“I don’t know. I’ve always been the one to read the room. My parents are emotionally allergic to discomfort, so I became the buffer. The one who kept things together.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was,” he says simply. “But it’s also who I am, I guess. I’ve gotten good at noticing the cracks before they split open.”
“And what am I in that metaphor?”
He laughs, shaking his head aggressively. “Oh, you’re a locked room. And I’m just grateful you let me in.”
Locked rooms still want keys.
I’m not used to this. To being witnessed for the parts I usually keep buried. We eat in silence, passing bites back and forth like a ritual neither of us acknowledges out loud. I catch myself watching how he avoids the blue cheese as if it’s offended him, how he exhales softly when he finds the dried cherries.
“The flowers,” I say, “they were lovely. Perfect, actually.”
Levi’s cheeks flush from the sudden compliment.
“I don’t think I ever really…I don’t know how to explain it. But they felt right. Like you knew exactly what was needed. And you gave it to them.”
His throat works around a swallow. “I wanted them to feel like they belonged there. Like they were supposed to be part of it all. For them…andfor you.”
I nod. “They did. Thank you.”
He looks at me like my gratitude is more intimate than anything else we’ve done tonight.
And it might be.
Maybe that’s why I don’t flinch when he asks, “Is it always this…heavy?”
He doesn’t need to clarify; I know what he means. The weight of holding everyone’s grief in my hands like it won’t shatter me if I’m not careful. I lean back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling, pretending it might have a simpler answer.
“Sometimes,” I say eventually. “But recently? More.”
Levi’s quiet for a moment. Then, “Why?”
My gaze finds his. There’s no point in deflecting.
“You, obviously.”
He blinks, caught off guard. I see the question in his eyes before he asks it. “Me?”
“It’s easier when you’re detached,” I say. “When people comeand go and you don’t let yourself care too much. That’s how it’s always been for me, at least. I watch them live, grieve, move on, and I stay exactly where I am.”
I shake my head, looking down at our tangled legs under the comforter. “But you’re not passing through. You’re…here. Rooted. And quite stubborn about it, too.”
He laughs, but I don’t. Not yet.
“I don’t know how to ignore that,” I finish.
He sets aside his glass, threading our fingers together. “Have you ever let yourself feel this way before?”
I snort quietly, the sound more breath than voice. “Once.”
Levi shifts, propping himself up. “Go on.”
The memories hit all at once. The warmth of another sun, another century. The sting of something I thought I could keep.
“His name was Perseus.”
