Page 18 of The Break-Up Pact
“Hmm,” I say right back, watching him watch the painting.
“What?” he asks, and I don’t miss that his hand unconsciously goes right back toward the curl I pressed down earlier.
I try unsuccessfully to bite down a smirk. “I’m waiting for your opinion.”
Levi’s brow puckers. “Is this a test?”
I step closer to him and say in a mock whisper, “A big one.”
“Are you secretly…” Levi leans forward to squint at the nameplate. “Reginald Jameson, born 1947?”
“No. But I am entirely convinced that his doom-and-gloom painting would go right above your sad-boy narrator’s bed.”
Levi lets out a surprised choke of a laugh. He steps back to look at the painting with fresh eyes, then looks over at me in bewilderment and says, “Wait. So you’re trying to figure out if I’d sleep with my main character?”
I hiss between my teeth. “On second thought, the one psychology course I napped through in college does not qualify me for whatever’s on the other end of that question.”
“Neither does the fact you’ve never actually read my ‘sad boy’ novel.”
Cue the record scratch. I stiffen at his side and see his mouth part in surprise before his eyes even meet mine.
“Annie emailed it to me years ago,” I admit. “But I only dug it up and read the first few pages the other night.”
Part of me was curious what the fuss was about. Most of me was just wondering what on earth was slamming the brakes in Levi’s brain in all the hours he’s been “writing” in the back of Tea Tide. I can’t say I’ve figured it out.
Levi’s expression is so open that I’m not sure how it’s going to settle—if he’ll fall back into the Levi I’ve known for these past few years with the almost-smiles and muted versions of his old self. If I’ve just blown this past week of tentative friendship up in our faces because I couldn’t sleep the other night and poked around in an email attachment I had no business poking in.
Instead, his ears go pink, and his face lands on an uncertain, almost sheepish look. “Well. Don’t bother reading any more of it. It’s the old version.” He lowers his voice. “But—what did you think?”
This isn’t a question I was expecting to answer today, but I suppose I walked right into it.
“I think you’re a ridiculously talented writer,” I say, because that’s the truth. Sure, the narration is so sepia-toned and lovesick that I wanted to rattle the main character by the shoulders more than once, but Levi has this very distinct style of writing that could shine through anything. The kind that makes me appreciate the little things he must quietly notice about people, about the world. The kind that makes you linger on a page too long because he’s just put a hazy feeling into such concrete words that it pulls old memories from your own life into the text.
Before I can say anything else, Levi’s face splits into an incredulous smile. I’m so unused to seeing his smile in full these days that it feels like it just knocked some of the air out of my lungs. “You hate it.”
I’m trying not to grin back, but a full Levi smile is apparently as contagious now as it was when we were kids. “It’s just—that kind of story isn’t really my thing,” I hedge.
But Levi’s laughing outright now, almost like he’s relieved. I wonder if I’ve broken his brain. “How can a main genre of literature not be your thing?”
I point an accusing finger at him. “Says the guy who hates dessert. The main genre of food.”
Levi runs a hand through his hair, the laughter tapering off. “Maybe you’ll like the new version better.”
I sincerely doubt that, but I nod to humor him, moving on to the next painting in the series. This is somewhat brighter than the others, the shapes a little sharper. Less like a cityscape and more like the woods. It reminds me of our woods. The paths we ran around and the stories Levi wove into them.
He’s gone quiet, and I wonder if he’s thinking it, too. I wonder if he’s been thinking it this entire time as we made up little stories about all these paintings, a small echo of the stories we used to spin back then.
“Okay, all my pestering aside—why did you quit on The Sky Seekers?” I ask. “I thought you and Annie had this whole plan when you went to school, all dead set on becoming literary giants. Then you ditch your fantasy novel for this super serious one, and then ditch writing altogether for a finance major?”
Levi shifts his weight between his feet, and that uncertain expression is back on his face, but there’s something else just under it. A faint hurt he can’t blink out of his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to ditch The Sky Seekers. I mean—at least not right off.” He glances out to the museum, which is mostly empty now that a field trip has cleared out. “I brought it into my first semester writing course. Nobody really knew what to do with it. Everyone came in with all these very—you know. Contemporary, adult pieces. And I basically got laughed out the door the first week.”
I feel my heart cinch at the thought. Levi isn’t necessarily shy, but he’s always been deeply private with sharing his writing, apart from with Annie and me. The idea of him finally working up the courage to share all the words he kept so close to his chest and getting laughed at for it makes me want to find all those kids ten years after the fact and knock their pretentious heads together.
“I mean, even Annie said…”
Levi stops himself, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. I know the feeling well. The strange weight of the things Annie said or did now that they only exist in our own memories, and she’s not around to explain or defend them.
