by Ashley Royer
She sits beside me and laughs. “Why are you over here so early, anyway?” I notice that she’s wearing the necklace I got her.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” She tilts her head to the side and scrunches her nose cutely.
“Well, Delia’s parents sent me a letter, and it made me realize that I really like being with you, and you make me really happy, and you’re the good thing I needed, and I know I say stuff like this all the time, but I’m really thankful to have you in my life, and I felt the need to come and tell you that right now because you never know when something might happen,” I say very quickly. I feel my cheeks heat up.
“You’re so cute, Levi,” she says, smiling. “I’m thankful to have you in my life too.”
“But I don’t think you know how much you’ve done for me. You’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, and you’re making my life so much better. And it’s weird to think that I lost someone who was that person to me, and I thought I would never be happy again. But I am, and it’s because of you. I used to think that I could never find someone that would make me as happy as Delia did, but you do. You make me happier than I’ve ever been. It’s a different kind of happy than how Delia made me feel. It’s a whole different set of emotions, and it scares me so much.” I’m still talking really quickly. I barely take any breaths in between sentences.
She reaches out to hold my hand. “Don’t be scared,” she says quietly. She smiles lightly. “It’s okay that someone other than Delia is making you happy. I’m happy that I’m that person for you.”
“Everyone is saying that. But that’s not what I’m scared about.”
“Then what is it?”
“I like you, Delilah. A lot. All you have to do is smile, and my heart starts racing, and I hate it. I never thought I would ever feel this way about someone other than Delia,” I blurt out.
She smiles and squeezes my hand. “Sometimes the best things aren’t really what you were searching for.”
She leans closer to me, and I can feel her light breaths. She smiles again and blinks slowly.
“Is this okay?” she whispers. It’s like what I used to say to her.
I nod and smile, even though I’m extremely nervous. Our noses are almost touching.
Suddenly, Lucy comes running into the room. “I can’t reach my sippy cup in the fridge!” she yells.
Delilah quickly scoots away from me and jumps off the bed. She rolls her eyes and walks over to Lucy.
“I, uh, I’ll be right back,” Delilah tells me as she goes into the kitchen.
I nervously rub my nose as I wait for Delilah to come back. What even happened? Is it going to be awkward when she comes back? Like, was that an almost kiss? I don’t even know, I’m so confused, everything is so confusing. I don’t know what just happened. Maybe it wasn’t an almost kiss, and I just imagined it.
Delilah comes back shortly after and sits down next to me again. “Sorry about that,” she says, looking down at her hands.
“It’s okay.”
“She ruins everything.”
I shrug and rub the back of my neck. “I should get going. Caleb wanted to go see some new movie.”
“Oh, okay. I, uh, I’ll see you later then,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, and Levi?”
“Yeah?”
She quickly kisses the tip of my nose and her cheeks turn pink. “You make me happy too.”
Chapter Forty-Five
LEVI
Wait, what do you mean you had an ‘almost kiss’ with Delilah?” Caleb asks me. He’s sitting cross-legged on the air mattress with his guitar beside him. I got home about an hour ago, and Caleb has been helping me figure out what happened.
I pace my room slowly. “I don’t know. Like, we were leaned in and everything, and then Lucy came in and couldn’t reach her sippy cup, and Delilah left, and when she came back she kissed my nose,” I tell him, all in one breath. “Is that an almost kiss?”
“You literally had a girlfriend for over a year, and you’re horrible at relationships. Clearly it was an almost kiss!”
I pull at the ends of my hair and take a deep breath. “So what does that mean now? Is it going to be awkward the next time I see her? It’s so going to be awkward, I know it will be. Am I supposed to kiss her for real now? I don’t know . . .”
“Stop answering your own questions,” Caleb says, laughing lightly. “You need to relax. Everything will work out. If you make it awkward, it will be awkward.”
“I won’t make it awkward, then.”
“You’re one of the most awkward people I know,” Caleb says.
I groan and sit down on my bed and put my head in my hands.
“Give me your phone,” Caleb says, reaching his hand toward me.
“No, why?”
“Just give it to me.”
I reluctantly pull my phone out of my pocket and toss it to Caleb.
He unlocks my phone quickly, and it’s weird he still remembers my password. He quickly types something and puts the phone up to his ear.
“No, you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” I exclaim, trying to grab the phone from him.
He moves away from me so I can’t reach my phone, and he keeps kicking me away.
“Hi, Delilah! It’s Caleb!” he says cheerily.
“Hi?” I hear Delilah say. I have my head close to the phone so I can hear too.
