Silver Lining | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴɴ

Chapter 22

Rain is pounding against the windows, rattling through the trees. It's pitch-black outside of the window, the only color the reflection of the orange fire burning in here. Our horses are safe and secure in their stables, shielded from the thunderstorm that would only scare them.

I'm safe and secure, too, or at least I feel like it. Other than the horses, I can still see the lightning through the window, and I'm not tied to a post, but instead, I'm sitting in front of the fireplace with the one man who I maybe shouldn't be sitting with.

He's still looking at me, trying to figure out what I'm thinking. It seems he's always trying to figure that out, but this time, I'm one step ahead of him and play innocent. Maybe the captain is buying it, maybe he's not, but I need to keep up the pretense in order to shield him from my dirty thoughts.

After I sat down, we talked for a little while until he leaned back in his armchair again and watched me with an expression I couldn't quite decipher. And now I keep rambling on about cleaning of all things since that's the only topic that seems to be able to distract me from his blue eyes. I can't even look at him. My gaze is fixed on a spot somewhere in the fire, but from the corner of my eye, I can see that Levi is smiling at me, and it's the amused kind of smile again.

"And Mikasa and Sasha are really grateful," I finish slightly out of breath. Captain Levi doesn't look like he's listening to me. I'm sure he has no idea that I just told him in detail how I clean our room every other day.

But then he blinks those long eyelashes, smirks a little, and says, "I start with under the bed. Makes it easier to move from the bottom to the top."

His response surprised me, but not enough to throw me off. My own smile eases a little, and I finally feel comfortable enough to lean back, too. "Yes," I agree, "it is easier."

I can't tell if Levi is confused or surprised or what exactly he's thinking. I can't tell if he knows what I'm thinking: that this conversation seems so unreal to me. I don't know if he knows how comfortable I feel talking to him, and I don't know if he knows that I want to tell him so much more.

"So why is it that you like cleaning so much?" he asks the question I know has been burning on his tongue.

I try to relax my muscles and try to fight against my body's first instinct to cramp up. "I could ask you the same thing," I say in a playful way, tilting my head to the side.

The second I say it, I regret it. Captain Levi's face freezes over immediately, his eyes losing any trace of happiness and warmth that I might have seen earlier. His lips fall and transform into the scowl he's always wearing, but now, in the dark firelight, he looks beyond emotionless. There's a flicker of something in his eyes that I can't pinpoint before that, too, vanishes behind a wall of cold indifference.

"Enough talking. Go back to bed," Levi orders in his captain-voice, and I think I can feel my heart shatter into a thousand little pieces.

I'm taken aback for a moment. I can't believe I let myself be lulled into safety again by his soft expression and calm blue eyes. I can't believe that whenever I'm alone with him, I seem to forget what a moody person he actually his. I can't believe I thought that he wanted to talk to me, that he enjoyed my company, that he liked me.

It takes me a full eight seconds and two shuttering breaths before I finally get my head to nod. My feet take three more seconds before they decide they're strong enough to support my weight. In the four seconds it takes me to reach the door, Levi hasn't moved a single inch. His hands are clamped over the armrests as if he's trying to stop himself from falling. His face his cold, and for the first time, I actually think that he looks heartless.

He's still not looking at me when I say, "You know, you always ask me to tell you things about myself, but you never return the favor."

I walk out the door without waiting for a reply because I know that I probably won't get one anyway. The stairs seem to take more effort now, I'm drawing too short breaths, and I cling to the banister to drag myself up one step at a time. The hallway in front of me blurs, the torches only bright spots in my vision. I realize too late that I'm close to tears, that my chest feels too tight, and that my throat is in knots. I realize too late that I'm heartbroken.

There's a pounding in my ears that might come from my heartbeat, or maybe it's the sound my feet make on the wooden floor as I take step after step closer to my room. One hand is running along the wall, guiding me, giving me strength, holding me upright.

I never told him much about me, yet it was still way more than he ever told me. I feel like he knows me so well, even if he doesn't know my childhood, but I don't know him at all. Sometimes, I think I do. Sometimes, when we talk, I think I can almost figure out who he is and what he's thinking. But then he shuts those doors so forcefully, and sometimes I get hit by them and hurt myself.

Levi doesn't know what he's doing to me, he doesn't know that he's hurting me, so I can't blame him for my feelings. I can't blame him for being the way he is; I can only blame myself for thinking he's different. I was silly and stupid and thought that-

My depressing and self-hating thoughts are abruptly interrupted when someone grabs my wrist and stops me just before I can reach my door. The drumming in my ears fades away as I'm spun around to face Levi. His expression robs me of every thought. I have never seen the captain like this. His eyes are hurt and sad and so, so heartbreaking. His lips are pressed into a thin line, but they part a little when our eyes meet, and he lets out a soft breath.

I wonder how long it took me to get up here, how long he sat in his armchair, contemplating whether to follow me or not. I wonder if he's going to say something, but I swat the thought away like a nasty fly. No more false hopes and dreams and expectations. No more of this. Not unless he gives me a reason to.

And then, just like that, he does. He opens his mouth and licks his tongue over his bottom lip as if to make it easier for the words to slip past them. "I grew up in the Underground," he says so quietly that I can't be sure if it was just my imagination.