Текст книги "Art & Soul"

Автор книги: Brittainy C. Cherry

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

29 Levi

It was funny how the things you once hated became the things you missed the most. Mom hadn’t called me in a few days. The phone calls that I’d hated with her at random hours of the night had become a part of my routine. I missed her begging for me to come home. I missed her telling me how awful I was treating her. I missed her voice, her overprotective nature, her overbearing love.

When I called the house, she would answer, but she’d tell me she was busy and hang up.

I felt as if she was over it—over the idea of trying to get me to come home to be with her.

So instead of her worrying about me, I began worrying about her.

Where was her mind?

Was she healthy?

Was she happy?

Was she still struggling with fake fears and harsh realities?

I called Denise to see if she’d checked in on Mom like she’d promised. When she answered, she sounded extremely pleased. “Levi, she’s checking into a health clinic!” Denise exclaimed.

“What? Why? Is she okay?”

“She’s going to St. John’s Music Wellness Clinic. They’ve been known for their use of music to help people who suffer like your mom. It’s the first place that I wanted to send her, but she never would’ve agreed before.”

“What made her change her mind?”

“I don’t know. You know you’re mom—when she’s up, she’s up. And when she’s down, she’s down. I guess we caught her in an up moment. But no matter what, this is good news, Levi. Really, really good news!”

“How can I talk to her?” I asked.

She went silent for a moment. “I think we should let her get settled first. They are starting her on new medicines and treatments. Maybe give her a week or two.”

Denise went on to ask about Dad, and I proceeded to lie because she would’ve been like Mom and wanted me to come home if she knew how crappy things were. When she hung up, I still kept thinking about Mom.

I missed her so much lately. Her confused mind and all.

Maybe this time would be different.

Maybe this time, the medicine and treatment would work.

I went to the woods that night and played my violin for her. I stood on the largest rock, allowing the cold air to pass by me. I remembered how she used to play music in the forest with me back home. She was always the better musician.

I missed her sounds the most.

30 Aria

I was twenty weeks pregnant, sitting in the doctor’s office with Mom on my left and Simon’s parents on my right. It wasn’t completely official with paperwork and all, but I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to give the baby to Keira and Paul. I also knew there was no way Keira was going to miss this appointment. Even though Paul never missed work, he’d taken the day off to be there. Paul was the grownup version of Simon with his red hair and freckled face. He didn’t wear glasses, but that was only because he popped contacts into his eyes every morning. The main difference between Paul and Simon was that Simon was a lot more emotional than Paul. Paul had much thicker skin than Simon and things didn’t get to him as much. He never talked much, and mostly all I received from him were smiles when I went over to their house, but they were always nice smiles.

The room was silent except for the ultrasound machine humming. The technician rubbed the cool gel on my stomach before they slid the transducer back and forth over my belly. She studied the ultrasound with a smile on her lips. “This one has a strong heartbeat. At twenty weeks they’re about the size of a—”

“Cantaloupe!” Keira clapped her hands as she smiled wide with excitement.

The technician nodded. “Yup! The size of a cantaloupe. You know your stuff.” I knew that, too. “And we want to know the sex today, right?”

“Yes!” Keira shouted, and then she quickly covered her mouth. Her eyes moved to me. “I mean, only if you want to, Aria.”

“Yes, we do,” I replied.

“It’s a—”

“Boy,” I whispered, already having a feeling.

“A boy.” The technician smiled toward me. “It must have been that mother’s ESP. Congratulations. I’ll have the pictures printed off and pass them to the doctor who will be in to speak with you afterward.”

We thanked her as she left the room.

Paul pinched the bridge of his nose and sniffled before wrapping his arms around Keira and pulling her into a tight hug. He kissed her forehead and they cried together. “Thank you, Aria. Thank you so much for this.”

Mom was crying too, squeezing my hand every now and then. Everyone cried except me.

I was numb.

It’s a boy.

31 Levi

Early Friday morning, I awoke to knocking at my window. My eyes moved over to the alarm clock on my nightstand. I rubbed my palms over my eyes, trying to focus on the numbers.

3:31 A.M.

What the hell?

Pulling myself up from the bed, I dragged myself to the window. I was shaken awake, seeing Aria standing there in her long nightgown with monkeys all over it and matching monkey slippers.

I swung the window open and gazed straight into her eyes. “Art, what’s wrong?” Panic raced through me as I stared at her tear-filled eyes.

“Sorry to wake you. I know we aren’t talking right now, and normally when I have nights where I can’t sleep, I go to Simon’s, but he’s too happy about getting a sibling and I wouldn’t want to make him feel bad. If you want me to go I can. I just…I have no one to talk to.”

