Chapter 27
Me: Happy birthday.
After spending the past half hour typing and erasing a birthday message to Levi, I finally pressed send. I was still processing whatever happened last night and how I ran away from him like an idiot. I had let him touch me, and it was… exhilarating. I wanted to do it again. With him. I was into him. I was sick. I needed holy water.
Someone knocked on my door, and I flinched. “Coming,” I grumbled.
Yasmine groaned in complaint from under the blanket, cuddling with Baron. It was a public holiday, which meant a reading day for Yas, and not even the end of the world would interrupt her plans.
I pulled the door open, only to spot Levi dressed in a black wool overcoat, black leather gloves, and a black turtleneck. Black suits him. It makes the stormy gray of his eyes pop. Stupid, stupid thoughts.
“Come on a date with me,” he deadpanned, waving at Yasmine and Baron, neither liking the intrusion.
I blinked twice. “What?”
“It’s not a request, Dalia. You owe me a date. Otherwise, what would be the point of having a birthday?”
“Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you get to dictate to me what to do,” my mouth said while my brain was trying to figure out why he was asking me on a date? Even if he certainly didn’t ask. “Asking would be nice by the way.”
“Be glad I didn’t ask you for a blow job instead. I’m being nice .”
“Levi!” I screamed, turning to Yas, who could hear that but was too deep in her book to care. “We definitely don’t share the same definition of nice.”
He tilted his head to the side as if he didn’t understand. “Why would you refuse a date?”
“I didn’t say I refuse, but I’d like you to pretend that my response matters to you.”
“Of course it matters.” He took a step forward. “But we’re together now, and couples enjoy going on dates.”
“You guys are together?” That information sufficed to make Yasmine put down her book.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Levi countered at the same time.
Yasmine grinned and went back to her book. “Sorry I asked. You guys clearly have things to figure out, and I have a book marathon to get back to, so if you’ll excuse me.”
“See, you wouldn’t want to bother your friend’s date with her books.” Levi’s lips curled at one corner as Yasmine frowned.
I crossed my arms. “A relationship doesn’t work like that, Levi.”
“I’m the only one here trying to make that relationship work, love.” He grimaced. “Actually, love doesn’t suit you. Maybe sweetheart? The point is, we define our relationship. I don’t see the problem.”
I opened my mouth to shut down his ego, but when our eyes met, I glimpsed a familiar emotion in his gaze—loneliness. It struck a chord. It was his birthday, and he wanted to spend it with me. I smiled, the child in me finding victory. I was finally breaching Levi’s cold heart.
“Fine, I’m coming because I want to, not because you told me to,” I asserted, jabbing a finger in his direction. With that, I retrieved my long gray coat and slipped into my matching boots while Levi took hold of my violin case.
“Why?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” He tossed his phone onto my bed next to mine. “I don’t want people to interrupt our date. You can go through my stuff when we’re done. My password is your birthday.”
“My birthday?”
His lips formed a stern line. “Does that surprise you?”
It’s like Levi just read a guide on what couples do, but while it came naturally for others, it felt too controlled and clinical coming from him. I left my phone beside his and called out, “See you later, Yas.”
She hummed, and I swung the door shut behind me. Levi’s gaze lingered on me, from the top of my head down to my toes, his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
“What?” I grumbled, fishing my ChapStick out of my vest pocket to swipe it across my lips. “You didn’t exactly give me enough time to get dolled up—”
He dipped down and pressed his lips on mine, kissing away my ChapStick. His dark, earthy scent filled my senses. He’d never kissed me softly before. It felt almost innocent. Vulnerable. Unlike him. He sucked on my lower lip, and a surge of electricity shot through me. But just as quickly as it began, he ended the moment when he pulled away.
He pressed his lips together, sealing in the taste of our kiss. “Tasty.”
I capped the ChapStick and slipped it back into my vest pocket. My probably flushed cheeks betrayed the frenetic pace of my heart as I made my way down the corridor. “You have to wait until the end of our date to maybe kiss me.”
I think? Not that I would know.
He reached out to take my hand, intertwining our fingers. “Our date hasn’t started yet.”
A surge of warmth flooded my stomach at the contact. I hadn’t held hands since Mom because I was too grown up to do that. But I missed it, and holding hands with Levi felt… indescribably good. Comforting. Safe.
