Page 60 of The Break-Up Pact
“I just was—yesterday really threw me for a loop,” he says, using the hand wrapped around me to squeeze my shoulder. “There were a lot of things she wanted to say, and—things I needed to say, too. We were together for a long time.”
“I know,” I say, but it doesn’t come out as understanding as I want it to. There’s an edge in my voice, an edge I’ve been teetering on ever since he answered her call.
“June,” he says, pressing the words into my hair. “I meant everything I said that night.”
I linger there for a moment, my eyes closed, trying to let the words sink in. But I’m too uneasy. Too on guard. I pull away from him slowly, meeting his worried eyes.
“But it’s like you said,” I say carefully. “You were together a long time. And until a few days ago, you were trying to make it work. And then she’s here, just like you wanted, asking for you to get back together—that is why she was here, right?”
Levi nods, his eyes sweeping down. Then he gathers up the hands in my lap and holds them in his, his touch featherlight. “I told her I’ve moved on. And I have, June. Kelly and I have been drifting apart for a long time now. I think I was just so jarred by everything else in my life shifting that I was holding on to the idea of us. I’m pretty sure that’s why she came here, too. Just out of fear of everything changing.” He squeezes my hands gently, like he’s pressing the words into me. “But I don’t feel that way anymore. Things between me and Kelly—they’re over.”
“But,” I supply. Because I know there’s a but. I might believe every word he’s saying, but I saw it in his eyes at the front door. I heard it in the silence of this past day.
Levi’s grip softens. “I’m going back to New York for a little while. Just to square things up.”
I go as still as he is, like I’m seeing something flash out of the corner of my eye and bracing for potential impact. “Like what?”
“The apartment. My job.” Levi looks away from me again, toward the small pile of photos we’ve been poring through. “And… to be honest, to finish the draft. It’s due soon, and I haven’t made much progress.”
I slowly pull my hands out of his, settling them back in my lap. Levi just leaves his own resting on my thighs, like he’s waiting for them to come back.
“I guess our little pact didn’t help matters,” I say, trying to keep my tone light.
Levi turns back to me, shaking his head vehemently. “June. Every second of the Revenge Exes has been more ridiculous than the last, but you have to know I wouldn’t have traded a single one of them for the world.”
The knot of dread in my chest loosens slightly, enough that I feel a reluctant smile twitch at my lips. Levi seems relieved to see it.
“What I mean is—every time I try to write that manuscript, the tone is just all wrong. Like being here instead of where it’s set is throwing me off,” he explains.
The twitch of a smile disappears, my brow furrowing in concern. “So basically, being here where you’re happy instead of there where you’re not?”
There’s that same expression he was making at the door when I arrived, the one with the apology in it. Like he doesn’t want it to be true any more than I do. It makes me ache for him—both the Levi in front of me and the Levi who wrote that first manuscript. The one who was so determined to face everything alone.
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“There’s a spare room in the apartment we were using for an office, so I’m going to stay there.” And then, off my worried expression, he adds, “Kelly works long hours. I’m barely going to see her.”
But I’m not worried about Levi being around Kelly. It’s the fact that he’s choosing to be around her. That after everything we just said to each other, all the unspoken promises I thought we made the other night, he’s choosing to be somewhere I’m not.
“How long will you be gone for?” I ask, my throat dry.
“Two weeks—three at the most, depending on what arrangements I make for the move.” He says the words quickly, like he’s been rehearsing them in his head since he decided. “We’ll just be an hour and a half apart. We’ll still be able see each other. And then I’ll be back.”
“So you’re leaving soon,” I realize.
He hesitates for a moment and then says, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
This stings with more force that I’m expecting it to, enough that I’m blinking like I just got bowled into by a sharp gust of wind. I press myself farther into the couch, farther from him.
And then I almost laugh. “I guess I’ll see you next weekend,” I say.
“Yeah?” Levi asks, a lift in his voice.
“I’m doing that special with Griffin.” I give him a tight-lipped smile and say, “You don’t mind if I use the whole Revenge Exes thing to blow up our spot one last time?”
Now it’s Levi whose eyes are cloudy with worry. “Of course not,” he says anyway. He lets out a breath of a laugh. “Aren’t we technically still Revenge Exes?”
We are, but suddenly I don’t want us to be. I want us to just be June and Levi, the way we should have been from the start. I want to have enough of a foundation together that Levi wouldn’t have things to settle in New York, and I wouldn’t have all the doubts swirling in my head.