“What’s going on? Come inside and talk to me.”

She climbed inside the window.

She wiped her hands across her eyes to remove the tears that were now falling and chuckled softly. “I’m sorry. I’m just emotional and…” Her shoulders rose and fell. As if by instinct, I moved my fingers to her face and wiped at her tears. If she knew what it did to my heart when she cried…

“Talk to me,” I said again, guiding her to my bed.

“It’s silly,” she warned, sitting. I sat beside her. She’d never been in my house. This was a first for us.

She must’ve been really broken.

I wanted to inch closer and hold her against me.

But I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

“It’s not,” I promised. If it was bothering her, if it was making her cry, it wasn’t silly. “Talk to me,” I repeated for a third time.

“He moved,” she whispered, placing her hands against her stomach. Her head rose and her chocolate eyes smiled with her beautiful lips. “He’s kicking. Before it was just small flutters, but now he’s full-blown kicking.”

My eyes widened and without a thought my hands went to feel her stomach, but then I remembered. I paused, uncertain if I should. She took my hands into hers and placed them against her stomach. I felt it, too. The movement. The life. “Jesus,” I muttered. I’d never felt anything so magical, so real.

“Give me a word to describe it. It feels like butterflies, and stomach flips, and stomach knots all at once. What’s a word for that?”

“Happy.”

“Happy?” she asked.

“Happy,” I replied.

She nodded. “I can’t stop crying.”

“I think that’s okay,” I said. “It’s a boy?”

“We found out today.” She cried harder. “And I’m a terrible person because I thought about keeping him when I heard that. I thought about what I would name him and who he would grow up to be, and then I wondered what I would say when he asked about the guy who called me cute but didn’t really mean it.”

“You’re beautiful,” I said, handing her one of my T-shirts to blow her nose in.

She cried even harder, because she knew I meant it.

“You’re not a terrible person because you think things like that, Art.”

“Then what does it make me? I told my best friend’s parents they could have the baby and then I think about taking it back. If that doesn’t make me terrible than what does it make me?”

I paused, searching for the right word. “Human. It makes you human.” We sat with our hands resting against her stomach. Each time we felt a kick, my heart flipped a little.

“He’s a cantaloupe now,” she told me.

“That’s pretty big, but still pretty small at the same time.” I stood up from my bed and turned on the light. “I have an idea.”

“And that is?”

“Stand up. You have to stand up for this idea.”

Questioningly, she stood. I went digging through my CD collection, searching for a certain song. “Ah, here it is,” I muttered, tossing it into the boom box that sat on top of my dresser. I went digging into my closest, knocking over boxes and my hanging clothes. Then I pulled out an old guitar case and sat it on the ground in front of Aria.

“What are you doing?” She laughed, wiping at her eyes.

“Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed I take my violin to the woods and play until I feel a little less broken. And seeing how it’s too cold to play outside, and no offense, but you are freaking terrible at playing instruments, therefore I am going to teach you the gift of this beauty.” I bent down and unlatched the case, opening it to reveal nothing and everything all at once.

“What are we looking at?” she asked.

I reached down, lifting up my first ever air guitar. “This right here is a Myers’ family antique. My grandfather taught my father his first air guitar song on this beauty here, and my father taught me on the same one. And now I would like to teach Cantaloupe his first air guitar song. Granted, I might need you to supply the fingers for the playing since Cantaloupe isn’t really…ya know, fully functional yet.”

“Understandable.” She giggled.

I placed it in her hold, and she took it. “Careful, you have to be gentle.”

“Of course. I promise to handle it with care.” She smiled, and I just about died.

I loved her smiles the most.

I lifted my air guitar and hit play on the boom box. “What song is this?” she asked.

“‘She Talks To Angels’, by The Black Crowes,” I said, tuning my strings. I smirked as I watched her start to mimic my movements. “It was my Dad’s favorite song to air guitar to when I used to come visit him. He loved it.”

I spent the next hour teaching her the intro to the song, and we kept playing until she started yawning.

I placed her guitar back into the case, took the CD out of the player and set it inside of the case also. I held it out toward Aria.

“I can’t take your guitar, Levi.”

“No offense, Art. But I’m pretty sure this is between Cantaloupe and me.” I bent down to her stomach and said, “Practice whenever you can, buddy.”

Aria climbed out of the window, and I handed her the case. “Thanks for tonight.” Her feet fidgeted back and forth. “Do you think we can eat lunch together again?”

“I would like that.”

She grinned and walked off with the guitar case in her hands.

