Chapter 14 #2
“Walked out. She came back a month later to get her stuff and to tell my father she wanted a divorce…she’d met someone else. I…I wa s so sure she would take me with her so I ran to my room to pack, but by the time I got back to the living room, she was gone. She…she didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I said as I leaned down to wrap myself around him.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” he whispered.
“I know you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
We sat like that for a few minutes before Levi shifted and turned around so he could face me. “The tattoo…” he began, but then his voice faltered.
“Take your time,” I said softly.
He nodded and then crossed his legs so he could sit more comfortably. I was glad he was willing to face me as he spoke.
“My father wasn’t as bad as he is now, but he always talked shit about people.
Black people, Hispanic, Asian…didn’t matter.
He blamed them for things, too. Like when he lost his job and we had to move into our apartment…he said his boss, who happened to be Hispanic, had it in for him.
At another job, he lost out on a promotion because of an Indian guy.
And my mother…we found out she left my father for a black man. ”
My insides went cold at his words.
Levi dropped his eyes. “I…I believed him when I was younger. I thought there was truth behind his words and when my mom left…I blamed the guy. I needed someone to blame,” he admitted quietly.
“But as I got older, I wasn’t so sure. One of my teachers in school who always encouraged me and told me I wasn’t dumb like the kids said I was…
she was black. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school, but there was this girl in my Math class who would help me out whenever I got stuck on a problem during study time.
She was Hispanic. But when I tried to say something to my father, he’d get so mad… ”
Levi fell silent for a moment and then fingered the bandage on his wrist. “Ricky believed everything my father said…I think he just liked having that permission, you know? To hate. It was…it was like it brought him and my father closer. I knew I couldn’t change their minds, so I just stayed quiet.
I didn’t want the tattoo, but I knew what Ricky would do to me if I said no.
I was fourteen at that time. He was still… at night…”
Levi’s voice faltered, but I knew what he was trying to tell me. The sexual assaults had continued. I pulled him forward so I could press a kiss to his temple. “It’s okay,” I murmured.
I felt his fingers close over my arm. “He only did it when he was really mad. He had girlfriends by that age, so he didn’t come after me unless he needed to punish me for something or if something set him off.
He and my dad were getting along better, so he wasn’t as angry all the time.
” Levi turned his head and stared down the length of the beach for a few minutes.
My heart broke for him as a few silent tears slipped down his face.
“Something happened when I was sixteen…it was really bad,” Levi said as he turned to look at me. My gut tightened as I realized what he was talking about.
“I don’t want to tell you about it now, but it…” He shook his head and dropped his eyes. “It changed everything.”
I wanted so badly to tell him I knew what he was talking about, but not only would telling him confirm I’d been lying to him from day one about who I was, I still didn’t know for sure that he didn’t have plans to go after Seth.
“I dropped out of school because it just didn’t seem important anymore.
I was failing a lot of my classes anyway.
I tried to save up enough money to get away from Ricky and my dad, but it was hard.
And then I got arrested and went to prison.
” Levi paused briefly before saying, “I thought I knew what to expect. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was so fucking clueless. ”
A good minute passed before he continued.
“I was raped in the showers the day after I arrived. The guy who did it decided to make me his play thing. It went on for a few weeks. I actually thought the guards would help me if I told them what was happening. I didn’t realize we were no better than animals and as long as we didn’t turn on them, they turned a blind eye to everything else. ”
I closed my hand around Levi’s and watched as he played with our fingers, linking and unlinking them .
“Gun found out I went to the guards. He let a bunch of guys take turns with me and then he used the handle of a broom to…”
I didn’t even bother to try and stop the tears that fell as I pulled Levi’s fingers up to my mouth and pressed kisses against them.
“I thought for sure I was going to die,” Levi whispered.
“I was so fucking relieved,” he added. “But then I woke up in the infirmary and I knew it wasn’t over.
I knew I deserved it for what I’d done, but I was a coward.
I couldn’t take it. I started making plans to hang myself when they returned me to my cell. ”
“Levi,” I said brokenly as I cradled his hand against my chest.
“But they didn’t take me back to my cell.
They put me in with this guy named Hank.
I was so fucking scared because the guards wouldn’t let me cover up my tattoo with a Band-Aid like I always had before I’d gone to prison.
Even though Gun and his guys did what they did, they also protected me because there were all these different gangs in prison.
I guess they saw me as their pet and didn’t want to lose me to a rival gang.
The tattoo was like this neon sign that I couldn’t escape.
Anyway, the guy they put me in a cell with, Hank, was black. ”
I stilled at that and braced myself for the worst.
“I knew when they put me in there, that I wouldn’t have to worry about figuring out how to hang myself. But Hank…”
Levi shook his head and then, to my surprise, he smiled. “Hank was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How so?” I asked.
“He was the one who found me in the shower after Gun and his guys left me lying there on the floor. Hank got me help and then he convinced the warden to put me in with him.”
“How?” I asked. “Inmates don’t have that kind of power.”
Levi shook his head. “Hank was...I don’t even know how to explain it.
He had a lot of respect, I guess. From the guards and the gangs alike.
He wasn’t an ordained priest, but he’d been studying the Bible for a long time, so he became like a spiritual leader, I suppose.
The guy who was the leader of one of the larger gangs, Jasper, respected Hank and he made sure he was always protected.
