was full of this, strange feeling. Not strange because I'd never felt it, or didn't know what it was- strange because, I was always told pride came with the person you loved. And I'd never felt more pride in someone my entire life before that night."
Time stilled. Was he...?
"And that's it. That's what I want to tell you."
"I'm not..."
"I love you, Laken. I am completely, wholly and absolutely in love with you."
Chapter 28
Start from the beginning
