by L. B. Dunbar
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to save you, and the closer I got, the more I worried I’d make it worse.”
His head rolled from side to side.
“You already saved me,” he spoke in a raspy whisper, startling me with his words. “This was not your fault.” His lids remained closed. I gasped at the admission, but decided against further conversation when I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“You should rest.” My hand slipped down to his blanket-covered arms. Touching him like that wasn’t enough, but I didn’t want to disturb him. Rest was vital to his recovery. He didn’t open his eyes, and I stepped away. I’d hardly lowered my heel when he croaked, “Stay.”
My eyes jumped to his, which were wild looking and lost. I stepped back to his side and brushed my hand over his head again, cupping his still-chilled cheek.
“Of course,” I whispered. His head shook, and I thought he wanted me to remove my hand.
“Don’t leave me,” his voice grumbled low. Using effort he shouldn’t have been exerting, his fingers slipped out from under the blankets. Opening and closing his palm, like he reached for something but couldn’t find it, his hand stretched outward. I set my hand in his, and his fingers tightened instantly. With a wince and a struggle, he scooted over in the bed.
“Levi…” I began, questioning what he was doing.
“Climb in,” he croaked, his eyes closing once more. “Warm me,” he sleepily muttered.
“Levi, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said, trying to tease him, but the sound came out like a barking seal in distress. His eyes opened instantly again.
“Please.” The word broke me. I removed my shoes and slipped under the blankets. My leg slipped between his and he sighed. My hands braced on his chest and he nuzzled his face close to mine.
“I’m going to dream of you,” he whispered, as his voice turned sleepy to match his closed eyes.
* * *
Thanksgiving did not turn out like I thought it would. Levi was in the hospital and I brought him a dinner wrapped in foil. We ate together, balancing on the tiny tray slipped over his bed.
“I guess you’re sorry you came with me,” I muttered between a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
“Actually, I’m not sorry.”
My fork lowered slowly as I looked up at him. He continued.
“You know I wouldn’t have come with you if I didn’t want to.” He shrugged. “I guess I decided it was time to stop fighting. My father’s gone, so is the house I grew up in. None of it matters.” He paused. “Well, it matters, but I can’t change the past. And you were right.”
“I was?” I cut him off and he laughed.
“I hadn’t thought about spending time with family on a holiday, but once you asked, I realized how pathetic it sounded that AJ and I wouldn’t be with anyone important. It seemed like a good idea to come with you. Here.” He shrugged again, acting noncommittal to anything he’d said, but I had a million questions. Was it my family, or just the thought of family? Did he wish to spend time with me, or just spend time with people? Was I important to him?
“You called Tricia and Leon,” I stated, as we hadn’t discussed the fact he contacted them once he agreed to return to Elk Rapids.
“I thought maybe I could see them. I never imagined they’d throw me a party. I didn’t dream I’d spend the night in their home, or that they’d be the ones watching AJ for me.” Tricia stepped in like the mother hen she could be and took over caring for AJ while I traveled from her house to the hospital to keep Levi company.
“You get to go home tomorrow,” I said too cheerfully. “You never got to see your brother Caleb.”
Levi looked off toward the end of the bed.
“I called him, too. He couldn’t make the time to see me.”
“Levi,” I whispered, not wanting to believe his words to be true.
“It’s fine,” he exhaled. “I mean it, it’s been so long, and Caleb and I are estranged.”
“But you could always call him again and explain…” My eyes drifted down to the hollow blanket next to his left leg.
“I don’t need his pity. There’s nothing he could do for me. My family is AJ now. That’s all I need.”
I steadied my fork as I lowered it completely to the tray, suddenly having lost my appetite.
“You aren’t hungry?” He had devoured Ethan Scott’s famous stuffing. Shaking my head, I pushed my plate toward Levi, allowing him to eat the rest of my dinner and chew up my soul.
