Page 110 of Veil of Death and Shadow

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t or couldn’t say much more about work. “That sounds miserable.”

He nodded, then turned to me. “What about you? Did I hear you mention a study group or something?”

“Yep.” I took a deep breath, trying to quell the strange mixture of anxiety and excitement the prospect conjured in my gut. “I’m going back to school. Enrolled in a class at the community college up north last month.”

“That’s amazing. Are you liking it?”

“It’s nice, yeah.” It had been years since I’d been in a classroom, so I was still getting used to the feel of it again. “I can only afford to take one class a quarter—between tuition prices and making sure I still keep all my shifts at Mac’s, you know? So it’ll be years before I can get a degree or anything particularly useful, but yeah, I’m excited about it.”

Loud shouts echoed inside, and I had a feeling the group had moved on to a more animated game.

Levi chuckled, then shook his head. “So, what kind of party games do you usually play at these things anyway? That guy mentioned a few.”

“Never Have I Ever?” I asked, surprised, but then I realized that if he didn’t really go to any parties, most social games were probably also equally unfamiliar. “It’s usually a game people play to get to know each other better, but when there’s drinking involved it tends to warp into a game designed to get people to reveal more intimate histories. Usually about their sex lives and stuff. Sort of like the dark and twisted cousin of two truths and a lie.” When he furrowed his brows, I continued. “Someone says two true things about themself, and one lie, and the other people have to try and guess what the lie is. It's a common ice breaker, I think, in classes and stuff? People act like it’s fun, but it’s always seemed like an unnecessarily anxiety-inducing way to get to know people better.”

“I see,” he said, a devious glint in his eyes, “though I can’t say it’s entirely shocking that a game intended to draw connections between strangers would be uncomfortable for you.”

“What?” I scrunched my face in exaggerated hurt. “I can be fun. Not to mention that alerting the room that the people closest to you have a tendency of dropping dead can be a super effective way at severing connections too, not just forging them.”

“Touche.” He grinned. “Let’s play one.”

“You want to go back in?” Though the thought of returning to the chaos emanating from our living room was about as desirable right now as going to the dentist.

“No, here. Just us.”

Something about the way he said ‘just us’, or maybe the way his eyes snagged on mine, had my stomach tightening—whether because of the wine or something else, I couldn’t be sure. “Okay. Which game?”

He slid his teeth over his bottom lip, considering. “I don’t really have any interest in lies, or causing you unnecessary anxiety in trying to suss them out, but we could do two truths?”

I took another sip of the wine, the bitter notes getting stuck on the back of my tongue. “How about one?”

“Negotiations.” He smirked. “You’ve a bit of a need to maintain control over every situation, don’t you?” He exhaled, dramatically. “But I suppose that’s a suitable amendment for a diet friendship. Two truths each might be extending beyond our limits. So our game can be one each—a truth for a truth.” He narrowed his eyes, studying me. “But I want a good one, not something anybody else knows.”

“Sora knows pretty much everything about me,” I said.

“Sora doesn’t count. I want something only Sora knows about you. Not something you tell just anybody.”

“Deal.” I burrowed into my blanket, watching the soft trickle of rain wash over the street. “But you’re going first.”

“How generous.” He grabbed the bottle from me and took a drink, my focus suddenly latched onto the press of his lips to the rim where mine had been just moments ago.

I blinked, shoving the thought away. “Make it good.”

He looked out over the balcony, watching as an elderly couple crossed the street below us, collecting his thoughts for a moment. “I brushed it off before, a few months ago when it came up—but sometimes,” he took a deep breath, an uncharacteristic vulnerability lining his expression, “sometimes I think that I’m deeply jealous of my brother. Of the life he gets to lead. He doesn’t even appreciate it. But then also,” his voice softened, until it was just a whisper competing with the rain, “sometimes I wish that I grew up with him, that things were different. That we were close, like brothers are supposed to be. That there was some way to erase all the anger between us and start over. I think,” he shrugged, then took another sip, “I think I might have liked being a brother, maybe even been good at it—in different circumstances.”

The deep sense of loneliness that always seemed to shroud Levi like a heavy cloak was almost suffocating to witness now. I felt it like an ache inside of my own chest.

I slid my legs closer to him, a fair compromise to the strange, suddenly intense desire I had to pull him to me in a bone-crushing hug. “What’s his name?”

“Eli.” He shot me a look from the corner of his eye. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s not perfect. Sometimes I don’t even understand why I want any sort of relationship with him at all. He’s arrogant as hell and can honestly be a bit of a dick. Completely full of himself. And he spends all his time constantly surrounded by his friends—all of them just as entitled and stubborn as he is. A bit obnoxious, really. But they’re all so incredibly close with each other. I just . . .” He shrugged. “The few times I’ve seen them or Eli, my knee-jerk reaction has always put me on the defensive. That, or I just turn into a complete asshole whenever I open my mouth. He wants to hate me, and I make it extremely easy for him to continue doing so. I’ve never really had something likewhat they have. I think, on some level, I’m just jealous—of Eli, and of them. They’re more his family than I will ever be.”

“Does he live close by?” I asked. “It’s not too late to try forging some kind of a relationship with him, if that’s what you really want. Maybe now that you’re both adults it will be easier?”

“Reasonably close, yeah.” He passed me the bottle. “There’s a lot of baggage there though.” When he shot me a flirty wink, I knew that the vulnerability of his confession was coming to an end. “For now, I think it’s best that I devote my efforts on one attempted friendship at a time. Which I guess makes you my test case.” He nudged his knee against mine. “Your turn, Mareena. Hit me with your soul-revealing truth.”

“Soul-revealing, eh? Way to make the game sound fun and inviting.”

I thought for a moment, but for some unidentifiable reason, my brain lasered in on the night that Rina died, the rest of my life blanking out of my memory as if it had never existed—my entire being suddenly condensed into that one night.

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