“You will get there. Take it easy on yourself.”
“Man, my thirty-year-old self would be pissed to see how much I’ve slacked off.” He moved to a hallway, much quieter. “How are you?” His face moved closer to the screen, and he squinted. “Why have you been crying?”
I blinked back in surprise. I really tried to make sure allevidence was gone before I called him. “How can you tell?”
“How can you tell when you’ve got to burp? You just have the look.”
“Thanks?” I blinked to clear my mind.
“How are you holding up? Any more news?”
I called the next day after the best and worst day. How Levi and I could have such a wonderful night after the worst day of my life still plagued me.
“I’m at a crossroads, Dad. I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked as if that was just the easiest thing in the world. Who really knew what they wanted? How did one become a person who just knew things without looking at them from a thousand different angles? Seemed like a sort of magic I just did not possess.
I was back at my cabin. I had packed up the car that had remained unused for weeks and very little of my own stuff remained. I held Ripley on my lap in the kitchen.
“You know how I’ve been working on that project? I finished it,” I said. I’d spent weeks collecting information about Lily and her life to write something for Levi. It had filled the time between the stories for the online journal. “I wanted to give him something as a thank you. But I think it might be deeper than that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It felt necessary for Levi to see his mom and this life from a different point of view. And in writing her story and the stories about other people in town, I really liked the personal touch. Ican’t explain it.”
“That might be worth exploring.”
I groaned and felt my brain pulling in so many directions. Fighting with Levi was awful. I hated being so close to him and feeling his hurt and frustration. But I also couldn’t put myself in a position to lose everything again. I missed important details and suffered the consequences when the world shook around me.
“I have no idea how to figure out what I want,” I said.
“What would you do if you could do anything?” he asked.
“I want to go back in time and—” I cut myself off. I was going to say, “Never ask Kevin to quit,” but then I could go back further than that. Never come out here? Never write that article? Never meet Kevin? Just how far back would I go until the person I was today was erased completely? I wouldn’t want to forget Levi. I wouldn’t want to lose these past few weeks.
“And not hurt Levi,” I finished.
“How can you guarantee that you’ll not hurt him? What happened?”
I explained, not in so much detail, the offer Levi proposed and his love confession.
“And. You don’t believe him?” my dad asked.
“It’s not that I don’t believe him. I think hethinkshe’s in love. But Levi is like that. He’s emotional and artistic and … just veryfeely.”
“And we know how that upsets you?”
“I know you’re joking, but I’m super sensitive about that rightnow. It’s not that I don’t have feelings. I just can’t always express them well. I’m not some unfeeling robot.” My voice cracked.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Claire Bear. I know that. I thought that was our joke.” My dad looked pained, and the guilt ate me up.
“I know. I’m sorry. I-I just feel awful. He looked so pitiful. Not unlike you’re looking right now.”
“Well. People are going to get their feelings hurt. And not that you hurt mine, but I would like to point out that you said something to me about my teasing that I don’t think you would have said before,” he said.
I thought about that. It was true. I never would have been able to tell my dad that I was feeling touchy about a subject, let alone even identify that that was happening in the moment. “I guess he rubbed off on me a little.”
“It’s good that he’s emotionally intelligent. It’s a skill set that, I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t always had.” My dad scratched at his head. “But I don’t think that it’s insane to think he’d be in love with you. You’re very lovable.”