The guards and warden liked that Hank could keep the peace for the most part…
most of the gangs saw him as a man of the cloth, even though he wasn’t officially one.
I guess that’s why the warden agreed to his request. Hank took pity on me and, despite the tattoo, he convinced Jasper to extend his protection to me, too.
No one laid a hand on me after that. Not Jasper, not his men, not Gun. ”
He paused before saying, “I didn’t deserve any of it, but I took it just the same. As bad as things were, I didn’t really want to die and I knew that was what would happen if Gun or any of the other gangs got to me.”
Levi lifted his eyes. “Hank was proof that my father was wrong. The color of a person’s skin isn’t the measure of who they are.
I wanted the tattoo gone with a passion after that.
I never wanted someone to compare me to Ricky and my father ever again.
I share blood with them, but nothing else.
When I got out of prison, I went to talk to a tattoo artist about removing it, but it was so expensive that I knew it would be a while before I could afford it.
I searched for alternative ways to remove it on the Internet, which is where I saw the thing about oven cleaner, but I wasn’t that desperate at the time since I could just keep it covered. ”
“But burning yourself, Levi-” I said as I shook my head.
“I wish I’d done it sooner,” he cut in. I snapped my eyes up to meet his, but before I could respond, he said, “The look in your eyes, Phoenix…”
He shook his head. “I’m going to lose you,” he murmured. “I know that. But I couldn’t let it be because of that damn tattoo.”
“You’re not going to lose-” I began, but he kissed me before I could finish the statement. His hand crept around to the back of my head and he held me in place. The kiss was tame, but incredibly moving.
“Please don’t make me a promise you can’t keep,” he whispered.
I didn’t say anything because he was right. All this, his admissions, me telling him about my family and my daughter, it really didn’t change things. At least not the most fundamental thing.
Not yet, anyway.
I wanted desperately to ask him about T, but I knew I couldn’t. I owed it to Seth and Ronan and their children to ferret out the truth and I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I’d get the truth if I just asked Levi for it.
“Are you still in touch with Hank?”
“He calls every once in a while and we write letters, but I haven’t been to see him.
He made me promise not to. He wants me to focus on the future.
” Levi was quiet for a moment before saying, “He’s how I met Father O.
Father O visits the prison once a month and he was the one who got Hank started on his religious studies. ”
“What is Hank in for?”
“He killed his father. Hank told me he found out his father sexually abused his sister for years. She committed suicide and left a note for Hank telling him what their father had done. Hank had a ten-year-old daughter…after he found his sister and the note, he asked his daughter if her grandfather had ever touched her…”
Levi’s words dropping off answered the question before I could ask it.
“He confronted his father and they fought. Hank shot him. He said his lawyer told him he wouldn’t be able to get his sister’s admission admitted as evidence and Hank refused to let his daughter testify, so he took a plea deal.
He’s on his fifth year of a thirty-year sentence.
His wife took their daughter and moved to South America to be closer to family.
He hasn’t seen his daughter since the day he took the plea deal. ”
Levi shook his head. “I owe him so much,” he murmured.
“He wouldn’t let me give up on myself. When Dina had Henry, she let me name him because she didn’t care what he was called so I named him after Hank, whose real name is Henry.
” Levi lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I guess I wanted Henry to carry the name of a really good man with him for the rest of his life.”
“I bet Hank really loved hearing that.”
“He did, but I had to tell him over the phone. He’ll probably never get the chance to meet Henry.
Even if I went against his wishes and took Henry to the prison to meet him, Hank’s a level two offender, so he’s only allowed to have contact visits with immediate family.
I just…I can’t imagine going back there and only being allowed to talk to him with a pane of plastic separating us and ha ving to use a phone.
He wouldn’t get to hold Henry…it just seems cruel considering everything he’s lost.”
I could certainly understand that. No, I had no regrets about meeting Henry or interacting with the child, but I wasn’t going to lie and say it was easy to separate out my emotions.
Any child I encountered was a reminder of my own loss.
But I also couldn’t imagine having met a girl like Nicole and not having been allowed to interact with her.
And Henry was just such an incredible little boy…
now that I’d had a chance to spend time with him, I wanted to do it again, despite the pain that came along with being around him.
As Levi fell silent, I let my fingers thread through his hair and I gently tilted his head up.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I said just before I kissed him.
He kissed me back without hesitation and when my tongue sought entry into his mouth, he eagerly opened for me.
I loved kissing him. It wasn’t something I’d ever cared about much either way with other guys, but with Levi, I could easily do it for hours and not need more.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t want more.
But after everything he’d told me, I knew sex was something he wasn’t ready for. It might not be something he’d ever be ready for.
Was I okay with that?
Yeah, I was. Because I was still trying to figure everything out and I didn’t need to complicate it by adding sex to the mix.
But as Levi eagerly kissed me back, I knew it couldn’t get much more complicated.
Because despite all the answers Levi had given me, I hadn’t gotten the one I still needed. The one that would allow me to go to Ronan and tell him that his husband wasn’t in the crosshairs.
Until I had that answer, everything was up in the air.
Well, almost everything.
Because I’d already come to one decision.
Levi would not die by my hand. As much as it killed me to do it, I’d already made the choice between Levi and the family who’d accepted me as one of their own.
And for the first time in my life, my family would not come first.