Sweet Soul

by Tillie Cole

  Lexi sighed. “He’d understand, Elsie. Believe me. I don’t know what you know of Levi’s past, of any of ours, but he would understand. Talk to him, use that beautiful voice you keep hidden to confide in him. Believe me when I say, from personal experience, the moment you let your demons free, they don’t haunt you quite so much. And love does help; it ain’t a cure, but it’s the beginning of the path to healing.”

  Lexi went quiet, and I forced myself to turn to face her. She was smiling at me and I could see the kindness in her heart shining through her green eyes. “I can’t… I can’t face talking about it all, Lexi,” I whispered.

  Her head tipped to the side in understanding. “I know, sweetie. But with trust and time, hopefully we can help you through. Hopefully one day you’ll be able to see the rainbow after the storm.”

  Leaning over the seat, Lexi pressed a kiss to my head. Movement from the front door caught my eye, and I saw Austin walk out wearing a t-shirt and jeans, with his sleeping son in his arms. I watched Lexi’s expression melt when she saw her husband standing there, waiting to welcome her home.

  “We healed each other,” Lexi said, without removing her attention from her husband. “We were both lost and knocked down, but we held on tight, and raised each other from the ashes. He brought me my rainbow, Elsie,” she huffed a loving laugh and said, “he brought me the stars.”

  I didn’t know what that reference meant, but I could feel the magnitude of what he meant to her. Lexi slipped out of the car and I did too. I walked to the back gate, staying out of sight. I glanced back, seeing Austin, with his gang tattoos and intimidating stature, taking Lexi in his arms and pressing a soft kiss on her mouth.

  He brought me the stars…

  I walked in a daze down the garden path to the pool house, replaying in my mind the picture of Lexi too thin and sick, of Clara so frightened and small on the large chair, and me so closed in and fearful of the world to ever let anyone see my true self, to hear my voice. My different voice, but my voice that I was starting to understand should be heard nonetheless.

  I pushed through the door to the pool house, seeing Levi sitting at his desk, studying hard. His fair hair was mussed and in disarray. And I knew that I was falling for him beyond what I ever thought possible… he brought me the moon.

  Breaking his intense concentration, Levi lifted his head, that beautiful shy smile lighting up his handsome face. “Bella mia,” he rasped, my heart melting at the endearment.

  Levi got up from his desk. He was dressed in a white sweater that clung to his muscles, and blue jeans that sat perfectly on his legs. In seconds he was with me, his thick arms pulling me to his chest. I wrapped my arms around his back and held on tight.

  Levi pulled back and asked, “Are you okay?”

  I nodded my head, so overcome by how I felt, at the memory of being joined with him on the bed. Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed a kiss to his soft lips. The kiss was as beautiful as him.

  I broke from the kiss and said, “I’m going for a shower.”

  Levi looked at me strangely, but he simply ran his thumb down my cheek and said, “Okay. I picked us up a pizza for dinner. We can eat it when you’re out. You can tell me about your day.”

  Nodding, I headed to the bathroom, when I saw my mason jar was glowing stronger than last night. In the trash can beside the bed I saw a newly emptied glow stick. I smiled—he’d refilled the jar. He’d kept the light strong.

  I showered as quickly as I could, the powerful hot jets immediately making me feel better. I washed my hair, the coconut shampoo carrying away the strains of the day.

  I toweled off and wrapped myself in the robe that Levi had brought me. After combing my wet hair, I entered the main room and Levi was on the bed, a book in his hands. He smiled when he saw me come in. The pizza was already on the bed. I stared at him from the doorway, and hurried to his arms when he held them out for me to go to him.

  I climbed on the bed and fell against his chest, his strong and warm arms keeping me safe. “You hungry?” he asked. I shook my head.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” he replied, and ran his fingers through my hair. “Coconut,” he rasped. “I love that smell on you.”

