LEVAN
Number 11,
My mom's having a party this evening, and she really wants you to come. Not that I don't want you to come. That sounded like it. But obviously, I want you to come. See you at six?
PS: Please say yes!
PPS: Oh, and you must bring Ava or I won't be pleased.
PPPS: And please wear something that's not black or gray. I'm begging you.
Over and out.
10.
I read the note that Ten stuck in my jacket pocket as I exited her car over and over again. What's in there that she couldn't just say to me? Is it a code for something? Why did she have to write it down? Does writing short letters give her some kind of thrill as well? I put it aside, realizing that I'll never fully understand her, and that's okay.
I shake my head and debate asking Ava about it while I flip through all the chapters I've written for my story. I realized it was time to analyze what's becoming of this story, or if it's not. So I spend all morning reading through all the starless nights, and tweaking a few lines to make them clearer. I keep rearranging the segments until it looks like a jigsaw puzzle finally coming together; how unfortunate that it's a sad picture.
By the time I'm going through the last few pages, I've made up my mind, and I'm not going to ask Ava about it. I'm just going to tell her go to a friend's house for the evening and stay there until I pick her up whenever I get back.
I don't think Ten can ever be anything but pleased anyway.
Somewhere around nine, the silence of the neighborhood is broken into by my dad's rusty old Volkswagen starting up. I stay still until I know he's gone for sure, and only then do I step out of my cave in resolve to make something fulfilling for breakfast, because damn am I hungry. But this is what life is at the moment; lurking around corners and hiding in our rooms so that none of us come face to face.
It's surprising; the lengths we go, just to skip a moment of heartache.
***
I frown at myself as I straighten the cuffs of this new shirt I bought and for the thousandth time since I bought it, I think of how easily Ten persuades me to do things now which I wouldn't do before. For a second, I sit wondering in my truck whether it's okay—listening to everything she says. But then I realize she's Ten and I'm only Levan.
I put on my jacket and check myself out in the mirror before I step out of the truck. Before I even fully leave the truck, I see her standing at the door to her house, grinning at me with a confused frown. I walk my way up her driveway with my eyes down, but as soon I see her again, I grin right back at her, I feel like a clown.
"You're wearing white!" she notes with surprise, her brows sky high.
"I thought you said you won't be pleased if I were to wear black..."
"No, I said that about not bringing Ava, where is she?" she asks, crossing her arms over her chest and putting on a pout.
"She went to a friend's place," I tell her.
"Oh..." she says, jutting her bottom lip forward. "That's fine then, I guess," she shrugs, her eyes bright and her smile back on. "Come on in," she says, grabbing me not by the hand, which I've gotten used to, but by the arm. Clinging onto me, she drags me into her house.
Since I've never really been to a party, I guess this is what most of them look like: music, food, drinks, flowers, a scatter of banners and lots of people. Most of the people are Ten's mom's age; her colleagues, of course. And I'm only the amount of comfortable that I am because there are no people from school, nuh-uh. Except for Athena Breeland, of course.
Ten goes around introducing me to a few of her mother's close friends, and all of them meet me with warmth. All of their stranger faces are aglow with smiles, their hands warm to the touch, and their eyes so genuine that I'm forced to wonder if this is what most people all are like; so unlike my father. But then mom was the same, she smiled, she was warm, her eyes were calm and benign. So maybe it's just dad, the exception.
Ten and her mother are more alike than they seemed to me at first sight. Now that I see her up close, drinking away and giggling uncontrollably, I realize that Heather Cohen has the same chocolate eyes, petite nose with a splash of almost invisible freckles. They could qualify for being twins if Heather didn't have a few wrinkles here and there, and if her hair was as long as Ten's.
Ten looks at me then, her arm subtly chains through mine, just casually, nothing too obvious. But Heather's eyebrows shoot up into the sky and Athena's lips press together and form a line. I clear my throat, I'm not choking.
Ten leans in toward them and says, "stop overreacting guys," and consequentially, the two of them straighten up their faces. "Now, if you're done?" she looks at me expectantly, her eyes communicating to me, how she wants herself to be the only one I see and I want that too, I believe. "Come, let me show you my books," she says giddily, pulling me around the corners until we finally reach, what I think is her room. But it's the study, where her mother usually works while she reads, she tells me, flicking the lights on. To my surprise, three out of the four walls in this room are floor to ceiling bookshelves.
"The shelf on the right is mom's the other two are mine," she tells me proudly, gesturing at the two walls.
"That's a lot of books," I say, walking over to take a closer look at her vast collection of thoughts, and lives, and stories, and lies.
