Art & Soul

“The night I slept with you was the night after I tried to fix things with Nadine,” he whispered at a volume that was almost mute. “We were already broken up for over a month, and she had no plans on getting back together with me. I came over to talk to Mike about it, and we ended up going to a party and getting drunk. I felt lost, broken.”

“So you were drunk when we slept together?”

“No,” he said quickly, turning my way. “No. I sobered up. But I was still lost. I didn’t handle things after she told me she had a miscarriage. I was still missing something I never really had. Something I never wanted. That nearly destroyed me. I was leaving Mike’s room and when I walked past yours, you smiled at me in a way that almost made it seem like everything would be okay. And then after you got pregnant, I reacted the same way I did with Nadine, searching for a quick fix. But, as time went on and I saw your stomach and that this whole baby thing was really happening, I guess I felt like it was a second chance to do the right thing.”

“You are doing the right thing,” I said, placing my hand on top of his. “It just so happens that sometimes the right thing sucks.”

He snickered and went back to staring at the stars. “So what do we do now?”

“You finish your senior year, then you go off to Duke and make something of yourself.”

“And you?”

Me?

I learn to breathe again.

* * *

I started homeschooling the first week of the New Year. Mom and Dad both worked random hours, and since they didn’t want me home alone during my online classes, I stayed with Keira each day.

Every day around lunchtime, I saw Mr. Myers walk outside toward the woods. By the time I left Keira’s in the afternoon, either Daisy or Lance showed up to spend the evening with him.

When the curiosity got the best of me, I packed up my lunch and followed him to the woods one day.

He stood on the snow covered ground, staring up at the old tree house.

“Did you build that for him?” I asked.

He slowly turned around to look at me and sneered. “You’re trespassing.”

“Yeah, I am, but I brought you lunch if you’re hungry.”

He huffed and walked back to his house, slamming the door in my face.

Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

I showed up at lunchtime each day for three weeks. It wasn’t until February that Mr. Myers let me inside. Actually, his nurse let me in, but it was good enough for me.

“You’re really annoying, you know that, right?” he muttered, sitting in his chair watching black and white shows.

“I brought chicken noodle soup.” I smiled.

“Not hungry.”

“Your nurse said you haven’t eaten much today.”

“Probably because I’m not fucking hungry,” he growled. He was grumpy a lot, but being that I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, carrying around Jicama, I had my grumpy days, too. I opened the soup, grabbed a spoonful, and hovered the spoon in front of his mouth. “What’s your problem?!” he hissed. “Why won’t you let me alone?”

“Because no one should spend their lunchtime alone. Not even grumpy men who think they deserve to be lonely.”

He huffed and puffed some more, grumbling at me, but he opened his mouth and took the soup.

“Your son’s ignoring all of my text messages, and I don’t know why,” I said after a few more spoonfuls of soup.

“His mom said it’s because he thinks you’re better off.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Why would he think that?”

“I don’t know. But everything Levi does is always to help. It’s just who he is.”

Mr. Myers’ words ran through my head for a while longer, but I didn’t speak about Levi anymore. “I didn’t know you and his mom still spoke.”

“She calls me every night,” he said. “She wants me to know that I’m not alone.”

I ate lunch with Mr. Myers each day until the last day of his life. Sometimes he stayed in his bedroom, so I would play the CDs that Levi made for me and the baby, which always helped Mr. Myers sleep better.

Other times, we watched television together.

One of the last things he told me was to tell his son that he loved him until the very end.

43 Levi

Dad passed away the second week of March. Mom wanted to fly in for the funeral with me, but I told her I didn’t think she should. She’d have to miss her appointments at St. John’s, and I knew they were keeping her mind balanced. She was doing so well, I finally had my mom back. I wouldn’t want her to fall backward from the stress of Dad’s funeral.

My trip to Mayfair Heights would only last a week before I had to be on a plane back to Alabama. Aria had texted me the word of the day for the past sixty-eight days. I never replied, except to one message.

Aria: Are you even thinking of me?

Me: Every day.

It was true, too. I thought about her all the time, wondering how she was doing, wondering if the baby was okay.

When I reached Wisconsin, Lance picked me up and drove me into town so I wouldn’t have to take the city bus. It was funny how everything was the same, but so different. Lance lost some color to his eyes. When we pulled up behind Soulful Things, he parked the car and we sat silent for a few minutes. He tossed his hair on top of his head, then rubbed his fingers repeatedly over his face.

“I keep waking up hoping it was a dream, you know? That my brother’s still an asshole living down the street, eating artificial TV dinners.”