25. Ethan
TWENTY-FIVE
Ethan
“I wish you could sleep,” Levi murmurs against me in the darkness. He’s curled up at my side, his hand resting on my chest.
I tilt my head down and breathe in the scent of his hair. “I will.”
His fingers flex on my chest. “It worries me.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I ask, stroking his flank.
“Because it worries me.”
I sigh and roll toward Levi. He flops around to put his back to me so I can tug his ass against my groin. “You don’t need to worry.”
Levi’s fingers find mine under the covers. He traces my knuckles. “Why aren’t we having sex?”
My heart skips. I can’t answer that question without saying a whole lot of things that I don’t feel ready to say.
Instead I ask, “Do you like the sex we’ve had?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’ve been rough with you.”
“But I like that.”
“You’ve never experienced anything else. You might prefer something less intense.”
“But the intensity is what I like. Why are you saying these things?”
I shrug. “I just feel like I have a perspective suddenly on how I’ve been with you and how I’ve treated you, and I don’t like it. But I also don’t know any other way to be. Sex is ugly for me, and I don’t like that I’m making it ugly for you.”
“Why do you say it’s ugly?”
“It just feels that way.”
“It doesn’t feel ugly to me.”
“It doesn’t?” I ask, surprised.
“No. It’s actually… can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
Levi’s chest rises and falls against my arm. I stroke his collarbone and hold myself still, waiting.
“Do you remember I told you my mother couldn’t take care of me?”
I freeze for a moment, startled by the topic, then I make myself stroke his collarbone again. “I do.”
“Well… I used to get made fun of a lot. In school. For being dirty. Then one day—I don’t remember all the details—but I guess it was really bad.
I was maybe… ten? The school called my mother, and she came into the principal’s office.
I was sitting in there because I’d been taken out of class.
So she came in. She was furious. She was probably high too, but she just kept saying, ‘He’s gross, what do you expect me to do? He’s a gross kid.’”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter and force my fingers to unclench from his shoulder.
“So I kind of have a thing about it.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“My point is—”
“Levi. That wasn’t your fault. That was her fault. And every single adult there knew it. And if you saw that today, a kid not being taken care of, you would know it too.”
He sighs. “I’m trying to get to something.”
I clamp down on my impulse to keep pressing this point. I don’t want to let it go, but I have to. Right now, his point is more important than mine. I force my voice to soften.
“Go on.”
Levi is silent for a while, like he’s frustrated with me and trying to find his place in his story again. Then he says, “So that first night in your kitchen. When you made me come?”
“You got upset about the mess.”
“At first, it took me back to all that stuff and I panicked. But you made it okay. You made me feel like it was good and natural. And you’ve made me feel that every time since. And I know that the way we have sex isn’t very… standard, but it’s not ugly. It makes me feel free.”
I kiss the back of his neck as I remember him in so many erotic moments.
I’ve been fixating on myself and my part in it, the ugliness in me.
But Levi was never ugly. He was free and wild and beautiful.
And I want him to be that way again. But it’s hard for me to accept being ugly with him now that I understand why everything is different with him.
It came to me during those long, quiet hours on the patio. Nothing triggered it. It wasn’t abrupt. I just felt myself softening and opening until the truth was able to sink into me.
And I haven’t said it yet because everything is shifting around inside me, trying to find a new place to fit around that truth.
How can I be ugly with someone I love?
That’s why we haven’t had sex.
But I don’t know how to talk to him about it. I’ve never talked about any of it, not with anyone.
I don’t know if I can.
* * *
In the morning light, I draw Levi’s hands.
We’re in the sitting room with the rose marble fireplace, at opposite ends of the yellow couch so I can see him.
He has his knees drawn up and his socked feet on the cushions.
In his black joggers and navy blue hoodie, he’s drinking coffee and reading a book.
His Kindle is still at the penthouse, so he’s reading my copy of The Metamorphosis.
It’s kind of an ugly book for such beautiful hands.
I don’t understand how he can hold ugly things, even take them in, and still be beautiful. But then his eyes flick to mine, and I see the darkness in them, and I think that maybe ugliness isn’t the right word.
But I don’t know.
I feel overwhelmed by my inability to understand everything. I feel like there’s a ton of shit I need to look at and figure out, but it’s too hard.
So I just keep drawing.
So far, with Levi, I’ve only drawn what I see. I’ve imagined paintings and interpretations, but I’ve only drawn him as he is. I’ve realized that I don’t want to taint him with my imagination.
From the entryway where it’s plugged in to charge, my phone chimes.
I didn’t look at it when I plugged it in, though I couldn’t help seeing a bunch of notifications. Ruby, I’m guessing, or maybe Jensen. Nothing has gone away.
