by Ashley Royer
“Oh,” Delilah says, not quite knowing how to respond. “I’m sure whatever you do will be great!”
“I hope so. Christmas won’t be the same without Levi.”
I bite down on my lip, suddenly missing my mum more than ever. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. I don’t like thinking about the fact she’ll be alone on Christmas. My being in Maine is probably harder on her than it is on me.
Not long into the video chat, Delilah’s phone rings. She leaves the room and returns after a few minutes.
“That was work. I guess they need me to come in. Do you think you could watch Lucy for me? My parents are going out in an hour, and I was supposed to watch her,” Delilah says quickly.
I’m not sure I can take care of Lucy on my own. It shouldn’t be that hard, though. She’s a pretty simple kid. I nod slowly.
“Really? You’re the best. Okay, I’ll be right back!” Delilah says.
When she leaves, my mom starts talking about her and asking me questions.
“Is she your girlfriend?” she asks.
I shake my head, feeling my cheeks heat up.
“Do you want her to be?”
I shrug and nervously chew on my bottom lip.
“It’s okay if you do,” Mum reassures me.
My mum knows about the voice mail. I played it for her the day after I listened to it because I needed advice. I was so upset, and I knew Mum would be able to talk me through it. I thought about asking my dad about it too, but decided against it. He didn’t know Delia, so he probably wouldn’t have been much help. My mum thought it was extremely sad, but said it should give me hope for the future. Those were her exact words.
I blankly stare at my mum through the computer.
“I like her. She’s very nice,” my mum says.
I nod slowly.
Delilah comes back a little later with Lucy, who is very excited to see me.
“Levi!” she shrieks, jumping up and down. I pull her up onto the bed, and she waves to my mum. “Are you Levi’s mommy?”
“I am! And who are you?”
“I’m Lucy. I’m three.” Lucy always introduces herself by telling her age. “I’ll be four in, uh, Janwary?” She pronounces it wrong, but it’s cute.
“It’s in February,” Delilah tells her, laughing.
“Febwary. I’ll be four in Febwary!” Lucy says excitedly.
“That’s great!” my mum says, sounding as excited as Lucy.
Delilah tries to hug Lucy before leaving, but she squirms away from her and clings to me. I put Lucy on my lap, and she leans against me.
“Bye-bye, Lila!” Lucy says as Delilah leaves. She has a hard time saying Delilah, so she calls her Lila sometimes. I like that nickname.
“Bye, Lucy! Be good for Levi, okay?”
“I will!”
Lucy grabs both my hands and puts them in front of her, and she holds tightly onto them. She moves them and claps them in front of her, giggling every few minutes as my mum talks.
“Whoaaaa,” Lucy says, pressing my hand to her face. “It’s as big as my head!” she shrieks, even though it’s muffled by my hand.
I laugh and pull my hand away from her face. She continues to hold my hands as I video chat.
My mum tells me how Caleb is doing. It’s summertime in Australia, so he’s not in classes right now. By this time next year, he’ll be done with school. I wonder where I’ll be a year from now.
Once we’re done video chatting, I say bye to my mum, and Lucy complains she’s hungry.
“I want fruit snacks,” she says as she follows me into the kitchen.
I have to lift Lucy up to set her in a chair while I search for fruit snacks in the kitchen. We don’t have any, though. I knew we wouldn’t—I don’t think we’ve ever had fruit snacks.
Lucy ends up having cookies, and I’m afraid she’ll choke from talking with so much food in her mouth. Thankfully, she doesn’t. I don’t know what I would’ve done if she had choked.
“Can we play hide and seek?” Lucy asks when she finishes her cookies.
I nod.
“I’ll count first!” Lucy says, jumping off her chair and covering her eyes. “One, two, three . . .”
I quickly walk to the closest hiding spot I see, which is under the table. I almost hit my head, but I don’t.
“Ten!” Lucy yells.
She turns around and runs down the hallway, oblivious to the fact that I was hiding right next to her.
I hear her footsteps run back to where I am a few minutes later. She looks behind the couch, as if I could possibly fit behind there, and then she finally finds me.
“I got you! I was super-duper fast. You gotta try to do better!” she yells, laughing. “Your turn to count!”
I count in my head, giving Lucy more time than she gave me. I wait until I can’t hear her footsteps anymore, and then I search. It can’t be that hard to find her.