He tightened his grip on my hand like he could break my bones easily. Maybe he wasn’t used to that either?
“Tell me something about you.” I shattered the silence that enveloped our footsteps. The halls were void of any other students, probably because it was only morning on a day off. “Maybe your favorite color?”
“I know yours is silver.”
“How did you know that?”
“The first ribbon you wore was silver. Knowing you, you certainly wore your favorite for your first day. You told me you liked my eyes when you were drunk. Plus, blood has a silver taste. And silver is strong but not as pretentious as gold,” he said, his gaze fixed ahead like he had everything about me figured out.
The wind whipped around us, carrying the tang of salt in its whispering breath as we stepped out from the shadow of the quad.
“What about your favorite color?” I asked.
“Take a guess.”
The tall iron gates of Pantheon’s entrance loomed before us, adorned with elaborate scrollwork and menacing spikes. In front of the gates, rows of luxurious cars stretched out, their sheen dulled under the heavy blanket of the overcast sky.
“Honestly, I thought you’d be a gray kind of guy. Unfeeling and not entirely black or white. You never really take part in things, and you don’t like excess emotions—apart from pissing me off.”
“You’re wrong. I’d have to go with rainbow.” He opened the door of his sleek black sports car for me. “But your analysis was decent.”
“Rainbow?” I chuckled. “It doesn’t fit you.”
“Who said it was about me?”
His gaze locked onto mine, and I knew. He absentmindedly touched my hair. Mamma said I had rainbow hair. The sun after the rain. Ignoring the fluttering sensation in my stomach, I climbed into his car. Could I really trust him?
“Where are we going?” I diverted the conversation. “It’s only morning after all.”
Before I could protest, Levi fastened my seat belt and revved his engine.
“You’ll see.”
“My first official date is at a cemetery,” I mumbled, trying to wrap my head around the idea.
Levi wasn’t the type to date either, so clearly neither of us had any clue on how to do that properly. The cemetery sprawled across the island like a slumbering beast, with tombstones jutting from the earth like jagged teeth. The distant cries of seagulls and a scattering of mourners framed the somber scene. It was the day we celebrated the dead in France.
He crossed the entrance gates, bearing carvings of angels and saints. He couldn’t know about Mom’s and my tradition? Unlikely, but not impossible. I followed him inside, weaving through the rows of crypts and mausoleums. Moss clung to the headstones, and the air was heavy with the scent of damp earth. We reached a spot beneath a weeping willow, and Levi removed his coat to settle down. I prepared to join him on the grass, but he casually placed his coat beside him.
“You could sit on my lap if you prefer,” he suggested, his gaze ensnared by this grim realm of death.
I took the spot next to him, somehow liking the fact he would sacrifice his expensive coat for the sake of mine. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you brought me here?”
“Because the world is ugly today,” he said. “They all lost someone. Are they only here because they have to be? How long will it take for their love to go away? Most of them will never come back. The world is chaotic today. Ugly. Pathetic. It’s…”
“It’s how you feel inside.” Hurt. Lonely. Sad. “And today, the world mirrors you and your pain, so you feel… understood and not so alone by coming here.” So Levi didn’t know we shared the same ritual on a different day. “I have a tradition with my mom. On her day of death, Grandma helps me sneak out, and I go to the cemetery to mourn her. I’ll play on her tombstone because music must continue on this day.”
“You can’t let the ugliness of the world win for once, right?” Levi’s scowl deepened. One moment, he was vulnerable. The next, he was distant again. “You wish you’d have said no to this date, now, don’t you?”
“As if I had a choice.” My chuckle died in my throat when my gaze fixed upon the Hungway’s family manor—Pantheon’s founders—nestled among the craggy cliffs. It towered above the trees like a looming, haunted dollhouse, standing just beyond the cemetery. Its windows were opaque, veiling any glimpse of what lay within. “It’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” Levi mused, tilting his head. “Most people would call it creepy.”
“That’s because they don’t see the love the youngest brother had for Corvina. They only see the tragedy,” I said before swallowing. Love wasn’t the best subject to talk about with Levi. “What did you usually do on your birthday? Before…”
I wasn’t sure if I should mention Lucie again with what had happened with the music scores last time.
“You won’t like my answer, and you’ll have to answer my question afterward.”