I’m not sure exactly what would happen if Jensen uncovered evidence that I killed Paul. Would the investigation be reopened? Would it matter that I was a minor? Would Ruby even let it get that far?
I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about any of this. I just want to be with Levi.
He puts the book down on the arm of the chair. I stop drawing.
“Oh sorry,” he says and starts to pick up the book.
“No, it’s okay. I was pretty much done.”
“Can I see?”
I hand him the sketchbook.
He looks at the drawing for a long time. “You’re really good. Did you go to art school?”
“No. I studied business.”
Levi makes a face like that’s disappointing. “Why?”
“So I could manage the money I’d inherited, I guess. Or maybe because I didn’t really have a direction.”
Levi asks cautiously, “Because you didn’t want to be part of the church?”
My heart skips. “Yeah. I guess.”
“So what made you go back? The other day.” When I don’t answer, Levi pushes gently, “I know something’s going on.”
I want all of that to be separate from Levi, but the trouble is that it’s not separate from me. And he’s not separate from me. Which means he deserves to know. There’s no way I could handle telling him everything, but it’s not fair to tell him nothing.
I take a deep breath. “There’s a journalist. He’s been after me and Ruby, others too probably. It’s not unusual. The church is very public and megachurches are controversial.” Levi’s face is carefully neutral, so I go ahead and say it. “They’re disgusting.”
His lips tug. “It was very weird to watch.”
My mind blanks for a second. I didn’t think about him watching. I didn’t think about how he must have been, to have come that day. Millions of people were watching as I walked out. Only one, though, came to help me.
And I was fucking awful to him.
“Levi…”
His expression gets soft. He can tell that I’m trying to say something difficult.
Patrick was right that Levi is perceptive, and he’s getting more so as he feels more secure.
His personality isn’t changing, but it is expanding, like he’s starting to realize that he’s allowed to take up space.
But in taking up space, he gives it right back.
Everything that’s happened in the past week or so, and everything that happened in his life before I met him, would make most people curl up small and tight inside and would leave them harsh and cruel on the outside. Like me. But Levi…
He’s so damn resilient. He comes through everything stronger.
And he fights for things. He takes risks. I doubt he sees himself that way, but I see it. It was obvious when he accepted my original offer to pose. It was obvious, too, when he came to find me at the church.
But I threw it back at him.
“When you came to the church—” For a moment, that’s as far as I can get, but Levi just waits, giving me space to figure things out.
“It means a lot to me that you did that. I know that when you ran to me, you ran straight into a brick wall. There was nothing for you to get to and no one for you to help because I wasn’t…
I wasn’t there, I guess. But I know that’s what you wanted to do. Help.”
Levi’s eyes are full of emotion, but he’s still holding space. His lips press slightly, agreeing, acknowledging, but that’s all.
“So what I’m trying to say is… thank you. For doing that. For me.”
He frowns slightly. He looks down at the sketchbook, which is resting on his knee, but I don’t think he’s really looking at it.
He says, “I wish I’d known what to do.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done.”
“What was happening? Why was it hard for you to be there?”
“Just the space. Associations.”
“You mean with your dad?” At my flinch, Levi asks, “You don’t want him called that?”
“Paul and Ruby were never my parents.”
“But… didn’t they adopt you?”
“Everything is a set piece for the Castles.”
Levi frowns. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“It was for show. They couldn’t have children, but a pastor can’t be childless. So they saved me. I was quiet. Mostly nonverbal at that point. Paul chose me. For display.”
I feel upset because I feel like I’m not being honest. Paul did want me. He did love me. But his love was so complicated and painful, and I don’t know how to talk about it.
Levi asks, “You don’t feel like they really wanted you?”
That’s exactly the problem. That’s exactly what I don’t know how to talk about.
I squeeze my eyes shut as images start flashing. Paul, smiling at me. Paul, pulling off my T-shirt because I got juice on it. Paul, sitting in the bathroom with me because I was scared to get in the bathtub.
He did want me. He did care about me. And yet…
“Ethan.”
My eyes pop open.
Levi says firmly, “We don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay.”
“I murdered him,” I blurt out. “Paul. During one of our sessions.”
I don’t know why I say it. I don’t feel like it’s even a conscious decision. It just happens, like it falls out through the cracks in me.
Levi is stunned of course. He stares at me.
I wait for him to close the space he’s been holding open for me. I wait for his eyes to harden, for him to withdraw.
But he says, “Sessions?”
“Prayer sessions.”
“What happened?”
“I stabbed him six times.”
“Ethan—”
“I told you you’re not safe with me.”
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’ve gone cold or why I seem to have no control over my words. I don’t know why I’m destroying everything.
But that’s exactly what I’m doing, and I can’t seem to stop myself.
I stand up and walk out. Levi calls my name, but he doesn’t come after me.
Of course he doesn’t.