Ten & Levan

10. Ten

TEN

Levan bolts out of the car the moment we come to a halt and it is a bit weird because I thought we were having a great time. I also think he faked that call in the woods just so he could escape. Was I being too weird around him? Is that why he wants to get away? My heart starts to sink.

"Thanks for today," he says as he bends down to the window, looking as if in a hurry. I smile at him, my most nervous, most awkward, and most forced smile. Shit, shit, shit, I chant on a loop inside my head.

"Are you sure everything's okay?" I ask. He told me it was nothing to worry about when we were cycling down the hill and I couldn't believe him then as well. He gulps; his eyes are wild and dark. I didn't think he could be any more blue, but he's bluer. The darkest blue. The deepest blue. Shit, Levan, who are you?

"Yeah," he answers, biting the inside of his cheek. I want to roll my eyes at him. Liar, Liar. I think I'm going to barf with all the lies he's been feeding me.

"Okay," I nod and grip at the steering wheel, my palms sweaty.

"Look, I'd invite you in but...maybe some other time?" he says, his voice strained and raspy.

"I totally understand," I tell him in my most convincing voice ever, even though I don't understand, at all. "See you at school," I say, he nods and backs off. I take my horridly awkward cue and turn the key in the ignition. My car comes to life rather silently; Broods start to play on the radio, I sigh. When I look toward the window again, I see him jogging his way to the front door of his house. I pull out of his driveway with a frown.

Maybe Levan doesn't think I'm gold, maybe he thinks I'm only a deep brown.

***

I notice mom's car in the driveway and prepare for a round of Q and A as I get out of my car. But I really want to get back inside the car; drive it straight back to Levan Eleven's shadow house, rap on the door so loud it breaks, march right in, enter his forbidden cave of a room and ask him what went wrong, if he's really going to swim with me on Monday or if he's even going to talk to me ever again.

The thought only frustrates me, so I shake it off before I get too carried away and enter the calm of my home. I drop the keys on the kitchen counter and look around for mom. I know she's definitely home because it's Saturday and duh, her car was in the driveway. But she's not in the kitchen, not in the dining room, not in the living room, not in the study where she usually is at this hour. So that just leaves her room as the only option. I knock on the door but she doesn't answer. I start to wonder if she's asleep. But she's always awake for me, she'd come rushing out of her dreams.

Just when I'm thinking about climbing a mountain of exactly fourteen steps up to my room, I hear her phone ringing inside. It keeps ringing, ringing, ringing. I finally turn the knob and enter the room to find it completely deserted. The phone lies on the bed, screaming to its death, bleeding. That's when I hear the water running in the shower and realize mom the cleanliness monster is satisfying her fetishes.

"Mom, you have a call!" I yell, grabbing the phone off the mattress. I hear the shower being turned off.

"Is it work?" she yells back.

"No, it's an unknown number," I say, standing next to the door to the bathroom.

"Pick it up and ask them to call back in a few minutes," mom orders and then the shower turns on again. However, the phone stops ringing right when I'm about to pick it up. I shrug and dive facedown onto the bed and groan. My back hurts from lying on the ground for hours. My legs hurt from the cycling. My heart hurts from the way Levan left. And my lungs just pretty much always hurt. Conclusion: I'm hurting all over. And I still have movie night to go through. Great, just great.