CHAPTER 33LeviAureliaLevi
Levi
The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of sun and serenity.
They lounged on the back porch, tucked into matching coral Adirondack chairs, basking in the kind of quiet that only came with real comfort and presence. Levi couldn’t remember the last time he had been able to just be . Not multitasking. Not thinking ten steps ahead.
He drank one of his favorite beers they had picked up earlier, while Aurelia enjoyed a tall glass of iced tea. When he asked her what she liked to drink, she surprised him.
“I never really saw a need nor acquired a taste for it,” she had said. “I engage socially here and there with champagne or something mild like that, but it's simply not something that I use to unwind or have fun. So, I'll always be your designated driver,” she added with a wink.
He hadn’t verbalized it then, but Levi admired that kind of decision to resist the pressures or distractions that others so easily succumbed to.
With the breeze coming in from the lagoon and the warmth of the sun casting long shadows across the porch, Levi opened up about himself in a way he had not expected to do so early in their relationship.
“There are different types, and it varies from person to person. It’s how the brain identifies speech, sounds, and how letters and words represent them.
I have visual dyslexia, which feels like my brain isn't getting the entire picture of what my eyes are seeing. Text blurs or feels like it goes in and out of focus; kind of like it doubles. Following a line of text or keeping my place within it is hard.”
Aurelia didn’t interrupt, didn’t try to fix or soften it. She listened , her attention wholly on him, and Levi felt it, like a tether grounding him.
Looking back, he didn’t understand why he had been so afraid to tell her. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty.
“That's why the menu change at dinner was so stressful. Then all the different items and labels of the extremely specific ingredients you needed…it would have taken hours, and I’d end up with an epic migraine.”
He took a sip of his beer, engrossed in the calming ripple of the water.
“Growing up was rough. I couldn't remember what I saw on a page, no matter how long I stared at it. Learning to spell and write was a nightmare. I fell asleep in class so many times because it was so fatiguing. My teachers thought I was lying about the constant headaches and dry eyes.” He gripped his beer tightly.
“That I was lazy . I excelled in everything else academically except reading and writing.”
Aurelia carefully asked, “What about your parents?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “My drunk and useless father didn't give two shits about his 'stupid son' while my mother was too involved in herself to bother. The only person who cared was my grandfather—my dad’s dad—but that lasted only so long, too. He passed away when I was thirteen. My mother soon followed a year later at the hands of my father…”
Aurelia gasped, almost knocking over her glass of iced tea, visibly stricken.
“…and thankfully, my father drank himself to death when I was nineteen. I’ve known Owen since we were kids. He took the role of kicking anyone’s ass who made fun of me in school very seriously.”
When Levi looked over at her, she was blinking hard, trying not to cry. The sight of it unraveled another piece of him.
“When you see him tomorrow, and only after you make him grovel for his transgressions, ask him how many times he was in detention or suspended for fighting because of me,” he added with a faint grin.
“Will that make him upset?”
“Quite the opposite; he’ll proudly share his war stories like a badge of honor. He’s been threatening for years to get a tattoo tallying the numbers on his ass.”
Aurelia snorted and shook her head gently. “I’m glad you had someone in your corner like that. But I’m sorry you had to experience any of this.” She lit up with recognition. “Is that what the tattoo on your back is about?”
My wife is gorgeous and more intelligent than I am , he thought proudly.
“It sure is…meant to show how strong it has made me, although I obviously don’t always feel that way. A phoenix seemed too cliché, and it was better than the options Isaac and Owen were pushing on me.” He took a purposely long sip of his beer.
“Go on…you can’t just stop there!”
Levi chuckled. “Isaac was insisting it be some kind of software code,” Aurelia scrunched her nose in disapproval, “…and Owen was all in on it needing to be something manly and dominant like a bare-chested behemoth of a man riding on the back of a gigantic hawk as it flew over a sea of naked swooning people. After I promptly shut that idea down, I caught him trying to bribe the tattoo artist into hiding small penises in the branches of the tree.”