  I smiled against his chest, when he asked, “How was your day? How was the center?” I detected the apprehension in his voice, because I knew he wanted me to love it there. I knew it was because he thought it would make me want to stay. What he didn’t realize yet was that I didn’t need the center to stay—he was reason enough.

  “It was life-changing,” I said quietly. I pushed up on my arms. Levi watched me closely. “Lexi told me about her past. She showed me her picture, of when she was sick.”

  Levi swallowed and his olive skin paled some. “Yeah?” he questioned. I nodded my head. “She told me about how she nearly died, about how Austin helped her heal.”

  Levi glanced away, then turned back to me. “It was real close, Elsie. She was so sick, so was my mamma. I thought me and Aust were gonna lose them both in the same week.” He inhaled. On his exhale said, “But we lost only Mamma, Lexi fought back. She still fights every day… for Aust, Dante…”

  “For you,” I added. “She told me.”

  “For me.” He sighed and I leaned my hands on his chest.

  “She took me to Kind and I met Celesha.”

  Levi nodded. “You’ll like her. She’s real good with the kids. And the staff. She’s got a real pure heart.”

  “You go there?” I asked, and Levi nodded his head. “Most Sundays, before I met you. I’m there when Austin’s not playing. Some weeknights too. I’m not real good with talking to them, but I help in the office some and throw the pigskin around with those that like football.” His finger ran down my face. “I just hate seeing them so cut up like they are. Damn bullies, you know? Assholes for making people that sad,” he cussed. I could clearly hear the anger in his voice.

  My confession was on the tip of my tongue. The scars from the past trying to push through, to be free. But something stopped me from going there. I didn’t know what, I guessed I just couldn’t relive that time yet. I was afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough to cope with the demons it would unleash.

  I lay back down on Levi’s chest. “I signed today.”

  Levi stilled. “I didn’t know you could sign?”

  “Yeah. I was at a deaf school until I was eight, then I had the operation and they mainstreamed me. They wanted me to be amongst hearing kids. I’m not too good, but there’s this girl there, at the center, Clara. She’s deaf, Lexi and Celesha needed someone to sign, to encourage her to talk.”

  “And did she? Talk to you, I mean?”

  “Yeah, a little. She’s had a tough time.” My eyes fluttered closed at the feel of Levi’s fingers in my hair. I sighed, content and completely safe. “I’m going back tomorrow to speak to her some more. I… I want to help her. She’s so sad. You can see it in her eyes. She’s in a lot of pain inside. She’s completely lost.”

  “That’s real good, bella mia,” Levi said and I smiled, loving how he spoke Italian to me, loving that he called me his beautiful.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the safest I’d ever been, when the conversation I’d had with Lexi sprang to mind. My eyes opened when that thought then drifted to my mom, and how she’d feel if she’d seen me like this… happy… falling in love.

  Tears pricked in my eyes, and I felt myself saying, “My mom told me to hide my voice from the world.” I felt Levi tense underneath me, but I didn’t move off his lap. I couldn’t look in those gray eyes without losing control. I couldn’t see his handsome face and the understanding I knew I’d find when I talked about her. Talked about that night… the day I got the news.

  “From as young as I can remember, my mom told me not to speak to anyone but her. She told me that people wouldn’t understand us, that there was no place in this world for us.”

  “Elsie,” Levi said when I paused. “Look at me, bella mia.”

  I shook my
head as my hands gripped onto his sweater. “I can’t, Levi. I can’t look at you when I tell you this… just let me tell you. If I see your face I won’t be able to get through it.”

  Levi didn’t respond immediately, but then he said, “Okay,” and I relaxed as much as possible.

  “I know I told you that my mom had a hard life, that she was never given a chance. She was my mom and I loved her with my whole heart. I felt sorry for her every day as she struggled to get through to the next… unless she had her drugs. Until she shot up with heroin… until she forgot.” I inhaled the strong scent of Levi’s spicy scent, taking the strength he gave.