Levi
“Alicia?” We entered my apartment on Saturday afternoon to find my ex-lover sitting on my couch. Katie had been following me and she walked into me, literally, as I paused to stare at the mother of my child. Rubbing her hands down her skinny jeans, Alicia stood and froze in place at the sight of Katie. No two women could be more opposite. Alicia was sleek and shiny like a sports car with her raven hair pulled tight in a high ponytail. Katie was all-American, like a doll, with her freckles and blonde waves under a winter cap. No one spoke for too long.
“Alicia.”
“Levi.” We spoke at the same time, and her face pinked, a shade I’d seen before but didn’t compare to the color of the girl behind me. Turning slowly, I stared at Katie, unprepared to introduce her to Alicia.
“I’m Alicia,” my former lover offered, stepping forward without extending a hand. I still hadn’t spoken, too tongue-tied to find the woman who had left me and the woman I wanted standing in the same place. My eyes closed briefly. I’d so fucked up. The universe had returned to destroy me. This would be worse than falling into a frozen pond.
“I’m Katie,” she introduced herself, her voice quiet as she remained partially behind me. Without a second glance at Katie, Alicia began talking.
“What happened to you?” Alicia stared at my crutches and the pinned jeans at my knee.
“I fell into a frozen lake.” I wasn’t about to go into details with Alicia, still reveling in the shock of seeing her in my apartment. A new prosthetic had to be fitted, and I preferred to work with my local specialist. None of that was her concern.
“So I wanted to talk to you about your proposal regarding the new job, and…”
“I think I’ll be going,” Katie interjected, stepping past me to set AJ on the floor. I couldn’t manage him with the crutches up the staircase. She slipped behind me almost as quickly while the tension in the room built heavier than the ice water that had nearly drowned me. I spun to face her, knowing I couldn’t explain everything with Alicia standing there, but also knowing I had too much to explain at once. Katie hitched a thumb up toward her shoulder. “I’ll just…see you…” She stepped backward, bumping into the door before spinning for the staircase. She disappeared and so did my heart.
Turning for the stairwell, I shouted, “Katie, wait!” but she continued down the stairs without turning back.
“Damn it,” I groaned, releasing the crutches and gripping the handrail to spring myself down the steps at a faster pace. “Katie,” I groaned with the effort of hobbling behind her. She’d reached the main door, but I was only halfway down the steps. “Please,” I hissed, and the sound stopped her. With her hands braced on the handle, she paused with her back to me.
“Just give me a minute with her,” I pleaded. The instant the words left my lips, Katie turned on me. The liquid trailing down her face undid me.
“You lied to me.” Her words strained in combination with a choking sound as if she were physically in pain.
“Let me explain.”
“What is there to explain, Levi? We’ve never defined us.” She paused and raised her hand to prevent me from speaking. “This is the way it’s supposed to be.” She waved dismissively up the stairs. “Mothers should come back. This is what we both wanted as children—our mothers to return. I won’t deny AJ and you won’t either. She’s what he needs.”
“You know nothing about her,” I snapped, coughing quickly to lower my voice for fear Mrs. Hubbard, my landlor
d could hear us.
“I know she’s AJ’s mother.” Katie lowered her eyes as she spoke. “And she’s beautiful.”
But so are you, I thought, but Katie continued before my mouth even cracked open.
“She mentioned a proposal,” Katie choked. “You wanted her to accept you and I guess now she’s back.” A sob escaped and my heart cracked like the ice over that blasted pond. I was falling into a new hole of can’t-catch-my-breath as the blood within my veins froze at what Katie was implying.
“She’s not going to…”
“And what does she mean about the new job?”
The final air swooshed out of my lungs. I swallowed before I could answer that question. My eyes closed briefly.
“I got the job.”
The words hung in the stairwell, echoing slightly in the steep hallway.
“What?” Katie whispered.
