Ten & Levan

46. Forty Six

LEVAN

A shiver runs down my spine, leaving me cold.

I'm cold, almost too cold, as cold as the water that nearly dissolved me. Has the water decided to stay inside of me, inside my rotting lungs? Have I not thrown it all up and out? Have I not suffered enough? My chest hurts, I don't know whether it's because of the blow that my lungs took or just the shattered pieces of my heart are now sticking out. I hurt all over, do I need to be this cold too? So close to not being alive too?

I sit up in my bed and rub my palms across my face. But just as warmth starts to flow back through my frozen feet all the way up to my head, I find Ten sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the hurricane I'd created earlier. I stare at what I think is her, live and in flesh but I'm pretty sure I'm still dreaming. Do I even dream? She doesn't say a word, her big brown eyes stare back at me, I'm rendered immobile. She does this to me, even in the form of a hallucination.

I brave up to take a deep breath, I decide that if I move a little more, the dizziness will exit my brain...and so will imaginary Ten. But just as I start to stand up, I hear sirens going off somewhere outside the house. I can't make out if it's an ambulance or the police but soon enough, there's also flashes of blue and red light coursing across the blank walls of my room. For a second, I ignore it, but then imaginary Ten's mouth falls open and she scrambles to her feet. I frown.

She's real? She's...here?

She's stealing her gaze, pushing her hair away from her face, her chest is heaving, her breath is elongated and quickened at the same time; she's panting. That's when I realize something is really wrong. Whatever's left of my heart falls into the bottomless pit of my stomach, my throat instantly dries as her eyes meet mine.

"What did you do, Ten?" I ask her, silence running over me like a freight train. Downstairs, I hear the creak of the door as it opens. Soon, there's commotion and muffled voices. But I can't move, all I see is Ten's face, her eyes glossing up. My heart falls further, I might just know. But she can't, I try to tell myself.

"I did what I had to do, Levan," she mutters, but all I hear is the silence. Blue, red, blue, red, blue, the lights bounce off across the blank walls of my room and her porcelain skin. "I'm sorry..." she tells me. But is she? "I'm sorry." she runs, runs, runs, full speed.

***

If you ask me, how it feels right now, I would say it feels like nothing at all, and yet I'm overwhelmed with the idea of simply feeling anything. I can't tell if it's closer to a meteor collision or the sun burning out, but it definitely feels like standing at the edge of something, like the end of an age.

So I try to fill myself with all the air I can gather in my long arms and physically push them down my lungs. Things can't get any worse right? I struggle hard to swallow when I realize that they might just. I draw together all my strength and push the door open. Inside the room, Heather and Athena crowd and hover over Ten's head. Is she awake? Is she okay? I wonder, my brain frantic with activity. I freeze, debating whether it's okay to interrupt their privacy. That's when Heather finds me, her glossy brown eyes tell me that she's trying to be strong, that this is exactly what she didn't want; Ten in a gray, hospital room.

"Levan, so glad you're finally here," she tells me, as she walks over to where I'm awkwardly standing at the door. I nod quietly.

"Is she...okay now?" I ask her. She tilts her head to a side and presses her lips together, what does that mean.