“So, I was wondering, do you want to go ice skating with Levi and me tomorrow? Aiden and Mitchell can come too. I just thought it’d be fun for us to all go.” Caleb smirks at me and raises his eyebrows. I shove him, and he kicks me away from him again.
Caleb continues to talk, but I can’t hear Delilah anymore. “Okay . . . Sounds good . . . We’ll ask Aiden and Mitchell too . . . See you then . . . Bye!”
Caleb gives me my phone and picks his guitar back up. He begins to play softly.
“Well, are you gonna tell me what that was about?” I ask.
“Oh, I mean, I could. If you really wanted me to.”
“Do you want me to send you back home?” I say sarcastically.
He puts his hands up. “Jeez. We’re all going to go ice skating tomorrow at one o’clock. Call Aiden and Mitchell to ask them.”
“And why are we going ice skating?”
“Like I said, you are clueless in relationships. Ice skating is romantic, I am told. You can hold her hand and skate around and do whatever cute stuff people in relationships do.”
“We’re not in a relationship.”
“Well, you’re close enough. Buy her a hot chocolate and warm up her hands or something. Girls like that.”
“You’ve never even been in a serious relationship. How do you know what girls like?”
“I’m Caleb Hopkins. I know everything.”
“I’m seriously going to put you on the earliest flight to Australia.”
“I’m being helpful. I’m a great friend, and you’ll be tha
nking me tomorrow—just wait and see.”
“I’m nervous,” I tell Caleb as we park in front of Delilah’s house. Aiden is driving, and Mitchell’s meeting us there. Caleb is in the passenger seat, and he turns around to look at me.
“It’s Delilah. Don’t be nervous,” he says.
“But she makes me nervous!” I blurt out.
Aiden laughs and turns around too. “You’ve both admitted to liking each other, so stop being so panicky. Just go for it.”
“But—” I say.
“Don’t even say anything about Delia,” Caleb mumbles, turning around. He always knows when I’m about to bring her up. “Delia was then. Delilah is now. It’s okay, Levi. I promise.”
Aiden smiles sympathetically.
“Okay,” I say quietly, opening the car door. I’m not sure why I’m so anxious; I always hang out with Delilah. But that almost kiss has changed everything.
I’m afraid I’m going to mess everything up. Everything good in my life always turns bad, and I don’t want that to happen with Delilah too. I’m trying my best to not mess things up.
I ring Delilah’s doorbell and wait patiently on her front steps. The door opens shortly after, and Delilah stands there, smiling.
“Hey,” she says, walking outside. “Nice mittens.”
“Caleb has my gloves,” I pout. I nervously fix my hair, which just makes it worse because I have mittens on. Delilah laughs and quickly reaches up to help me. “Thanks,” I mumble.
She smiles and gets into the car.
“Hey, guys!” Delilah says.
“Hi!” Caleb and Aiden say in unison.
Delilah and I laugh. Delilah’s hand is in the center of the seat, and I debate reaching for it, but I don’t.
Aiden starts to drive to the skating rink, and we all talk about random stuff. Caleb and Aiden argue over which radio station to listen to, but they finally agree on listening to one of Aiden’s CDs. I like how Caleb gets along so well with Aiden and Delilah. It’s like we’ve all known each other our whole lives. Caleb fits in perfectly with us. I really don’t want him to go back to Australia in a week.
We get to the rink, and Mitchell is sitting on a bench waiting for us. He waves excitedly when he sees us. He has a giant sweater on that goes way past his hands, so he continuously tugs the sleeves up.
The rest of us get some skates and sit on the bench to put them on.
Everyone else gets their skates on with ease, but I stare at them in confusion.
“Guys,” I whisper.
“Yeah?” Delilah says, sounding concerned.
Caleb groans. “Levi, you better not say what I think you’re going to say.”
“I can’t tie the skates tight enough,” I mumble, struggling to tie the short laces.
Caleb starts laughing uncontrollably, to the point he’s gasping for breath. I slap his arm.
“It’s not funny!” I tell him.
“It kind of is,” Aiden says, laughing too. He already has his skates on and is walking around. I don’t get how he’s able to walk on the blades.
Delilah smiles. “I’ll help. You don’t know how to skate, do you?”
I shake my head.
Delilah smiles and ties the laces on my skates with ease.
“Now how do I stand up?” I whisper to Delilah.
She laughs and stands up in front of me. She holds out her hands to me. “Just hold on tight and try to get balanced. It’s not that difficult.”
I grab tightly onto Delilah’s hands and try to get up, but fall back onto the bench.
“Let me try again,” I say, laughing.
