Right Now, I'm Anyone's

I was left sitting on my own. The waitress who had taken my drink order kept giving me peculiar little glances whenever she could manage, along with half of the customers seated around me. He was late, and I was feeling less at ease every second. The drink I had ordered when I sat down had gone cold by then, since I only ordered it to be legible to sit inside, rather than wait out in the cold.

My iPod was clutched so tightly in my hand that I thought it would break any second. I wasn’t paying attention to the quiet music flowing through my earphones and into my ears; the tune was soft, in a huge contrast to the husky voiced singer. I looked out of the window to my right and watched as the wind blew golden leaves down the side street. A couple of people walked by, but not too many, as I was seated by a window overlooking more of an alleyway than a street.

The bell above the door rang as somebody pushed it open, and I craned my neck to see who had entered.

It was him, and he took a couple of seconds to spot me in the crowded coffee shop. He picked up the pace of his walk, his strides longer, as he made his way over to where I was sitting. He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek, very lightly brushing the corner of my lips, before seating himself in the cushioned chair opposite the one I was in. A waitress came over and he averted his attention to her for a minute or two to recite his usual order.

After a couple of minutes awkward silence – and me desperately trying to avoid any kind of eye contact – he said, “I’m glad you came.”

“You too,” I said, smiling sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure you were actually going to show up, Levi.”

Levi chuckled musically. “I got caught in the traffic after work, sorry.”

I laughed and nodded my head at him, letting him know it was fine. I looked him over; you wouldn’t be able to tell he’d just arrived from a day of work – his dress code was very casual, meaning that he could just turn up in whatever clothes he wanted. Within reason, of course. That day, it consisted of blue straight legged jeans, black deck shoes, a red and white flannel shirt and his black American Eagle jacket.

After the waitress had returned to place Levi’s drink in front of him – fluttering her eyelashes madly at him as he thanked her briefly – he stretched his arm across the table and touched my hand lightly with his own. His fingertips were icy from the bitter cold and made me shiver when he curled his fingers through mine, where they lay on the table beside my switched off iPod and earphones. He offered me a little smile that made my heart blip slightly, which I returned reluctantly.

“I’m so sorry for what I said yesterday,” he said, sincerely. “I know my mother was out of order, and I really should have stopped her.”

Yeah, and I’m so sorry for kissing somebody else behind your back last night. I suppose that’s something like what I should’ve said, but I didn’t. I just shrugged and said, “It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” he insisted. “She was bei-”

“Levi,” I interrupted. “It’s fine, really. She’s your mum, I understand.”

Levi shifted a little bit uncomfortable, directing his eyes down to his lap, before placing them back on my face. He lifted up my hand and held it with both of his. He pressed his lips to my knuckle, before placed our twined hands back onto the table top.

“I just don’t want to lose you over something like that,” he said quietly. “Not ever.”

I gulped and felt the guilt rise back into my stomach like bile. I could feel it gurgling up my oesophagus and I felt like I was going to be sick. Why did he have to be so sweet? He was making this a hell of a lot harder than it had to be. If he’d come in here and acted like a complete cock, I might not have felt so bad.

“You won’t,” I said – almost whispered – around the lump in my throat. Levi smiled kindly at me, pressing another kiss to my knuckles before stroking his thumb over them gently. He stood up and leaned over the table, cupping my chin to press his lips against mine lightly. The guilt mounted again when I started comparing him to Dean. But Levi’s kiss was so...bland now, after kissing Dean.

“Why don’t we just go back to mine for the night?” he asked quietly, once he’d sat back in his seat. I grimaced, but disguised it quickly since he was still looking at my face intently. I scanned through every possible reason I could come up with that said it wasn’t a good idea.

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” I sighed. “I don’t have any of my things with me.”

He laughed and shook his head. “How about I come over instead then?”

I couldn’t think of anything wrong with that suggestion – well, anything wrong that I could freely tell him without him hating me. I’d have to let him stay, and figure out some way to feel a little bit less guilty, just enough that I could cope for another couple of hours until morning.