  “We were mostly on the streets. We would live in alleyways or doorways, sometimes with some of my mom’s ‘friends’, sometimes on our own. Occasionally we would have an apartment or a room when my mom would hook up with some new dealer or guy, but that never lasted long. All our clothes and worldly possessions in one small bag.”

  Levi’s hand dropped to trace lightly up and down my back. I inhaled deeply. “And that was my life, every week living somewhere new, hiding from the world was the reality of our life. My mom always managed to get us somewhere long enough to have an address and collect her disability, but we never had a home.

  “I went to school, I kept my head down and I cared for my mom who, most of the time, didn’t even realize I was there. Until she did, when she would make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have a mom like her. My heart ached at how broken she had been made by life. Her parents rejected her, hiding her from their snooty friends. She’d been isolated from receiving life’s tools. In most ways she was the child and I was the adult.”

  I cleared my throat when I heard it beginning to break, and Levi’s arm came around my waist. He didn’t pull me close, but I knew he was telling me that he had me… he had me.

  “One week at school, I could see a teacher watching me. I never spoke aloud unless I was forced to, so I never asked her what was wrong. I was fourteen, but I had no friends, no one to talk to or get help from. That month my mom was having a really hard time. You see, I washed our clothes, I stole us food… and I measured out her heroin.”

  “Damn, Elsie,” Levi hissed.

  I froze, knowing how bad that sounded. “She needed it, Levi. She needed it. I could measure it out in quantities I knew should could handle.”

  “What happened next?”

  I breathed through the gutting pain building inside. I breathed and continued. “The teacher had noticed that I was unwashed. I’d messed up and hadn’t handed in my assignments. We had just been kicked out of another apartment. The teacher informed social services, she’d told them she was worried I was being neglected.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “When they found us, we were in an alleyway, homeless, and I was measuring out my mom’s nightly dose.” I huffed a disbelieving laugh. “She was dazed, in need of her drugs when they took me from her.”

  This time I felt the tears fall to Levi’s sweater. “I screamed, Levi. When they took me from her, I screamed, and I fought them. I shouted for my mom but she was drugged up, her needles lying beside her. She didn’t even see I was being ripped from her arms.” I rolled my face to Levi, needing to see him. Levi’s expression was as torn as I felt. I reached out for his hand. He wrapped his big hand around mine and I held on for dear life.

  “They took me to a group home, Levi. And they left her there, in that alley.” I squeezed my eyes shut, seeing myself in the school the next day. “I was sitting in my classroom, in Chemistry, when there was a knock on the door. I saw the principal staring at me through the glass in the door, and I knew. I knew they were coming for me. I knew it was my mom.” A sob came from my throat, my eyes lost in the memory. “I jumped from my chair as the principal and social workers entered the room. I backed away, trying to escape what I knew they were about to tell me. But all I did was crash into the wall—I had nowhere to go. I remember seeing the other students watching me as I screamed. Watching me as I was led out into the principal’s office where they told me what I already knew—she was dead. She’d overdosed. She’d taken too much.” I looked up into Levi’s glistening eyes and whispered, “I wasn’t there to measure it out for her, Levi. She’d taken too much and she’d died in yet another alley she’d just stumbled into. She died on the cold ground, alone, trapped in her world of silence.”

  The sobs fell and fell. As I fell apart, Levi lifted me into his arms and cradled me to his chest. He held me close, rocking me back and forth until the tears dried up. Until my throat was raw and my skin was blotchy.

  I blinked through swollen eyes and took a long deep breath. Levi pushed back where I lay until he could see my face. Understandably, he hushed, “It wasn’t your fault.”

  My lips trembled. “I wasn’t there. She needed me. I wasn’t there.”

  “I know, bella mia, but it wasn’t up to you to care for her that way. She was addicted to drugs and she overdosed.”

  “I was all she had, she was all I had. I never got to say goodbye, Levi. I never got to put my hand on her face as she did mine and press our foreheads together. I never got to tell her our version of ‘I love you’.” I held my locket in my hand. “All I have is this necklace. This picture of her smiling face. It’s all I have left.”