“Geographic Digest. They offered me the job as a photographer a few hours before we left.” When Phil Jakobach called me, I was packing clothes and counting baby bottles and struggling with mundane things, mentally trying to prepare myself for a return trip home that I had begun second-guessing. The call threw me off guard. I didn’t have to clarify what this would mean. I’d get to see the world again. I’d travel the globe and have adventures. I wouldn’t be tied to anything, but AJ…and that’s why Alicia was present. But the more I stared at Katie—and the fear she’d walk out the door—the more my heart raced.
“I called Alicia to make some arrangements for joint custody. I can’t take AJ with me when I travel and I thought…” As the words crashed around me, I began to suffocate. I thought I could walk away and leave AJ with Alicia while I followed my dream. But what did that mean for Katie? For Katie and me?
“I see,” she said softly, so calm it frightened me. She nodded leisurely as if her head was tugged by an invisible string. “I see.” Her back pressed the door and she pushed outward. Without looking up at me, she walked out. The soft click of the handle was the end of me. I’d waited all my life for Katie, yet I stood there watching her leave.
Katie
I sobbed in the back of the bus. My thoughts filled with the first time I’d met Levi Walker.
I was six years old, and I didn’t speak. The world wasn’t silent to me, but I didn’t use my voice for fear that others would leave me like my mother did. I was afraid to talk, words choking inside me at times. At other times, I found it easier to listen and observe, rather than voice my opinion. Children should be seen and not heard. It’s an old saying, but my father disagreed. I’d overhear him arguing with my grandmother about wanting to hear my voice again. He wanted to know who stole my laughter as I didn’t do that either. I’d bite my cheek and swallow the pain to hold giggles deep inside.
One day I was riding my bike near our home. We lived with my grandmother at the time, and my older cousins, Maddie and Meghan, were in charge of me for the day. Maddie liked boys, a lot, as she was in high school, but Meghan was slowly noticing them, too. I followed along, listening, as I always did while we circled a few blocks, and then doubled back past a house my father had worked on earlier in the summer. He was several things—a handyman, an audio repair man, an owner of both businesses. We’d already met Emily and I could see my father was different with her, but I didn’t notice everything.
As we rode around the block that housed Emily’s home and the Mueller’s, where my father had worked, Maddie was encouraging Meghan to draw the boys’ attention while they played basketball in the street. Meghan went right through their game and the boys shouted after her, calling her names while one boy whistled. I couldn’t keep up, my little legs peddling as fast as they could go, but my foot slipped off the pedal and my ankle caught. I lost my balance, and the bike skidded in loose gravel. Down I went, scraping my knee.
Most of the boys were still watching Meghan and Maddie ride away, but one boy came over to me.
Tears spilled down my face as my fingers circled around the bloody mess. I made no sound as the salty streaks slipped down my cheeks.
“That’s quite a cut,” the boy said, crouching down to look at me. I didn’t look up, still watching the seeping red scratches. “You’re very brave,” he added.
My head shot up at the words and eyes that looked like chocolate stared down at me. My lip trembled, but I remained calm. He took a deep breath, and I followed. Before I knew it, I was breathing with him, or he was breathing with me. Either way, it stopped the tears.
“Can you stand?” he asked, holding out a hand for me. His palm was sweaty, his fingers thick, but he supported me as I rose off the street. He remained squatting before me. He lowered his face while his free hand came toward my knee. I whimpered, afraid he would touch the sore, bleeding mess, but instead, he circled the back of my leg and blew on the cut. The cool sensation of his breath over my wounded skin startled me.
“I think you’re going to be okay,” he said, smiling up at me, and for a moment, I understood what Maddie and Meghan said about boys being cute. I realized suddenly he was still holding my hand as he stood. He was older than me, definitely more Meghan’s age, but my heart skipped a beat while he looked at me.
“Quit flirting with everything,” Kevin Mueller yelled out, but the boy ignored him. “Stop being a hero and come back to the game.”
“I’m Levi, princess.” He smiled slowly exposing dimples on either side of his mouth. I remembered suddenly the fuzzy crown with fake diamonds on my head. He stared at me as if waiting for something.
