Page 5 of Our Hearts Knew Better

I told Levi that too.

I told him how it was just school and home and hanging out with Dad, all the time.

I was dumping, but he was quiet, watching and listening to me without moving a muscle—except that one jerk in his jaw when I told him that story, that still put something hollow in my heart when I thought about it, the one I thought about the most, because of how rattled my dad and I both were.

Levi didn’t tell me he was sorry, but I got something more important than a throwaway apology; I got his understanding.

It was validating. And then confirming in a hopeless kind of sense.

And the combination of all that from him encouraged me to dump more.

I told him how I sneaked out. Then I told him about the move.Allthe moving. . .

And that’s when we both found out wewerethe same age, in the same grade, and his eyes wore that spark again before his mouth formed that similar cringe, but this one from sympathy.

“Starting a new school at anytime doesn’t seem fun but senior year? That’s rough.”

I bent a knee, tucking my leg in close to my chest. “It’s not as rough as living a controlled existence where nothing can happen to you.”

“You want things to happen to you?” His question was low but my answer was lower.

“I need it,” I whispered, like it was a secret, still buried wishes, with my lips against the mouth of my can, avoiding his attention before quickly diverting it. “You come out here every night?”

“Whenever I can,” he said, after swallowing the last of his soda. Then he looked at me a long moment before he said low, “But no.”

But tonight, he did.Just like I did.

He got on his feet with a glance back at me and a point to his can as he moved to grab another. I shook my head, shaking around the soda I still had left.

Levi was aseaboy. I loved the water. I loved learning about it. And I’d seen and read about boat rides, and those seemed fun. Unless a shark was involved.

I could imagine the wind in my hair, the rush of the waves, the vibrations. . .

“Why can’t you take it out at night?” I asked next, with a look to the boat, as he sat back beside me, a bit closer than he was before, and popped the tab on his fresh can.

He eyed me, like I asked if we could, shaking his head now. “Too dangerous,” he said with a deeper tone, like he was imitating one of his dad’s lectures he’d mentioned, but I couldn’t smile for that, my smile becoming a laughing off of what I thought he assumed. Like I wanted this guy who’d just met me to take me out on a boat.

“I wasn’t gonna ask if we could, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You looked like you were.” His mouth had a quirk in it, like he was fighting his own smile.

“You know my looks already?” I challenged, from the zip of giddiness in my veins, from him.

His eyes traced along my face. “Do I?” It was another real question, with a hint of a challenge back, andmaybeI was thinking about him being with me when I imagined the wind and the rush and the vibrations, but I wasn’t admitting that.

I shook my head again behind a sip of soda and he chuckled behind a swallow of his.

“Ask me during the day. You can meet my dad,” he said, just throwing that out as if I wouldn’t choke on my drink, before another cringe found his mouth as he probably remembered I couldn’t do anything during the day.

“You want me to meet your dad?” I blurted after my strained swallow, letting go that I couldn’t meet him.

Levi’s next words stalled in his mouth, his jaw popping open with just a breath. “Well—” he started, taking another breath, hisfluster back on his face that made me laugh—it was the giddiness—and he laughed, too, a loosening in his shoulders. “I mean, you’ll probably meet him, anyway. Small town. Everyone around here knows my dad.”

I felt my back slump into the seat. “I’m not from around here.” I said it as a sighed reflex, from how it was everywhere I went, a moment of feeling like that still wouldn’t change, despite what was happening right now.

I existed in towns. I didn’t live in them.

“I know,” Levi said, not unkindly as he went along with me. “I would’ve remembered seeing you,” he added, with a smile that made my stomach do a flip, and I smiled back from behind the biggest drink.

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