“Why not?” I said, shrugging and smiling in mock happiness. Levi beamed at me and stood up, leaving me alone at our table so that he could hunt down the waitress that had brought him his drink and pay.

I had five minutes to compose myself properly, to get into the right mindset. I repeatedly told myself – lied to myself – that Dean meant absolutely nothing to me, even that he had taken advantage of my drunken state. I know that he didn’t take advantage, and that what happened wasn’t that big of a mistake.

“Ready?” Levi asked, holding his hand out to me. I nodded and took his hand, allowing him to pull me onto my feet. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and mine automatically went to his waist. On the way out, the waitress gave him another flirty smile, before shooting me a jealous look. Levi opened the car door for me and waited until I was seated properly before closing the door and making his way to the driver’s side.

The fingers of his left hand stayed curled around the ones on my right the entire five minute drive back to my home.

*****
28/10/09

I’d been awake for a very long time. It felt like I’d been lying in my bed for days, when it could only have been a couple of hours since I’d woken from my restless sleep. Levi’s arms were curled tightly around my waist and his head rested against my chest as I stared up at the ceiling blankly. The pain from the way his arms were bending my back had numbed after the first hour or so; it was just in the background.

I turned my attention away from the ceiling, to stare as evenly blankly at the white-washed wood of my closed bedroom door. The only reason I even knew it was morning was because of the small amount of dull grey light seeping in through the gap at the foot of the curtains hung over my windows. I carefully lifted my free arm up and reached for my phone on the bedside table to check what time it was; 8:45AM

I groaned and pushed my hand through my loosely tangled hair – I had to be at work in the space of forty-five minutes, and I needed at least an hour to get ready properly. I untied Levi’s arms from my body and pulled his arms away from me, placing them carefully back onto the mattress once I was standing beside the bed, shivering in my underwear. He stirred in his sleep and half opened his eyes, lifting his head off of the pillow.

“Stay in bed for a while longer,” I said quietly, kissing him on the forehead. “I have to go get ready.”

He grunted in response and had his head back on the pillow before I had even finished my sentence. He rolled over onto his other side, turning his back to me and I picked the first shirt I touched up off of the floor. I quickly re-tied the ponytail in my hair on my way to the bathroom, before getting in and washing my body as fast as I possibly could. I didn’t have time to wash my hair.

When I was finished in the shower, it was 9:01PM, so I literally had to run back to my room clad in just a towel, throw my used underwear and the shirt into the washing basket on the way, drag Levi out of bed by his ankles and find some clothes for the day – the whole time trying to keep my towel from falling off. Levi kept grumbling and complaining under his breath while he got dressed behind me. I kept looking up at his reflection in the mirror I was using to do my make-up.

I let my hair down and fluffed it impatiently, before standing up and pulling my work shirt over my head, following by my blue skinny jeans being dragged up my legs. I gathered my phone, my iPod, my purse and my keys together at top speed, throwing them all into my bag before I walked briskly into the living room. Levi was sat on the couch, scowling like a little child with his arms folded over his chest, while Georgia was stood in the kitchen, smiling contently to herself, eating a bowl of cereal.

I could only guess that she’d gotten her first remark out of the way for today.

“Both running late today, then?” I asked, when I walked through the door. She leaned back against the counter and smiled at me, before shooting Levi an evil look over my shoulder.

“Evidently, not as late as I thought I was going to be,” she laughed. “I had time for breakfast.”

“And if you don’t hurry up, we’re all going to be late,” Levi muttered, hauling himself up from the couch and walking towards our front door – the heels of his shoes slapping against the floor as he went. Georgia and I exchanged a look with each other, before I turned around and walked towards the front door, where Levi was waiting impatiently outside for me.

“Georgia, do you want a lift?” Levi shouted begrudgingly through the door. I heard her snicker quietly – and I was certain Levi heard, because he just scowled even more – then drop her bowl and spoon into the metal sink in the kitchen. She walked as leisurely as she possibly could to us, probably trying to do her best to get under his skin while she had the opportunity.

