Two days later, I feel like I've reached the end of my emotional tether as much as Levi has reached the end of his self-imposed timeline.
"Are you sure?" I ask once again as I sit cross-legged on his bed, watching him fold clothes with the same meticulous neatness I've come to expect from Levi. "Really sure?"
He removes a half dozen hangers and doesn't answer me. He folds them like every press of the fabric and smoothening of a wrinkle is truth, like he's talking to me without saying a word. Tears spring to my eyes. The bruised glow of the sun streams through his windows, brimming the room with orange light. In a few short hours, we'll be at the gallery. And after that, I'll be at Brett's, clinging to a couch cushion and sobbing, while Levi will be in a taxi, going wherever it is he thinks he'll find what he's looking for.
Without thinking about it, I snatch the shirt he's folding. Some childish, inane part of my brain thinks that if I don't let him pack it, he'll stay. He loves this shirt, right? He would never leave without it. My mind translates: He loves me, right? He'd never leave me.
"Charlotte." Levi's voice is full of fond exasperation. He stretches his hand out for it, but my fingers only dig into the fabric harder.
"No." My stubborn grasp refuses to let him tug the shirt away.
"Charlotte," he says again, and this time he sounds almost angry. It's a new look on Levi, and I'm so startled, I forget to dig my fingers in when he makes a grab for the shirt. It slips from my fingers as easily as everything else in my life seems to have evaded me.
He's staring at me like he wants to say more, but then he spins around, giving me his back. He refolds the shirt in silence and I want to apologize, but the word sticks between my teeth like taffy. I watch as he ignores me, wondering if his moving away means he's cutting the cord on our friendship as much as he's cutting the cord on New York.
"You don't even get it, do you?"
Levi doesn't look at me as he speaks. For a moment, I'm terrified he's going to admit something friendship-altering, but he puts my mind at ease with his next words.
He turns, puts the shirt on the top of his bulging suitcase, and zips it up. "Have you ever been fishing, Charlotte?"
The about-turn confuses me. "Um, no?"
"One of my mom's boyfriends taught me."
I nod, still not sure of the relevance.
"You put some bait on the hook and you wait for the fish to start biting." Levi shoves the suitcase onto the floor so he can sit next to me. "It requires a lot of patience."
Unable to restrain myself, I blurt out, "Are you telling me to have patience? With Wolf? Like you told me in the Netherlands?"
He frowns at me. "Let me finish," he reproaches. "Anyway, you need to have patience in order to catch a fish. Fishing isn't about being smarter than the fish, it's about being able to wait it out. And fish are pretty stupid. I mean, they nudge the bait over and over and at some point, they probably realize it's not food—"
"Fishermen use live bait sometimes," I interject. "Like worms and stuff."
"Just listen to the story!"
I huff, flopping down onto the bed so my head lands on his pillow. "Fine. Sorry."
"So they keep coming to the bait even though it's not like it'll magically turn into food. They think that doing the same thing over and over again will yield different results. But the fisherman has all the time in the world to wait—remember what I said about patience?—because to them, that fish is their meal ticket. They need that fish. They're depending on that fish."
It takes a moment for his meaning to sink in, and when it does, a hot flush spreads from my cheeks to my arms, making them tingle with sensation. Wolf, in this scenario, is the fisherman, greedy to reap the river's spoils. And I the fish - too dull-witted to know when to give up, too dogged in the persistence of my own bad habits.
"I see," I whisper, the words faint and hollow, stretching between us like a wisp. It's odd to be speaking in veiled innuendos - we never used to be this solemn, this cryptic.
"Charlotte," says Levi, not quite bringing himself to look at me, "you're not a fish. You're a human being. A beautiful, wonderful, so full of light it fucking hurts human being. You can be anyone and do anything, but you—" He stops himself.
In this light, he looks young, earnest. Dappled with good intentions and sweet words.
"If you don't like something about your life," Levi says, "change it. If you're not happy, then chase whatever it is that will make you happy."
"I'm sorry." My voice wobbles.
"For?"
"For..." I lay my palm against his comforter, curl my fingernails into the material until a sharp pain shoots up my hand. "For you not being happy."
At his blank look, I elaborate, "You're chasing what makes you happy, too. Right? It works both ways?"
He laughs, short and vibrant, but it doesn't sound particularly happy. "I'm an artist. I'm doomed to unhappiness. Fleeting spurts of inspiration followed by bouts of melancholy. A string of use-'em and lose-'em women, too much powder up the nose, and a tragically short life. A generation later, my work will sell for millions. That's an artist's lot."
"That won't be your fate." If I have to defy Olympus itself, I will save him from that bleak future. "Don't be morbid."
"Give me your hand," he says abruptly. He rises, shuffles over to his desk, and returns with a black ink pen.
"My hand?" I offer it to him with hesitation. "Why?"
He smiles. "Don't look until I'm done. You have to promise, okay?"
At my nod, he commences. The nib of the pen presses against the back of my palms, scrapes against the tiny bones. Ink flows from the point, guided by his hand.
A moment passes, then another. Head bowed, Levi continues his work. With my promise not to look ringing in my head, I have nowhere else to look but at him. His brow is furrowed and in his concentration, his tongue peeks out at me, just a hint of pink at the corner of his mouth.
"Done!"
I glance down. The skin around the letters is pink from friction, but the ink has bloomed into beautiful calligraphy, swashes and intermittent thick strokes splayed across my hand.
He's written: Be with someone who makes you happy.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he uncaps the pen and drags it over a word. Once. Twice. Two careful lines forming an X.
The new meaning is: Be someone who makes you happy.
"Levi..."
"Don't touch it," he admonishes when my fingers move to touch the words in wonder. "It's not a hundred percent dry yet."
Not wanting to smudge his work, I let my hand lay in my lap. "I love you, you know."
"I know." He smiles, his eyes crinkling kindly at me. "I love you, too. But I will love you a lot less if you don't get a move on. You've gotta get dressed if we are going to be on time."
"Thanks for not changing my room into a man cave or game room," I say as I get up from the bed. "Wolf totally forgot half my clothes when he forcibly moved me to his place."
"You'll always have a home here," Levi says. "You're family."
A grin sprawls across my face. "Family," I agree, "for now and always. No matter where we are or who we're with."
"You said that so seriously, I sort of feel like you're going to make me swear it in blood."
"Darn, my dastardly plan has been found out." I bring my ink-free hand to my chest, feigning horror. "I'll be in my room scrounging for something to wear."
As I duck out the door, I hear his shout behind me. "Scrounge?! You have half of Nordstrom's in there!"
Author's Note: I feel like he gave her some really valuable home truths - forcing her to face some of her choices under a harsh light. What did you think of his advice? What advice would YOU give Charlotte right now?
Thank you all so much for helping to bring me to (very nearly) 45K! I'm at 44.6 but maybe we can shoot to get to 45 by tomorrow? :)
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