“You’re asking me to leave?” He barks a short, sharp laugh that holds anything but humor. “Just where do you get off talking to me that way?”
“I live here,” I inform him, as if he doesn’t already know the living arrangements. “As long as I have a bed here, I hold the right to say who stays and who goes.”
“This is Levi’s home, not yours. If he wants me to leave, then he should be the one asking, not you.” Tilting his head, he peers past me with a condescending smile. “And I don’t see him asking.”
“That’s probably because he’s too busy licking his wounds. It’s no wonder he’s hesitant to stand up to you. Considering what I’ve witnessed of your relationship, you’ve probably drilled those vile lies into his head so deep that he actually believes them.”
David’s eyes light up. He takes a threatening step toward me and my mom jumps in front of him at the same time Levi leaps to his feet to jerk me behind his back.
“My family,” David snarls, pointing at me, “and how I handle my business has nothing to do with you, so keep your comments and your theories to yourself.”
“Why should I?” I bite back, pushing at Levi’s back to move him out of my way, but he’s an impenetrable wall of muscle and doesn’t budge an inch. “You treat him like he’s just another one of your pawns, here to fill your pockets instead of being your flesh and blood.”
“You think you know so much,” David throws back at me. “You don’t know a damn thing. Why do you think I handle everything? Levi’s never bothered with running his life or his finances because he’s too busy screwing his way through the female population and partying.”
“He’s more than that,” I argue. “If you took the time to actually get to know him, you might realize that, too.”
“Oh,” David says, as if he’s just uncovered the world’s largest secret. “I see what’s going on here. You think that he actually cares about you.” He laughs, and it’s so full of cruelty, that my stomach drops. I don’t want to hear what he has to say, but I can’t make myself turn away.
“Dad, just stop. This has gone on long enough,” Levi urges him.
But David looks right through him to me. “Did Levi tell you about that night, the first time you two were together?”
I swallow, my throat suddenly thick. Making it worse, my mother’s eyes dart frantically to each of us, eventually landing on me in askance.
“First time? Vista, what’s he talking about? What first time?”
I don’t have the words, but being the gracious man he is, David fills in the silence. “Four years ago, on the night before our wedding, I came home to the sound of our children having sex. I waited in Levi’s bedroom and, hours later, when he snuck in, I told him to cut her loose or else.”
“What?” I gasp, looking up to Levi for answers.
His pained eyes fall on mine and the hand he’s using to hold me back flexes around my thigh. “It’s true. He caught me and told me I had to end it.”
“Or what?” I ask, hurt and anger flooding me. Four years. I went through so much turmoil, thinking something must be wrong with me, because of that man. To know that I might not have had to makes me want to drive my fist through David’s face. He has no idea what Levi was to me, how many nights I stayed awake thinking about a future together after long talks and stolen moments. No idea at all.
“That’s the most interesting part,” David comments. “I didn’t have to threaten him with anything. I told him to end it, and he did. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers, and the finality of the sound causes me to flinch.
It was that easy? All he had to do was tell him to walk and he did? God, I didn’t think there was a worse heartache than the one I already went through, but this...this has claws that dig deep.
“It wasn’t like that,” Levi insists. Turning on his heel, he takes my face in his hands and forces my head back. “Vista, princess, look at me.”
“Princess? Give me a damn break,” David mutters behind him. “Now you’re assigning pet names to the notches on your bedpost?”
His worry-filled eyes never leaving mine, Levi’s entire body vibrates with rage as he shouts, “Get the fuck out! You’ve done enough for one day.”
David says a few more things that I tune out because I’ve heard enough of his nastiness for one day, too, before heading for the door. “And just so you know, management has banned you both from use of the pool. Indefinitely.”
Just icing on the cake, really. The doors slams shut behind him and in the pervading quiet, I assume he’s taken my mother with him. I’m glad they’re gone. I don’t think I could handle another second of being the subject of disgust, disappointment, and ridicule.
Levi’s whole attention is focused on me and I can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s terrified of what I’ll say or do. I don’t know why. It’s not as if we were ever together in the first place.
“Talk to me, princess. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking this has all been a huge mistake,” I tell him honestly. Covering his hands with mine, I pull them off and take a step back. “I never should have come here. This was all a mistake.”
Shaking his head, Levi closes the distance. “No, you’re wrong. You told me once that everything happens for a reason,” he reminds me, taking me back to when we were just a couple of kids who stayed up late talking about our futures. “Well, this is where you’re supposed to be, right here, right now, with me.”
“You’re right,” I croak, my throat clogged with emotion. “I was supposed to be here because now I know that the last four years I spent trying to forget you weren’t a total waste. Thanks to you, I’m stronger now, and when I walk away this time, I’ll know that it wasn’t me.”
I head for the stairs. I haven’t completed my job, but I’m sure David will understand why I have to leave. I never should have agreed to come here in the first place. Levi is my past. I never should have tried to make him part of my present. Some things just weren’t meant to be revisited.
“What do you mean, it wasn’t you?” Levi calls after me.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, I take a deep breath. “It wasn’t me who wasn’t good enough.” It’s a low blow, especially after the hits his father delivered, but it shuts him up.
Once upon a time, I blamed myself for being left behind. I cut myself down and decided that I simply wasn’t good enough for someone as high standing as Levi Black. But I was wrong. I am good enough. It’s him that doesn’t deserve me.
18
Four months later...
Despite being in the air for less than an hour, the plane ride back to Cincinnati was brutal, and the subsequent days that have passed since then haven’t been any kinder. I’ve had a lot of downtime to sit and think, but it’s given me time to reflect on my weeks spent in Chicago. I feel guilty. The last words I said to Levi were a deliberate blow designed to hurt him instead of what it should have been—a heartfelt goodbye.
My time in Chicago was never meant to last. That’s what I keep telling myself whenever I get nostalgic and revisit my memories there. I never expected to get attached to Levi again, but he has a way about him that is magnetic and undeniable. Even when I wanted to hate him, he somehow made me like him.
But it’s over now and there’s no going back. Now that I’m back at home, I’m content in knowing that I won’t ever have to return to Chicago again. Especially after the text my mother sent me.
It’s Monday morning and I’m lying in bed staring at my phone. I’ve read the text at least ten times, and I still can’t believe it. She’s leaving David. She already filed for divorce and the papers will be served any time.