But then he shakes his head and, taking the last few steps toward me, embraces me fully. Sighing, as if he’s so happy to have me and so unhappy that we fought, he kisses me full on the mouth.
Of all the things I expected, it was not this. With his arms around my waist, my hands automatically weave through his hair. It doesn’t matter that all our friends are watching, or that I feel like I don’t deserve something so wonderful.
It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t smiled at me.
What does matter: that I missed him, that he’s holding me like he missed me, and that we’re together. That’s it. That’s everything.
Tom whistles (I’d be thoroughly pissed if I weren’t so preoccupied) and Keagan loudly proclaims, “Well, his first birthday celebration with a girlfriend was bound to be a little different, right?”
And Elle. “That’s a little steamy, you guys.” (Oh, Elle, you’re one to talk.) At that, Levi steps back, tucking me into his side. Then he smiles at them (still not at me), laughs at them, shakes his head like they’re funny and he hasn’t just jumbled up our already confused hearts.
Elle tosses her blue hair over her shoulder. “I just want a beer. Who’s with me?”
Suzie clears her throat by the doorway to the kitchen. “Hello, again,” she says, looking closely at Elle (who gives a sheepish smile and hides the beer behind her back) before turning to her son. Everyone stands remarkably still as she crosses over and kisses Levi’s cheek. “Drink responsibly, baby. I’ll be in my room if you need anything.” She waves at us, pressing my hand once before disappearing.
Elle grins. “I mean, she gave her permission, so it’s totally legal, yeah?”
Levi rolls his eyes. “At least Albert isn’t here to throw glitter on me.”
“Actually—” Elle hands the beer to Keagan and reaches into her pockets. “This is from him,” she says gleefully, and tosses two handfuls of glitter into the air.
“Happy twentieth, Levi!” Keagan shouts, and Michael and Tom and the rest of the boys join in, with me and Elle and the twins right behind. Then the house goes up in cheers, and Levi’s rubbing glitter out of his hair, laughing. He’s so beautiful, standing there with his heart on his sleeve.
(I don’t want to break it, but I think I already have.)
We end up on the roof.
One of the boys requested it, so Levi got out the ladder, and we climbed the wobbly thing until we were on the house’s slightly angled roof. I laid out a blue and white striped blanket from Suzie’s linen closet and all ten of us unceremoniously piled on. The boys and Elle each grabbed a beer while the twins and I popped open Sprite cans.
Now we’re on our backs, staring at the sky. Even I (in my uncertain state of being, in my fear and doubt and anger) am enamored with the star patterns visible tonight. After a few minutes of lying beside each other, silently, Levi reaches for my hand. I feel his fingers brush mine, soft and slow, and for a moment I let him grip me. He threads his fingers through mine, squeezing tight like he means it.
But I’m not sure of anything anymore, so I untangle us.
He shifts and lifts his beer as if nothing happened. “Thanks, you guys.”
“No,” Keagan replies, “thank you.”
“Shut up,” Levi says.
“No,” Michael says, sitting up and raising his beer to Levi’s. “If there was ever a man who could singlehandedly change the world, it’d be Levi.”
“Amen to that!” someone shouts, and another whoops. We all laugh a little.
“Seriously, you guys, shut up,” Levi groans out, hand over his face in embarrassment. “You’re drunk, Michael.”
“Dude,” Michael says, in complete control of his faculties, “I’ve had, like, two sips.”
Levi shakes his head. “Thanks. But for real, that’s enough.”
I want to reach over and smack his arm like I would have before, but I’m frozen, my elbows locked. (I let go of his hand. He walked away. What am I doing here?) My voice is gone, too, so I can’t tell him how wrong he is, how it’s not enough, how we have so much more to say about him.
Hours pass under the stars. We talk about TCP and Levi and cars and Elle’s irrational fear of raccoons. (“There’s one living on the roof,” Levi tells us, and Elle curls up into a tight ball.) We discuss the stars most of all, with Elle reading off information to us from a constellation app on her phone. It reminds me of a story, a good one that I would read over and over again, and I want to stay like this forever: no cancer, no future, no fear of screwing everything up. I could be happy, forever living in this moment of now.
But then it ends. (Of course it does.) Elle screeches at the slightest sound of scraping on the roof behind us, hurriedly saying her goodbye. Slowly, our friends start to trickle off the roof, telling us to stay, that they’ll see themselves out. Sooner than later, it’s just Levi and me on the roof, lying still beneath the black expanse. It’s like they knew there was something going on, something between us that wasn’t quite right, and wanted us to fix it.
Too bad, I think. I don’t know how to fix it. Keagan said not to overthink it, but all I can do is think about it.
I start to stand, to wipe off my jeans, but Levi grabs my hand and tugs me toward him. “I should go,” I mutter. I realize, with a terrible pang, that these are the first words I’ve said directly to him all night.
“Stay,” he says simply.
I make a hmph noise.
“It’s only ten,” he adds.
“That’s supposed to make me want to stay?” I ask. And then I close my eyes because I did not want to start a fight. It’s his birthday and— “Whatever.” He shrugs.
“Levi.” I plunk down beside him. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you know what? I’m sorry. I spoke out of line the other day.” He drinks the last of his beer and balances it beside him so it won’t roll off the roof and shatter.
“You didn’t really.”
“I just…for so long, I heard my dad and the way he handled things. He always had to say something. He never let anything go, always had to be right. I’m trying so hard not to do that.”
“Trying not to rock the boat?” I ask.
He looks at me. (I want to take his pretty face in my hands and kiss away the sadness.) “You talked to Keagan, didn’t you? That’s his phrase.”
I look away. “He was at the shop and you weren’t.”
“Sorry.”
I pull my knees up to my chest and don’t say anything.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,” he says, heaving a breath. “I shouldn’t have asked if you love me. I know you love me.”
My heart hurts. “How?”
He laughs, a little bitter. The sound goes through skin and bone. “What do you mean, how? You love me.”
“How?” I repeat, quietly.