by Ashley Royer
“Can I go on the tire swing?” she asks.
“You don’t have to ask,” I tell her.
“With Levi?”
I look over at Levi. He bites on his lip ring and slowly shrugs, then grabs Lucy’s hand and walks over to the swing. He picks her up and puts her onto the tire, then sits across from her. His legs are too long, and he has to lean far back to keep them off the ground. Lucy laughs uncontrollably as they spin.
After about thirty minutes of going from the swings to the slide to the see-saw, Lucy gets bored. She wraps her arms around herself and runs over to me.
“I’m frozen!” she pouts.
I know where this is going . . .
“It’s not that cold,” I tell her.
“I said, I’m frozen!” She pretends to shiver.
Levi grabs the beanie off his head and puts it on Lucy. It’s probably bigger than her whole head. It slides down a little bit onto her forehead and she giggles. He runs his hand through his flat hair to try to fix it.
“I’m still frozen,” she says, tugging at Levi’s hat. “Let’s go watch Frozen!”
“Lucy, please,” I beg. “We watched it a few days ago.”
“Anna needs me, though.”
“Oh, really?”
“She wants to build a snowman.”
“Fine. C’mon, let’s go,” I say.
“Let it go, let it go, I can hold it in the back no more,” Lucy sings. She always sings the wrong lyrics, but no one has told her yet.
“Pick me up, please,” she asks.
“I don’t really want to,” I tell her. I honestly hate carrying her.
She sticks out her bottom lip and looks up at me. Levi bends down and swiftly picks her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and leans her head on his shoulder.
“Levi is nice. You’re not,” Lucy tells me.
I shrug. “Sorry.”
It’s strange seeing Levi being so nice. He cares so much for Lucy; I’ve never seen him be like this with anyone.
I want to know what Lucy told him so badly. It had to be something important. Otherwise, I don’t get why he’s being like this with her.
“Wanna just walk slowly around the neighborhood for a little? She’ll fall asleep. Would you mind?” I whisper to Levi.
He shakes his head, and we walk slowly. After a few minutes, Lucy’s eyes shut until she falls asleep. She can fall asleep anywhere.
We get back to my house, Levi still carrying Lucy. He puts her in bed, and thankfully, she doesn’t wake up.
“Thanks for coming,” I say, when we’re out of the room. “She really likes you.”
He waves his hand as if to say, “No problem,” and we awkwardly stand in the hallway. He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels like he always does.
I break the silence with the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you want some Skittles?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
LEVI
Delilah looks around her whole house searching for Skittles. They must keep a secret stash at all times or something, because she always has them.
I’m sitting on the couch, waiting for her to come back. I look around the room, even though I was here a few days ago. I notice things I hadn’t paid attention to last time, like the family photo on the wall and the scribbled drawing made by Lucy that’s on the coffee table.
Wait, on top of the drawing, it says Levi. The “e" is backward. I feel the corner of my mouth tilt up.
I pick it up and look at it. She’s made my hair very tall, and my legs very long. All my clothes are black, but there’s a rainbow behind me and a crown on my head. There’s a tiny yellow sun in the corner, and it has a big smile and sunglasses.
I think I’m smiling wider than the sun is while I look at the drawing.
I hear the door open and put the picture back down on the table.
“Delilah, I meant to tell you earlier that I’m leaving tomorrow, but I—You’re not Delilah,” Noah says when he sees me sitting on the couch.
I shake my head.
“Where is she?” he asks.
I shrug and point down the hall.
Noah shrugs his shoulders too, and he sits beside me on the couch.
“So, how’s it going?” he asks.
I shrug.
He points to the picture. “Did you see what Lucy made you? I think she has a crush on you,” he says, laughing.
I nod and smile.
“I think she likes you more than Delilah does,” he says.
I look at him with wide eyes, confused as to what he just said.
“Crap, I hope Delilah didn’t just hear me say that,” he says, putting his hand to his head.
I tilt my head to the side, still shocked.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Noah says.
I scrunch my face in confusion.
“You seriously don’t know? Are you really that oblivious? Before she even said anything, I could tell she liked you when you came over!”
She said something? About me?
“Do you like her?” he asks quietly.
Delilah walks in just then, happily holding a bag of Skittles. “I found some!” she says excitedly. She notices Noah beside me, who is still looking at me to answer him.
I don’t answer.
“When’d you get home?” she asks him.
