Our Hearts Knew Better (Our Hearts #1)

She Was Mine Too

It was getting harder to fall asleep at night. What did they—some other they —say? Something about reality finally being better than your dreams. . .

The walls were closing in more, a worse restlessness in my skin. The more I came back to this room, to this house, the stronger the pull to be out. And as jerky as I felt, I couldn’t shake it away.

Adam had texted, but I didn’t respond to him. It wasn’t a message that required a response. It was one that told me he wasn’t coming by this night. This was a sleep night for him.

But my own lids were far from each other if they weren’t blinking.

And I needed out. Almost more than any other night.

I was getting lazy, falling back into habitual passiveness. Waiting. . .

I hadn’t started out these nights that way so I wasn’t going to be that way tonight.

My covers almost landed on the floor with how I flung them off me.

I could’ve been quieter opening my window and climbing down the trellis.

And as I waited out there a few extra pulse-pounding moments to make sure my dad’s window stayed dark, my teeth clenched with silent words hurled up at the stilled curtains and as I hurried off, wondering which day it would be when I’d finally say them.

****

I found him again.

I went looking for Levi at the boat, and he was there.

He was coming from there as I was almost to the dock, riding a bicycle.

I didn’t realize how rigid my body was until all my limbs loosened at seeing him again.

We froze as we held gazes, like we had when we first met, him skidding to a stop and propping himself and his bike up with his foot.

He glanced over my head as I took the steps closer to him, like he expected to see somebody with me—maybe Adam—then met my eyes again once seeing I was alone.

“Hey,” I said low, swaying in my shoes and fingering my hair. It felt wilder tonight.

“Hey,” he said back, his chest lifted with a big breath.

“You said you’d see me, so…” I made some kind of curtsy gesture. A half curtsy. A curtsy one did when they were still learning how to curtsy. A ta-da that looked more like I had a sudden cramp in my side.

Levi’s dimple popped, putting a spring in my heart, but he remained quiet.

“Say something?” I prompted him through my flushed face.

“Hey,” he repeated through a laugh, and my face now broke out in a grin.

“I was looking for you,” I said next, as if the direction I was heading in wasn’t obvious; the bay was a lapping lullaby behind him.

“You were…” There was more statement in his tone than question, like he was processing, and I rushed more nerves-inspiring words.

“I wasn’t trying to stalk you or anything,” I told him with a small laugh, my stomach clenching with an internal cringe. If he wasn’t thinking I was stalking him before, he for sure was now. “You never texted me…” My tone had some trailing now.

Levi shifted on the bike, standing straighter as he studied me. “You never gave me your number.” His eyes were searching and so were his words.

I straightened, too, a new way of breathing in my lungs, a relief from that little pressure of thinking he had refused my number.

He hadn’t. I knew that thought wasn’t right.

“I gave it to Adam and asked him to give it to you,” I explained, watching his face slowly shift with a realization at the same time mine did, and I guessed it was the same one. “He must’ve forgot.”

His entire face softened now, and I could see an apology in his stare. “Yeah.”

Did Adam forget? I settled for that reason. Levi agreed with me. He knew his best friend better than I did.

And this number situation would be fixed tonight.

“So,” I said, lingering in my next words before I said them. “Since we’re here again…” It was that subtle flutter of his lashes, that sparked look, that moved me another step closer to him. “Wanna hang out?” This came out more high pitched in my hopefulness.

Levi hesitated, and I felt it like a full body slump, my foot sliding backward to disappear into a shadowy spot on the street.

“I wanna hang out,” he said quickly, like a hand reaching out to catch me, reminding me of when I literally reached for his hand on the dock after almost leaving him hanging. His sigh dissolved into a breathed laugh. “It’s just…” He looked down at his bike like it was a third wheel, or like it had a third wheel, that he couldn’t make go away. What do I do with this? was written in the cute scrunch of his face, and when he looked back up at me, I saw another apology there, like maybe he was sorry I didn’t have one too.

I’d never told him I didn’t have a bike. But I didn’t. The first and last bike I ever rode still had its training wheels.

I tried to simmer down my smile as I stepped up to the bike, knowing what he could do with it. “Make it straight,” I told him, and he shifted the bike out of its lean.

With a big breath, I straddled the front wheel, Levi’s stare like tingles on my back. He freed the handlebars as I reached back to grab onto them, and I sent a silent whisper to my twig arms to not fail me now.

Here goes nothing.

I pushed myself up onto the handlebars, realizing at the same second I should’ve warned Levi, but in that same second, he showed me he didn’t need one as he steadied the bike with his hands on mine and I steadied myself into a sitting position.

He blew out a gust of air and I smiled again, relaxing on the bars and under his warm and firm hold.

“We got it,” I announced as a cheer to our success and an assurance. Levi released another breathed laugh through my hair that moved the tingles up my neck. “Now you pedal,” I said, the tease a murmur at his closeness.

“I think I can do that,” he teased back as he positioned himself, then a squeal shook my throat as we took off.

“Where to?” he asked after a moment, and I immediately pictured the spot not too far from here.

“I saw a bridge I’d like to go to.” When I was out on a trip with Adam.

