Ten & Levan

16. Sixteen

LEVAN

I stare into the stars, not even trying to find the Pegasus or its Great Square anymore. I've been staring at them for so long that the land has slipped from under me, and now I'm floating in the air, travelling up the atmosphere. I'm smaller than I've ever been, it's as if the stars are raining all over me, all around me. I close my eyes to make my fluttering heart calm down. Then I let my hands fall to my sides and feel the sand between my fingers. I crash back to earth without a sound.

"Ten," I say, opening my eyes to find myself wrapped in the stars still.

"Hmm?" she hums staring at the sky too.

"Do you remember what I said on Monday?" I ask her, it's eating me.

"Yes, I do," she tells me, "and I know you're wondering why we're here then." I turn to her then but she doesn't turn to me. She's still gazing at the sky, her wide brown eyes are where the universe resides. And I'm locked out here on earth, with no light.

"Yes," I mumble.

"We're here, Levan...because I don't want to let go of what we have," she tells me, turning to face me too, her moonlit skin all porcelain and aglow, while I'm only a shadow. "And what we do have, is a special friendship. I swear no one else sees colors like you."

I want to tell her that the only color I see now is gold. Glittering gold, flowing gold, blinding gold. But I keep the words stored in my mouth, I'd save them for a drought. I close my eyes and erase the part where I pushed her away. Truth is, Tenerife Cohen makes me feel different, light, bright, flying kite and even though I don't want to betray my resistant side, I guess I'd have to now.

"You lost the bet, by the way..." says Ten. I open my eyes and look to my side, where she's lying on her back too. Just like in the woods. Why do we keep doing this? And why doesn't lying here with her under the open sky feel weird?

"How do you know?" I ask her, building up a frown. Ten grins at me, as if she's trying to tell me that it's not that I've lost, it's that she's won.

"Well, I heard Ms. Kripski chatting Rodgers up, asking about you. Rodgers told her that you're only a sleepwalker. Apparently, Kripski complained in the first place," she tells me. It's not news to me, of course I know they bought it, since they haven't made a call to my father or called me to the office again, but I sigh with relief anyway.

"Thanks...for lying for me," I mumble to her, she flashes me a toothy smile.

"Are you ready for the payment?" she asks, raising her brows, "You're going to tell me something very secretive, if you don't remember," she says. My heartbeat glitches and I curse under my breath. I know what she wants me to tell her, but I know it's what I'd rather take to my grave.

"Something no one else knows about me, right?" I ask her. Ten nods. I take a deep breath and try to think something up. Something no one knows about me. There's a lot of things but not quite.

Do I have to? I ask her in my head.

Abso-fucking-lutely, she tells me. So I give up.

"I'm trying to write a story," I tell her. Her eyes become narrow slits and she cranes her head forward.

"Wait, what? You write?" she asks. I nod, "Whoa, you have to show me something," she says to me.

"I haven't started," I lie immediately. I have. She groans.

"Ugh, what's it about? What's the genre? Do you have a plotline?" she starts firing. Why did I decide to tell Curious Ten this particular thing? Maybe I just wanted her to know. Maybe I needed her to know.