Ten & Levan

42. Forty Two

LEVAN

What do you do when you have a whole lot of words that you want to let out but you can't? I need to know, for I need to say so much to Ten, but that's the problem, there are just too many words, so many words that they're all jamming up my throat. I struggle to breathe under her hopeful eyes, warm browns that never leave mine, I almost choke.

Ten blinks when she senses my struggle, she brings her warm fingers back to my face, her affection radiating softly. Maybe I've started shaking violently or something, or maybe nothing even happened at all, she didn't even tell me she loves me, and I didn't even not say it back. So everything's okay and everything is not.

"It-It's alright..." she gulps, blinking away, "to not say anything right now," she says, I frown. No, no, no. No Ten, it's a million miles far away from even the possibilities of being alright. My chest starts to tighten and my throat strains, I wish all of these words would pour out of my mouth but all I do is silently cry for help. "I just wanted to tell you what I feel, I would never force you to say it back to me," she presses her lips together, "I know things are hard on you, and I accept that you might not feel the same way about me, but I just want you to know that that wouldn't alter what I feel."

I want to yell at her, I want her to stop telling me it's okay, I want her to tell me she wants an answer, now or never. Pressure, the only way to get me talking. Pressurize me Ten, Terrorize me. Make me tell you how much I love you, and god, I love you in all the colors, and black, and white.

"So, it's okay," she tells me. Her body starts to peel away from mine and her warmth starts to slip. Withdrawal, this is what it is. My heart twists inside its cage, it flutters and fights but there's so many layers holding it in that it can die fighting, but never really fight its way out.

I need to know we're okay, I need to know she would wait, I need to know she would stay, so I grab her by the neck and bring her lips back to mine. I feel her body loosen as she rests a hand over my thundering heart, measuring how soon it's going to explode and leave inside of me, a hole. Soon, soon, I know.

She opens up to me and I try to pour my words directly into her mouth. Do you taste how bad I need you, Ten, do you taste my love on the tip of your tongue?

She pulls back for air, her breath heavy and mouth red. She stares into my eyes as though my message has been received, but I'm not sure. I'm never sure. And then her eyes flick up to behind me.

"Levan, your dad's home," she tells me, I turn back to find him standing at the door.

I sit up and roll off the net, Ten stares blankly between me and dad until he leaves. Even though he quietly slips away, his cold gaze doesn't fail to tell me how he doesn't approve of anything at all. But my main concern involves Ava alone inside the house, and making Ten leave.

***

His fingers still grip me as I sit heaving on the floor. I still feel his glare on me, I still feel the heat from his face floating around mine, I still feel his hands on my neck, all oxygen escaping me, the excruciating ache in my chest, the burn, the hate. His words still bounce around me, and I tell you they never miss a blow.

"How dare you go back there?" he'd thundered.

"This is my house," he'd slithered, "my rules."

I stood and listened, quietly then.

But his angst haunts me. I try to grip the floor but I end up scratching my fingernails against the hard wood. My throat feels so tight, I'm tricked into checking for his grip for the hundredth time. It's so surreal that it's hard to believe he isn't actually here. If he was, I would push him away just like I did, I would hurt him in more ways than he ever has, just like I did, and then leave him passed out on the floor.

But then here I am, watching a billion suns set one by one, diving into the horizon so quick I don't get to touch their last bits of light, I never do. I watch my days turn into miserable starless nights before my eyes. I watch my skin melting away by the heatwave that his hate for me gives rise to. I watch the darkness creep in through the window.

My heart caves into itself. It's that unpleasant feeling again, the knotting, the twisting, the aching, all three on a monotonous and sad loop. The boisterous noise return while the darkness is still filtering in, and it doesn't stop. It keeps coming and coming, endlessly. My body shudders at the thought of never seeing the sun again. What is happening to me? This is not who I want to be. Not anymore.

My eyes burn and my face heats up, I rush to my feet and struggle to shut the window. I need no more darkness, I need the darkness no more. Go back, go back. Inside my mouth I cry for help, I scream and break a few things, but outside, I'm still sitting on the floor, a rapid streak of warm wetness running down my cheek. The darkness, it infiltrates my lungs, there's no more air in this room to breathe. I'm suffocated, I'm suffocated, I'm so damned suffocated. Inside. Of. Me.

I stumble across then room to my desk, I find sheets bright as day and when the first strangled cry escapes my mouth, I turn them all into nights black as ink and starless as a black hole.