Head Over Feet
I set those plans into motion the next time I could steal Levi.
He was so enthusiastic about accompanying me to the fire tower. He saw Rosalee Bay like a museum, eager to show and tell.
And I was eager for knowledge, about him and about the place I could see as home when I was with him.
My heart was kickstarted with a fluttery beat each new night I laid my eyes on him. I wondered if his heart had the same reaction to seeing me. I imagined—hoped—it did.
We biked to the location, then it was a bit of a hike, the breeze decreasing in temperature the higher we climbed, giving my bare arms and legs a shock, but it wasn’t cooled down enough for a one-night wardrobe change.
Since my night at the bay with Adam, I upgraded my outing clothes to actual clothes. I’d change back into my pajamas once I got back to my bed. I had on a pair of jean shorts and a red shirt.
The red was only half purposeful. My eyes landed and lingered on this one and a purple one, then I blinked and was holding the red.
Levi did eye the shirt for too many seconds to suggest he didn’t notice. And I’d even spied his dimple, that he’d angled away with some color in his cheeks, as we’d mounted his bike.
Cha-ching!
“It’s one of the oldest but one of the coolest,” he told me as we came upon the tower, aglow this high directly beneath the moon.
The moon was full, and so was my lungs, expanding and stilling as I took in the structure, my feet carrying me forward, feeling so drawn in. And I couldn’t say exactly why this connection was there, just as it was with the bridge.
The tower stood tall, in all its bruised and battered pieces. Like I wanted to. Unafraid in abandonment. Like I wanted to be.
I stopped just as I reached the stairs, gesturing to the next climb with a glance back at Levi. “Can we?”
He looked up at the tower with that adoration on his face as he breathed a laugh. “We’re not supposed to, but everyone else does.”
I shimmied like this was the best news ever, and his smile dipped back down, stretching as he watched me, right before I twirled around to take my first step.
I stopped again as it creaked under my shoe, my body braced like we were about to be caught. The sound was similar to the floors in my house. These creaks I’d heard all the time weren’t attached to my sneaking, but I froze like my dad was around the corner up ahead.
“What happened?” Levi asked through a half whisper, like he automatically knew to go low from the loud, concern in his voice. I’d only stopped for a second. Or maybe it only felt like a second.
“It sounded like my floors.”
He shifted behind me. “Step here,” he said, showing me the side to climb to avoid the creaks, and we were back on a quieter move.
“You come here a lot,” I concluded with a smile.
“I’m everybody else.”
I could feel his returned smile in the words, but they made me slow my pace, drawing him closer to my back as I murmured over my shoulder, “You’re not at all.”
I hoped he understood my meaning, that he was uniquely Levi and no one besides he and Adam had ever done for me what they have.
And I got my confirmation as I grabbed hold of the railing, turning for the next flight of stairs, when his hand slid up to mine, his thumb gliding along the side of my palm, tickling against my skin.
As we continued the climb, Levi told me everything about the tower. It was the town’s prized landmark, and one of the couple dozen still standing in North Carolina. The room at the top was called a cab, and watchers would be stationed inside, spying for smoke or full blown fires they would report through phones or radios or some other ways.
Windows ran along all sides and I immediately peeked inside once we reached the top. It was empty but for a few random pieces of old furniture littered around.
“There’s so much space.”
Levi leaned into the open space beside me. “It could get cramped.”
I faced him at the amusement in his tone, wrinkling my nose in teasing defense. “Not for one person.” I peeked back inside. “It would be a cool place to live.”
“You think?” Levi asked, like he hadn’t considered the thought, and peeked inside too. My body made a little bouncing motion, a sway in my chest, at making him see things in a new way, as he was doing with me, even if those things were small.
“For sure. I’d love living in an open floor like this. Everything right where you need it…” I pointed at different areas for each vision. “I could have a big bookshelf over there. A dresser there. Mini kitchen here. The bed will go there. A jungle gym for my cat can go there—”
“Cat?” He sounded skeptical and I shot him the most mock disappointed look I could muster.
