LEVAN
I open my eyes, only to find a million stars crashing down on me, they're everywhere I look. I hurt everywhere, my chest feels heavy, my heart is worked out, my eyes sting, and my throat is burning. I'm choking, dying, here, wherever I'm lying, in the dark, in the middle of all these crashing stars.
But when I'm done throwing up the salt I swallowed on my way down, I take a sharp breath in. It stings, it burns, it hurts like salt on a fresh wound. And then all the stars start to fade away, I hear things, but they're only muffled voices. I try to listen, but they're saying heaven, heaven, heaven on repeat. Is that it? Am I dead? I frown, trying to blink away the blur.
"Levan? Levan? Levan!" she says, her hands against my flaming face, shaking me awake. Things fall into focus, and I'm staring at her face, Ten, she's here. She saved me. "Are you okay? God, answer me!" she whines, running her hands through my hair and down my face again. It's cold, she's shaking. Her brows are pulled together, her mouth is grim, her hair is dripping water on my eyes and her eyes, they're overflowing swimming pools.
"I'm fine..." I manage to mutter. But am I? I ask myself. It's so cold that I'm starting to go numb, my thoughts constantly focus in and out of the dark that threatens to engulf me.
"Thank god," she mutters, letting out a sigh and placing a warm kiss on my forehead. Her fingers run down my arms as she pulls back to inspect me. She's holding back so many emotions that I can feel them craving to burst out of her any moment. But when her eyes are done scanning me, her face starts to crumble, her mouth falls open, and she takes a deep, quivering breath in.
"Tell me you didn't..." she says. Her voice could've gone unheard against the loud crashing noise of the waves, but I know exactly what she's saying, even though she doesn't even say it completely. Her mouth trembles, she tenses, afraid of what I have to say. "Please, tell me you didn't..." she tilts her head to a side, her eyes begging me to agree with her but that's one thing I can't do to her, not now; lie.
But even though my chest is still heavy, my throat is still afire, my head hurts as if it's being extracted out of my skull, I'm okay. Even though the dark keeps calling my name, I'm alright. If I stand up and take a step I might just fall, That's okay. But how do I tell you what I'm dying to, Ten? How do I tell you what I've known since before we took the fall? How do I tell you that you weren't supposed to save me at all?
Her bottom lip quivers, a shudder runs through her body, it's as if she's read my eyes, it's what she does when I don't have words. It's what she tried to do before we jumped, but I didn't let her. My silence gives her detailed answers. That's when she backs away from me, sitting back down on her heels in defeat. I watch her trying to get a hold of herself. I watch her as she struggles to keep herself calm. How far would you go Ten? How far would you go to not feel enough?
Her eyes stare into mine, but there's no light in them, just as there's no light in the sky. Her face turns stone cold, her body stiffens. She presses her lips together tight, but she can't hide it anymore, I've let her down, I've broken her trust. I hear her tell me that she loves me in the back of head, I look at her now and realize that she probably doesn't, not anymore. I've ruined me, I've ruined us, I've ruined her.
I wince, for my heart starts to ache as her face crumbles, it's as if she's about to crack and break. I try to sit myself up, the pain is excruciating it's hard to take. I can explain, Ten, I can explain. But just when I need the words to come out the most, they leave me.
"I hate you..." she tells me, and I see it in her eyes that she means every single word of it, "I hate you, Levan." She stands up then, and turns to walk away. My body shudders, my eyes blur up, my heart falls apart, it's come undone at the seams. I should have known it wasn't as strong. Don't walk away Ten. I need you to stay, Ten. I need you to stay.
As I fall back to the sand, I watch Athena Breeland running toward Ten as she stumbles and falls. I want to reach out to her, but the stars are so damn bright, I can't even open my eyes. Ten crashes into Thea's arms, far away, so far away. The darkness whispers how much it wants me back. It's as if all this while, everything that's ever happened in the world had been building up, and building up, for this...
She shudders.
She breaks down.
She cries.
Her emotions rush out of her violently, like the waves, as they crash into me. She cries for me, she cries for her mother, she cries for her father, and for everything and every moment, that she held this pain back. That she kept it caged and locked. She laments, she wails, she lets it all out. She cries forever, on and on and on.
The darkness finally takes me home.
***
Dad's eyes never leave mine, it's like we're in the middle of this staring contest, and even though I'm all drained and flimsy, I don't want to lose. We stand at the doorjamb as an emergency personnel explains my condition to him. Ava is somewhere behind Dad, listening in horror, the tale of my demise. An accident, they're being told. But both of them seem to know better.
Yes, Thea called 911, and no, I haven't been taken to the hospital, yet.
"So, I take it he's okay?" asks Dad, finally shifting his piercing gaze from mine. He then turns to face the nurse who made sure to accompany me to the door. They'd already given me a good-to-go, and I thought my father would never know but things took a turn otherwise, and now here we are, the nurse and I, struggling to breathe in the very pungent smell of alcohol that is my father's shadow.
"Almost," says the nurse, tightly faking a smile. "His vitals are fine, and he was given medical in time, but in case he suffers hypothermia, which is very likely, bring him to the hospital immediately," she adds, handing him a written down report.
"Thanks a lot..." says dad as the nurse backs out of the doorway, giving me a pat on the shoulder.
"Take care," she says. I nod before blindly making my way into the house. When I turn to the stairs, secretly hoping that I've escaped any potential row, is when I find Ava staring at me, disappointment painted on her face, her big blue eyes glossy, her mouth grim and small. I don't know what to say to her, or how to make it sound better. But that's the thing, I never know what to say, I never know what to do, but when I do think I could save things from falling apart, I get saved instead.
"Where are you going, young man?" asks dad, walking over to the kitchen counter, shoulder slightly hunched. "Care to explain?"
"The nurse explained things just fine, I think," I mutter, my voice still hoarse from all the salt that sticks to my ripped up throat. I hear Ava sigh behind me. It makes me wince, I don't want her to hurt, not for me, not for anyone.
"So, you just happened to drown?" asks Dad, taking a swig from his bottle of beer. My knees wobble, I can't put up with this anymore, the air around him is too heavy, I can't keep standing. I don't know what to say to him either, all I know is silence, and letting things pass. But then again, when I try to finally do something, I always end up where I began. "Answer me, damn it!" he roars, slamming his hand down on the counter.
"Stop!" thunders Ava, making both of us turn around to look at her. She stands at the edge of the staircase, shaking. Her eyes spell out anger, exasperation and disappointment. "You need to stop it, Dad! Stop pretending that you haven't made our lives hell! Stop pretending like you haven't hurt him enough already! Stop acting like you don't know what he almost did today! Just stop-"
"Ava, mind your own-"
"No, Dad, not anymore!" she cries, "Look at him,"
"Ava, stop," I say, trying to get a hold of her but she steps back, showing me her palm. I stop dead in my tracks, a microscopic shivering running all through my body as I take deep breaths, streams of tears running down her face. No, I don't want this. "Can't you see what you've done, dad?" she asks him, tilting her face to a side, "You know he tried to kill himself."
I stop breathing, my face feels warmer, the shivering escalates and turns into a havoc, a whirlwind. Everything around me levitates and starts circling me. For a long moment, there's utter silence between the three of us, but there's also clear chaos. Defeated, his eyes fall to the floor. A sob escapes Ava and then another and another. And I finally let go of the breath I'd been holding. Oh god, what did I do?
"No, don't look at the floor, look at what you did, Dad!" she yells, her fire pouring all out, "look at what you did!"