32 Aria

It was a Sunday afternoon when Dad moved out. November 22^nd, the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Mom said he wasn’t really moving out, but he was just going to stay with his sister, Molly, for a little while. She said they needed space and time to figure out a few things. I watched him load up his truck with suitcases from my window. It looked like a lot of luggage for being a temporary move. Grace came in and stood next to me, staring out of the window. She had tears in her eyes, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

Mike came into the room next. I asked him not to blame me right now because I was on the verge of tears, too. He didn’t say a thing. He stood on the other side of Grace and wrapped an arm around her. We each stared out of the window.

It was the first snow of the winter.

As it fell from the sky, everything around us fell along with it.

After Dad drove off, the three of us stood there for a while longer. Mom joined us with KitKat in her arms. She was probably sad, but wouldn’t show it in front of us.

We didn’t eat dinner at the table that Sunday. It didn’t feel right without him.

During the whole Thanksgiving break, I didn’t see Levi, mostly because I spent the days with my family, trying to keep them from falling apart. I texted him about Dad moving out, and he sent me a word a day to keep me from going over the deep end.

Levi: Thinking – noun| [thing-king] : the action of using your mind to produce thoughts.

Levi: Of – preposition | [uhv, ov; unstressed uhv or, esp. before consonants, uh] : used to indicate specific identity or a particular item within a category.

Levi: You – pronoun|[yoo; unstressed yoo, yuh] : Aria Lauren Watson.

Thinking of you, too, Levi Myers.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror wearing a tank top and sweatpants with Cantaloupe’s guitar case sitting open on the bathtub. The Black Crowes blasted and I practiced the song over and over again on the air guitar.

Grace walked past the bathroom. She backtracked her steps and came to a standstill. “Are you drunk?”

I laughed.

“My teacher Mrs. Thompson said she wasn’t allowed to drink when she was pregnant.”

“Well, your teacher Mrs. Thompson was awkward for talking about drinking to kids your age.”

She blinked as she watched my hands move back and forth against the invisible guitar. “Are you going crazy?”

“That’s not a nice word.”

She slapped the palm of her hand to her forehead and walked away. “Oh my gosh, my sister’s a pregnant nutcase!”

When school came back on December 1^st, the snow was falling overhead, and I was bundled up in my winter wear. Mom had had to get me a new coat because my normal winter coat didn’t fit as well. Simon walked over to me and gave me a halfway grin. “I heard about your dad. Are you okay?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head again, staring at the ground. When the blue Chucks stood next to me and kicked around the snow on the ground, I joined in with my shoes.

“Hi, Art.”

I released the breath I’d been holding for a week. “Hi.”

“What size are we at now?”

“An eggplant.”

He smiled. “Morning, Mr. Eggplant.”

We climbed onto the bus and set in the seats across from one another. He took out his CD player and handed me one of the ear buds. He placed the other in his ear. I took a few deep breaths.

And when he hit play, we both played our invisible guitars.

“I have a proposal for you, and I’m hoping you’ll say yes,” Levi said when his music class showed up to our art room. He sat his violin case down. “I think we should be glitterati.”

“We’re not wealthy or famous,” I argued. “Plus, we don’t have any fashionable events to attend.”

“Ah! But that is wrong! Because while I was walking down the hallway, I heard people whispering and gossiping about how I could possibly be the father of your baby.”

“Is that the current rumor?”

“It is indeed the current rumor, and seeing as how most famous people are always talked about in those tabloids you read, then I think that kind of makes us famous by definition.”

“And what’s that definition?”

“Having a widely spread reputation.”

I smiled. “We do have that, don’t we? But we don’t have a fashionable event to attend, so I guess we’re out of luck. Do you want to work on a few samples of our final project? You can play as I paint and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can’t just change the subject because we do have a fashionable event to attend.”

“And that is?”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it my way. “Aria Watson, will you go to winter formal with me this Saturday night?”

I chuckled. “Seriously?”

He nodded.

“No way. My mom would never let me go. Plus, there’s that whole six months pregnant thing I have going on.”

“You don’t worry about that. You just have a dress ready and your dancing shoes on. I’ll deal with your mom.”

Levi asked Mom on Tuesday if he could take me to the dance. She said no.

He asked on Wednesday. She said no.

Thursday before my therapy appointment—no.

Friday—no.

When Saturday night arrived, I figured Levi had given up on the idea of me going to winter formal with him. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try on every dress in my closet, but most of them didn’t fit anymore anyway.

Maybe that was for the best.

I watched Mike and his date Jamie get ready with James and Nadine before they all headed off to the dance that I wasn’t allowed to attend.