"To someone who's thirsty, sometimes even the ocean doesn't suffice..." she says, walking up so that she's standing right next to me. The back of our hands graze just enough for me to feel a charge loaded with electricity run through my entire body, and suddenly when I look at her, feeling the slight tingle and all; I realize exactly what she means.
She keeps staring into my eyes with a slight smile, I keep staring back with no words inside my mouth. So she turns to me and gets into this game completely. She flashes me a grin, and I'm lured into grinning back at her. And even though I want to blink, and god I wish I could blink, I don't. I'm just baffled, how did we even start this? How did we even get here? But that's the one thing about her that I know for sure, she's spontaneous; spontaneous is her.
She watches me struggle through the burn that runs all over my eyes, like fireworks on Fourth of July. And I? I watch her start to get impatient, I watch her writhe, I watch her eyes start to tear up, I watch her bite her lip so hard it almost bleeds.
"You're going to lose, Levan. Back out," she warns me, cocking a brow up, and then she starts to hop and gets even more impatient. It humors me how she's spontaneously pulled me into this thing and how badly she wants to win. Why doesn't she know it yet? Isn't it written all over my face in bold capitals? Isn't it written in the loudest of words; how I've already lost?
So I blink, I let her win.
"Ten," says Athena, standing in the doorjamb, her eyes wide and face pale. She looks like she could faint.
"Thea?" Ten frowns.
"You might wanna come outside," Thea almost whispers, her dark eyes glancing back and forth between Ten and I. Ten tries to listen to the muffled voices coming from out in the living area, and then as if she's come back to all her senses, Ten sprints.
Confused and feeling little dizzy from the sudden mood shift, I follow her outside with Thea at my heels.
"I said, I don't want to talk Jamie, what part of it don't you get?" Ten's mother is hissing at a man that I'm not sure was here before we went away. He's still wearing his coat, clearly, he hasn't had the time to remove it, or the muffler wrapped around his neck. So he's just arrived. But judging by the faces of everyone present in this secluded corner, nobody likes this man. I wonder why Thea is pale, why Heather is yellow, and lastly, why Ten is red.
"Mom, why is this man here?" Ten asks, her voice deeper and lower than I've ever heard it, it's almost as if this voice didn't just come out of the mouth of the Ten I know; like it came out of someone totally different. Ten sounds almost dangerous.
"I did not invite him, if that's what you're thinking," Heather replies curtly.
"Great, then he has no reason to stay," says Ten, her mouth fakes a smile; a venomous, and fake as hell smile. The man frowns, his hair grows even grayer as Ten's words hit him.
"But surely Tenerife, you could show your father some respect," he says to the Ten who is seething, the Ten who's a dark red.
Just as I realize that this is the same man Ten never talks about, and that this is a family thing going on, I start to feel like an outsider along with Athena. But Athena has been here long enough to have been through this whole problem with Ten, so she's more or less family. So being the only actual outsider, I decide to disappear, but just as I start to step back, Ten's hand clasps onto mine, squeezing it, asking me to stay.
"I don't think that's possible, not for now. So, Mr. Redwood, why don't you show yourself out. Surely, that'll be great, for all of us?" Ten says to him, her smile fading.
Mr. Redwood's hand flies to his face as he analyzes the situation. He's seemingly pissed, and by the look on his face, what he's even more, is nervous.
"Look, Ten, I just want us to sit down and talk like a family-"
"That's the problem, right there, we're not a family anymore," says Ten, "besides, we have a party to get back to, which you haven't been invited to, so I would say you leave right now or I'll have to call the police."
"Ten, no, he's leaving," Heather jumps into the conversation after a long disappearance. Mr. Redwood seems rather shocked by the words that jut poured out of his daughter's mouth. Ten presses her lips together, her face dips into a darker shadow, I realize she has started to shake ever so lightly.
"Leave..." she warns him, sounding lethal, and on the edge of explosion. She closes her eyes shortly, trying to control her rage, "I said leave." I feel her storm coming; I see her clouds and her wind, "LEAVE!" she thunders, her voice cracking through the house. All the eyes turn to the corner we stand, in media res. I squeeze her hand and watch her intently, waiting for her to get back to me. Come back to me, Ten, come back.
"Fine," Mr. Redwood bites out, taking his own hurricane outside the house and shutting the door behind him loudly.
And then it's silent.
Everything comes to a halt.
Everyone stills, and nobody talks.
It stays that way until it almost snows inside the house, but then unexpectedly, Ten bolts up the stairs like a gush of wind, and Heather only holds her emotions until the door bangs shut. The silence cracks.
And then, it rains.