“Just now. And now I’m going to go,” he says. He nudges my shoulder a little and gives a small thumbs-up before leaving the room.
What is that supposed to mean?
Maybe Delilah said something that was about me, not necessarily about liking me. I don’t think she could possibly like me. If anything, she pities me.
She plops down beside me and smiles widely. She pours some Skittles into her hand and then gives some to me.
“Sorry about Noah and Lucy, if they bug you,” she says quietly.
I shrug and chew on the Skittles in my mouth.
I can’t focus. All I can think about is what Noah said. She doesn’t like me. Or maybe she does. Why would she like me? How can she like someone if she’s never heard the sound of their voice? It seems impossible.
I look at Delilah as she digs through the Skittles bag for the red ones, like she always does. She eats all the red first, then she eats the green and orange at the same time. She notices me watching her, and stops chewing.
“What?” she asks, raising one eyebrow.
I shake my head. I take a Skittle out of my hand, which is now rainbow, and throw it at her. It hits her on the nose, and she scrunches her face when it hits her. She throws one back, but I catch it in my mouth.
“You always do that, and I can’t do it,” she says, sticking out her bottom lip.
I shrug and smile.
We hear Lucy wake up and walk down the hall.
“Why can’t I be an only child?” Delilah mumbles when Lucy walks into t
he room.
Lucy yawns and rubs her eyes. “Did you watch Frozen without me?”
“No, we didn’t watch it. Don’t worry,” Delilah tells her.
“Good,” Lucy says quietly. She slowly gets herself onto the couch, and squishes between Delilah and me. I look over at Delilah, who is looking down at her hands, which are rainbow like mine.
She looks upset. I reach behind Lucy and poke Delilah’s shoulder. She looks up, and I smile widely to get her to smile.
She grins back, and her cheeks blush a little.
Lucy pokes my cheek. “Can a Skittle fit in that?”
I’m guessing she’s referring to my dimple. She quickly reaches for a Skittle that’s in my hand and shoves it onto my cheek.
“Stop movin’ your head,” she mumbles, sticking her tongue out while she concentrates. She puts one of her little hands on my forehead while she tries to get the Skittle to stay on my cheek. It stays there for a second until I start laughing hysterically. Delilah laughs too.
This is the second time she’s made me laugh. Out of all people, it’s a three-year-old.
“Lucy, you are unbelievable,” Delilah says, out of breath as she laughs.
“What’s so funny?” Lucy asks, laughing just because we are.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Delilah says while wiping her eyes.
I was kind of upset at myself for laughing the first time, but it feels so good to finally do it again. But at the same time, it feels like I’m breaking a piece of myself that I wanted to stay strong. Right now, though, the happy feeling inside me overpowers the guilt of being happy.
Once we stop laughing, Lucy crosses her arms across her chest. “Now can we watch Frozen?”
We end up watching Frozen, and halfway through Lucy falls asleep again. It amazes me that she can fall asleep so quickly, especially when she wouldn’t stop talking about the movie.
It’s a pretty cute film, if you’re into that kind of stuff.
I may or may not be into this kind of stuff . . .
Lucy ended up falling asleep on top of me. Her head is in my lap, and I’ve been trying hard not to move and wake her up. Every once in a while, she’ll move slightly. It’s cute.
Lucy suddenly squirms and grabs lightly onto my hand, hugging it closer to her while she sleeps.
I wonder if she’s actually asleep.
Every now and then, I can see Delilah turn and look at me, or maybe she’s looking at Lucy. I notice that Delilah looks over at us more than she looks at the TV.
Maybe Noah’s right. Maybe she does like me. Or maybe she’s just checking on Lucy.
I see her watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to look at her too.
I mouth the word “stop,” but I’m smiling when I do it.
“Sorry. But cute things deserve to be looked at.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
LEVI
Sorry. But cute things deserve to be looked at,” Delilah says. Her cheeks blush and she quickly starts talking again. “I mean, it’s cute how Lucy is, uh—How she fell asleep . . .” She turns her attention back to the movie.
I groan internally, thinking back to a few nights ago. I’m still confused as to what Noah told me and what Delilah said to me.
Did she really mean Lucy was cute? Or did she mean me? I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not sure why it’s bothering me so much.
I decide to go to the person who knows Delilah best. Aiden.
I walk to his house, and even though it’s not too far, I’m extremely cold. I don’t think I’ll ever be used to the weather here.