It wasn’t fair.

Thirty minutes after the dance started, there was knocking on the front door.

Peeking around the corner, I saw Mom opening the door. Levi was standing there giving her that charming smile that made everyone in the whole wide world fall in love with him.

“Hello, Mrs. Watson. First and foremost, these are for you,” Levi said, handing flowers to Mom. My heart started beating faster and faster.

“Thank you, Levi, but I think the answer is still the same. We think it’s best that Aria doesn’t attend the winter formal tonight.”

She said ‘we’ like Dad was a part of the decision when really, he didn’t even know there was a dance.

“I know, but if I may?” He gestured toward the foyer, and Mom let him step inside.

She shouldn’t have done that. Once Levi entered someone’s house—or heart—there was no way to ever get rid of him.

He was wearing a black tuxedo with a polka dot green and white bowtie. He cleared his throat and stood tall, giving Mom that dangerous smile. “I want to take her to the dance. I understand why she wouldn’t want to go. I get why you wouldn’t want her to go. Her life is going to change within the next few months. Nothing is going to be the same, everything is going to be different, and you fear that all of the changes are going to be too much for her. Plus, the idea of me in her life is just another stressful thing added to the equation. Trust me, I’ve been trying to leave her alone for the past few months, but she’s ruthless at getting my attention. I get that you worry about what others will say about her ever-growing stomach and how she’ll be judged and criticized by other kids. Any good parent would worry about such things and any loving parent would want to keep their kid from that.

“But I want you to know that I’ll protect her. I’ll make her forget that there is anyone else in the room. I’ll make her feel comfortable and beautiful because her beauty is comforting to me. I’ll dance slow and not too often so she’s not on her feet all evening. I’ll make her laugh at really corny math jokes and give her really watered down punch.”

Mom placed her thumb in between her lips. She was probably debating if she should shove him back outside and double bolt the locks, or if she should drag me to my room and put me in a dress.

“Levi, you have to understand. Aria isn’t in a place where she should be dating. It’s actually the last thing she should be doing.”

He nodded. He frowned. He looked past my mom and saw me hiding behind the corner. He gave me a half smile.

I gave him the other half.

His eyes traveled back to Mom. “You think I want to date Aria? God, no. There’s nothing about your daughter that I want to date. She’s cool and all, but by all means, she has officially been friend-zoned in my book.”

“I think we both know that’s a lie.” Mom sighed, crossing her arms.

“No, Mrs. Watson, it’s not. You see, there are girls and then there’s Aria. Aria is the kind of girl who you go to the music store with and listen to destroy the sounds of music. She’s the kind of girl you talk to about your views on realism compared to impressionism. She’s the girl who tells you that abstract art is the best art, even though you fight her tooth and nail about it because you think it’s meaningless, but the next thing you know you’re sitting in a library staring at books filled with pictures of abstract artwork and your heart feels ready to explode.”

Levi turned to me as I stepped out from behind the corner. Our eyes locked, and he kept speaking. “Because you get it, you know? You get that the colors and the lines and the curves aren’t trying to be like everything else in the world. You understand that the abstract art is standing out against the norm because it’s the only way abstract art knows how to stand. And you get so fucking happy because it’s so beautiful. And unique. And edgy. And…abstract.”

The room filled with silence as the three of us stood with no words coming to our minds. Levi adjusted his bowtie, turned back to Mom, and cleared his throat. “So, if it’s okay, I would like to take your abstract masterpiece to the dance tonight. Friends only.”

Mom turned to me and shrugged her shoulders. “Do you want to go?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

I badly wanted to go with Levi.

“Then go.” She nodded her head toward my room. “Go get dressed.”

Without hesitation, I turned and hurried in the direction of my room with the biggest smile that I could no longer hide. As I entered my room I couldn’t help but giggle when I heard Levi say to my mom, “I’m sorry for saying the f word in your house, Mrs. Watson.”

“It’s okay, Levi. Consider it your one free pass.”

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of my bedroom wearing a black dress that probably shouldn’t have stretched out as far as it did. My feet were wearing a pair of flats because they were the only thing that didn’t make me feel exhausted from standing. Mom gave me her pearl necklace and earrings.

When I entered the living room, where Levi was waiting, he stood from the couch. “Whoa,” he said, staring my way. He didn’t say another word, or move an inch. Minutes passed, and still no movement.

“Levi.” I softly laughed nervously, tugging on the bottom of my dress. “You’re staring at me.”

“I know. I swear I’ve been trying to stop, but when I stare at you something weird happens.”

“And what’s that?”