“Want to tell me your name?” he asked, reassuring me it would be okay to speak to him.
“She doesn’t speak. She’s deaf or dumb or something like that.” Kevin called out again. I tugged my hand from Levi, knowing the words weren’t true, but still they stung. I wasn’t stupid. Levi’s fingers tightened on mine, despite my pulling. He looked over at his friend. “Dude, shut up,” he hissed before turning back to me.
“Don’t listen to him. You don’t have to tell me your name if you don’t want to.” He released my hand and reached for my bike. Holding the handle bars, he balanced the bike and nodded for me to climb on. “Gotta get back on the horse,” he laughed. I wanted to tell him it was a bike, but all my fairy tale reading and story listening from Emily made me think of my bike as a sturdy stead suddenly. Levi Walker was a prince.
“I’m Katie,” I whispered so softly I wasn’t certain he would hear me. His eyes opened wide and his head lowered.
“Nice to meet you, princess.” I reached for the handle bars and climbed back on my bike, feeling surprised that I spoke to him, or that he heard me, or that he was still smiling at me in a way that made me want to smile back at him. And so I did. His smile grew in return and he shook his head. “Giddy-up,” he said, giving my bike a gentle push to get me going, and I immediately began to peddle, but not without a look back at my hero.
There was no way to contain the tears that fell down my face nor the occasional squeaks as my heart broke. We’d driven Levi’s car to my family’s home, and we returned to his directly. I figured he’d take me back to my apartment the next day. I assumed. I was a fool.
I’d been playing a game. Make believe that Levi Walker was into me and he’d want me to be the one to help him.
I was no princess. I was the jester. The laughing stock. The one who fantasized too much and had no grasp on reality.
Levi Walker wasn’t into me. He hadn’t told me about his job. He hadn’t told me about his plan. He hadn’t told me about Alicia.
Sobs came harder, rattling my body as I slouched down in the seat, pressing my knees to my chest and letting my feet rest on the seat in front of me. I wanted to curl into a ball and dissolve within the plastic blue bench under me. The urge to go silent consumed me.
* * *
“Katie, another letter arrived for you,” Tuck called out as I entered the apartment, but I ignored her and headed straight for my room. I’d left my bag in Levi’s car, but I didn’t care. My focus was my b
ed where I could disappear inside myself.
“Katie?” Tuck’s voice followed me, but I didn’t respond. My throat was closed, my eyes swollen. I climbed under my comforter, shoes still on, and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
“Katie, honey, what happened?” The mattress behind me sunk as Tuck sat beside me. Her hand came to my shoulder, but I simply shook my head.
“You got another letter,” she said quietly, but I continued to shake my head.
“Not mine,” I whispered. I heard Tuck’s finger slice the envelope, the rip of paper like a knife over my skin. She read the words aloud.
K –
The universe sent you to me. Come back to me.
̴ L
I closed my eyes, wanting to block out words not meant for me. My body trembled like a fever was coming. Tuck’s voice hitched at the end of her reading.
“Not mine,” I whispered again, knowing the universe sent no one to me. Levi Walker had been there at all the right times, but he was wrong for me.
The silence behind me made me turn. Tuck hadn’t left my bed, and I saw her re-reading the words. The note shook and her free hand covered her mouth.
“What?” I twisted farther as her head shook back and forth.
“These aren’t for you, sugar. I’m sorry. I recognize the handwriting, unless there’s something you want to tell me, like how you might know Logan Prescott.” I stared back at her eyes filled with concern.
“I have no idea who that is.”
“He’s my ex-fiancé. I moved out of his place, thinking he’d never find me here. The K is for Kentucky.”
My eyes opened wide and I sat up instantly. I pointed for my desk drawer and watched as she removed the rest of the letters.
“I’m so sorry. I just assumed the K was for Katie, and I never gave it a thought.” Damn my romantic notions and imagination. I should have said something before, when Levi told me they weren’t from him, but the letters had slowed down.