The belly laugh that burst from his wife was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard—second only to how breathtaking she looked while cackling with unfiltered joy. It took her a moment to settle, wiping at her eyes as she eased back into the conversation where they’d left off.
“How does that affect you now?”
Levi sobered quickly and shrugged. “It’s still part of my everyday life, but I’ve spent years building something that turns it into a strength, so no kid like me ever feels broken because their brain works differently.”
Aurelia gave a small nod, the weight of it carrying silent understanding. “Good thing you now have an amazing wife on your side too,” she said, her voice laced with warmth and certainty.
Levi studied her for a moment, the corners of his mouth lifting. The smile he gave her then was different than the others; not the cocky, practiced kind, but something gentler and authentic.
And for the first time in a very long time, he didn’t feel alone.
Aurelia
Their earlier conversation echoed in Aurelia's mind as she worked beside Levi in the kitchen, hands dusted in flour, helping prepare the pizza dough.
She learned so much about her new husband and his harsh upbringing that it seemed no easier than hers. She admired how he turned his dyslexia into the basis for his success, instead of hindering it.
Despite wealth and privilege, he managed to raise himself in the ways that mattered most. She was unsure which was worse: growing up without any parents or growing up with parents who were physically present but emotionally void.
“So, what about you? What was it like growing up? Your profile didn’t list too many details other than no other family and being a ward of the state,” Levi asked, cutting through her thoughts with a question that was both direct and vulnerable.
Aurelia sucked in a breath. “Oh…um, there isn’t much to say really,” she hedged.
“It wasn’t the best situation—I think I grew up before I should have to be honest.” Levi frowned but kept kneading the dough.
She swallowed hard, fighting against the instinct to change the subject, never having warmed up to anyone enough to feel comfortable sharing.
But that promise to be honest lingered in her mind.
Levi didn’t push. He simply kept kneading, a frown tugging at his brow. If he could trust her with his truths…maybe she owed him the same.
She inhaled deeply, grounding herself.
I can do this, no big deal.
“My mother was an addict and I’ve never known who my father was.
She never talked about him. I had to make dinner with whatever food we happened to have and figure out how to wash the minimal clothes I owned when I was really young through reading books at the library.
..sometimes I learned the hard way.” She held out her forearm, displaying a patch of skin different from the rest. A burn-related scar. He blanched.
“One of our neighbors in the rundown complex we lived in could barely afford to take care of herself but still managed to give me food when she could. My mother liked to party hard and often wouldn’t come home for days, so my neighbor kept an eye on me.”
Levi stilled, dough forgotten as he gaped at her, horrified, but Aurelia didn’t notice. She was no longer present, mind locked on the past.
“One night she came home, worse than I’d ever seen her, but I helped her undress and get into bed.
I made sure she was lying on her side so she wouldn’t choke if she threw up, like I usually did.
The next morning, I looked in her room, and she was sleeping—which was normal—so I got myself ready and off to school. ”
“When I got home, she wasn’t out of her room yet, which was unusual.
I went to check on her again, only to find that she was—she hadn’t moved at all, still in the exact same spot and position as the night before.
I didn’t feel anything other than fear of what would happen to me.
I knocked on my neighbor’s door and told her what happened.
The next thing I knew, the police were there trying to explain what ‘overdose’ meant, and I was taken to a stranger’s house. ”
Aurelia’s voice was flat now, devoid of emotion.
She focused on slicing the bell peppers for the pizza toppings with unnecessary force.
“Then I was hopping from home to home, hoping some family would adopt me, fighting to keep whatever possessions I had safe, trying to make it through school. Cycle repeated until the last home where I stayed until I turned eighteen and aged out.”
She finally looked at Levi when he let out a low whistle.
“How old were you when your mother died?”
“Eight.”
He paled. “No other family that could take you in?”
“None that they could find.”
Levi shook his head, rattled. “What was school like?”
She shrugged. “Lonely but otherwise fine. Making friends was tough because of the constant moving, especially in middle school and high school. I kept mostly to myself—wasn’t bullied except for a brief period when I was twelve.”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned rigidly against the island, arms crossed. Aurelia handed him the rolling pin, an unspoken command to start rolling the dough.