Perfect Betrayal

by Season Vining

  No matter how he tried to distract himself, his thoughts always returned to Taylor. Every head of blond hair sent him reeling back into memories of her. It was a torture that he felt he deserved. No poem could soothe his pain, no music brought comfort. His poetic crutch was completely useless now. One night he got drunk in a pub and ended up fighting some guy in a back alley. When they were done, an observer offered him a place in an underground fight club. Though the idea of fighting for money did appeal to his darker side, Levi declined. He liked living life on his own terms, by his own rules.

  Levi left the city and traveled through northern Italy. Whether it was by coincidence or a subconscious decision, he ended up in Verona, the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. He settled in there, renting a small apartment above a family-owned bakery. Every morning, he was woken up by the smell of freshly baked breads and pastries. Levi had become acquainted with the owner, Augusto, and often stopped in for breakfast and late-night snacks.

  “Buongiorno, Levi. Still alone in our fair city?”

  “Ciao, Gus,” he answered. The man smiled, tickled with the American nickname Levi had given him.

  “Verona is for lovers, no? Why not let me introduce you to my niece? She’s a fine girl, so beautiful. And her cooking? Fantastico.”

  “Just breakfast today,” Levi said, shaking his head in amusement.

  “What can I tempt you with?”

  Levi smiled across the glass case. “Cannoli, per favore.”

  “Sì, sì. You remind me of my grandson,” Augusto said, his accent thick. “Always the same thing, every time.”

  “I know what I like,” Levi said.

  “Ah, but how do you know you don’t like something else better if you never try?”

  Levi handed over two euros in exchange for his breakfast. “Addio, Gus.”

  Since arriving in Verona, Levi had explored the many cafés, bookstores, novelty shops, and even tourist attractions. Sometimes he would find a park or plaza to sit and play his guitar, singing whatever songs came to him. People were impressed with his talent here. Some of them would sit and listen to him for hours. Many days, he took home handfuls of euros collected in his open guitar case. Though he didn’t need the money, it was nice feeling appreciated.

  There would be no playing today. Today he was going to take the popular Romeo and Juliet tour of the city. The first stop was the Capulet house in the Via Cappello. It was a tall building with a large central courtyard. From the courtyard, you could see Juliet’s famous balcony. New growths of ivy climbed the walls like green curtains against crumbling brick. Above the chatter of tourists, he could barely hear the sweet chirping of birds.

  A bronze statue of Juliet stood alone in thoughtful contemplation. The tour guide explained that it was good luck to rub her right breast. Levi meandered around as tourists lined up to take photos with her.

  He found himself standing before the wall where modern lovers left messages and letters. What some would call graffiti or defacement, he considered a beautiful gallery. There were simple notes consisting of two names surrounded by hearts, declarations for lost lovers, prayers to Juliet, and full pages of verse.

  Levi watched a young girl step to the wall, a purple marker in hand. She searched for an empty space to write but settled for layering her statement over someone else’s. She smiled when she was done and leaned forward to blow on the ink. He grinned at the look on her face, the complete belief that love would always prevail. He wished he still had that.

  When the group was ready, they were ushered to the next stop on the tour, the Montague house. The medieval building was in such poor condition that they weren’t allowed inside. They had to be satisfied with plaques posted out front. Levi stepped up to read one and felt stifled by it: “Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here. This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.”

  I have lost myself, he thought. He endured the rest of the tour, making an effort to pay attention when each new place was pointed out. He knew there was no proof that any of these things were accurate. They were simply used to bait tourists.

  The tour ended at Juliet’s tomb. Levi expected it to be a somber place, quiet and filled with people paying respect. He was surprised to find that the locals actually used this place for weddings. He watched a couple pose for photos after exchanging vows. Not long after, they were cleared, and another couple was ushered in to start the process again. Confetti and flowers littered the area. Levi frowned at the celebration of a love that ended so tragically.

