He was beautifully scarred. So beautiful.
With a fluid motion, he rose from the bed and extended his hand, offering me his black velvet bathroom robe. Then he dropped my boots at my feet. “Let’s go.”
We both stood before my mother’s name outside the opera that night. Levi didn’t leave my side—hands tucked into his pockets, hair tousled by the harsh wind, and clouds of mists forming on our lips.
“Mom, I want to introduce you to Levi. He’s…”The first boy I ever liked.His eyes widened as if he understood how much this introduction meant to me. “We’re close.”
He flashed a smile. “We’re actually together, Mrs. Caron, even if she denies it.” I slapped his shoulder, and he added, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ll do my best so you approve of me.”
He didn’t laugh. If anything, his expression remained deadly serious and unblinking, his eyes fixed on the plaque. As if she was truly here. As if it was meaningful to him too.
My heart bloomed, and that night, I vowed to finish deciphering Lucie’s compositions, and in doing so, I’d put an end to Levi’s nightmares as well.
“Is Levi aware you’re still searching for clues?” Yasmine peered over my phone at the music scores. “And shouldn’t you study for exams?”
I sighed, shutting down my phone and laying it on the chapel’s wooden table. “I’m certain Lucie wrote a violin cadenza, and a violin cadenza never goes unnoticed.”
By combining Lucie’s two music sheets, I noticed a moment when the piano fell silent, allowing one of the hardest violin passages I’d played to take the stage. That had to be it.
“You know what else goes unnoticed? The fact you’re sleeping with your music scores.” Yasmine pointed her fork at my half-finished food. “What’s a cadenza anyway?”
“Well, at the time, a cadenza wasn’t written; it was the opportunity for the violinist to showcase their creativity and skills. So there’s definitely something inside, but I’ve tried everything—Morse code, the alphabet, geocaching, phone numbers. It gives me an incoherent sequence.” I let out a groan of frustration before calming myself with a deep breath, a period cramp kicking, my hormones boiling. “But I’ll get to the bottom of it, I swear to the apostle Simon Pierre. Your turn.”
With exams approaching, Yas and I had come up with a tradition. For five minutes a day, we’d vent our frustrations before moving on—it was our therapy.
“At least you don’t wake up in the middle of the night thinking Jack the Ripper teamed up with your sister to kill you,and let me tell you, he always succeeds and never once falls in love with me to spare my life.” Yasmine gestured wildly.
“Speaking of Tara, what happened the night of Levi’s party?”
“She has the responsibility to hold the family together. Every time something goes wrong, it’s her fault. They expect perfection from her, while they expect constant disappointment from me. She probably got sick of it. She actually confessed I was her less painful sister to handle and that her eyes didn’t burn at the sight of me, which is some sort of compliment coming from her.”
I smiled, trying to avoid Levi’s burning stare from the other table. While his friends laughed and joked around, he remained fixated, unaffected by the bustling cafeteria noise.
Yasmine pivoted in her seat, making no attempt to be discreet as she scanned the area. “He’s always eye-fucking you so intensely every time, it’s like he’s afraid if he stops eye contact, you’ll vanish. Very morally gray if you ask me.”
“And what do you think about this?” I lowered my voice. “Levi and me?”
“Well, does he make you happy?”
I pondered that for a moment. “I think there’s still a lot of work to do to create something on the normal spectrum because he’s Levi—hard to read, and my dad would never allow it. But then, he doesn’t have to know, right? With him, I kinda feel free and like myself. He understands me. But I’ve never had a real relationship before, Yas.”
“You’re allowed to make mistakes and see how it evolves day by day. Plus, you—”
Levi had separated from his friends, and his tray was now on our table. He acknowledged Yasmine with a nod as he sat next to me.
“What were you discussing?” Levi’s lips curled.
“Eagles,” Yasmine blurted out in panic. “Menacing predatory eagles.”
He hummed, his deep resonance filling the air, and turned to me. “Why don’t you ever sit with me at lunch?”
“Because you have ten people sitting around you, all of them being Tacticians, and I’m loyal to the Unifiers gang. Plus, we’re small committee kind of girls,” I said.
Levi and his friends occupied a center table where everyone aimed to be in their good graces, with Kay serving as the group’s entertainer. Yas and I sat at the bottom of the corner table.
“So I have to be the disloyal one to spend time with you.” He smirked, handing Yasmine a rare edition book, and her eyes gleamed with excitement. “The one you were searching for at the library last time.”
“Oh my god, you found it!” she exclaimed, snatching the book and diving into its pages. “I’m definitely pleading your case next time!”