I try again and manage to stand up. I hold on to Delilah’s hand, and waddle awkwardly over to the edge of the ice so I can hold tightly to the ledge.
“Can we just go out there already before I fall?” I ask.
“Y-You’re probably g-gonna fall on the i-ice,” Mitchell says.
“But there’s a wall to hold on to. I can do it.”
Aiden, Caleb, and Mitchell step onto the ice and skate away from Delilah and me. Caleb looks back at us and gives me a thumbs-up.
Delilah steps into the rink and reaches her hands out toward me. “Just step slowly onto the ice.”
“I’m gonna fall,” I whine.
“I won’t let you fall. C’mon,” she says, smiling.
I reach for her hands and slowly step onto the frozen wasteland before me. I slip a little with my first step, but Delilah grabs tightly to my hands. I’m not sure how she stays balanced with me almost knocking her over.
“I don’t like this,” I say, laughing. “It’s weird.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
It’s supposed to be the other way around. I should be teaching Delilah how to skate. It’s embarrassing that I don’t know how. I’ve never been skating before in my life. I’ve never even been able to roller skate.
Delilah starts skating slowly. I’m somehow able to skate slowly with her, although I lose my balance a lot. We’re going very slowly so I don’t fall, and she never lets go of my hand.
“Your hand is very hard to hold with a mitten on,” Delilah tells me.
“Oh, well, I can fix it,” I say. I fold off the top of the mittens, since they’re the convertible kind.
“Much better,” Delilah says, entwining her fingers with mine.
We pick up the pace as I get more comfortable with skating, and I’m actually not that bad. I thought I would constantly be falling, but I haven’t yet. Caleb skates quickly by us. He used to always go to indoor skating rinks when he was younger.
“Hot chocolate,” he whispers in my ear as he passes.
I roll my eyes.
“Do you want anything? Like hot chocolate?” I ask Delilah.
“Maybe in a little.”
“Okay.”
Suddenly, I completely lose my balance, and within a second I’m crashing onto the ice. I land flat on my butt, and Delilah falls down with me. We both sit on the ice, chuckling.
“I just saw my life flash before my eyes,” I say.
“You’re such a klutz,” she laughs, standing up. She reaches down to help me, and I can barely stand back up. I keep slipping, and I can’t straighten my legs.
“I think it’s time for hot chocolate,” I say, still sitting on the ice. I don’t even bother to stand up, I just crawl to the exit. I can hear Delilah laughing behind me.
I get off the ice and sit down on the ground to take off my skates. Delilah sits beside me. I brush off some ice that’s on my pants and try to warm myself up.
“You’re a goof too,” Delilah says, taking off her skates as well.
“You’re the one who decided to sit on the floor with the goof, though,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes and smiles.
“I saw that,” I hear Caleb say. I look up to see Caleb, Aiden, and Mitchell standing above us.
“You fell too,” I say.
“At least I got myself back up.”
“I’m h-hungry,” Mitchell says abruptly.
“Me too. I want some nachos. Do you guys want anything?” Aiden asks.
“Two hot chocolates, please,” I tell him.
Aiden and Mitchell go over to the concessions, and Caleb goes to the bathroom. Delilah and I find a table in the corner.
“Today was fun,” I tell her. “Thanks for teaching me how to skate.”
“You weren’t too bad,” she says, leaning her head on my shoulder. “You just have to figure out how to stand up after falling.”
“That was pretty embarrassing, wasn’t it?” I say, turning my head so it’s almost hidden behind Delilah’s.
“Kinda. It was cute though.”
I laugh, and we sit in silence. It’s a nice silence, though. She’s breathing slowly while she’s leaning against me. I take her hands inside mine and try to warm them up like Caleb advised me to. Her hands are pretty cold.
Caleb walks over and sits down across from us. “How cute,” he says.
Delilah moves slightly, but doesn’t pick her head up. I continue holding her hand inside both of mine and set them on my lap.
Aiden and Mitchell come over with the food and give us our hot chocolates. Neither of us move to drink it because we don’t want to let go of each other’s hands.
Delilah sighs and shifts closer to me.
“Are you tired?” I whisper.
“No. I just want to be closer to you.”
Chapter Forty-Six
LEVI
After ice skating, we all went to Aiden’s house. Each of us fell asleep while watching a movie, and I when I wake up on the couch, Caleb is lying on the floor, and Aiden is snoring in a chair. Mitchell is leaning against the stairs holding a stuffed animal, and I’m not really sure how or where he found it.
I look around for Delilah, but she’s not anywhere in the room. Maybe she went home.