Page 38 of The Break-Up Pact

I nod, trying to imagine it, trying to put myself in Levi’s shoes. But I walked a completely different path than his. I was never trying to change Griffin. I was always the one changing to make myself fit.

“I always wondered about you and Griffin, though,” says Levi unexpectedly. “I was surprised you dated for so long. You two seemed so different.”

I laugh, glad that it’s something I feel like I can laugh about now and mean it. “Yeah. The breakup was a long time coming, probably.”

“Yeah?” Levi prompts. There’s something tentative in it, almost vulnerable. Like he’s wanted to ask for a while.

“Yeah,” I say easily. “Looking back, I think he really resented this place. He hated that he only got into the local university, that he felt stuck here. All he wanted to do was get out, so that’s what we did.” I gesture vaguely toward the ocean. “But it didn’t matter where we went. It always felt like he had something to prove. Like he wasn’t just going on all those trips for fun, but to show off how adventurous he was, or something.” I glance at Levi, my eyes full of mirth. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised he ended up on a reality show.”

His own eyes are steady on mine. “You were both gone for a long time.”

I lose some of the bravado at that. “I didn’t want to be. I think even then I had the sense that if I didn’t, I’d lose him. And that really scared me back then.”

I feel my shoulders loosen, like the wind is knocking them down. Levi’s gaze is still so steady that I feel something else loosen in me, too. Something I’ve held so close to my chest that I haven’t ever said it out loud before.

“I know you might not get it, because you never liked him very much,” I tell him. “But we started out as friends. And it’s really, really hard for me to consider dating someone or even feel attracted to someone I don’t know really well first. I was worried that might not happen again.”

There’s another worry just underneath that, of course. The worry that it could happen again, and it would break my heart. The way it happened with Levi all those years ago, when I was so stupidly, earnestly certain that he felt the same way I did. It’s strange—Levi and I never actually dated, but losing him felt like the biggest heartbreak of my life.

“Of course it will,” says Levi, without missing a beat. “You’re you. I can’t imagine anyone meeting you and not wanting to get to know you.”

I feel my face flush against the breeze. It means more coming from him than I can say, but it’s not as simple as that. The truth is, it’s almost impossible these days to meet people in a way that gives you time to be friends first, to feel each other out. Most people expect to know whether you’re attracted to them on the first or second date. But it’s never been like that for me. I’ve always had this strange feeling of not being able to keep up. I can’t run headfirst toward something without knowing there’s a solid foundation under my feet, and judging from all my friends’ stories about the dating out in the wild, I worry there aren’t a lot of people willing to wait for me to find it.

“We’ll see,” I joke, trying to brush his words off even when I know I’ll be spinning them back and forth in my head tonight. “Anyway, all that’s to say—I was right. Once I came back to Benson Beach to run Tea Tide and couldn’t jet off with Griffin anymore, I could sense him getting restless. He said I wasn’t the June he knew. That I wasn’t adventurous anymore.”

Levi lets out a derisive noise, but I just shake my head.

“The truth is, I was relieved. To have an excuse to stay here, I mean. It felt like—for a long time like he was leading, and I was following, and for the first time I finally had a solid reason not to follow.” I take a breath, gearing myself up for what I say next. “What he did sucked, but I’m weirdly not upset with him. I’m upset with myself for not breaking things off much earlier. I would have come home sooner. Had more time with Annie. Avoided this whole mess.”

Levi shakes his head. “I think—we don’t have control over what happens. But we control how we react to it. And losing Annie changed us both.”

“Or maybe it just reminded us who we actually are,” I say quietly.

I can tell from the way Levi’s brows loosen that the words catch him by surprise. That the words don’t quite know how to settle in him. For me, I think it comes down to this—there was a person I was pretending to be when I was with Griffin. Someone who took too many risks and stayed too far from home. And losing Annie didn’t just bring me back to Benson Beach. It made me appreciate that life is both too short and too long for being something you’re not.

I can’t speak for Levi, but this much I can say: “I know you’re worried about how it affected things with Kelly, but—I’m really glad you’re writing again.”

Levi’s lip quirks. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re home again. Partially so I don’t have heart attacks hearing the stuff you were up to anymore.”

I offer him half a smile, my eyes teasing. “Did you really check in on me?”

But Levi’s eyes are suddenly solemn on mine. “June,” he says, and hearing him say my name like that, low and urgent, tugs at something deep in my chest. “Of course I did. I asked Annie about you every time we talked. And sometimes it scared the shit out of me, knowing you were out in the world doing things that just seemed—dangerous. I worried all the time.”

His gaze is holding me like a hook, the blue in his eyes dark enough to brew a storm. For a moment all I can do is stare back until I find my voice.

“I didn’t know,” I say, the words quivering.

I cast my eyes at my feet. I want to tell him that I worried about him, too, because I did. I don’t think a day has gone by in my whole life that I haven’t wondered about Levi.

But I didn’t check in on him. The guilt of that churns in my stomach, especially knowing what I know now—that he was clearly lonely and out of his depth when he moved to New York. That he was dealing with his mom getting sick and the burden of keeping it secret, of taking it on himself to help with the debt. And I couldn’t see past my own hurt to even ask how he was doing.

When I lift my head again to look at him, I realize there’s a part of our conversation still weighing on my chest, one that I can’t let sit.

“Levi—you shouldn’t have to feel settled for someone to love you. I know it might not mean a lot coming from someone who spent most of their twenties decidedly unsettled, but I mean that,” I tell him. “I don’t think anyone ever gets to be settled in life. I think you just find people who weather it with you.”

I don’t know Kelly beyond what Levi’s told me, but I know Griffin wasn’t that person for me. That if it hadn’t been losing Annie, something else would have shaken us down the line. I only hope that if Levi wants this, that he has that perspective, too.

And just like that, the storm clouds are gone from his eyes, and he’s staring at me again so openly that I feel like I can see all the way down to the core of him. Further than I’ve ever seen. So far down that if I peer close enough, I’ll have answers to the questions I can’t bring myself to ask. Ones that have the power to hurt me more than I thought they ever would again.

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