“Don’t tell me.”
He chuckled. “I like cats.” His defense was pushed so strongly, I smiled. “It’s just most people I know would’ve said dog.”
I shrugged a shoulder in a teasingly haughty way as my feet moved me closer to him. “I guess I’m not everybody else, either.”
I was getting better at flirting, more comfortable in the stance. I could tell from the way there was still no trace of awkwardness, and from the sudden change in Levi. His breathing thinned with my proximity, his eyes locked with mine, a distinct bob in his throat.
Then he let it all out, a corner of his mouth lifting the slightest bit as he blinked at the floorboards, his exhale a breeze through my hair as he passed me with a rasped, “You’re not.”
The bouncing motion found me again and I released an exhale of my own before meeting him at the railing.
“Wow,” I breathed at the view. I could see tops of trees and rolling land for miles, so high I was convinced I could touch the sky if I tried.
“Not afraid of heights,” Levi said like a secret, close to my ear, sending a shake through me with my laugh.
“I don’t think I can be afraid of anything right now.” My heart did tumble when I looked down, but that only made me want to look down more. “Anything outside my window,” I corrected to the memory of the creaking sound bracing my body again.
Levi blew a breath through his lips. “I’m afraid of everything outside my window.” He shook his head with his thoughts, a flash of that fear in his widening eyes. “I couldn’t imagine losing…” He blinked toward the ground below as he trailed off, the smallest scrunch of that shame in his mouth for pinpointing our actual different lifestyles and for bringing up how I lost my family, my mom, in ways he didn’t want to lose his.
They were tied together, but he didn’t need to tie himself up over it.
He did have a much better life, one he still offered to me, and it was a comfort that he instinctively felt he could still talk to me like this. He had nothing to feel ashamed about.
He was nodding to himself, coming back into that realization, as I bumped his shoulder. “You know who you’re talking to,” I said with a smile. “It’s your life. It’s a life I’d like to have.” His eyes locked with mine as my voice lowered. “So I like hearing about it.”
His dimple appeared. “What else do you wanna know?”
Being near Levi while he talked about his family and how he grew up was like sitting by a cozy fire and drinking the sweetest hot chocolate. The life. But right now, I wanted to know more about his job. Picture him in action on the day to day while I was still stuck in the night.
It was another game. Our arms brushed and bumped as he launched into his life selling bait and tackle, renting bikes and boats, and I imagined walking through the doors and watching him from a perch on the counter, as if. . .
My mind was instinctual to close certain uncertain doors, but my heart was knocking too hard on this one, so it flew wide open, letting in me, letting in Levi, as I watched him from my perch on that counter, as if it were almost closing time and I was waiting for the plans we made, as if we were each other’s date for the evening.
As if we were dating .
My cheeks warmed and I couldn’t open my eyes to see if he noticed the change in color, but I didn’t simmer down my smile.
He told me people would return with a story about what they’d caught out on the water. “The biggest son of a bitch you’ve ever seen, kid,” he mimicked a man from today’s story, deepening his voice and holding out his hands, leaning into the role in such a way that jerked a laugh from my chest, echoing loud toward the sky.
When Levi would light up like this I could see more how he and Adam were friends. They both shared that sparkle, only Adam wore his on his sleeve.
Levi’s dad would come in with stories to tell, too, to him and to everyone in their radius who wanted to listen, and everybody did.
His mom would also come in sometimes with some food freshly cooked or baked.
“Your family sounds like a dream,” I said, still inside mine, glancing up at the stars from where we were now both sitting back against the railing, our legs stretched out with our bodies angled toward each other.
“Well, they’re not perfect,” Levi said, with that fondness in his voice and the right amount of teenage frustration that came with having normal parents. They had a leash on him, but there was room for movement, for stretch, not so tight around the throat. “They would love you.”
I felt a little gasp in my chest as I looked at him, his gaze already on me, tracing over my face, down to my lips, then sliding back up, heating that cozy fire in me.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I teased low, my eyes slipping from his.
