“Levi?” We both look up as my mom comes into the room, closing the door behind her. She smiles that pixie smile of hers, glancing at my sleeping dad, and lowers her voice. “Good to see you.” Levi starts to get up, but she waves her hand at him. “Stay there, don’t mind me.”
He gives her a broad grin. “Hi, Chloe.”
My mom kisses his forehead, and then mine. “Did you get to talk to him?”
“He fell asleep before I got here.”
“I’m sure he’ll be so bummed when he finds out he missed you.”
Levi shrugs. “I can stay as late as you’ll let me.” Suddenly, he sits up straight and reaches into his pocket. “Hey, before I forget, I brought the check for you.”
The envelope that he passes into my mom’s hands is white and small, but I can tell it immediately makes her nervous. She glances at me in worry, then back at Levi, and tries to smile. “Thanks.”
“What’s that?” I ask, uneasy.
Levi glances between us. “Oh.” His eyes widen. “I, um, thought she knew?”
My mom sighs. “Bee—” She opens the envelope and takes out the check. It’s addressed to my dad.
It’s from The Color Project.
Everything in the room slows to a halt as I slide my legs off Levi’s and stand. “What?” I whisper. My blood rushes in my ears, too loudly. “Mom?”
She takes a deep breath in before she says, “Levi has been paying for your dad’s treatments.”
“What?” I repeat for the third time. I look down at where Levi is sitting, expression confused, like he doesn’t know why I’m acting like this. “Why?”
There’s a flash of irritation in his eyes. Like he has a few choice words for me that he doesn’t want to say in front of my mom. “Bee, come on—”
“There are other people, Levi, who might need this more than we do.”
My mom sighs. “We do need this. We haven’t been able to afford a single treatment.”
I look her, with her sadness and stress and worry so plain on her face, and then at Levi, who nods in affirmation. “They applied shortly after we found out that day,” he says.
(My heart shatters.) “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, willing one of them to answer me. I don’t want to cry, but it’s a battle I know I’m losing. I’m angry—so angry—that I blamed this on Levi, that I assumed he was giving us money without a reason. Why on earth would he do that? Of course there was a reason; of course my parents applied.
She touches my arm, but I step out of reach. She works her jaw and says, “We didn’t want you to worry about anything else. Cancer is a hard burden to bear on its own.”
“I could have,” I protest, although I’m not sure I’m telling the truth. “I would have been fine! Maybe I could have even helped.” I stop, something dawning on me. “Is that why you stopped asking me about college? Because you knew you couldn’t afford it?”
She doesn’t answer me directly, but her drooping shoulders and the bags under her eyes tell me I’m right. “Baby Bee, we don’t want you to help. That’s what TCP is for. And if you’d found something you wanted to do, I would have wanted you to go for it without worrying about us. Everything is being taken care of—”
I’m not listening anymore. I did find something, but now I can’t tell her because she’ll insist on paying for the class and whatever college courses I want to take later. I can’t let her do that.
(Papa is dying. Papa is dying. Papa is dying.) I take a step back and turn. “I’m going home,” I say, grabbing my purse by the foot of the bed. I hear my mom ask Levi if he can follow me home, but I’m gone before I can hear his response.
Because he’s Levi, he does follow me home, exactly like my mother asked.
“Wait,” he says when I ignore him. He follows me up the path and the steps to the front door. “Bee! Come on,” he pleads.
“I don’t want to talk,” I say, and I mean it.
He takes my hand, so unassuming, but I jerk away. “Please, listen to me—”
“I know you didn’t know, Levi,” I say, and pause fumbling with my keys to turn and look at him. “I’m sorry I blamed you. I should have asked questions.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
He breathes out. “I can pay for the class, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I don’t want you to pay for the class!” My voice is raised now. My throat hurts. “That’s the whole point!”
“You should have told her. She loves you and wants you to be happy. I want you to be happy!”
“You can’t do everything for me!” I burst, hands closing into fists.
“What?” He rests back on his heels, as if tempted to take a step away from me. He doesn’t just look surprised, he looks shocked. “Why would I want to do everything for you? I want to do one thing for you. Just one!”
“I don’t need help with that, not right now. Please, just…” I wipe a hand over my face.
“You can’t just…pull away when things get hard,” he tells me, jaw growing hard.
“I’m not—I’m not.” (I am, and I know it.) “I know we still have things we need to work through. I’ve been trying not to bring it up because there are a lot of other things happening but maybe that’s not good for us. Maybe it’s getting in the way of…us.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about any of it right now. I’m too tired.”
“Why won’t you let me comfort you?”
“This is not comforting.”
“Not this.” He takes a deep breath. “I imagined this going a lot differently.”
I wipe my eyes with shaking hands. Everything is falling apart too fast. Everything in me aches for him to understand. “Levi, my dad is dying.”
“I know he is,” he grinds out. “I’m trying to imagine what you’re going through, believe me.”
“You know what I’m going through—your own dad—”
“It’s not the same.” Levi runs both hands over his hair, jaw locking in what I think might be anger. “I never loved my dad the way you love yours. Hell, I’ve never loved my dad the way I love yours.”
“Then you understand!” My voice is raised again. “You know what it’s like to watch him wasting away every day, suffering. I’m breaking, Levi.”
“And I want to help hold you together,” he says. “But we have to talk about things—”
“No, we don’t! Not right now.”
He stops short, his breathing heavy. “That’s your problem. You did this before, when the news came out. You didn’t want to talk about it with me, you didn’t tell Gretchen for a whole week—”
A month, I correct him silently. His words are hitting a mark I didn’t even know existed. I know he’s right, and I also know that I am angry.
“We have to talk about things. Otherwise, I will never be able to comfort you, because I don’t know how,” he says. “I can’t read your mind.”
I don’t answer. I don’t know how.
“Do you love me?” he asks. The question is sudden and violent, and we both immediately know he’s been bursting with this for a long time.
I let out a soft moan. This was exactly what stopped me the other day: I haven’t done enough, I haven’t loved him enough. “Of course. Of course I love you.” I wipe my eyes again.
“Then show me.”
Three words. (Three knives.) “I’m trying.”