Loved By Levi

Five

Levi

I can't believe I just let her go like that.

No promises, no lengthy goodbyes, no spur of the moment proclamations of our undying love at first sight. Just a simple "thanks for lunch". Not even a see you later.

I knew damn good and well that there shouldn't have been a see you later. I doubted I would ever see her again. Even then, I couldn't help but wonder.

I wondered what she was doing right then. I wondered if her hair was pulled back or left flowing in the wind like it had been when we first met a week ago. If she was wearing shorts again or something softer, like a dress. I knew she would look beautiful in a dress. Except I would never get to see her in one and I'd never get to watch her twist her hair up and secure it with a rubber band on top of her head. I'd never get to find out if the book she'd brought along to read that day dried out enough to read or if the pages would be glued together by the salt water for all eternity as a reminder of the day we met, and what could've been if I'd just had the balls to ask her for her number.

Not that it would've mattered. She didn't seem to like me anyway and she had some sort of massive fear of the military. She never said that aloud but it was in her eyes since I first pushed my empty coke glass away and told her the honest truth about where my life would take me.

Even if she didn't have this weird vendetta against the military, the chances of me getting deployed were huge. Apparently that wasn't something women handled well.

Hell, I didn't even know if it was something I would handle well. All I knew was I planned on meeting with the recruiter within a matter of weeks and signing my life away, or at least the next several years of it. And I wasn't even doing it for me; I was doing it to spite everyone who said I was worthless. At this point in my life it seemed like my best—and only—option for survival. God knows I didn't have the money to continue college, and there was no way in hell I was going to get swallowed up by a hundred thousand dollars of debt. Nope, not me. The eight grand I already had loomed over my shoulder at every turn, making it nearly impossible to find enjoyment in school.

"Dude, c'mon." I could hear muffled groans but ignored them and kept pushing myself.

Something flew by my head with a whoosh. I barely noticed. I was way too intent on the workout I was getting from the elliptical machine in the university rec center to stop.

Lately the weather had been nice but I had yet to bring myself to take another run on the beach. I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate thinking about Mylee and her red hair and sad eyes.

"Levi, seriously." My right earbud was removed with a swift yank and the volume of whatever rock song I'd been blasting lessened considerably.

"What?" I pulled my left earbud out and shut down the machine, turning to glare at whoever was interrupting my workout.

"Dude, I know you gotta get in shape and all, but you've been in the gym for four hours. Let's go do something!"

"Matt, I'm not gonna go do something with you," I sighed, winding the cord of my earbuds around my phone.

"What, why?" I could barely see his brown eyes through the shaggy mess that was Matthew Donner's hair. The rest of his expression was pleading but I wasn't buying it. I had bigger fish to fry.

"Because every time you say we're gonna go do something it ends in you getting drunk and stoned and me having to cart your ass home and make sure you don't drown in the lake or something."

"Okay, that was one time and you know it," he argued.

"No, Matt, that was the last four weekends in a row. You just don't remember any of it because you were drunk and stoned. Why don't you talk Scotty into going?"

He continued to pout and I knew there was an argument coming. When he wasn't stoned out of his mind Matt could be pretty persuasive. "Levi, don't give me that shit. All you ever do these days is go to the gym. What's wrong with you anyhow? Why are you so mopey?"

"I'm not mopey," I grumbled, pouring some water down my dry throat, "I'm just busy."

"Being busy and trying to kill yourself by working out aren't the same thing." One of Matt's eyebrows was quirked like he was clearly about to call me out on my shit in a way that was anything but nice. "Either get your ass in the shower and out of the house with me or I'm gonna kick it halfway to China."

"I'd like to see you try."