  Levi brushed the tears from my face, and I continued. “Then they left me in the group home. Me and five other girls. And I… I… it was…” My voice cut out when the devastation ripped through, when those dark memories began flooding my mind, stealing my voice and any composure that I had left.

  Levi took charge, rolling me onto my back and cupped my face in his hands. “Elsie,” he called, as I tried to un-see their faces in my mind’s eye, to un-hear their words, to un-feel their attacks. “Bella mia,” he said firmly, “look at me.”

  His face came into view and I focused on those gray eyes. I focused on those unshaven cheeks and his beautiful olive skin. My unsteady heart slowed. Levi breathed deeply; I breathed in rhythm.

  My hands held onto his thick biceps as he gradually brought me down, his eyes keeping me safe. He blinked, his long black lashes brushing his cheek. Only this time, my breathlessness came from how deeply I felt for this boy. This boy with the heart of gold, and silver hued eyes.

  I lifted my hands to brush down his face. The silence was deafening and the tension was taut. He is my rainbow, I thought, hearing Lexi’s words in my head, and he... “You bring me the moon,” I found myself saying aloud. For once, I didn’t guard how I sounded. I didn’t over-think the words, or strive to pronounce them normally. I simply spoke… without fear, my real uncut voice laid bare to his ears.

  Levi exhaled, a breathtaking smile on his lips. “Then you bring me the shine.” As his raspy voice replied, I brought his lips down to my waiting lips and our mouths fused in a kiss. I fell harder and harder as his tongue slipped against mine, and I gave my heart away.

  Levi untied my robe, and he slipped his hands over my naked stomach, pushing the material to the side. I gasped as he lowered his head, pressing a kiss to my skin, following the path of his hands.

  My back arched as my breasts were freed. Levi’s finger journeyed around my nipples, my eyes fluttering closed. Soft lips were instantly on mine and I melted into his kiss.

  I pulled off Levi’s sweater and he slipped off his boxers and jeans. We kissed and we kissed in the most beautiful way. When he slipped inside of me, our gazes clashed and we never looked away. It was sweet, it was slow, and it conveyed everything he felt. It gave me everything I needed right now. It was loving, and it showed me just how much he cared. He cared for me more than anyone else ever had.

  I knew that now.

  I moaned, feeling the pleasure building between us, and as I broke apart, whispering his name, I watched Levi’s mouth part as he gave himself to me too.

  He fell to my neck, our bodies pressed together, slick and damp from making love. I held on tightly to this boy, clutching him to me with my arms around his back. “You make it easy t
o forget all the bad,” I whispered into his neck, feeling him tensing in my arms.

  Levi reared back until his face hovered above mine. He stared down at me, gave me a gentle kiss, then said, “You make it easy to only see the good.”

  “Levi,” I whispered and he moved to lie beside me. As I lay beside him, warm in his arms, I knew I needed to be braver. I needed to give him more like he gave me. I needed to be the girlfriend he deserved, proud on his arm, not the one he had to lock away, hiding her voice from the world.

  I ran my hand up and down Levi’s arms, and said, “Levi?”

  “Mmm?” he murmured sleepily.

  “That football dinner?”

  “Yeah?” he replied, his voice more alert.

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  I held my breath waiting for his answer. Levi lifted onto his elbow and searched my face. His eyebrows were pulled down. “You wanna come?”

  I swallowed. “If you want me there… if you want me by your side, I’ll be there.”

  He sucked in a breath, then I lost mine when a huge smile lit up his face. “Yeah,” he nodded, leaning down to press three kisses up and down my cheek, “I want you there,” he said and I could hear the happiness in his voice. “I really want you there.”

  I blushed, ducking my eyes. “Then I’ll be there.”

  Levi nuzzled his face into my neck and pulled me to spoon against him. I closed my eyes, and felt some of the weight that always held me down, lift.

  I’d told him half of my story, but not it all. Clara’s face came to mind and I knew I’d be at the center as much as I could.