  * * *

  After Henry discovered his money was gone, the house had been a whirlwind of police asking questions and taking evidence. Henry claimed that he thought to check his safe because his office had been vandalized. Taylor knew that if she’d just cleaned up her and Levi’s mess, none of this would be happening.

  After George Upton, the number-one suspect had been Levi, mainly because of his timely disappearance and evidence that the video feed in the house had been tampered with. No one knew of his and Taylor’s relationship, except Suzanne, and she never mentioned it to the authorities. Weeks went by and they were unable to come up with any solid evidence against Levi, but he was still wanted for questioning.

  Though Nadine, Levi, and his friends had made off with Henry’s money, the Hudsons were still financially okay. Most of the family’s money was invested in the market or tucked away in foreign banks. Taylor loved the notion of her father’s paranoia being the key to his losing $20 million.

  On her last tutoring session with Dee, Taylor had a present hidden away in her bag. Today was a big day. Dee was being retested to see if her reading level had improved since their sessions began. Taylor nervously paced the hall for an hour, waiting for the results.

  When the door opened, Dee came out, a disgusted look on the fifteen-year-old’s face.

  “What? Is it bad? Tell me!”

  Dee’s frown transformed into a grin and she threw herself at Taylor. Shocked at first, Taylor stood there dumbly until finally wrapping her friend in a hug. The director of the program stepped into the hall, wearing her own smile.

  “Dee has moved from a third-grade reading level to a sixth-grade level. That’s a huge improvement. Way to go, ladies!”

  She offered each of them a high five before disappearing into her office.

  “Well, let’s start our last session,” Taylor offered.

  “Let’s do this, Clueless.” That was the nickname Dee had branded her with since their talk of basketball began.

  They took their usual seats and wordlessly stared at each other across the table. There was a feeling of accomplishment in the air. Both of them felt untouchable.

  “I don’t feel like workin’ today.”

  “I think you’ve probably earned a day off,” Taylor answered.

  “I can’t believe it’s our last session. I’m gonna miss your silly ass,” Dee said, chuckling.

  “Hey, just because I don’t know anything about sports doesn’t make me silly. Maybe I’ll learn more once I get to college.”

  “You going to college?” Taylor nodded. “Where at? Around here?”

  “No, Massachusetts. I’m off to Harvard.”

  “What? Yo, guys,” Dee announced with pride, “my tutor is going to Harvard.” No one responded, but Taylor blushed anyway. Dee lowered her voice. “That makes me Ivy League by one degree of separation.”

  Taylor laughed and nodded, knowing she would miss Dee once she was on the East Coast.

  “Oh. I brought a present for you.”

  “What? A gift me for? You shouldn’t have,” Dee teased.

  “Well, I could just keep it.”

  “Nah, girl, you know I’m playin’. Gimme.”

  Dee held her hands out and made a grabbing motion. Taylor dropped the gift into her hands. Dee tore at the paper, and when it was laid out on the table in front of her, she didn’t say a word. Her face was expressionless, her mouth silent. Taylor thought she’d failed.

  “You do
n’t like it?”

  “You got me a signed, number six, Miami Heat, LeBron James jersey with the MVP patch? Are you for real?”

  “I thought you’d like it. My friend knew someone who knew someone. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Like it? I love it. I want to marry it. I want to make sweet love to it and have jersey babies. Not a big deal? Oh, my God!”

  Dee hugged the jersey to her chest and rocked back and forth. She pressed it to her face and inhaled deeply while Taylor watched, fascinated.

  “Believe me, Clueless. It’s a big deal.”

  The girls stood and fell into an awkward hug with nothing but the table and LeBron’s jersey between them. Taylor held her tears in for the ride home.

  * * *

  Taylor filled her days getting ready for Harvard. Her dorm assignment was a double with Adrienne on the fourth floor of Apley. Reese would be just an hour away at Brown, and they already had plans to see each other often. As ecstatic as she was to get away from everything familiar, Taylor was glad to have her friends along for the ride.