There was a small bridge that looked like a barn from a distance. It had a closed-in walkway attached to the side, and tonight, I wanted to be near the water while feeling the boards beneath my feet.

Levi sped up once I told him our destination and so did my heart and the wind through my hair and the sway of my dangling legs. I beamed as I held on tight to the handlebars and his hands held on tight to mine.

This was the magical ride. I felt it everywhere. No part of me wasn’t being touched by the breeze and the buzz.

And I felt Levi. We were skin on skin, our arms grazing together with each pump of the pedals.

He slowed down when the barn-like cover of the bridge was upon us, and after I hopped off the bike, everything else slowed down too. My heart hushed as the world quietened, the wind a barely there softness against my cheeks.

My focus was lifted toward the sky, at the arched roof as I moved forward, only dropping ahead again when I reached the walkway. I ran my hand along the wall boards that separated the walkers from the drivers and scuffed my feet along the floorboards.

“My mom loved bridges,” I breathed out as I heard Levi’s footfalls coming closer behind me. “So I love them too. I think it’s in our DNA,” I added with a laugh.

I told him about the few bridge figurines I swiped from my mom’s things. She was a collector, with shelves of them. Those shelves were always shut away in Dad’s room. That was my next sneak after my first out my window. So many bridges, I didn’t think Dad would miss any, and so far, he hadn’t. Swipe, rearrange to fill in the gaps.

Levi and I leaned beside each other on the railing, looking down at the glow on the water from a lone light as I told him this, and then dumped out more. He gave me a sense he genuinely liked listening to me. If there was anything I needed, it was to be listened to.

He told me about his mom, too, more about his dad. He lived one of those simple and normal lives, but he did know how good he had it. He wasn’t braggy, just aware. Happy in a way that rubbed off on me, in a similar way my sadness rubbed off on him, like when I first told him about my life when we were on the boat. It was like we were both living each other’s experiences as we talked about them.

With him though, he expressed himself like it was more than that. Like he really wanted to share his life. To give me something I couldn’t physically touch…yet.

“I think our moms would’ve liked each other,” he said with a fondness in his voice I could feel too.

The sting in my nose was sudden as I smiled down at the water, my next breath a lift in my entire body that moved me closer to him.

Levi’s scent was subtle. Like he just used the soap he showered with. Clean. Not obvious.

Adam’s scent was stronger, but still nice too.

Our arms brushed as he told me about the sea figurines his mom had. His family practically lived in a boat, that life not keeping to just the water. His house was decked out with anything related to sailing, including keepsakes his dad would bring back from his trips. He and his mom called them his trophies .

Levi’s dad was a sailor and his mom was a chef, Levi himself getting part of both those worlds.

“You’re seventeen,” he said after I told him I can’t cook, angling a look at me that was both teasing and relieving. “I think you get a pass for that one.”

“So what are you gonna make me?” I said back, copying his look, but lower to meet the lift in my shoulder. The awkwardness was gone from what I now knew was my flirty tone, but my smile felt a bit goofy.

He was smiling back, though, not appearing like he thought I was being goofy, warming my face with his gaze. “How about you pick and I’ll show you how to make it.”

My chest felt deflating with my exhale. That was another daylight plan and I still couldn’t make those. But Levi sounded so sure that I blew the feeling away with my inhale. “Banana nut bread.”

He chuckled. “That was fast.”

“It was my mom’s favorite.”

His gaze softened with his nod. “And you haven’t had any since then.” A realization statement, as he was catching on to my life’s details now without me having to supply the footnotes.

Dad didn’t want to make Mom’s specialties, even though he had all her recipes. He only wanted the physical things she’d owned, the things he could touch and hear and see, but nothing he could taste or smell. They say those two senses can be the strongest for memories.

“She smelled like honeysuckle,” I told Levi, moving on from the food. I hadn’t tasted or smelled honeysuckles in years. My face met the warm wind as I closed my eyes to welcome that memory. “We had a bush growing up the side of our house some summers ago, and I got one lick of the nectar before Dad cut it down.” My throat squeezed, as I could still taste that lone drop of sweetness on my tongue. I blinked my eyes open and out of the memory, my tongue now a bit bitter. “The bush was taking over . That was his reason.”

That was his lie .

I did understand, though, and I hated that I understood, because I couldn’t remember a time when my dad understood me or even tried to.

“I was too young to really grieve her, but my dad wanted to make sure I grieved in his way. Which was just keeping her all to himself.” Even those moments when we were listening to her music, I wasn’t really part of them.

But I wanted to keep Mom with me in my own ways. I wanted to eat the foods she loved, all the foods we both loved. I wanted to breathe her in, even if it was just from a plant or a bottle.

And I wanted to feel for my dad…but he didn’t feel for me.

I felt Levi’s arm press steady into mine and I leaned some of the weight of my next strained and low words onto him. “She was mine too.”

Mollie Kinnison was his wife, but she was my mom. She was mine too. My life and every piece of it was mine. Mine.

