Match Me

Chapter Nine: He's Missing

CHAPTER NINE: He's Missing
XOXOX
We all stand there in stunned silence as Anastasia stares me down, the tall woman becoming increasingly intimidating as time passes.

Her luminescent green eyes bore into mine so deeply that I feel like my privacy is being invaded.

I just hope that my poop brown eyes can deflect her from seeing how scared shitless I am.

Finally, after what seems like forever, Levi interrupts the silence. "Mom!" He says, his voice full of frustration. "You can't just go around telling anyone and everyone about Dad, okay? Not everyone has to know." He stands in front of his mother, feet taller than the leggy woman.

Wrinkles crease her pale skin, the dark circles underneath her eyes becoming more prominent with every passing second. "Why can't I tell them, Elleviot? Why can't I tell them that my husband of twelve years was murdered right in front of my only child's eyes? Why can't I ask for help, even if you're too weak to do the same? Tell me why! Tell me why!" She shrieks, her voice high and in hysterics as her arms flail about.

I inhale sharply as I process the new information and watch the rest of the scene unfold.

Levi's mother shouting at him from the top of her lungs, the once composed and calm woman shrieking like a banshee with a continuous stream of tears flowing down her cheeks. People desperately try to get her to calm down, to stop her from yelling at Levi anymore.

It's the picture of chaos and the room and I don't know what to do about it. In situations like this, I am completely and utterly useless and I can't do a thing about it. All I can do is watch him.

He stands there, his hand in his pocket, looking somewhat bored with the situation, like it's happened a million times before.

But there's subtle signs that he's bothered by it, by his mother screaming garbled words at him.

Words that are unrecognizable as she hiccups and gasps for air between the broken sentences.

Like the way he stares up at the blank ceiling every so often to roll the tears back into his eyes. Or how his hands shake ever so slightly when he lifts his glass to his lips to take another sip of punch. But staying true to himself, he never steps back even one step away from the ground he was standing on before her eruption started.

After ten minutes or so, Anastasia calms down and collapses in one of the wicker chairs, apparently exhausted.

No one else knows what to do, except sit on the eggshell white couch together in one big clump, waiting for the next thing to happen.

Levi's eyes dart back to me, where his eyebrows jerk up to the wooden oak stairs. I nod, knowing that we weren't going to be sticking around in the living room any longer.

"Mom, you don't understand. Your nightmares are just assumptions of what happened, you weren't actually there. You didn't make eye contact with the guy just before he pulled the trigger. You weren't interrogated by the police when you were twelve. I'm not whining and making a huge stink out of his death five years later. You don't have it half as bad as I do, so please. Do us all a favor and go back to work where I only have to see you every three months." He says, his voice never reaching past screaming level, but with the same effect (or worse) that Anastasia brought on.

Maybe it's because you could hear every word that he said, clearer than you could if he was shouting. Levi's mother dissolves into a puddle of tears in that wicker chair, but I can't really blame her. Even if she was mean before, I doubt she meant it to hurt him. She probably just needed someone to vent to.

The crowd of mourners support Anastasia, bringing over boxes of tissues and offering her glass after glass of punch, but she refuses it all.

I'm so consumed in studying the grief-ridden woman that I don't realize Levi walking towards me until he's a few feet in front of my face.