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Ouch. So I was the reason for it. Not a good feeling, even if I nearly cracked up at the way he’d said it. I bit down on my lower lip, trying hard not to burst a gut while laughing at the ridiculous honesty of that statement. Still, the pain behind it was evident, not only in how insanely wasted Levi was but in the lines around his mouth and eyes. That sobered me up quickly enough, even if it didn’t come close to helping him sober up.
“Thought I’d keep Nicky company,” he slurred. “Koz wanted to keep throwing strippers my way, having them give me lap dances and shit, so I’d stop being so depressed about you. But I don’t want them. I want you. I want you way too fucking much, but you don’t want me.”
I blinked a few times, not sure if I was trying to fight off tears or if I was simply stunned by what I was about to do. “I do want you,” I said before I spent too much time analyzing it. “That’s the problem.”
His head whipped around to stare at me with bloodshot eyes. “Why’s it a problem?”
“Because I’m scared.” There wasn’t any point hiding the truth. Levi was so drunk, there was no chance he’d remember a single word I said. I could tell him everything without fear that any of it would sink in.
Heck, maybe I should. It’d be nice to tell someone in my life everything, or at least someone other than my counselor. I’d filled Sara in on some of it. Cam only knew the bare bones. Mom and my sisters were aware of even less than Cam. The thought of relieving myself of the burden, of ridding myself of the enormous lump that had settled in the center of my chest and refused to budge, was so tempting I doubted I could resist.
“You scared of me?”
I shook my head. “Not you.” If anything, I was scared for him. And for me. There hadn’t been too many times in my life that I’d even admitted to myself how much fear I lived with on a daily basis, but Guy showing up at my practice today had sent it all rushing straight back to my heart. Stopping my pulse. Stealing everything good from me in an instant.
There wasn’t any good way to describe it other than fear. And it was debilitating.
“It’s that asshole, Guy, isn’t it?” Levi pressed. “He’s still in your head.”
“In my head?” I shrugged. “It’s not as simple as that.” Nothing was simple.
“Why not?”
I hesitated. Glanced across the waiting room to find that the boys were still fast asleep and Elin might as well be. She wasn’t paying any attention to us. Cam still hadn’t returned from dealing with whatever trouble Harry had gotten himself into. All of that meant there was no point in lying, no reason to tell him anything less than the truth. I bit down on my lower lip again and then I went for it.
“He showed up at practice today.”
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Levi tried to stand up, but his foot slipped and he fell down again almost immediately.
I put my hand on his, hoping it would keep him where he was. We might be in a hospital, but that was no reason for him to go and hurt himself by doing something stupid. “Trying to get me back,” I said. “Telling me how he can’t live without me. Threatening me. And threatening you, too.”
“What about me?”
“Guy knows about you. He didn’t come right out and say he’d hurt you if I didn’t stay away from you, but he might as well have.”
“So that’s what your note was about? Trying to warn me off? So, what, so you can fucking protect me?” Levi was practically roaring now, with no signs of recognizing he was in a public place and should keep it down. “That’s fucking backwards, Cadence. Screwed up. I’m not the one who needs to be protected from this son of a bitch. I saw how he fucking made you cry back in the Winter Games. Maybe no one else did, but I did. I saw it. Fucking bastard.”
Throughout his entire tirade, I kept trying to calm him down so he wouldn’t wake the kids or cause a scene. There weren’t any others in the waiting room at this hour, but there was no telling when someone else might come in. His eyes were flashing, so full of hurt and anger and booze that I could barely find the sweet, self-effacing, funny guy I’d come to care about underneath it all.
“Levi, please,” I said, taking his hand in both of mine and drawing it to my lap.
“Has he threatened you before?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Or maybe. I don’t know. Everything’s a mess in my head.”
“What everything? Tell me.”
My shoulders started to go up in a shrug, almost involuntarily, but I stopped myself. “It started years ago. Not long after we first became a team. Things were going great. Our coaches and choreographers loved us and had high hopes for us. I thought I’d hit the jackpot because we seemed like such a perfect match. But before long, it started. He’d catch a rut with his skate in practice, and because of the way we’d be skating side by side, I would stumble or maybe fall. In the early days, he would glower at me and grumble about keeping my footing, and I’d apologize and promise to do better. There was never any point arguing that it hadn’t been my fault, that he was the one who’d caused the mishap. He wouldn’t hear a word of it.
“Before long, I started to believe it myself—because the rest of the time, he was as charming as ever. He was great in front of the cameras. He was personable. He went on and on to anyone who would listen about what a great team we made, how we were going to go as far as we could in figure skating. We were going to win the gold. Or we would, he’d tell me, as long as I got my act together and stopped screwing everything up all the time.”
“Son of a bitch,” Levi grumbled. He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. Although, he wasn’t slurring his words anymore. My admission might have done the unthinkable and sobered him up somewhat. That could be dangerous. Maybe he’d remember some of this tomorrow… I couldn’t exactly stop telling him now that I’d started, though.
“It really was my fault often enough that I took it all on myself. And the longer we were together, the worse it got. Early on, he was careful to only berate me when we were alone and no one else would hear. But once we started dating, that changed. I’m not sure if it was because we were together all the time or something else, but he forgot all about that filter. He’d do it quietly so the whole world wouldn’t hear, but hearing about how inadequate I was quickly became a daily thing. And it spread to areas that weren’t strictly related to figure skating. If I wanted to go out with my sisters, he gave me a hard time because I wasn’t giving him enough attention. If I tried to start up a friendship with someone, he soon convinced me that relationship was bad for me, so I’d cut it off before it turned into anything substantial or lasting. He did his best to make sure he was the only person with any influence over me, the only one who held any sway.”
“Why the fuck did you put up with that?”
This time, I couldn’t stop myself from shrugging. “It started so small, but it kept building. Gradually. A bit at a time, he took over my life. I thought he loved me and was pushing me to be the best. That he was looking out for me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was cutting me off from everyone in my life who would put a stop to it.”