I look under the table because I remember when I was little, I would always hide wherever someone else had. She’s not under there. I check my room; she’s not there either.
I start to get worried after a few minutes go by and I still haven’t found her.
I check every single room in my house. She’s so small, she could fit practically anywhere. But she’s nowhere to be found.
I get even more worried when I realize the back door is open.
She couldn’t have gone outside, could she?
I notice the tiny footprints in the snow.
She’s definitely out there.
I quickly put on my jacket and shoes to go find Lucy. I can’t believe she went outside. Isn’t the first rule of hide and seek to not go outside? Are there even rules to hide and seek?
My heart starts pounding, and my hands start shaking. I can’t get a panic attack now. Deep breaths, Levi. I focus on the footprints instead of my anxiety.
How have I lost Lucy when I’ve only been with her for less than two hours?
When I get to the trees in my backyard, I can’t see any footprints. I check the obvious spots behind bushes and trees, but there’s no Lucy.
This can’t be happening. I debate texting Delilah or Aiden, but I don’t want them to not trust me. The first job I have been given, and I mess up. I screw everything up.
Of course my dad is at work too. There’s no one to help me.
If I were a three-year-old, where would I hide? She probably isn’t too far. I walk through the woods that are connected to my backyard, listening for Lucy.
It’s been over ten minutes. How far could she have gone?
After fifteen minutes of searching, I’m about to break down. I’m so scared I’ll never find her. She could be anywhere. We never should have played hide and seek. Trying to find a three-year-old hiding in the snow is nearly impossible. There are so many different places she could be.
I notice a pink ribbon in the snow, the same pink ribbon Lucy had in her hair today. She has to be somewhere around
here.
My breathing has been quickening, and I’m trying so hard not to hyperventilate. The freezing temperature outside isn’t helping either.
I realize that in order to find Lucy, she’s either going to have to be calling for me or I have to call for her.
But I can’t call for her. I can’t.
My heart rate increases even more, and it feels like my heart is about to burst through my chest. I open my mouth, but close it.
I can’t. I don’t even know if I can talk anymore.
I shake my head and shut my eyes tightly. Maybe this is all just a bad nightmare. I open my eyes, and I’m still standing amongst a hundred trees. I tug at the ends of my hair and crouch down in the snow. How could I have been this stupid? I rub my eyes to try to stop myself from crying and stand up as best as I can with my shaky legs. I feel like I’m about to pass out. Everything is getting blurry. I quickly blink and take some deep breaths.
I clear my throat and lick my lips. I take another deep breath and slowly let it out.
That’s when I hear her call my name.
“Levi!” I hear someone say quietly.
I turn around to where I heard her voice, and see Lucy sitting down in the snow, tears streaming down her face. She’s hugging her knees to her chest, and her cheeks are pink.
I run over to her and pick her up, wrapping her in my jacket to try to get her warmer.
“You didn’t find me,” she chokes out. “It took you so long, I got scared. I saw Sven, and—and, I wanted to give him a hug, so I went outside and he came out here and then I didn’t know where I was and you weren’t here and it’s so cold out and I was so scared,” she says in one long sentence through her sobs.
She wraps her arms around my neck, still crying.
I feel like the worst person in the whole world. She’s so upset. I’m happy I found her, but I’m so mad at myself for losing her. I walk back to my house, my heart still racing. I can feel Lucy shivering.
“I’m so scared,” she says again. “I thought you’d never find me.”
I take a deep breath and ignore my racing heart. “You’ll be okay,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“You—You talked,” Lucy says, picking her head up from my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
I forgot what my voice even sounded like. It’s lower than I remember. I know that if I want to comfort Lucy, I’ll have to talk. She’s so frightened right now, I can’t not talk to her.
“I thought you couldn’t,” she says quietly.
I shake my head.
“I just wanna go home,” she says.
I take her back to my house and give her one of my sweatshirts to wear, even though it’s longer than her whole body. I wrap her in two blankets and put her in front of the heater, worried that she’ll never warm up.
I sit with her on the couch for a while because she’s so scared. She cries for a very long time, which is expected. She was outside alone for over twenty minutes. I’d be scared too if I were her.
I text Delilah to tell her what happened. She responds, saying she’ll be over soon.
“Levi,” Lucy whispers while she’s laying on top of me.
