Chapter 27 #2
The sun had nearly disappeared by the time he turned through a pair of tall black gates.
Beyond them sat one of the waterfront properties he owned, with a modern white mansion I had only seen in photographs.
The house rose three stories above a wide circular driveway, and its glass walls reflected the last streaks of orange and pink across the sky.
The warm lights lined the path leading to the entrance. Large arrangements of red roses stood on both sides, mixed with candles protected inside tall glass cylinders. My name had been worked into a gold sign near the steps. Right below it, in smaller letters it said: Twenty-Seven.
I looked at Lev and he kept his attention on the driveway as though the entire front of the house hadn’t been transformed for me. “This is dinner?” I smiled.
“The food is inside.”
“That’s not what I asked.” I smirked while shaking my head because he was always up to something.
He parked near the entrance and came around to open my door before I could reach for the handle. When I stepped out, the music became clearer. A violinist stood beneath the covered entry playing one of my favorite songs.
I stared at the house again. “Lev.”
“Come on.”
“What did you do?”
“Walk in and see baby, damn stop asking all these questions Nay.”
He offered his arm instead of reaching for me, allowing me to decide how much support I needed.
I linked mine through his and moved carefully up the path.
The ground was smooth, but I still concentrated on each step, planting the heel of the prosthesis before shifting forward.
Lev matched my pace without looking down.
At the door, he reached ahead and opened it. The lights inside came on all at once. “Surprise!”
The sound hit me before I saw everybody.
Grandma Lulu stood near the front with both hands raised, already crying.
BJ was beside her in a deep purple dress, smiling through tears of her own.
Monica, Tasha, my aunts, cousins, former coworkers, and more people than I could process filled the open living room.
Lev’s family occupied the other side, along with Mike and several men I recognized from around him.
Red and gold decorations filled throughout the house.
Photographs of me were lined on one wall with childhood pictures, nursing school graduation, family holidays, and newer images from rehabilitation that I didn’t know anybody had taken.
A large table held a black and gold birthday cake beside wrapped gifts and arrangements of flowers.
Everyone clapped as I entered and my first instinct was to stop because crowds had become difficult.
I was always aware of where people looked, and I didn’t know whether to adjust the dress or close the slit.
Then Lulu pushed through the group and wrapped both arms around me.
“Look at my baby.”
She held my face between her hands and kissed both cheeks. “You are so beautiful.”
“Thank you, Lulu.”
She glanced down at the prosthesis without sadness, then back up at me. “And look at that leg. That thing cost more than my first house.”
BJ laughed beside her. “Probably cost more than three of ours.”
The tension left my shoulders as people came forward one at a time.
Nobody treated me like I might break. They hugged me, complimented the dress, joked about the cake, and filled the room with enough noise to keep me from thinking too hard.
Tasha waited until most of the others had greeted me.
We had never spoken about what I heard in the rehabilitation room, she still believed I had been asleep.
Our friendship continued, but I had changed the parts of myself I handed her.
She didn’t notice, or maybe she did and chose not to ask.
I no longer called her first with every fear.
I no longer trusted her with information that could be used against me.
I loved her, but the love had boundaries now.
She hugged me carefully and held on longer than necessary. “Happy birthday,” she whispered.
“Thank you.” I smiled.
When she pulled away, tears filled her eyes. “You look so good.”
I looked her up and down and complimented her as well. “You look pretty too.”
She wiped beneath one eye before the makeup could run. “I promised myself I wasn’t crying today.”
“You should’ve made a more realistic promise.” I teased.
She laughed, and for a moment we felt like the women we had been before everything became complicated.
Dinner was served outside on the terrace overlooking the water.
One long table stretched beneath hanging lights, surrounded by candles and red roses.
A private chef prepared food inside while servers moved between the guests with trays of drinks.
Lev kept me beside him throughout the evening, but he never hovered. When I needed to sit, a chair appeared. When the socket began to feel tight, he quietly asked whether I wanted to go upstairs and remove it for a while. When I told him I was fine, he accepted the answer instead of questioning me.
After dinner, everybody gathered near the pool for the cake.
The violinist began playing again as the lights around the terrace dimmed.
I looked toward the house, expecting someone to bring the cake outside.
Instead, the people closest to us began moving away, creating an open space near the edge of the pool.
My stomach tightened. Lulu covered her mouth.
BJ smiled like she had been waiting all night for that exact second.
I turned toward Lev. “What’s happening?”
He stood in front of me with both hands inside his pockets. For the first time since I had known him, he looked nervous. Not afraid. Lev didn’t allow himself that kind of expression. But there was tension in his jaw and something uncertain behind his eyes.
“Come here,” he said.
“I’m already here.”
A few people laughed softly. He ignored them and took my hand. The music continued behind us, low enough that I could hear the water moving against the side of the property. The Miami skyline glowed in the distance, blurred slightly by the tears already gathering in my eyes.
Lev looked down at our hands before raising his gaze to mine. “I don’t do speeches and everybody standing around waiting on one ain’t making this shit no easier.”
More laughter moved through the crowd, but his eyes stayed on me.
He continued. “When I first met you, you I didn’t know if I wanted to love you or end you.”
I stared at him. “This is your opening?”
“Let me finish.”
I pressed my lips together.
His thumb moved across the back of my hand. “But you made me feel something I wasn’t looking for. I didn’t plan on caring about nobody like that. I damn sure didn’t plan on falling in love.”
My smile disappeared as the weight of his words settled over me. I didn’t want to cry but I couldn’t help it.
“I watched you go through shit that should’ve broke you,” he continued. “I watched people who was supposed to protect you be the ones that hurt you. Then I watched you wake up in that hospital and have to learn how to live all over again.”
My eyes burned like hell now. Lev’s voice lowered even more, and the people around us seemed to disappear.
“There were days you didn’t want nobody touching you.
Days you ain’t wanna look in the mirror.
Days you was mad at everybody because your body didn’t do what you wanted it to do, and every one of them days, I looked at you and saw the same woman. ”
A tear slipped down my cheek. He lifted his free hand and wiped it away.
“You keep thinking I love you around what happened to you. Like I gotta see past something.” He shook his head slowly.
“I ain’t looking past shit. That leg is part of you now, and I love every part of you.
Ain’t nowhere else I wanna be, and ain’t nobody else I wanna be there with. ”
The crowd got completely silent. Lev released my hand and reached inside his jacket.
I nearly lost my breath as he removed a black velvet box, then lowered himself onto one knee.
Behind me, part of the crowd gasp and part cheered but all I could see was him, the same man who had held me in the parking lot while I bled.
The man who sat beside my hospital bed when I screamed that I didn’t want to live.
The man who learned how to clean my incision, adjust my shower chair, and help me through phantom pain without ever making me feel helpless.
The man who never once treated my body like it had become less worthy of wanting.
He opened the box exposing a large oval-cut diamond, surrounded by a hidden halo that caught the light beneath it. Smaller diamonds covered the band, each one set so closely together that the entire ring appeared to glow.
I stared at it as my lips trembled. My divorce with Rome had finalized three months ago and I wasn’t so sure I would ever get married again, but Lev isn’t Rome. “Lev.”
“Seven-carat, flawless center stone,” he said. “Custom setting, cost two hundred and eighty thousand before BJ start asking.”
His grandmother yelled from behind him, “I already know!”
Everybody laughed through their tears. I covered my mouth with my free hand.
Lev looked up at me, with his expression serious again.
“I’m not asking because you almost died.
I’m asking because I feel sorry for you.
I’m asking because I decided a long time ago that wherever you end up, that’s where I’m supposed to be. ”
My tears came faster. “I love you so much,” I told him.