Remember to Forget, Revised and Expanded (24 page)

“Levi,” Lucy whispers while she's laying on top of me.

I raise my eyebrows.

“Tell me a happy story.”

I clear my throat, unsure I want to talk again. But seeing Lucy so upset, I give
in and tell her a story. I look up a book on my phone that my parents used to read
to me when I was younger—
Oh, The Places You'll Go!
by Dr. Seuss. It seems kind of
long, so I decide to only read a piece of it.

I take a deep breath and clear my throat. I start to read from the beginning of the
book.

“I like the way you talk,” Lucy says after I read the second page. “Keep going.”

I laugh. “You have feet in your shoes.”

“I'm not wearing shoes.”

“Pretend you are.”

“Okay.”

I continue reading. “You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

“I won't follow Sven anymore.”

“That's a good idea.”

After I finish a few pages, I realize my heart rate has finally slowed down. I'm
out of breath from the talking, though.

“What's a slump?” Lucy asks after a few minutes.

“Huh?”

“Read where it said
slump
.”

I look for the part she's talking about. “And when you're in a slump, you're not
in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”

“What does it mean?”

I take a second to think about it. “It means if you're feeling upset, it's hard to
be happy again. But you can do it.”

“Like you?”

I'm taken aback by her comment.

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

“You can get un-slumped then, right?”

I nod slowly.

“Good,” she says, cuddling closer to me. She shuts her eyes, probably exhausted by
today's events.

I am too.

It's weird to be talking again. I forgot I even had a voice. I've become so used
to not talking that now it's a struggle to say anything at all. It feels abnormal
to speak, like it's not natural. I'm not sure I want to have anyone else know I talked.
I don't think I'm ready for that just yet or if I ever will be. This may be a one-time
thing.

Delilah comes after awhile, running inside.

“Is she okay? What happened? Levi, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone
… I'm so sorry.”

I can tell that Delilah raced to get here. She's breathing quickly and her cheeks
are bright red. She must have been so stressed and worried.

I take out my phone to type something, then decide not to. “It's okay,” I tell her
quietly, feeling my cheeks heat up.

“No, it's—Wait, did you just talk?” Delilah says.

“He talks now,” Lucy says quietly.

“Yeah, I talk now.”

Delilah runs over to me and hugs me tightly.

“I thought I'd never hear your voice,” she whispers.

“I know. Me too.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

DELILAH

I
can't believe Levi actually
spoke
yesterday
.
It doesn't even seem real. Yesterday,
when he talked, I thought I was imagining things. I hugged him for so long, I even
started crying.

He made Lucy and me promise not to tell anyone, though. He's not ready to speak to
anyone else, which is understandable. He went months without saying a word, so it's
not like he's going to instantly switch and talk nonstop. It makes me happy that
he's only talking to us right now. I guess I mean more to Levi than I thought.

I don't know what I expected Levi's voice to sound like, but it's better than I could
have ever imagined. I almost forgot about the fact that he's Australian and would
talk with an accent. I could listen to him talk all day. Right now, however, he talks
in a whisper, and it's a little shaky and hesitant. He clears his throat a lot too,
and it's like his voice is fragile and could break any second. I'm so afraid he'll
stop talking again, and this will only last for a short time. I hope he never stops.
With Levi, however, I can never be sure. He could never speak again.

All day I've been waiting to get home just so I can talk to Levi, and he can talk
to me. As I'm walking out of the school, I notice someone in all black leaning against
a tree. That someone could only be Levi.

I walk over to Levi, which is hard because the sidewalk is frozen over. I finally
make it over to him, but slip on the ice that's in front of him. He reaches out quickly
and catches me before I fall, tightly holding on to me.

“Thanks,” I whisper, realizing how close his face is to mine.

“You literally just fell for me,” he says, quietly laughing. I feel my cheeks heat
up, and I quickly stand, regaining my balance.

“You did not just say that,” I say, embarrassed.

“I did,” he says, biting down on his bottom lip. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it's okay,” I say, laughing. I decide to change the subject to avoid any more
awkwardness. “So what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” he tells me. Now his cheeks are turning red.

“Oh,” I say, smiling.

“Did you want to see me?” he says quietly.

“Yeah, of course I did.” I nudge his shoulder, and he scrunches his nose at me.

We head toward my car, which isn't too far. I'm guessing Levi's dad drove him here
since Levi doesn't have his license. That's why we always walk everywhere, but now
it's too cold to stay outside for very long.

We pass by Mitchell and Levi waves. I didn't know they knew each other.

“You've met him before?” I ask.

“Yeah. At therapy. He's cool.”

“He says cool a lot.”

He looks down at my hand and slowly reaches for it, entwining his fingers with mine.
I get butterflies in my stomach, not expecting that at all.

“Is this okay?” he asks again.

“Yes, Levi, it's okay,” I tell him. It's cute how he's so nervous and unsure.

“Your hands are cold,” he says, pulling my hand into his jacket pocket. He's still
holding onto my hand once it's inside, like he doesn't want to let go.

I notice that there's not a lighter or a pack of cigarettes. They're always in this
pocket.

“No cigarettes?” I ask.

“No. I stopped a month ago.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little. “I didn't need them anymore.”

“Levi, that's great!”

He smiles and looks down at his feet.

“So that means the anxiety is getting better?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I figured smoking took a little off my life with each cigarette. I don't
want that anymore.”

I don't respond. I'm not sure what to say.

We walk the rest of the way to my car in silence. As I start driving us home, Levi
turns down the radio.

“Why do you always turn it down?” I ask him.

“I don't like music,” he says, looking out the window.

“Why?”

“Certain songs remind me of the things I want to forget the most.”

“Levi . . .”