I hesitantly knock on his door and shove my hands into my pockets. I can hear footsteps running toward the door, and Hunter opens it.
“Aiden,” Hunter yells, “Levi’s here!”
Hunter runs away, leaving me standing in front of the open door. Aiden slowly walks toward me with a confused expression on his face.
It’s been weeks since I last saw him. I’ve still been ignoring him. I’m not really sure why, as I wish I hadn’t.
“Hey, Levi.” He says it more like a question. “What are you doing here?”
He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. I awkwardly scratch the back of my neck and look down at my feet.
I quickly type in my phone. I’m not really sure what to write, so I go with what my fingers tap out. “I’m sorry about the past few weeks. I was having a rough time. But I need to talk to you.”
“What about? Here, come in,” Aiden says, sounding concerned. I follow him up to his room. It feels like only a few days ago, I was over here playing FIFA.
I thought Aiden would be mad at me and not be willing to talk. Though Aiden has never been rude to me, no matter how many times I’m awful to him.
“So,” Aiden says, “what do you wanna talk about?”
Aiden sits down on his bed, and I crouch into the small beanbag on the floor. Aiden rests his chin on his hand while he waits for me to stop typing on my phone.
“Does Delilah like me?” the voice says.
He scratches his chin and takes a deep breath. “Do you like her?”
I roll my eyes. I type a response quickly. “No.” I feel my cheeks blush.
Aiden sighs and lightly laughs. “Have you read her project from a few weeks ago?”
I shake my head no. I haven’t looked at it since I shoved it into one of my drawers.
“That’ll probably explain everything you need to know,” he says with a slight smirk. “I think I actually have it somewhere in my email. She sent it to me to proofread, to see if what she wrote about you was okay, I guess.”
He opens up his laptop and types quickly on his keyboard.
“Got it!” he says, passing the laptop over to me.
I push it away. I don’t know if I want to know what she wrote.
“If you don’t read it, I’ll read it to you,” Aiden says, laughing.
I roll my eyes and take the laptop, not wanting Aiden to read it. I guess I have to read it at some point, anyway.
I read the first sentence, and my hands start shaking. I’m so nervous. I shouldn’t be this nervous to see what she has to say about me.
I recently met a boy named Levi. I don’t know much about him other than the fact that he’s Australian, and he loves Skittles. I also know that he doesn’t talk. Levi has gone through a tough time in his life, full of mourning and sadness. His way of dealing with it is not speaking—or at least that’s what I think. He’s a giant mystery to everyone.
When I first met him, he threw his coffee when he saw me. I’m still not sure why. He was rude, and he always rolled his eyes. He rarely looked at me, and when he did, he glared.
Most girls would leave, but I stayed. I stayed through his anxiety, his anger, his sadness, and now, I’m staying while he’s ignoring me.
I forgot that she had been writing this while I was ignoring her. She’s probably written about how much she hates me. I continue reading, afraid of what I’ll see. I don’t want her to hate me.
> After doing this project, Levi expressed the fact that he didn’t want to be around me. He told me to pretend I’d never met him. I’m rereading the note he wrote me as I write this.
I can’t forget Levi, because it would be impossible. I won’t forget how his blue eyes get brighter when he’s happy (which isn’t often, but they’re like the color of a clear blue sky), or the way his jacket smells of cologne and smoke. I won’t forget the time he opened up to me about his loss, which I’m choosing not to write about here. I especially will always remember the last day we spent together on the beach, throwing Skittles at each other.
Levi isn’t like any boys that I’ve met, or any person I’ve ever known. He’s unique and mysterious and is constantly confusing me. But that’s what makes him so special.
I genuinely do believe that Levi is a fantastic person. When he wants to be, he is kind and gentle. I’m glad I’ve seen that side of him, even if only for a little bit. He has made a huge impact on me the past few weeks, whether he knows it or not.
Throughout the rest of her project, she explains the things she learned about me. She writes about the simple things like my birthday, and the more complex things that she’s noticed, like the way I rock on my heels or the way I rub my nose. She’s noticed things I didn’t even know about myself.
But the last sentence is what changes everything.
As strange as this may seem, I think I’m falling for him.
I look up at Aiden, who is smiling widely. I shake my head quickly and scrunch my eyebrows in confusion.
This can’t be real. She can’t really like me, can she?
“Does that give you your answer?” he asks, still smiling.
I nod slowly, and then, out of nowhere, I start crying. It starts slowly at first, but quickly speeds up.