Page 39 of Our Hearts Knew Better

Levi. Still here for me.

“Get off,” I told him, shoving at him, knowing he didn’t dodge trains and not wanting him to stay because he felt obligated. No matter how much my fingers wanted to curl around his shirt and keep him beside me.

I shoved, but it was like pushing against a rock, as the train chugged closer, also not wanting him to drag me off before I could have this moment to justbeand not think, not break.

But he didn’t do either. He didn’t get off and he didn’t drag me with him. And I should’ve known he wouldn’t.

Somewhere beneath every throbbing vein and muscle and organ in my body, I did know. I knew who his best friend was, and he knew who I was, so I knew he would understand why I had to stand here tonight.

He didn’t keep the spot beside me. He moved behind me, pressed right up against my back, and he secured his hands in both of mine. Securedmein an embrace that both comforted and warned of getting me off these tracks when the time came to jump, like he worried I wouldn’t.

I squeezed Levi’s hands, where ours were entwined together at my stomach, at the thought, another reminder of what he’d been through with Adam.

And now I was putting him through that with me.

Need me to stay?

No.

Get off.

I wasn’t putting him through this with me. He waschoosingto go through this with me.

Adam and I were choices he made.

I leaned into him, my eyes stinging, and I knew it was more from his steady hold around my waist and less from the bright lights of the train…that was almost upon us.

And like last time, my body shook with the tracks.

Closer, closer. . .

My lungs seized and my heart raced. My ears flooded with the deafening sounds, my sight blinded to the lights.

Closer, closer, just a bit—

I was lifted, then toppling to the ground, my limbs tangling with Levi’s until we rolled to a stop on our backs, our lungs heaving.

The train whizzed past us, and like last time, laughter tore from my throat. And I laughed and laughed until that was the only sound left in the quiet and I quieted too.

My eyes traced the stars until I had enough air to find my voice. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Levi took several of my slower thudding heartbeats to respond with, “I’m sort of used to it,” and those beats seemed to still completely as I sighed.

“With Adam.”

Grass shuffled lightly near my head, where Levi’s head was, so I guessed he nodded. “One day he’s gonna get himself killed.”

I heard the fear in his words, and when I looked over, I saw it lingering in his eyes when he met mine. His skin was flushed, clammy, and his hair was the mess I loved it to be.

“Why’d you stay?”

His lips parted as his eyes danced between mine, soft under the bend in his brows. “I wanted to be with you on the other side.”

Everything rushed back then, and I crashed hard. My body felt heavy enough to put indentions in the ground, and I wished for the earth to swallow me up. I’d rather be buried alive in the soil than continue to die in my dad’s rejection. In his silence, that tomorrow would bring.

“It’s a temporary fix,” Levi murmured, like another warning, some advice, as the sting returned to my eyes.

“What’s the permanent solution?” I asked him, the words wobbly as the sting moved to my nose.

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