“It’s a deal,” I beamed.
“My mother didn’t like the whole attention-seeking of birthdays, even hers. She was absent, uncaring, noncommunicating. As for Patrice, he was drunk and stole the show.” His stern and sharp tone didn’t betray an ounce of pain.
“I’m sorry. Patrice sounds like a horrible stepfather.”
His cruel smile was on. “Is that pity? I thought I knew you better.”
“How was he?”
“Why?” A muscle worked in his jaw, and he deflected my question with his usual sarcasm. “Would the perspective of my tragic backstory make you love me?”
“I think you hide who you truly are from most people.”
“So do you.” His lips curled. “I already had weekly therapist sessions to cure what was wrong with me and make me normal. He was unsuccessful, even if he believes the contrary.”
“So did I,” I said, fidgeting my fingers together. “After my mother’s death…. I didn’t talk with anyone but…” Lucie and you . Lucie healed me with music, and you made silence not so quiet. “I closed myself off completely, and my father became the way he is now. It’s like a part of me died with her. I had to live with everyone’s expectations of me.” I blinked away the memories. “I still have nightmares when I’m unable to do anything. Move. Save her. Speak. I feel so weak.”
“You’re many things, Dalia, but not weak, and your mother knows that.”
“You really think so?” I felt my eyes glistening and my heart hammering. It was the perfect time to get the past behind us. “You know, four years ago… I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell my dad about the kiss.”
“You were ashamed of having kissed me. Understandable.”
Why would he think that?
“No!” I protested, turning to face him. “I was terrified of my father. I wasn’t ashamed of you.”
He simply hummed in response, yet his fingers tensed.
“What happened to you… after?”
“Patrice left,” he deadpanned. “And I emancipated myself.”
He was only sixteen and alone with no family while I was complaining about my life. Levi was the rejected, unloved child, craving control as the only way for him to keep people close.
“My turn.” He switched the subject. “What’s the symbol behind your ribbons?”
“They were my mother’s. She believed ribbons were the connection between two humans. She gave me a ribbon on each of my birthdays until she… left us. She called them the ribbons of destiny, uniting souls in an invisible link. I always wore them because she’s always with me. The one you took, the silver-gray one, is the first one my mom gifted me. My most precious one.”
“Telling me this will only convince me to never give it back to you, you know that.”
I smiled. I knew because this was his way to hold on to a little bit of love in his twisted mind. “If you break it, I’ll feed you to the sharks, Levi Delombre.”
“If you’re the one cutting me into pieces, I may be into it,” he said, joking or maybe not. It was hard to tell with him.
My gaze fixated on the grieving father and his son, who stood solemnly beside a tombstone adorned with flowers. The boy’s tear-streaked face revealed the depth of his sorrow as he clung tightly to his father. Levi’s attention was also drawn to the heartrending scene.
This boy, just like us, had lost a mother, and no one would ever replace her. I wanted to tell him it’d all be okay, but that would’ve been a lie. The warmth she left behind and her absence could never be filled, leaving a void that no words could mend.
“I miss my mom,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought this up. It’s just I always tried to imagine what my childhood would have been like if Mom was here… And I was wondering about yours, and how Lucie was with you and—”
Levi leaned against the rough bark of the tree, his expression clouded. He let out a small, bitter laugh. “Don’t do this.”
“Please.” My gaze pleaded with him. “I want to know more about you. And your childhood is a part of who you became.”
I didn’t push him on the subject of Patrice earlier, but I still wanted him to tell me things he’d never told anyone. Maybe I wanted to feel special, or maybe, deep down, I hadn’t given up on Lucie’s music scores. I promised myself I’d get to the root of it, determined to prove him wrong.
“I was homeschooled in secondary school because Dad thought it was for the best. Those years were pretty lonely for me,” I confided, hoping it’d get him to open up.
“You didn’t miss anything. People are complete idiots,” Levi bit out.
“Why?”
“Oh, you know why, my little thief.” Levi’s words cut through the air, dripping with cruelty. “You heard what your father called me that day.”
The rumors. The mean words they called Lucie.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“No, it’s mean, and it’s not true,” I protested, my voice growing stronger with each word.
Levi’s scowl twisted further. “Oh, but it’s true.”
