Page 54 of The Break-Up Pact

I open my mouth. Nothing, I almost say, like I can sweep an entire interview from a nationally renowned publication under my bed, and all sixteen of Kelly’s calls along with it. But he’s crossed the distance between the bathroom door and my bed in an instant, and I’m handing him my phone, watching him scroll. Watching the concern furrowed in his brow lift to surprise, to bewilderment.

Before he can finish and look over at me, I say, “Kelly’s been calling all morning.”

As if on cue, his phone lights up on the nightstand again. Levi blinks at it. I press my forehead into my knees, bracing myself.

“I can deal with it later,” he says.

And my heart cinches. Something in me is already starting to crack. I lift my head and say, “It’s a lot of calls.”

Only after this one ends and the 17 missed calls notification appears does he see what I mean. I don’t know Kelly, but from what I’ve heard, she’s a levelheaded, calm person. Someone like Levi. Someone who appreciates order and routines and a plan. Someone who doesn’t call enough times to make a phone combust.

The phone rings with the eighteenth call right on its heels, but Levi doesn’t look at the phone. He looks at me. Like I’m the one who has to make this decision, not him.

And for a split second, I feel it—a white-hot sliver of anger. The unfairness of this being put on me when I don’t know this woman, don’t know his history with her, and suddenly have no idea where I fit into any of it.

But I swallow it down, quick and brutal. Because if the bottom falls out from under us right now, well—we didn’t make any promises to each other. We didn’t stake any claims. We’re in a limbo where the Revenge Exes technically never ended, and June and Levi technically never began.

And even if all of that weren’t true, I don’t want to be one more person in Levi’s life who sets the terms for him. He followed Annie’s plans. He followed Kelly’s. I’m not going to try to tilt this in my favor by making one of my own.

So I give him a quick nod. He nods back. And then he picks up the phone.

“Hey, what’s—”

She must start talking immediately, because Levi goes quiet. There’s an intense focus in his eyes, which he aims at the floor, deliberately avoiding my gaze. Then his brow furrows, so sharp and so quick I feel my stomach drop.

“You’re—you’re coming here?” he asks.

I want to sink so far into the mattress that it swallows me whole. Levi’s eyes flit to mine, half apology and half shock.

“Yeah, of course I know where—I can meet you there. But you should have called before you left,” he says, abruptly turning his back to me. “No, I don’t want to—okay. That’s… fine. Text me when you’re close.”

She says something else into the phone, words I can’t hear but recognize the rhythm of. Words I’ve ached to say to him, that I wish I had the courage to say even now.

But louder than any courage I can summon is the common sense. The reminder that Levi has a whole world he’s built outside of me, outside this town. That I am one night in a sea of thousands of nights he spent with her. That I am a few weeks of fun against years of him building the foundation of an entire life that I’m not a part of, that I’ll never fully understand.

He hangs up the phone and presses it down to the nightstand, keeping his hand on it.

“She’s on the bus right now,” he says.

I know exactly which bus he’s talking about. In high school, we used to call it the Drunk Bus. The direct line between Benson Beach and New York, where underage high school and college kids would go back and forth in the hour and a half from the city.

The one time we took it together, Levi, me, Dylan, and Annie, we went to see a Broadway show. We stuffed our faces with dollar slices and snuck two six-packs onto the bus, chugging them before we got home. I rested my head on Levi’s shoulder for the back half of the drive, already knowing he’d let me do it, a moment that felt stolen and earned at the same time.

And now I’m still stuck in between those feelings, unsure of where we stand. Unsure of what happens for us next.

“All right,” I manage. “Well—good luck.”

His brow furrows again, his eyes searching my face. “I don’t want her to be here any more than you do.”

“It’s fine,” I say tightly, and I try to make myself mean it. “You were with her for years. You and I were—last night was just a night.”

Levi’s mouth parts, and for a moment he doesn’t make a sound. For a moment, we’re both suspended in time, Levi stunned by my words and me determined to hold on to them, like they’re the only armor I’ve got.

“It wasn’t ‘just’ anything to me. You know that.” Levi’s tone can’t settle, torn between insistence and hurt.

I stay very still, trying not to let it seep in. “I also know we said we were taking everything off the table. I just want you to know you can—do whatever it is you need to do.”

“Whatever it is I need to do,” he says, his voice dull. Prompting me to elaborate.

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