I raise my eyebrows.
“Tell me a happy story.”
I clear my throat, unsure I want to talk again. But seeing Lucy so upset, I give in and tell her a story. I look up a book on my phone that my parents used to read to me when I was younger—Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. It seems kind of long, so I decide to only read a piece of it.
I take a deep breath and clear my throat. I start to read from the beginning of the book.
“I like the way you talk,” Lucy says after I read the second page. “Keep going.”
I laugh. “You have feet in your shoes.”
“I’m not wearing shoes.”
“Pretend you are.”
“Okay.”
I continue reading. “You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
“I won’t follow Sven anymore.”
“That’s a good idea.”
After I finish a few pages, I realize my heart rate has finally slowed down. I’m out of breath from the talking, though.
“What’s a slump?” Lucy asks after a few minutes.
“Huh?”
“Read where it said slump.”
I look for the part she’s talking about. “And when you’re in a slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
“What does it mean?”
I take a second to think about it. “It means if you’re feeling upset, it’s hard to be happy again. But you can do it.”
“Like you?”
I’m taken aback by her comment.
“Yeah,” I say quietly.
“You can get un-slumped then, right?”
I nod slowly.
“Good,” she says, cuddling closer to me. She shuts her eyes, probably exhausted by today’s events.
I am too.
It’s weird to be talking again. I forgot I even had a voice. I’ve become so used to not talking that now it’s a struggle to say anything at all. It feels abnormal to speak, like it’s not natural. I’m not sure I want to have anyone else know I talked. I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet or if I ever will be. This may be a one-time thing.
Delilah comes after awhile, running inside.
“Is she okay? What happened? Levi, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone … I’m so sorry.”
I can tell that Delilah raced to get here. She’s breathing quickly and her cheeks are bright red. She must have been so stressed and worried.
I take out my phone to type something, then decide not to. “It’s okay,” I tell her quietly, feeling my cheeks heat up.
“No, it’s—Wait, did you just talk?” Delilah says.
“He talks now,” Lucy says quietly.
“Yeah, I talk now.”
Delilah runs over to me and hugs me tightly.
“I thought I’d never hear your voice,” she whispers.
“I know. Me too.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
DELILAH
I can’t believe Levi actually spoke yesterday. It doesn’t even seem real. Yesterday, when he talked, I thought I was imagining things. I hugged him for so long, I even started crying.
He made Lucy and me promise not to tell anyone, though. He’s not ready to speak to anyone else, which is understandable. He went months without saying a word, so it’s not like he’s going to instantly switch and talk nonstop. It makes me happy that he’s only talking to us right now. I guess I mean more to Levi than I thought.
I don’t know what I expected Levi’s voice to sound like, but it’s better than I could have ever imagined. I almost forgot about the fact that he’s Australian and would talk with an accent. I could listen to him talk all day. Right now, however, he talks in a whispe
r, and it’s a little shaky and hesitant. He clears his throat a lot too, and it’s like his voice is fragile and could break any second. I’m so afraid he’ll stop talking again, and this will only last for a short time. I hope he never stops. With Levi, however, I can never be sure. He could never speak again.
All day I’ve been waiting to get home just so I can talk to Levi, and he can talk to me. As I’m walking out of the school, I notice someone in all black leaning against a tree. That someone could only be Levi.
I walk over to Levi, which is hard because the sidewalk is frozen over. I finally make it over to him, but slip on the ice that’s in front of him. He reaches out quickly and catches me before I fall, tightly holding on to me.
“Thanks,” I whisper, realizing how close his face is to mine.
“You literally just fell for me,” he says, quietly laughing. I feel my cheeks heat up, and I quickly stand, regaining my balance.
“You did not just say that,” I say, embarrassed.
“I did,” he says, biting down on his bottom lip. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” I say, laughing. I decide to change the subject to avoid any more awkwardness. “So what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” he tells me. Now his cheeks are turning red.
“Oh,” I say, smiling.
“Did you want to see me?” he says quietly.
“Yeah, of course I did.” I nudge his shoulder, and he scrunches his nose at me.
We head toward my car, which isn’t too far. I’m guessing Levi’s dad drove him here since Levi doesn’t have his license. That’s why we always walk everywhere, but now it’s too cold to stay outside for very long.
We pass by Mitchell and Levi waves. I didn’t know they knew each other.