He stops feeding to lift his eyes, a question in them.
I point to the kitten in his arms with my chin. “That one you’re holding is Meowfoy. This one”—I puff out my chest to indicate the one cradled there—“is Hermeowne. And that one”—I flick my gaze to the gray kitten attempting to walk across the blankets but falling down every other step—“is Dumpurrdore.”
The skin around his eyes crinkles in amusement. “I’m sensing a theme.”
“You’re very astute.”
“So that one’s the only girl, then?”
My face flushes. “Checking the gender first would have been a good idea, huh?”
There’s no sound coming from his lips, but his eyes are laughing at me. “Maybe.” He sets the empty syringe down, then gently places Meowfoy on his feet, head facing away, and scratches the kitten on his back right above his tail. The tail raises as if on reflex, and Levi lowers his head to study the kitten’s backside. “This one is a boy.” He checks the other two. “They’re all boys.”
“Oh.” Oops. “I guess Hermeowne needs a new name then.”
“What about Harry Pawter?”
I blink at Levi. “Brilliant.”
A soft smile plays at his lips. He looks relaxed. Maybe the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him.
“I got your letter,” he says out of the blue.
I’d forgotten all about the letter. It feels ages ago since I slipped it under his door. At the mention of it, though, anticipation thrums through me. I’d written things that I probably wouldn’t have said out loud. Amazing how the written word does that, makes you braver and more vulnerable at the same time. With Levi’s initial letter, I’d felt like I understood him in a way that I haven’t with anyone else simply because of that openness on the printed page.
A strange sort of disappointment sinks in my belly. I was kind of hoping that he’d write me back, but if he’s bringing the letter up in conversation, I guess he’d rather talk about it than pen me another note. But of course he would. Across-the-hall pen pals is a silly notion. Letters are for long-distance, not for people who are practically living together.
“I wrote you back. Sorry it took so long.”
My breath catches as my eyes snap up and pin on his. “You did?”
He nods. “I slipped it under your door, like you did.”
My bottom lip is pulled between my teeth. I look at him, look at the door, then make my decision and stand. “I’m not even going to pretend to come up with some excuse aboutneeding something from my room right now that neither one of us would believe, so I’m just going to come right out and say it. I’m leaving to go read that letter now. I’ll see you later.”
I set the fed kitten down on the pile of blankets and retreat to my room, Levi’s delighted laugh ringing in my ears.
16
Dear Hayley,
Books have a way of shaping us that is unexplainable. Our thinking, our worldview, our sympathies and desires can all be influenced by a creative pen and an open mind. While you were secretly wishing to be wooed in an epistolary fashion, I was holding on to the hope of an epic adventure filled with clues and riddles to be solved that would lead me to a great treasure. I haveTreasure Islandto thank for those hours of imagining buccaneers and buried gold. Who knows, maybe it’s not too late for either of our childhood bookish fantasies to come to fruition.
My heart leaps into my throat, but I mentally tell it to slow its roll. It would be easy to jump to conclusions here. Just because Levi hints at the possibility of me finding love through letters and he’s writing me letters doesn’t mean he intends to be the man wooing me in epistolary fashion, as he put it. His statement is infuriatingly benign, actually. More of an off-handed comment than anything else. Was it a hint of sorts, or am I still operating under a lumberjack, kitten-pillow, hormone-induced haze?
Were your many hospital stays the beginning of your love of books? I imagine you probably had a lot of time where your movements were restricted and you escaped the drab and depressing hospital through stories. Will you tell me about it sometime? Why you needed medical attention (are you still at risk?) and the impact that had on you?
I nibble on the inside of my cheek. I don’t have a problem telling people about my organ transplant. It’s a fact that happened in the past, end of story. Except that it really isn’t the end of the story. I still have to be vigilant and careful every day; eat right, exercise, take immunosuppressant medication daily so my body doesn’t reject the transplant. Anytime I get a cough or a fever, everyone worries it’s a warning sign of an infection. Even a common cold can be extremely dangerous, and I see the doctor more than the average person.
Not only that, but organ transplants have an expiration date. My new liver added years to my life that I wouldn’t have without it, but the new-to-me organ won’t last forever either. I’m living on borrowed time. That’s something that doesn’t come up in conversation naturally and can be a major mood killer, as I’m sure anyone can imagine. But Levi has specifically asked, and there isn’t any reason not to tell him. Except that he’ll probably look at me with pity...
I square my shoulders. Well, I’ll just have to put it all in a letter, then, that way I won’t have to watch his expression change, and I can warn him not to treat or look at me any differently or I’ll curse him with perpetually damp socks for the rest of his life. The threat of blisters and fungal infections should scare him straight.
For me, books have always been a comfort, an escape. As you can imagine, living in a house with six other people was loud and often overwhelming. We lived in a typical suburban community, so there weren’t any woods to escape to, but wedid have a large, old oak tree in the backyard. I’d climb up there, as high as I could, until my sisters bickering faded to a decibel that didn’t make my ears bleed. I needed something to block out the world around me and found that if I focused on a book, immersed myself in a story world, then everything around me sort of dimmed and waned. For most of my childhood years, I had a hard time figuring life out. But getting inside a character’s head and seeing things through their eyes and how they dealt with whatever life threw at them helped me to sort out my own thoughts and feelings.
First lumberjack Levi, then kitten-pillow Levi, and now vulnerable-about-his-childhood Levi? How is a girl supposed to withstand this type of swoony onslaught?
Wait. WhyamI trying to withstand?