  “Do you want to bring this?” Adrienne asked, holding up a framed photo of Taylor and Suzanne from when she was ten years old.

  “Yeah,” Taylor answered. “Just add it to that box.” Reese lay across Taylor’s bed, flipping through their senior yearbook. “You’re supposed to be helping me pack.”

  Reese folded her arms on top of the book and laid her head down. “I know. I’m sorry,” she said huffing.

  Taylor caught her eyes, they looked like a reflection of her own. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Reese had suffered heartbreak at the hands of George Upton. He’d broken off their scandalous relationship after the robbery. He admitted that he’d only been using her because she could give him inside details on the Hudson family. George had been pulling information from her the whole time.

  Adrienne hopped onto the bed and lay down next to Reese. “Can I join this pity party, or was I supposed to RSVP?”

  The girls laughed. Taylor threw a pillow at her before making them all get back up and finish packing. With each girl assigned to a designated area, they finished in no time.

  When they were gone, she stepped onto her balcony and looked over the lawn. She slid the locket back and forth on the chain around her neck and thought about Julia. Taylor had so badly wanted to confront Henry about her but didn’t want to answer questions about how she’d found out. She feared throwing unnecessary attention toward Nadine, since no one had ever suspected her involvement. Even though her departure from her assistant position had been sudden, it had also been accompanied by a letter threatening to come after Henry for sexual harassment. Of course, he’d swept it all under the rug and hired a replacement the next day.

  Each day that passed, Taylor went through the motions. She ate, she slept, she showered. On her last night at home, Taylor climbed onto a stack of boxes and retrieved the shirt tucked all the way at the top of her closet. She slipped the green uniform shirt on and pulled it closed before crawling into bed. Burying her face in the fabric, she inhaled deeply. Tears blurred her eyes when she realized that it didn’t smell like him anymore. She held it tight against her skin anyway and fell asleep, dreaming of Levi’s melodic voice and the warmth of his skin.

  Suzanne put one foot on the top of the suitcase and yanked at the zipper. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Taylor, did you pack every piece of clothing you own? Geez!”

  Taylor sat on her bed and watched Suzanne struggle. “No. Just the necessities.”

  “Well,” Suzanne said, plopping down on the suitcase and bouncing a few times, “I hope nothing is breakable.” She pulled on the zipper and it slid around the track, sealing the contents inside. Suzanne stood and raised her arms in victory. “Yes!”

  Taylor gave her a smile and swallowed down the sentiment that tried to choke her. She didn’t want to cry. She was not successful. Tears raced down her cheeks and Suzanne dropped her arms.

  “Oh, sweetheart. It’ll be okay.” She took a seat beside Taylor, rubbing calming circles on the girl’s back.

  “No it won’t,” Taylor insisted. “I’ll be all the way across the country. We’ll never see each other anymore. I’ll promise to call, but I won’t. You’ll promise to visit, but you won’t. I’ll be alone.”

  “You’ll have Adrienne and Reese. They love you. Don’t think of it as the end of something. Think of it as the beginning of something new. And don’t worry, my love will reach you way over on the East Coast.”

  “Will it stretch that far?”

  “Honey, my love stretches farther than Lycra yoga pants over a Kardashian ass.”

  Taylor let out a chuckle and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Suzanne turned Taylor’s face toward her and pressed their foreheads together.

  “Thick and thin, tried and true. Against the world, it’s just us two. Love you, Boo.”

  “Love you, Kitty.”

  Suzanne promised to visit soon and Taylor promised to hold her to it.

  The next morning, Reese, Taylor, and Adrienne flew into Boston together. Of course, Henry and Virginia weren’t even present to see her off. While starting this new phase of life was exciting, Taylor felt like there was always the dark cloud looming over her head. She wondered if she would ever feel normal again.

  Outwardly, she was almost back to normal. Taylor smiled at the appropriate times and actively participated in conversations. It was only instinctual reactions so that no one would worry, a mask she wore all the time. The good-bye with Suzanne had been so difficult it had only added to Taylor’s misery.