“Don't ‘Levi' me,” he says, turning toward me. He smirks and rolls his eyes.

“Someone's sassy when they talk.”

“Australians are naturally sarcastic.”

We drive the rest of the way home in a comfortable silence. Levi doesn't like to
talk for long periods of time, which I totally understand. I don't want to force
him into doing something he's not comfortable with.

I pull up in front of Levi's house, but neither of us get out of the car.

He looks over at me and sighs.

“What's wrong?” I ask him

“How long can you stay?”

“About an hour.”

“Please stay for dinner. Please,” he says, sticking out his bottom lip.

I put my hand in front of his face. “Don't look at me like that.”

“Pleeeease,” he whines, his voice muffled.

“Fine. But you have to help me with my homework.”

“I'm a dropout!” he says, getting out of the car.

“That doesn't mean you can't do algebra.”

“I failed it twice. I'm pretty sure that means I can't.”

I laugh, waiting outside the front door for Levi.

“Have you talked to your dad yet?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

“Okay. Then I'll act like you haven't talked to me yet.”

He nods, already going back to silence.

I open the door, already hearing Anthony upstairs.

“It's Delilah and Levi!” I yell.

“Hi!” Anthony yells, coming to see us. “You guys look cold!”

“Because we are. It's freezing out.”

Anthony laughs. “Want me to turn the heat up?”

Levi nods quickly, causing his dad to laugh.

“Your wish is my command,” Anthony says, heading back down the hall.

We go to Levi's basement, since that's probably where we'll be able to actually talk
without Anthony hearing us.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Levi asks, talking quieter than usual so his dad won't hear
him.

“If you want to.”

“Okay. You pick it out, I'll go get food,” he tells me, already running up the stairs.

“Don't put chocolate on the popcorn like you did last time!” I yell.

He leans over the stairs. “It was good!”

“No, it was disgusting.”

“Fine. I'll make a separate batch for you. You're welcome.”

“Thanks, Levi!” I yell, laughing.

He rolls his eyes and heads upstairs, leaving me to pick out a movie.

I go through his Netflix account until I find a movie that looks slightly interesting.
It only has two and a half stars. At least we can make fun of it if it's really stupid.

“I'm back,” Levi whispers after a few minutes. He plops down on the couch beside
me, tossing me my bag of popcorn. “Wait, I'll be right back,” he says.

He runs back upstairs and returns with a bunch of sheets, pillows, and blankets.

“What are you doing?” I ask, laughing.

“We're gonna make a fort, duh. My dad questioned me, though, and I'm not sure he
believes that's what we'll be using this for.”

I laugh. “Lucy is rubbing off on you.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Is not!”

“You're like a child.”

“Am not,” he says quietly. He looks over at me from the corner of his eyes, holding
in his laughter.

I grab a pillow and toss it at his head.

It's nice to finally be able to talk to Levi. I feel like, now that he's talking,
he seems a lot happier. Or maybe his pills are working, or therapy is helping.

Or maybe everything all together is making him less sad. Whatever it is, I like it.

“That was not nice,” he pouts.

“You're so much more annoying now,” I say jokingly.

“It's my specialty. Now just eat your popcorn with extra butter while I make this
fort, and don't bother me.”

I almost choke on my popcorn because of Levi's response, and I can't stop laughing.
“You're a lot funnier too.”

Today must be a really good day for Levi, because I've never seen him this happy.
Seeing him so happy is making me happy too.

I watch Levi as he sets up the fort. He sticks his tongue out a little and bites
his lip as he concentrates on keeping the sheets in place. He has to stand on his
toes to put one of the sheet corners on the bookshelf.

Levi's dad comes downstairs, most likely to see if we really are making a fort. He
laughs when he sees the basement with all the sheets.

Levi must have made a lot of forts in his seventeen years of life, because he makes
ours extremely fast. I barely help, as every time I try, I mess up. Instead, I eat
my popcorn like he told me, not bothering him. When he's done, he crawls through
the opening and sits beside me on the couch. He somehow managed to make the fort
above the couch and connect it over the TV. It's pretty impressive.

He snuggles up beside me and throws a piece of popcorn at me.

“What was that for?” I ask him.

“Press play.”

“Oh.”

He throws a piece of popcorn into his mouth and leans his head on my shoulder.

“Actually, don't press play yet,” he tells me.

“Why not?”

“I haven't said thank you. So thanks.”

“For what?”

He moves slightly, lifting his head back up. “Without you, I wouldn't be talking
right now.”

That makes me blush and sends chills up my spine. “Why me?”

“You helped,” he says. “You made me feel like it was okay to talk again.”

“I'm happy you're talking.”

“I'm happy that you're happy,” he says, chewing on his bottom lip and avoiding eye
contact. “You can press play now.”

So I do, and the movie starts. It's kind of boring. His dad brings us some pizza
and Levi keeps throwing his chocolate-covered popcorn at me. He doesn't talk at
all during the movie; I don't think
he's even watching it. Most of the time he's
eating or looking over at me.

Halfway through the movie, I see one of the sheets start to fall and then the whole
fort collapses. We're stuck in a pile of sheets, and all I can hear is Levi laughing.

“Oops,” he whispers.

I push all the sheets off me and pull them off of Levi too.

“That wasn't supposed to happen,” he says.

“You're such a dork,” I tell him.

“But I'm your dork.” His cheeks turn red the second after he says this.

“That was even dorkier!”

We don't bother remaking the fort, and instead just sit on the couch. The movie ends
at some point, but neither of us was really interested in it anyway. We've been lying
down for the past hour, acting like we were watching the movie, but we really weren't.
I know I was thinking about Levi, I just don't know if he was thinking about me
too.