He laughed through his nose, one push of breath. “Not at all.”
I believed it.
“I’ll probably be meeting your dad, anyway,” I teased again, with more tease, quoting him from our first night and giving away how my brain stored everything he said to me.
“I do want you to meet him,” he said back, now like an answer to our first night’s question, the emphasis giving away the space I’d taken up in his head too.
Then his jaw set as he sat straighter, his entire face shifting with something like determination. “The Fourth’s coming up. There’s this epic fireworks show we always do on the water…” He trailed off the invite, or what sounded like was leading into an invite, one he couldn’t commit to giving because I couldn’t commit to taking.
The railing started to ache against my back, so I moved the pressure to another spot. Which angled me more toward Levi and bumped my foot into his. “Sailing at night?” I copied his skepticism when he’d asked me about my imaginary cat, but I was also curious if this was an actual exception.
“We don’t go out far,” he answered with a half smile, and I was on the wrong side to see his dimple. I held a laugh in my chest thinking about asking him to switch places. “Adam will be there too,” he added with a higher pitch as he became interested in something on his shorts. Which I suspected was nothing.
I nudged his foot with mine and got his focus back on me, my focus then fixing to the image of fireworks on the bay, a flutter in my stomach over how romantic and beautiful that would be.
“Maybe you can come?” Levi was hesitant when he finally gave the invitation, an almost guard in the words for what he knew would be mine.
“Unless the show’s after my dad’s bedtime, afraid not.”
He shook his head, then his brows bent in, with that jerk in his jaw for injustice I’d grown to recognize. “What’s his deal?” he asked rhetorically, seeking as I had, only to be left lost too. “It’s just the Fourth. It’s just some fireworks.”
Our eyes locked as my next heartbeats rushed and reached over the urging in Levi’s voice, for the audacity of my situation.
This was the first time I felt like I had someone who would truly fight for me.
Beside me.
Just the Fourth, just some fireworks—harmless things that are hazardous to my closest relationship, by proximity.
“He makes good burgers and we eat them.” I sounded like I used to as I said the words, as I delivered a statement for my time with my dad, like that time was good enough, the semblance of good . But a deepening hollow followed after the period for every way it wasn’t.
I bent a knee, digging my chin into the bone to distract from this ache with another one.
Levi’s foot nudged mine for my focus now, and when I swiveled a glance at him, I straightened at seeing the small box in his hands, my leg a slow slide back to the floorboards.
It didn’t resemble a jewelry box, but more like a tiny container. And as he moved it between his fingers, like he was hesitating or thinking too hard, as he could do, I couldn’t even imagine what was possibly held inside and what he was going to tell me about it.
Finally, he met my curious stare, releasing the lightest breath as he offered me the box. Our fingers grazed as I took it from him, my thumb tapping over the top before I paused, my stare now asking.
Levi nodded and I opened the box.
Everything slowed down. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat and I couldn’t expand my lungs for the seconds my eyes remained wide open on the two honeysuckle flowers nestled beside each other.
No way. No. . .
Yes was the air back in my lungs and the thud of my pulse as I traced a finger over one of the petals.
They blurred in my vision and I blinked furiously to keep the tears inside my lids, my throat squeezed off from words.
“Our yard has a bush,” Levi told me, with such a soft happiness in his voice for my reaction.
No way.
Beaming, I picked the flowers, one for me and one for him.
His stare asked me now— are you sure? —before I nodded and he took the flower.
I shoved mine right up to my nose and inhaled, sighing next as my eyes fell closed and I tasted the nectar, being back with my mom for a few seconds.
Levi smiled as he tasted his, as I thanked him.
As the biggest change happened inside me, on this night, with this boy.
I wanted to see his eyes shine in the sun.
I wanted the daylight.
Desperation was the only way I could describe the feeling of never letting this go. The strongest desire sparking through my veins to never go back to how things were before I met him, before I climbed down that trellis the first time.
Levi was the one who had stirred feelings in me, and in that moment, I tumbled head over feet.