  Taylor stood in her dorm room, looking around and taking in everything. She was in a new place, with new things, and somehow the only thing that felt new was her. Taylor eyed herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her door. All summer she’d been searching for some kind of metamorphosis, some way to leave behind the girl she was and become a woman.

  Looking at her reflection, she realized it wasn’t graduating high school or moving across the country that had reshaped her. It was falling in love. Loving Levi had molded and changed her in ways that seemed impossible. It had broken her and forced her to reconstruct who she was and what she believed. A broken heart had given her what she thought she desperately wanted. But seeing the empty shell of a woman now, she knew all she really wanted was Levi.

  Time passed quickly as she began her freshman year and attended classes. Before she knew it, Thanksgiving was approaching. Adrienne knew Taylor wouldn’t want to return home, so they decided to stay and organize a holiday dinner in the dorm. Reese agreed to come up and join them. Only Adrienne knew how to cook, but Reese and Taylor promised to be helpful assistants.

  Each day, it seemed easier to get out of bed, to breathe in and out, to resemble her old self. There was still a hollowness inside Taylor, but she fought it, not willing to let it conquer her again. She still thought of Levi often, and sometimes she’d pull out his shirt, thinking about their progression from hateful words to claim-staking declarations to complete and utter betrayal. Many nights, Taylor lay awake and wondered where he was in the world and if he ever thought of her too.

  If she had judged Levi by his actions alone, it might have been easier to let him go. He had dismissed her so easily, pretended she meant nothing. But thanks to his friend, Taylor knew better. On that ride from her house, in the back of the delivery truck, she had confessed Levi’s secret.

  “He loves you, you know,” Crystal said.

  Taylor turned to glare at her, lifting a challenging eyebrow in the girl’s direction.

  “Please don’t fuck with me anymore. I don’t think I can handle it.”

  “I’m not. I swear. Look, I’ve been his best friend for almost ten years. I know he’s hard to figure out and I know he doesn’t open up, but I also know that he’s completely, stupidly in love with you.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Be
cause I know him better than he knows himself, and I’m willing to admit things that he won’t.”

  Taylor blew her hair from her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. She hated to entertain this possibility if it meant nothing would change.

  “Why did he do this?” she asked.

  “Look, when we started this, we didn’t know you. We had a job to do and that was our only goal. I don’t think you realize how completely owned he is by you. But Levi is stubborn. He’s going to make decisions he feels are best for both of you. It’s going to hurt like hell.”

  Taylor nodded. “It’s not fair.”

  “Maybe if you’re meant to be, you’ll cross paths again someday.”

  “I don’t believe in all that. We make our own destiny,” she said, ending the conversation.

  * * *

  On his way home from the park one day, Levi came to the Ponte Pietra. It was an old Roman stone bridge, open only to foot traffic, crossing the Adige River. It was almost sunset, so he walked to the center and leaned over the side, waiting for the gold and pink hues to light up the sky over Verona.

  “Che bello!” he heard a deep voice exclaim.

  Levi turned to find an elderly man, his knotted fingers gripping a cane as he leaned against the side of the bridge. His eyes were turned up toward the sky in amazement.

  “Sì,” Levi responded.

  “American?” the man asked, his voice thick and slow. Levi nodded and turned to look out over the city again. “What brings you to la città dell’amore?”

  Levi shook his head at the question before answering. What did bring him to the city of love?

  “A lost love,” he answered. “Separated by impossible circumstance.”

  “For true love, one should move heaven and earth.”

  “We can’t be together,” Levi said, trying to convince himself.

  “L’amore domina senza regole.”

  Levi raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Eh … love rules without rules,” he clarified. “If she is yours, you must send for her.”

  Both men looked out on the city now, the old stone buildings bathed in a golden glow. The reflection of the sky made the river appear to be on fire. Maybe the old man was right, Levi thought, maybe we could make our own rules.