21. Ethan
TWENTY-ONE
Ethan
I pace around the bedroom as my brain wakes up out of the weird sleep it’s been in for… I don’t know how long. I don’t really know what just happened. I’m not sure what I even did.
Did I start that?
I don’t think so, but I don’t remember.
Pain makes its way into my awareness, and I stop. I sit on the bed and look at the bottom of my foot. It’s bloody, and there are pieces of glass embedded in my skin. As I work them free, the task helps me focus. The pain helps me focus too.
Something happened to Levi.
I get up and leave the bedroom, trekking back through the penthouse to the living room. I frown at the couch, vaguely recalling how I pinned him there. I spanked him, but I don’t remember why. The coffee table is overturned. Did I do that?
No. He did. He was angry. Something happened. I remember the glass in the kitchen and go to look. There’s glass everywhere, plus shattered ceramic and a mess of what looks like cereal.
I stare, uncomprehending.
Why would he do this? It’s like he had some kind of… episode.
I have episodes.
He told me that. He told me that’s why he lost his job.
But why did he have one now? And where the hell is he?
I go to check the playroom, turning on the lights, pushing back the blackness. The sight of all the toys and racks and other equipment makes me realize that we haven’t had sex the whole time I’ve been… out of it.
This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened to me.
It happened after I murdered Paul too. Then, it lasted for months.
I don’t think I even realized where I was, at boarding school, until I got called into the headmaster’s office to “explain” my drawings, which a teacher had found.
I didn’t reply until they got physical with me, and then I started screaming.
On some weird instinct, I check the bondage coffin because it seems like a place Levi would go, but it’s empty.
I backtrack through the penthouse and check his room. His room. Fuck. He’s not supposed to have a room. He’s supposed to be with me.
But I haven’t been with him. I haven’t been here at all. And now he isn’t here. So where the hell is he?
My heartrate picks up, making me move faster as I go hunting for my phone. I find it in the master bedroom. I call him—and his phone starts ringing down the hallway. Goddamn it.
Hands shaking, I check the security camera on my front door. I have to go back further than I expect. God, I’ve lost so much time—and fuck, fuck, fuck, he left. He didn’t even have any goddamn shoes on.
Where the hell did he go?
I drop my phone on the bed and go into the closet to grab some shoes. My shirt is ripped, but I don’t bother changing it. I’ve already lost too much time.
I grab the Porsche keys and hurry out of the penthouse. I pace around the cramped space of the elevator as it takes me down to the parking garage. I should be making a plan, but my mind is full of gray fog.
I get to the car and make my way through the garage to the street. I head toward Levi’s apartment. The drive clears my mind enough for me to think. I should call Patrick. He’s pissed at me, but he would help me. I know he would.
Fuck, I don’t have my phone. Jesus Christ.
I can’t go back. I have to find Levi right now. He left without shoes. He wasn’t thinking. He was upset. But why?
I try to think through the last few days, but everything is such a haze that I can’t remember how it even started.
The church.
Fuck. It was the church. My thoughts skip away from that, except for one thing: Levi was there. He came to the church.
Other pieces drift through my mind—Ruby, the article, Patrick trying to get me out of bed—but the pieces don’t really lock together. Then there’s Levi, but he’s not a piece like those things. He’s a consistent presence through it all, but he’s at the edge—because that’s where I pushed him to.
And I think…
I think he fell over that edge.
I don’t know exactly what happens in my mind. I don’t see everything come together, but suddenly I know. I fucking know.
Levi didn’t go home.
* * *
It takes way too long for me to get there.
The park is closed, so I can’t even drive partway into it like last time.
I have to jump the fence, then I have to find the right path in the dark.
I wasn’t that focused the other day when we were here, but I force my mind to find the details.
I picture Levi leading me to his secret spot, sharing with me the place where he goes to not think.
The place he goes when he wants to not exist.
Everything looks different at night, but I find the right paved path. I’m not sure, though, that I can find Levi’s secret trail, so I start shouting his name.
“Levi!”
There’s no reply. I call again and again.
“Goddamn it!”
I find what I think is the spot and plunge into the undergrowth, but ten feet in, I can tell it’s not right. I backtrack to the pavement. I close my eyes and think. I go a little farther until I find the right bend in the paved path.
This time, I’m sure. The darkness has changed the look of things, but I remember the sign identifying some plant or tree, and ferns are partially smashed. I don’t call Levi’s name now because I’m too afraid that he won’t answer me.
I’m afraid because I know. I fucking know what’s coming. I’ve done this before, and the way this moment is layering with the other one has my heart beating so hard that I’m dizzy and sick.
I catch myself against a tree. I need just one fucking second, then I can go on. But that one second, as I squeeze my eyes shut, fills with the very images that I’m trying to avoid.
The door that I opened.
The arm hanging limp over the side of the bathtub.
The blood clinging to the fingertips and the pool of it on the linoleum floor.
I manage to close that door again before the memory can go further.
I manage to go on.
I find Levi’s tree, the oak tree with the huge, exposed roots. I find him curled up between them.
But when I shout, or maybe scream, Levi, thank God, bolts upright.
He scrambles to his feet. For a second, I think he’s stuffing something into his pocket, but my mind skips past it.
“Ethan—”
He cuts off as I grab him off his feet. I’m shaking and disoriented and I don’t feel like I’m at all controlling my body as I bury my face against his neck. Levi wraps his arms and legs around me, holding on just as tightly.
Jesus, I thought—
I really fucking thought—
I squeeze my eyes shut and silence myself because I cannot let that thought fully form.
Levi is shaking. I am too, but I can’t just stand here, and I can’t talk to him yet either. So I start walking.
I carry him out of the woods. I carry him all the way out of the park. I’m limping by the end, but when Levi tries to get down I don’t let him. I carry him to the car.
There, I have to set him down so I can open the passenger door, but I clamp one hand on his arm because I can’t lose contact. His arm is wet and kind of sticky, but I don’t think much of it until I get the door open and the car’s interior light comes on.
Then I see what’s under my hand. I see what’s on his arm.
I see exactly what he did.