“Answer the damn call, Levee.”
“No! I’m serious. I didn’t do my hair when I got out of the shower. I look like an ungroomed poodle. Plus, I can’t even find half of my makeup. There is no way I’m giving you that visual of me while I’m gone for the next month.”
“Levee, I’ve seen you crying with makeup running down your face, asleep and drooling in a car, and with sex mats covering your head. I still wanted to fuck you senseless. I don’t care what the hell you look like right now. Answer the damn phone!”
“Nerp. Not happening. I’ll fix myself up tomorrow.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I bit out in frustration.
“Trust me, this isn’t exactly easy on me. I can’t even remember what you look like. I vaguely remember you being somewhat attractive, but I’m not completely sure. I don’t even have a picture of you.”
“And you’re not going to get one, either,” I lied. I was going to blow up her phone with pictures of me until she sent me one of her. Sure, I could have found a million images of Levee on the Internet, but I really just wanted one of my Designer Shoes.
“Can we please just get back to your story? I’m dying to know about this skeleton.”
I let out a huff, grabbed my laptop off the nightstand, and pulled up Photoshop. “So, after she covered Herman in mesh, she rolled him onto my porch with a huge smile on her face. I couldn’t even argue with her when she declared that, when the skeletons lungs were filled with cigarettes, so were mine. She made me promise to collect all of my butts and deposit them in Herman, and when his chest was full, I had to quit smoking. It was a big chest, so I agreed. I got into the habit of keeping all of my butts and giving them to her at the end of each night.” My heart sped, and my hands, which had been furiously moving over my laptop, froze. “Sometimes I forget she’s gone and I still collect them.”
“Sam,” Levee breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I like talking about her sometimes. I miss her a lot.”
I heard her shifting again, and I tried to imagine her beside me as I worked on my laptop. I had it so fucking bad for this woman.
“I bet she was beautiful.”
“She really was.” I sucked in a deep breath and smiled through the pain. It wasn’t so overwhelming with Levee. And, if I hadn’t already been falling for this amazing woman, that fact alone would have had me jumping in headfirst. “Anyway…anything else you want to know?”
“What’d you have for dinner?” she asked randomly.
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. I’m starving. Someone, who shall remain nameless, forced me to miss dinner with his sexy stomach, remember?” She giggled.
And with that, the pain disappeared completely.
I WAS LIKE a kid at summer camp, hiding with the covers over my head to sneak my phone. Mandatory lights out had been hours earlier, but I wasn’t ready to let Sam go, even as my eyelids became heavy with sleep. Over the first few days, they had confiscated my phone while I’d been assessed. Doctor Post had tweaked my antidepressants and taken me off the antianxiety medication all together. I really was feeling better, but managing my life inside the stress-free environment of the center was completely different than managing it on the outside, where millions of people pulled me in different directions. However, I was committed to doing my absolute best, even if it meant drastically changing my life when I was able to go home.
I was supposed to be resting and relaxing while giving my mind and my body a chance to recover, but nothing healed me more than those hours I spent on the phone with Sam.