Page 317 of Rage

"I called him. The boyfriend. She'd tried to get in touch with him while she was still conscious, but he'd been out of town for work and didn't answer. When I finally got through to him, he didn't say much. All he asked was if she'd live, and if the baby survived. He never showed up. A couple of days later, whenI called to update him, the number was no longer in service. Something felt off. I scoured her phone, reading through all her text messages and social media, but she wasn't very active online. I found a few selfies she'd kept on her phone and got some hints from the text message thread."

The way he looks at me feels foreboding. There's a tension in the air that clogs my throat. I know what he's going to say next, even though I don't want it to be true. Why else would he feel the need to tell me all of this?

Levi holds up a phone that was sitting on the counter with all the other stuff that suddenly feels very ominous. The screen is already unlocked, the photos app pulled up. On the screen are multiple pictures of my father with a very pretty young girl. Some of them could be considered innocent enough, but as Levi swipes through the photos, there are a few that I wish I hadn't seen that make it very clear what the nature of their relationship was.

My father was having an affair with Levi's sister.

"The more I dug into things, the more I got the feeling that something was very off." He pauses and swallows again before leveling me with a very serious glare. "I found out that Mathias Havre had closed the baby registry two days before Everly got sick."

"Wh-what?"

Levi nods, like he's waiting for me to catch up, for something to click in my brain. But the opposite is happening. It doesn't make any sense.

"Everly's boyfriend didn't want her to have the baby, but then came around suddenly and was making all these plans. All of his text messages were planning their future together, discussing baby names and what the nursery would look like and whether their future child would have her freckles. But he canceled the registry even while he was telling my sister he hopes the baby is alittle girl so he can spoil her. And then, when he was notified that something was wrong, he didn't come to her side. He blocked all communication. Never reached out or checked on her. The last part almost made sense once I found out he was married and a public figure, but the registry thing kept bothering me…."

A wave of nausea rolls through me. The smell of the takeout I set on the table is no longer appetizing, and I consider opening the door to let some fresh air into the room.

Levi clears his throat, and his eyes fall shut. His posture is tense, and I know he isn't done. There's something more. He said he'd done something bad, but all he's talked about is my father and his sister.

"I started following your dad. That's how I ended up at your church. I knew he did something to my sister. Iknewit. But there he was, smiling and going on with his perfect public image and perfect family. I wanted to ruin him like he ruined my sister. She's alive, but she might never regain her full brain function. She's rotting in a hospital bed, while he's winning elections on a platform of family values. I hate him, Adam."

I suck in a sharp breath. I don't know how to feel. Honestly, I can't really blame him. Especially because I know some things about my father that he doesn't. Things my gut wants me to share with him, but the expression in his watery eyes tells me there's more.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Do you remember the volunteer project we did with the youth group, the one where we fixed up that old lady's house?"

Uh, yeah, I remember.

I'd noticed Levi the first day he stepped into the church, surreptitiously watched him sit in the back pew week after week. But that project was the first time I reallylookedat Levi. At the end of the day, we were covered in sweat and sawdust. Levi switched his shirt for a clean one before getting in his car toleave. I think I nearly swallowed my tongue when I looked over at the car next to mine and saw him without a shirt. The way he'd grinned when he noticed me looking at him terrified me, but it also exhilarated me. It was after that day that Levi started coming around more, volunteering more, and we started getting to know each other. It was only a week later that he kissed me for the first time, and I’d embarrassed myself with just a light brush of his hand over the crotch of my jeans.

"The moment I saw you look at me like that, I knew I could seduce you. Use you. I started talking to you, flirting with you… doing things to you I knew you were uncomfortable with, but wouldn't stop because I knew you wanted it. I took advantage of you and got close to you with the intent to get back at your father for what he did to Everly. I didn't have a plan. My best-case scenario was that I'd get access to the senator and find something to incriminate him… And I did."

The room is spinning, a burning sensation crawling up my esophagus. It takes a conscious effort to breathe.

Everything I let him do to me, that I did to him… Everything I've been feeling. None of it was real.

My voice is barely audible. "It was all… a lie?"

"It started that way, yes." He gives me a moment to process, but when I don't move, he says more. "It started that way, but something happened along the way I wasn't expecting. I got to know you, and you're so much more than what I saw when I first laid eyes on you."

"And what was that?" I spit out.

"I thought you were surface-level like your dad. Perfect on the outside, but hiding something sinister and ugly on the inside."

He’s wrong though. I do have something sinister and ugly on the inside. I always have. A secret I never dared to speak out loud. A secret I tried to deny, even to myself. All the prayers,and self-loathing, and fear of hellfire couldn't burn it out of me, but at least I'd never acted on it. At least I could pretend. Until I met him, and he made me believe that the worst part of me was something beautiful.

"No, Adam," Levi says sharply. "No. Nothing like that. Don't ever think that, please. Even if you hate me, even if you never want to see or speak to me again, I need you to know this?—"

This time it's him who makes me look up, cradling the sides of my face in both hands and looking deep into my eyes. His eyes are filled with tears, and the look he's giving me is full of sincerity and longing. It's painful to look at him. He's so beautiful. So full of life. How is it possible that he could be faking something that I felt in my soul?

"You are perfect, Adam. In every way, inside and out. It took one conversation to realize you were nothing like your father. But I'm broken inside, Adam. I still kept pushing you, kept digging, kept trying to get closer and closer to you. And a big part of that, even after I learned you are a good person, was because I wanted to take advantage of that goodness. I could have stopped, could have left you alone and found another way, but I didn't. Because I didn't want to stop.”

He sucks in a jagged breath and continues, the pained tone in his voice making it sound like the words hurt as much to say as they do to hear.

“The closer I got to you, the more I wanted you. The more I tasted, the more I hungered for you. I didn't even realize the depths of my feelings for you until I knew it was too late, until the moment I had all the evidence I need laid out in front of me, and I realized that if I did this, if I used the information I found today to take him down and expose him… that I would be losing you."

Pulling away from him, I stand. He moves to follow me, but I hold up a hand. My brain is tired. I don't know what to think or what to feel.

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