“My mind shuts up.”

“Oh, crap,” Mom muttered, standing against the fireplace, watching Levi and I with a camera in her hands and tears falling down her cheeks.

“Mom, don’t cry.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” she promised, wiping her eyes. “It’s the dust from the fireplace, that’s all.”

She smiled and got more dust in her eyes as she took photos of Levi and me.

“I like him,” Mom whispered as she kissed my forehead. “I know I shouldn’t, but I like him.”

“You and I both suffer from the same issue, Mom.”

When Levi and I walked out to his car, he held the passenger door open for me. He hopped into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. My hands rested against my stomach as we drove in silence.

“I meant that, you know,” he whispered, his eyes on the road. “The part I said about there are girls and then there’s Aria. I meant that.”

My shoulders relaxed into the seat, and I stared forward out of the windshield. There were girls, and then there was me.

Slowly my left hand edged toward the middle half of the front seat, my palm facing up.

Slowly his right hand edged toward the middle half of the front seat, his palm facing down.

Slowly, nervously, quietly, we tied our hands together.

“Are you sure you don’t want punch? I mean, I know they don’t have diamond encrusted glasses, but they have these great plastic cups,” Levi offered for the third time. We sat in two chairs against the wall. I shook my head. I couldn’t stop pulling at the fabric of my dress, feeling as if I was standing out way too much and that I was way too fat to be there.

Girls kept walking over to us and asking Levi to dance with him, but he kept turning them down.

All of the girls looked really beautiful and very far from pregnant.

Maybe it had been a bad idea to come.

Levi rested his hands in his lap. His feet were tapping against the gym floor to the music. He wasn’t having much fun, and I felt awful about it.

“I’m sorry I’m so boring,” I said.

“You’re not,” he lied.

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fat.”

He edged his chair closer to me and laid my head on his shoulder. “The way you talk about yourself makes me angry.”

“But look at all of those girls out there. You could have any of them. Clearly they all want you.”

“I don’t want them.”

“Why not?! They are everything that every guy wants. They are what you want.”

I felt him tense up and his foot stopped tapping. He removed my head from his shoulder. “Stop telling me what I want, okay?”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it? You want that?”

He rolled his eyes and pushed himself away from me. “Fine.” He started walking toward the dance floor, and I saw a few of the popular girls smiling his way. He smiled back. I felt sick. He was choosing them. It made sense. I was on the outside of their world and Levi belonged with them.

But then he kept walking past everyone. He walked out of the gym. I wanted to follow him, but I felt too stupid to do so. So I sat. I frowned like a dork, my hands resting against my stomach.

About five minutes passed before Levi reentered the room, looking very different than when he’d left. My cheeks heated up as the room erupted with laughter. He was wearing a fake pregnancy stomach and his eyes were locked with mine as he crossed over to me.

“What the heck are you doing?” I laughed, staring at how ridiculous he looked.

“Dance with me,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

“No way.”

“Dance with me,” he repeated, stepping closer.

“Levi!”

“Dance. With. Me,” he begged, his eyes pleading with me to say yes.

He took my hands in his, and I stood up. The music was up-tempo and everyone was staring at Levi. “Just look at me,” he ordered, so I didn’t look away. He started dancing like an ape, all over the place, no sense of rhythm, and no care that others were staring at him.

I couldn’t stop laughing, and I started dancing with him. With no care, no fear, and no regrets. I kept looking at him and as he moved, his fake stomach danced, too. “Some people were just born to stand out, Aria. Just deal with it and keep dancing.”

I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to, but I was falling in love with him. Each second was filled with more love. I wasn’t sure if seventeen-year-old pregnant girls were allowed to fall in love with oxymoronic boys who made their hearts skip. My head kept telling me that it was wrong, that I shouldn’t be considering such an insane idea.

My head knew this was wrong. My head knew every reason why I should’ve never allowed myself to fall for Levi Myers. My head told me there were limits to love, boundaries. “You’re having a baby,” my brain told me daily. “You’re not allowed to date,” it ordered. “He’ll find someone better,” my brain scolded me.

But my heart…my heart believed in a quiet, simple kind of love. A kind of love that was created before time existed, a kind of love that was bigger than any limitations the world placed upon us. It was a type of love that had no age limits, no boundaries, and was seen only within the souls of two people. My heart didn’t give me much of a choice.

“Love openly,” my heart whispered. “Love unconditionally,” my heart begged. “Love the struggles,” my heart taught. “Love in the moment.”

It was something ugly and beautiful all at once, wasn’t it? How your heart didn’t give a damn what your head wanted.