My teeth clenched with more silent words toward my dad that ached to swallow down. I hadn’t let myself feel my emotions this deeply about my mom. I was a kid when she died, but her break in my heart was still there, and I’d had nowhere to put those emotions. I had no one to share them with. Levi didn’t share my feelings, but he lent his ears and his shoulder. I probably could have cried on it if I wanted to, but we were surrounded by enough water.

“She was,” Levi affirmed, and the sting from my nose moved to my eyes, making it harder to keep the water under the bridge. His voice was tight and I peeked to see that jerk in his jaw.

I sighed against him, relaxing into the moment…trying not to count the seconds his arm stayed pressed against mine. So many seconds in the quiet as we listened to the light rustling of branches and low chirping of crickets.

These sounds and his firm steadiness would come back to me every time I needed them.

I would have walked all the way here on my own, but I was happy to have company.

I was happy it was Levi’s again.

“I like this spot.” I spoke at the water, then mustered a glance at him. He was looking at the water, too, but as soon as my head lifted, his eyes glided up to meet mine.

“I like this spot too.” He swayed us and my lips stretched as I watched his move more. “Want a fun fact?” He didn’t wait for a verbal answer because he couldn’t miss how every inch of my face screamed yes ! “This bridge is the newest construction in this town. It’s only as old as we are.”

“It was put up seventeen years ago?” I murmured half to myself as I ran my foot along the boards, feeling even more connected to this new place. There were already these beautiful bizarre happenings, these perfect timings, these flashing signs that I was supposed to be in Rosalee Bay when I was, and this felt like another.

Levi nodded. “I got my first bike at five and rode it through here whenever I could.” His foot now ran along the boards, bumping against the side of mine.

“And every bike since then.” I repeated part of his words, my realization statement, and he nodded again, his dimple deepening with the half twist of his caught me expression.

“I’m saving up for a car,” he told me, a scrunch now in his mouth like he was a bit ashamed for not already having one. Until he remembered who he was talking to and gave me a smile for this piece of our different lifestyles we had in common.

“That’s cool,” I assured and acknowledged. “And I like riding on handlebars just as much as I like walking,” I said, the hint in my voice this pulse of energy that pushed me from the railing and carried me back toward the bike, the thought coming to life in my movements.

Levi was beside me in just a few steps and the pulse pushed again.

“So I’m gonna give you my number and you’re gonna use it.” My eyes widened after my words registered and I turned my cringe away, taking a focused interest in the darkness of the trees like they were the most interesting assortment of leaves I could barely see.

I was attempting to be playful through an eagerness practically rippling through my body for him to keep in touch, but I sounded more just demanding .

But then I was biting at my building smile, an extra spring in my step that Levi continued to keep up with, as I thought why not ? Why shouldn’t I insist and urge and make attempts, even if it might backfire a bit. I was saying exactly what I wanted, making things happen. All of this was happening because of me . Because of my choices I was allowing myself to make. So why shouldn’t I drive things forward? I couldn’t go backward. And I wanted more nights with him.

I wanted my number in his phone.

So why not?

I can change.

I can make change.

The lightest touch to my arm jolted my stare to Levi as he held out his phone. “I’ll use it,” he said as we slowed to a stop, and it didn’t just sound like another promise, it was one.

My hands wrapped around the lit up screen that was ready for my contact information, right under my name. Summer.

I tapped in the numbers without either of us taking our eyes off each other. His were searching again, and I wondered what he was looking for, when he seemed to find it and gave me a smile that sent a thrill through my heart.

I handed over the phone, then inhaled a little gasp as I yanked it back. “Wait.” I had to double check that I got my number right since my mind was lost in Levi. His mind was lost in me too.

His grin widened as I released his phone before his lips pressed back together with a softer stare.

Levi slipped the device that was going to keep us connected in the daylight into the pocket of his shorts as we started forward again. When we reached his bike, I paused while he kicked up the stand, then walked on, my body too psyched to be stilled.

He walked with me, wheeling the bike around so there wasn’t any space between us.

“How’d you know you could ride the handlebars? I didn’t even know that.” He sounded impressed and it wasn’t just his height that had my head held high in my glance at him.

“I read it in a book once.”

“Which book?”

I told him all about my books. That detail of my psyche not even Adam knew yet. Some of my favorites. I told him how books and television were my survival manuals. How I’d learned a lot from reading and observing the hundreds of fictional people I had in my life. A few hundred more than the only real one who taught me next to nothing useful.

At one point, when we were nearing the street to my house, another night coming to an end, it was like the world wanted to lift the sudden sinking feeling in my chest.

A breeze blew strands of my hair across my face, making me realize the pile of frizzy curls was most definitely a rat’s nest from the bike ride.

My fingers were attempting their reflexive taming when Levi leaned into me and murmured, “You look great.”

My hands froze as my cheeks warmed, strands tangled around my knuckles, those words flashing me back to the night we met. I lowered my arms and looked at him with a shaky smile that steadied the moment a streetlight we passed under helped me spy some warmth in his cheeks too.

I hadn’t imagined those words that night. And I didn’t have to imagine them tonight. I didn’t have to imagine them at all.

I knew that was what he said, and this time, he made sure I heard him.