“I know you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
We sat like that for a few minutes before Levi shifted and turned around so he could face me. “The tattoo…” he began, but then his voice faltered.
“Take your time,” I said softly.
He nodded and then crossed his legs so he could sit more comfortably. I was glad he was willing to face me as he spoke.
“My father wasn’t as bad as he is now, but he always talked shit about people. Black people, Hispanic, Asian…didn’t matter. He blamed them for things, too. Like when he lost his job and we had to move into our apartment…he said his boss, who happened to be Hispanic, had it in for him. At another job, he lost out on a promotion because of an Indian guy. And my mother…we found out she left my father for a black man.”
My insides went cold at his words.
Levi dropped his eyes. “I…I believed him when I was younger. I thought there was truth behind his words and when my mom left…I blamed the guy. I needed someone to blame,” he admitted quietly. “But as I got older, I wasn’t so sure. One of my teachers in school who always encouraged me and told me I wasn’t dumb like the kids said I was…she was black. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school, but there was this girl in my Math class who would help me out whenever I got stuck on a problem during study time. She was Hispanic. But when I tried to say something to my father, he’d get so mad…”
Levi fell silent for a moment and then fingered the bandage on his wrist. “Ricky believed everything my father said…I think he just liked having that permission, you know? To hate. It was…it was like it brought him and my father closer. I knew I couldn’t change their minds, so I just stayed quiet. I didn’t want the tattoo, but I knew whatRicky would do to me if I said no. I was fourteen at that time. He was still…at night…”
Levi’s voice faltered, but I knew what he was trying to tell me. The sexual assaults had continued. I pulled him forward so I could press a kiss to his temple. “It’s okay,” I murmured.
I felt his fingers close over my arm. “He only did it when he was really mad. He had girlfriends by that age, so he didn’t come after me unless he needed to punish me for something or if something set him off. He and my dad were getting along better, so he wasn’t as angry all the time.” Levi turned his head and stared down the length of the beach for a few minutes. My heart broke for him as a few silent tears slipped down his face.
“Something happened when I was sixteen…it was really bad,” Levi said as he turned to look at me. My gut tightened as I realized what he was talking about.
“I don’t want to tell you about it now, but it…” He shook his head and dropped his eyes. “It changed everything.”
I wanted so badly to tell him I knew what he was talking about, but not only would telling him confirm I’d been lying to him from day one about who I was, I still didn’t know for sure that he didn’t have plans to go after Seth.
“I dropped out of school because it just didn’t seem important anymore. I was failing a lot of my classes anyway. I tried to save up enough money to get away from Ricky and my dad, but it was hard. And then I got arrested and went to prison.” Levi paused briefly before saying, “I thought I knew what to expect. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was so fucking clueless.”
A good minute passed before he continued.
“I was raped in the showers the day after I arrived. The guy who did it decided to make me his play thing. It went on for a few weeks. I actually thought the guards would help me if I told them what was happening. I didn’t realize we were no better than animals and as long as we didn’t turn on them, they turned a blind eye to everything else.”
I closed my hand around Levi’s and watched as he played with our fingers, linking and unlinking them.
“Gun found out I went to the guards. He let a bunch of guys take turns with me and then he used the handle of a broom to…”
I didn’t even bother to try and stop the tears that fell as I pulled Levi’s fingers up to my mouth and pressed kisses against them.
“I thought for sure I was going to die,” Levi whispered. “I was so fucking relieved,” he added. “But then I woke up in the infirmary and I knew it wasn’t over. I knew I deserved it for what I’d done, but I was a coward. I couldn’t take it. I started making plans to hang myself when they returned me to my cell.”
“Levi,” I said brokenly as I cradled his hand against my chest.
“But they didn’t take me back to my cell. They put me in with this guy named Hank. I was so fucking scared because the guards wouldn’t let me cover up my tattoo with a Band-Aid like I always had before I’d gone to prison. Even though Gun and his guys did what they did, they also protected me because there were all these different gangs in prison. I guess they saw me as their pet and didn’t want to lose me to a rival gang. The tattoo was like this neon sign that I couldn’t escape. Anyway, the guy they put me in a cell with, Hank, was black.”
I stilled at that and braced myself for the worst.
“I knew when they put me in there, that I wouldn’t have to worry about figuring out how to hang myself. But Hank…”
Levi shook his head and then, to my surprise, he smiled. “Hank was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How so?” I asked.
“He was the one who found me in the shower after Gun and his guys left me lying there on the floor. Hank got me help and then he convinced the warden to put me in with him.”
“How?” I asked. “Inmates don’t have that kind of power.”
Levi shook his head. “Hank was...I don’t even know how to explain it. He had a lot of respect, I guess. From the guards and the gangs alike. He wasn’t an ordained priest, but he’d been studying the Bible for a long time, so he became like a spiritual leader, I suppose. The guy who was the leader of one of the larger gangs, Jasper, respected Hank and he made sure he was always protected. The guards and warden liked that Hank could keep the peace forthe most part…most of the gangs saw him as a man of the cloth, even though he wasn’t officially one. I guess that’s why the warden agreed to his request. Hank took pity on me and, despite the tattoo, he convinced Jasper to extend his protection to me, too. No one laid a hand on me after that. Not Jasper, not his men, not Gun.”
He paused before saying, “I didn’t deserve any of it, but I took it just the same. As bad as things were, I didn’t really want to die and I knew that was what would happen if Gun or any of the other gangs got to me.”
