Chapter 30
“What did you just say?” I ask on a breath that barely has enough power to make it out of my lungs. I couldn’t have heard him right. Those words. That declaration. They had to have been an auditory hallucination. A figment of my imagination. My most suppressed desires tied up in my greatest fears.
“I’m falling in love with you,” he says again evenly, simply, as if stating a fact. This conversation isn’t rocking his emotional foundation at all. He isn’t wrestling internally within himself, unsure which side should surrender—head or heart.
I guess that’s just me.
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “You can’t.” My defensive response is weak, and I’m honestly not even sure if I mean he can’t fall in love with me or that he can’t be telling me he is.
Because, as stated, my defense is weak. Already I can feel myself crumbling under his sure and steady gaze. Of the affection and, dare I admit it to myself, love I see shining there.
“I am.”
“But we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.
” I grasp at the first argument like low-hanging fruit and hurtle it his way.
The statement is true and easily volleyed.
Much easier than grappling with the other problems he’d be adopting if he tethered his life to mine in the type of commitment that love demands.
He shrugs, the maddening man.
“Levi, I . . .”
I, what?
I don’t know if I can do this right now.
I don’t want to hurt you.
I’m falling in love with you too.
I don’t want to lose you.
All true. Every one. Each thought and emotion wrestles with the other to come out on top. To be the one to be voiced into the world.
Levi gives me a soft look. One of understanding and a small degree of sheepishness. “You don’t have to say anything, Hayley. I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but . . .” He shrugs yet again.
“Levi, I . . .”
He brings his big palms to the sides of my face and leans down to press his lips to mine. When he pulls back, he looks into my eyes. “I read some of the entries of your notebook.”
I blink. “My notebook?” How have we gone from I’m falling in love with you to talking about my notebook?
“I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I saw my name, and before my brain could tell my eyes to stop, I’d already read the page.”
I wince, imagining what his reaction must have been. Anger? Confusion? Betrayal? “Levi, I hope you don’t think—”
“I don’t.” His hands still cup my face, and his fingers flex into the back of my skull for a moment before they relax again. “Well, maybe for half a second I did. But then I remembered. I know the truth.”
I’m falling in love with you.
I swallow the lump of emotion in my throat.
He’s giving me too much grace right now.
He should be upset or feel used or have questions.
It’s what I deserve, and besides, isn’t that how most people would react?
But instead, he’s calm. Not even asking for an explanation.
Is he so secure in his feelings—in my feelings—that even when there’s damning evidence in the palm of his hand, he only believes the best of me?
“How long have you kept track of your daily good deeds?”
I close my eyes, hot and prickly as my rising emotions seek a way out of my body.
Grace, but not an escape from accountability.
Levi is holding up that mirror once again, forcing me to look into it and examine my reflection.
This is a question I don’t want to answer. It’s too telling. Too revealing.
And his voice. He’s asking with compassion like a surgeon’s scalpel, lancing my wounds open.
I blink my eyes open, owing him some type of explanation. Compelled to give him reassurance that he was right not to jump to any conclusions. That my notebook is just my way of bringing light to a dark world.
Or maybe I’m still trying to convince myself that’s my single motivation.
He looks at me knowingly, as if he sees the parts of me that even I’ve been too fainthearted to study. It’s too much. I slide my gaze away, ashamed because I know there are broken pieces inside of me I’ve kept from being healed.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Levi’s deep voice rumbles.
I brace myself.
“You’re really blessed, you know that?”
I tuck my chin to my chest, equal parts relieved and disappointed. I do know I’m blessed. Blessed to still be alive when I should have died. Blessed to be given these borrowed years.
It’s a blessing I feel the weight of responsibility for every single day.
He crooks a finger under my chin, gently lifting my face back up into the light, then brushes my bangs out of my eyes. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, evidence that I’m not the only one assaulted with the thickness of emotions this conversation is bringing.
“So blessed to have been given a personal perspective of redemption and the cross.”
My brow furrows. Levi has jumped from telling me he loves me to bringing up my notebook, and now he’s talking about the plan of salvation when we’ve never once mentioned our personal faiths before beyond sharing a premeal prayer.
