“What are you doing?” I ask, confused when he drops to his knees in front of where I sit and places his hands on my legs.
I know he feels what I feel when we touch. The electricity, the current that we try to ignore to the best of our ability.
“Shh.” Reaching up, he tucks a lock of my blonde hair behind my ear, then cups my cheek. “You don’t have to hide your tears from me. You can cry. I wouldn’t blame you.”
My eyes water as I look into his intense gaze. “Why are you suddenly being so nice to me? I thought we were supposed to be civil.”
His thumb brushes against my cheek, stroking a tear away. “Because whatever I’ve been telling myself to convince me that you’re the bad guy isn’t working anymore.”
I frown. “But I am the bad guy, and you’re the bad guy to me.”
“Pretending that were not rivals has never hurt anyone.” His voice lowers as his hand that’s resting on my knee squeezes me reassuringly.
A tear slips free, and his eyes track the path it makes down my face.
“If it makes you feel any better, I destroyed his camera.”
I shake my head, and he sighs.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
He frowns, tilting his head.
I continue, “You’re not curious if I have an eating disorder?”
“That’s not something I would assume you would tell me. That’s something you should want to share with whoever you want. So, no, I’m not going to assume you have one just because strangers tell me you do.”
How can someone who makes me feel every emotion possible see me so well? Understand me better than anyone in my life?
“It’s true,” I whisper, and my voice breaks. This is the first time I’ve ever admitted it out loud to another person, other than to my family, for as long as I’ve struggled with my eating disorder.
Pity doesn’t make its way to his face. Instead, understanding does. Levi doesn’t say anything, but his eyes do all the talking.
Grabbing the back of my neck, he brings my forehead down to his and massages my neck with his tattooed fingers. “I’m so sorry, honey. Not right now, but when you’re ready to tell me more, you come to me.”
Nodding, I close my eyes at our close proximity. Breathing in his comforting cinnamon smell because this is the closest I’ve ever been to him, I let my tears flow down my cheeks. The one person I never expected to comfort me holds me until my breathing slows and my tears dry.
* * *
Just like I thought, a couple of days later, the video of me being called out in the club is going viral. And when I say viral, I mean, memes of my shocked face have been created. The video is getting millions of views on every single social media platform, and everyone is just sitting at home, making fun of a girl who has an eating disorder.
How cruel can people be?
I deleted all my social platforms off of my phone so I don’t scroll through the posts, reactions, and comments. For some reason, after years of being famous, I still get the itch to only find the hateful comments about me. Even if there’s more good than bad, I only see the negative ones.
“Amelia …” Trinity drags out theLin my name with a hint of a smile on her face as she rolls a piece of cookie dough in her hand.
Raising my brows at her, I smile in her direction while rolling my own dough. “Yes, Trinity?”
“Don’t think I didn’t see that video.”
My chuckle is anything but funny, but I’m trying to laugh at myself instead of letting millions of people laugh at me. “I think the entire world saw it.”
“I’m not talking about that disgusting part,” she grumbles. “I’m referring to the part when Levi got in the guy’s face, threatened him, and destroyed his camera.” Placing her cookie on a baking pan, she puts her hands on her hips. “But, oops, my bad. I forgot you guys weren’t actually a thing. That video is pretty misleading.”
I shrug my shoulders. “He was just, for once, being a decent human being.”
She pushes a spoon in my face threateningly.
