“Oxymoron,” I said. “It’s my favorite word. And I guess, in the end, it kind of means nothing because both parts of an oxymoron kind of cancel each other out.”
“Ugh. How nonsensical!” he whined, slapping the palm of his hand to his face.
“So nonsensical!” I laughed. “The word oxymoron is actually made up of two Greek words that mean sharp and dull. So oxymoron is its own oxymoron.”
“It’s funny you should mention such a word while we’re alone together,” he said with a smirk, hoping I would pick up on his oxymoron.
I did. Obviously.
“Yup. It’s pretty bittersweet.”
“But it’s kind of a comfortable misery.”
“Oh yes. It’s awfully good.” I laughed. He laughed with me. Our laughter kind of blended into one sound instead of two.
Then we were quiet.
So very quiet.
We stayed quiet for a long time. He was someone who was very easy to be quiet with. It was as if we were still having a conversation with no words whatsoever.
Silently loud.
But as time passed, I knew I would have to get home to get ready for school.
“Aria?” Levi pushed himself away from his tree. “Can I walk you home?”
I ran my fingers through my hair and nodded. The leaves crunched under our steps. Levi walked beside me and even though we weren’t touching, I could almost feel my heart skipping at the idea of such a thing happening. He had a warming characteristic about him that brought me a level of comfort.
Was Levi Myers real? Did he really exist? Or did my sad, black heart create him because it longed for a little bit of color?
Either way, I was happy he walked beside me.
11 Levi
When I was eleven years old, I came to visit Dad during the summer. One of the first days there, he took me out to Fisherman’s Creek. We rented a wooden boat from the dock and sat in the middle of the creek all day long, baking in the sun. Our fishing hooks sat at the bottom of the water, no fish seeming interested at all in being caught. Dad bought himself a six-pack of cold beer and me a six-pack of iced root beer.
He scolded me for not wanting to put real worms on our hooks, saying that the plastic worms didn’t ever work, but Mom told me that we were supposed to respect nature. She said if we didn’t need it to eat, then we shouldn’t harm it.
We sat chugging our beers and getting bad sunburns.
The silence of the creek was something I always remembered. How we hardly moved in our boat, how the water only waved every now and then when a bird dipped in looking for a quick meal. After five hours of sweat, my fishing rod moved, and Dad jumped to my aid, helping me reel in the biggest catch of my life. “Pull!” he ordered, and I did. I pulled, pulled, and pulled some more.
The moment of truth came when the fish emerged from the depths of the water and we laughed. We laughed so hard I thought my stomach was going to explode and root beer would come out of my nose. Turned out, my fish was less of a fish and more of a big hiking boot. When Dad laughed, I laughed. Dad leaned against the side of the boat. “Dinner might be a little leathery tonight, Levi.” We kept laughing, me clutching my gut and him chuckling at my howls.
That was the last time we’d laughed together. It was the last time we were happy together.
I wondered what had happened.
What had changed and made him stop loving me?
Now the closest I got to hearing him laugh with me was when he watched old black and white comedies on television in the living room each night. He never asked me to join him, and I could tell he was a bit annoyed when I sat with him. So, I chose to sit in the foyer each night, around the corner so he couldn’t hear or see me. When he would laugh, I would laugh.
It almost felt like we were recreating a father-son relationship that was lost in time and space.
I’d never loved black and white comedies so much in my life.
12 Levi
popular | adjective | pop·u·lar | \?p?-py?-l?r\
liked or enjoyed by many people.
suitable to the majority.
frequently encountered or widely accepted.
I didn’t know how to fit in with the popular kids. I sat at their lunch tables, listened to their talk about parties, and tried my best to always smile, but the truth was we didn’t have anything in common. They came from families who had a lot of money and lived lives of luxury. I came from a cabin in the woods. They all played sports and had other after school activities. I had my mom and wasn’t allowed to join any clubs outside of the forest. I only had the violin, and Mom taught me the lessons.
None of these guys played any instruments, and even though the girls said it was sexy that I played the violin, they never went into deep conversations about the best violinists or the interesting idea of mixing classical sounds with modern music.