Ten & Levan

32. Thirty Two

LEVAN

"What?" I blurt out, but I'm not sure if I'm wondering what she just said or what I just said. Did I just ask Ten why we're not dating? By the look on her face, I can tell that I said just that. And now I'm horrified, beyond horrified. This right here, is why we're not dating Levan, I can almost hear her say to me, because you're you.

"If you're not going to ask, how am I going to say yes?" she says, totally cool, totally contained. Wait, what? Her frown deepens as I struggle with breathing. Is she joking? "Levan, don't you go all mute on me now, because that would piss me off," she warns, pointing a finger at me, her eyes wide.

"Are you serious?" I ask her, lifting my brows. Inside my head, I'm just chanting what the hell on a loop. She's always joking, so there's a huge possibility that she's only messing with me. But what if she's not?

"Are you not?" she asks, alarmed. Her face turns red and her shoulders fall. Is she not joking? What's going on?

Silence falls on us like a heavy rock, but I only want it to wake me up from this confusing dream. I look at her as if she's about to disappear any moment. But what if it's not a dream? I frown to myself, my brain is starting to mess up my speech, I can feel it.

"Why do I have to ask?" I blurt again, but this time a little controlled.

"So, you want me to ask you?" she says, narrowing her eyes, "Interesting..." she mutters.

"Why not?" I say. I need to stop blurting and saying things I will regret later. But I don't know why this feels great, because there's a probability that Ten sees me the way I see her, or because for once, I feel like I can say things and not regret them later.

Ten looks around; her foot tapping against the floor, her arms crossed, her lips pursed. Then she messes with her hair before she looks back at me again. It makes me want to suck a deep breath in. I don't want to look away, I want to know what she wants. I want her to want what I want. Ten, I really, really want you to want me.

"Fine," she says, "I want you to take me on a date..." and smiles at me, loosening the several knots in my stomach. "I really do," she adds. Even though I stay composed on the outside, on the inside, I almost explode with the amount of things I'm feeling at the moment, and hell, I'm feeling a lot. I'm feeling every fucking thing.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask her, consciously this time, because I know what she's going to say anyway.

"Actually..." she mumbles, narrowing her eyes, "I have a plan." And of course she does. Of course she does.

***

"This is great," says Ten, her eyes rolling back with delight, her mouth full the Pizza we ordered in. Usually, her plans would involve driving off to somewhere very far away but this, one was a pretty subtle one. She asked me to get a blanket a few pillows. We climbed up the stairs until we were at the top of the dead house; above all of its bones and remnants, until all we could see was an open sky; cloudless.

And now we're staring at the stars, as if we've never done the same thing before. I can tell it's starting to get chilly by the way Ten is shriveled up and rubbing her arms. The wind keeps making her hair float as if we're in space. I wonder if we are really in space. I wonder if we've floated up, above and beyond earth. The stars are so real and so bright. We must be.

"I could get used to this; pizza...stargazing, what's not to like?" she mumbles, "how's your book coming along?"

"It's coming along fine, I'm halfway done, I guess," I tell her, thinking back to the gazillion unorganized pieces of a puzzle under my bed.

"You know what? This could provide real good romantic inspiration for it," she says, grinning at me knowingly. As if she knows every secret there has ever been. As if she knows what is now and what was then. As if she knows exactly when the world is going to end.

"You think so?" I ask her with a stupid grin of my own.

"Oh yes, we could do everything people do on dates," she suggests, "what do you think they do on first dates?" she asks, rolling onto her side so she's looking at me. Her dark, deep eyes bathed in the moonlight paralyze me.

"I don't know. Maybe they eat pizza..." I suggest, so that I'm sure we're doing at least one part right. Her brows touch the cloudless sky.

"Ah, we got that down," she says, her voice growing soft and low. My eyes betray the commands of my mind and move down to her lips and my heartbeat quickens as I feel her breath against my ear. "Do they kiss?" she mutters, a soft playful smile embracing her curved mouth making the hairs on the back of my neck rise and my skin tingle.

My mind starts to mess things up inside it when Ten stars to graze her fingertips against my jawline, her thumb residing softly near my bottom lip. It's as if I'd just reassembled it and she dismantled it piece by piece. And in between all of this, all I can do is look into her eyes and never blink. God, I could do it all night. The darkness howls my name in the woods but I can't hear it, I've never felt more alive, and I've never felt this much. Call me greedy but I want more. More. More.

"Don't be afraid, Levan. That's the last thing I want you to be," she whispers to me, he voice soft as a feather and yet clear, before she places a warm kiss at the corner of my mouth, staining me with her deeply pigmented gold. Her lips tell me everything she is; fearless, young, wild and bold. And then, as if she didn't just damn near kill me, she rolls away, leaving me winded and heavy.

I'm so full with feelings I could throw them all up and I would still weigh a thousand pounds. I'm so heavy I can't see stars; I only see the sun and all its blinding hours. What have you done, Ten? I'm left without any powers.

From in between my blinded sight and numb skin, I sense that she let her hand fall to my own. Her fingers tangle with mine, gripping, asking, needing, as if she'd never let me go.

"Maybe they just hold hands..." and I can see stars again.