Loving Levi Greene

Chapter 24: The Truth

****Amelia's POV****

John's teeth gleam as he smiles, carelessly throwing another cliché compliment at me. I make sure to giggle and bat my eyelashes, seeming more interested than I truly am.

You are lying to yourself I think.

I feel like I'm grasping at straws, trying to either distract myself from longing for Levi, or to hopefully get over the man by being swept away by another.

Neither things are happening.

And since conversing with John yesterday and today, I can't help but to find him lackluster.

Everything he says sounds staged, rehearsed like he said it in front of his mirror several times before arriving.

He doesn't seem genuine.

I am having another mild and rather unamusing conversation with John, when Abigail grabs my hand and starts to lead me up the staircase.

"Abigail?!" I say in surprise at the sudden, lurching movement.

With her hand gripped around my own, I look up at her as she leads me to the second level. She smiles and says something over my head, towards the puzzled looking boys that were left to swim in the sea of people below.

"We will be back momentarily, gentleman! We have woman-related matters to deal with!" She declares loudly.

Embarrassed, I feel like shrinking into a tiny little ball from her words that were broadcasted over the person-packed foyer.

"Now Abigail, did you have to yell that in front of everyone? And why do you need me to come with you to deal with your lady-business?" I say in a hushed whisper as we tread the last of the steps.

She gives me no answer as we round a corner, her hand still gripping my own.

I adamantly stop in the hallway behind her and she halts abruptly in front of me.

She turns and looks at me, then behind me, as if she's looking for someone.

"Amelia, we must make haste." She says in a hushed whisper, tugging at my hand.

I shake my head, not liking the urgency I hear in her tone. She sounds like something is wrong. Abigail is hardly ever serious, her demeanor having completely changed since we were downstairs with the John and Joseph.

"What's going on Abigail? Where are we going?" I say, a little bit of panic trickling into my words.

Abigail looks behind me again, this time more frantically, and then yanks my hand so hard that I decide it's best not to fight her on it.

I let her lead me past several doors that we once explored and pondered through as children, all of them a blur from hurry now.

We reach the end of this dim hallway and shuffle into the library, a room that we never entered as children.

We were always told to stay away from this room, likely because it's contents were filled with hundreds if not thousands of old, dusty books that were supposedly more priceless than the smooth, marble statues that are kept in the ball room.

Abigail lets go of my hand and I can hear her strike a match against something, followed by a tiny explosion of light from the little, thin stick. The dark room soon became softly lit with a dim, yellow glow as Abigail made her way to each corner of it, lighting a new match for each candle.