His grunting replies, I’ve learned to interpret.
But this conversation? “What are you talking about?”
His golden eyes shine like the sun in a cloudless sky.
“Think about it. If you grew up in a church, then all your life you’ve been told that Jesus died to give you life.
And you’ve experienced that type of gift—being saved from an impending death by the ultimate sacrifice of another—in a physical way that not many people have. ”
I blink at his reasoning, slowly understanding how the conversation ended up here. “It isn’t exactly the same.”
“No, you’re right,” he concedes. “But there are similarities. Jesus gave his life willingly for all out of his great love for us. Your donor’s life ended prematurely, but it was his or her wish or the wish of their family that they give the gift of life to another at their death.
A gift, Hayley.” He stares into my eyes as if willing me to understand what he’s saying. “One that can never be repaid.”
My gut twists and sours. “I know I can’t ever repay the gift I’ve been given.”
“Do you?” he presses, as if he doesn’t believe me.
“Yes!” I shout.
Levi flinches but doesn’t move away. Doesn’t retreat even though I know that’s his nature and instinct. This conversation is likely just as uncomfortable for him as it is for me, but he’s not withdrawing. His care for me is making him stay.
“Then tell me. What is your notebook?”
I sigh, trying to get my emotions under control.
I wasn’t prepared for this. For facing the fact that our hearts are already binding us together in a way that makes the future even more complicated than it was before.
For being confronted with my notebook and finally forced to take a good hard look at the uneasy questions about my daily acts of altruism.
My head is spinning, my heart pulling in erratic directions.
“I’m paying it forward.” That conviction, hearing it out loud, strengthens me. I lift my chin almost defiantly. As if challenging him to find fault with being aware and intentional, of doing good deeds. Of being a godsend to other people.
“Is that it? Or are you trying to prove you’re worthy of the gift of life you’ve been given?” he challenges right back, no bite to his words.
No bite, but they land like a blow just the same.
Levi scoops me up and settles me on his lap, his arms banding around me in a secure hold, offering me his own strength as he forces me to not push these questions aside any longer.
“Don’t cheapen the gift.” His chest vibrates beneath my ear as he speaks.
“I’m not,” I argue feebly.
He rests his cheek on the top of my head.
“Aren’t you?” he asks gently. “How many check marks do you think your donor’s family would say their loved one’s life was worth?
” He squeezes me tighter as if trying to protect me, but he doesn’t stop trying to help me see the truth even when he knows the truth is going to bring pain along with it.
“You can’t earn a gift of salvation by good works, sweetheart.
No matter how many good deeds or how many notebooks you fill or how many volunteer hours you put in.
You can’t earn it, and you can never be worthy by anything you do either. ”
My heart constricts in my chest. It’s what I never wanted to admit spoken into existence and no longer able to be ignored.
Facing the fact that someone had to die for me to get a new liver, that someone else on the transplant list didn’t receive the organ because I did, has caused a weight of guilt inside me so great that the only way I’ve been able to cope is with these notebooks.
It’s why I think I’ve already decided not to go on another transplant list when my liver starts to fail again.
I’ve already been given the chance for a longer life once, undeserving that I am.
It would be unfair to accept such a gift a second time and rob someone else of the opportunity for more years with their families and friends.
It’s what makes this thing with Levi so hard.
I take in a shuddering breath, fist my hands into the front of his shirt, and bury my head in his chest. My thoughts and feelings are a tangled mess, all wrapped together in emotions that are just now identifying themselves as guilt, relief, anger, and anxiety.
I should’ve talked to someone about these feelings a long time ago, but instead I let them tumble around inside me unchecked all these years.
Now I’m one giant knot inside and I haven’t the foggiest idea how to go about untangling it all.
I let out my breath and gentle my grip on Levi’s shirt.
His heart beats steady under my ear, his chest rising and falling in measured rhythms. Having spoken his piece, he now sits in silent support as I begin to process years of repressed truths.
His firm, unwavering presence solid against my side continues his conversation even when words have left him. He speaks to my heart.
You don’t have to go through this alone. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.