“No, you’re not a freak ! Neither of you were,” I insisted, my resolve firm. “I don’t care what they all say. It’s not true!”
“Always so naive, Dalia,” he sneered. “I never tried to hide who I am from you, yet you still think you can change me. This word was meant to suffocate me, to demean me, but it was liberating. I’ve accepted who I am, and it’s time for you to do the same.”
“Then show me. Show me who you are with a memory,” I challenged, leaning in closer, my arms planted firmly in the grass. “All I’m asking is for you to trust me to be on your side.”
“On my side,” he repeated, his gaze shifting from my lips to my throat. Then he petted my cheek with a touch surprisingly soft for him. “Very well.”
I nodded and settled on my knees, ready to listen to him.
“I went to school with the butterfly I captured in the jar,” he started, his stormy eyes not wandering away from mine. “The popular kid showed up at my table. I was minding my own business alone, eating the same goddamn sandwich my mother made me everyday, because she didn’t understand the concept of eating in the canteen. He purposely knocked the jar to the ground and crushed the butterfly under his foot. He laughed as she agonized—its legs struggling, its wings broken, its blood inking the floor.”
I gasped. Dad was right. The world was a dark place, where being different meant being excluded.
“He was one of those kids who came to my house, spreading the rumors of us being freaks to his parents. I gave him a bloody nose and was called into the headmaster’s office, where I was forbidden to bring my butterflies to school. I had the best grades, so unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to get rid of me, like the other worried mothers wanted.”
He tore his gaze away from me, staring at the void. His jaw clenched tightly, muscles tensing beneath his skin.
“My mother had no social skills. When she wasn’t offending people who couldn’t handle honesty, she’d blurt out random facts at the worst moments and ramble about it for hours. She didn’t even notice they all made fun of her, taking her for a circus freak, and when they criticized her, it remained engraved forever in her brain. On the contrary, I felt nothing. So I gave them something to talk about other than my mother’s weird behavior.”
I kept still, afraid that if I moved, he’d stop telling me the story of how he had become the bully by being bullied himself. My heart, nevertheless, thudded wildly in my chest.
“After that, I broke each thing they possessed and took what they cherished the most.” Levi’s features contorted into a mask of disgust, his lip curling slightly in a snarl. “Their bikes were deflated, their soccer balls went missing, their phones were hacked. None of them dared to look me in the eyes; they just whispered the word freak behind my back. I humiliated them one by one because I was better than them. I made each of them pay for my own amusement. I made them fear me.”
A chill swept through the air, and I cinched my coat snugly around my neck while strands of his hair veiled the blackness of his gaze. Since Levi couldn’t change people’s nature, he would change the outcome and have the power of the narrative. That was why he’d never talked to me when we were children. He was mistrustful, waiting for me to treat him like he had been treated. So instead of being pitied, he preferred to be hated.
“You defended your mother,” I whispered, the words caught in my throat.
“And all I ever got in return was just blunt ignorance,” he cursed, meeting my eyes again. “She never saw me; she kept repeating that she had failed, but it wasn’t about her or the goddamn world she was living in.”
I reached out, my fingers curling around Levi’s hand.
The hard truth was that deep, deep down, Levi wanted to be loved by someone.
For someone not to leave him.
“If I would have been at your school, I’d have stood by your side.” I smiled. “You wouldn’t have had any other choice but to accept my friendship.”
“We’ll never be friends, Dalia. Not in this lifetime, not in the next.”
Oh, we so were becoming friends. Nine years too late . Guided by an unseen force, I crawled to him and closed my eyes. With a deliberate slowness, I pressed my lips against his soft ones, savoring the moment as if time had frozen. I mirrored our first kiss amid the solemn quiet of death’s embrace around us.
“It’s the first time I didn’t have to trick you into kissing me, my little thief.”
I pulled back, my heart pounding in my chest. “Second time, and well, you have kissable lips.”
But Levi wasn’t about to let me escape so easily. With a firm grip on my nape, he pulled me back toward him, his possessive kiss sending shivers down my spine. “You can’t kiss me like that and back off.”
“What’s next?” I moaned between our kisses.
We were diving headfirst into our first official make-out session on a date. I wasn’t supposed to kiss him until the end of the date. Screw the rules.
He handed me my violin case. “Time for you to make the world beautiful again.”