“Why, thanks, Lev,” she smirked, winking at me as he started thundering down the stairs. She was in an oddly good mood that morning – maybe it was Jake’s fault, maybe it was because she got to make some digs at Levi before work; who knew? Levi, however, definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

He charged ahead of the both of us and waited by his car, drumming his fingers on the metal roof with obvious impatience. His mood couldn’t be entirely Georgia’s doing, so I found myself wondering what the hell could’ve caused it. A small wave of paranoia crashed over my heart momentarily, when I thought that he must be in a bad mood because he found out.

But he couldn’t possibly have found out. He was with me all day yesterday and all night, and Dimitri hadn’t come home the night before.

Georgia bounced into the back seat of his car while I slid in the front passenger side. Levi got in the car and slammed the door hard, before shoving his keys roughly into the ignition and starting the car. Georgia leaned between our seats and requested my iPod; which I handed over dutifully. She put both earphones into her ears and started scrolling through my playlists.

I turned to look at Levi after I had handed Georgia my iPod; it was tight, and his brow was furrowed into a line above his eyes. I sighed and waited until I was sure that Georgia had the music she was listening to too loud for her to overhear any kind of conversation we had.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he answered bluntly, his voice sounding mechanical. He kept his eyes forward on the black tar of the road, but I noticed that he purposefully relaxed his facial muscles when I spoke up.

“You sure?” I pushed, placing my hand on top of his where it rested on the gear stick. I saw his lips curve into a small smile and his brow relax naturally. He flipped his hand upside down on the gear stick and stroked the palm of my hand with his thumb, tracing the lines.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Just-”

Just then, Georgia thought it best to interrupt him with very loud, very out of key humming from the back seat. I turned back to look at her and held back a bubble of laughter, while she kept her head down, staring at my iPod. She had a huge, shit-eater grin on her face.

Levi flipped his hand back over on the gear stick and nudged my hand away by changing gears, his smile gone to be replaced with his previous scowl. I watched him while his eyes kept darting up to the rear view mirror – less than likely checking out the traffic behind us. The last ten minute of the ride to Flux was spent in an insanely tense silence.

“Thanks for the lift,” Georgia sang cheerily, hopping out of the back door of the car. Levi grumbled a silent goodbye to her – it didn’t sound like a goodbye, I just like to think it was – and crossed his arms stroppily over his chest. I thought I was the girl in this relationship; why does my boyfriend display severe symptoms of PMS?

“Good riddance,” he muttered, leaning back into the driver’s seat heavily. He rubbed his face with his hands, while I raised my eyebrows in slight disbelief at the rudeness that coloured his tone.

“Come on, she was only playing,” I said. It was true. Kind of.

“No, she was just being a bitch. As usual.”

“Levi,” I said sharply. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

He turned his head and looked at me with his eyebrows raised, letting his hands drop down into his lap. “It’s true! She does everything she can come up with to piss me off! She’s a bitch, end of story.”

I shoved his arm as hard as I could, glaring at him in anger. “She’s also my best friend, so shut up. You don’t see me getting in a bad mood about the way Erin treats me whenever she’s around, Levi.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered, directing his attention back out of the windscreen in front of us. “She’s perfectly nice to you at all times.”

“No, she isn’t,” I said, laughing humourlessly. “She treats me almost exactly how your mother does, only a hell of a lot more openly – which I didn’t even realise was possible.”

“Can we not start this again?” he growled. “Erin and my mother have absolutely nothing to do with your stupid, spiteful arsehole of a friend.”

I sat with my back to the car door and stared at him for a long, long time before launching into the biggest, nastiest tirade I could come up with on the spot. Meaning that I could’ve possibly said things that I didn’t mean – but I was far too angry to care what they were and what effect they had on Levi.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” he shouted, grabbing hold of my flailing arm tightly, before I’d even managed to finish speaking. Almost immediately, my mouth clamped shut, stopping the flow of hurtful words. He looked so furious with me; I’d never seen anybody look that angry before. He was breathing hard, his face right up next to mine and his grip tighter on my wrist. Tight enough to make it uncomfortable for me.

“Just. Shut. Up,” he said, grasping my wrist tighter yet. All I could bring myself to do then was stare at him in complete shock – he had never laid a hand on me before, not to hurt me anyway. Any normal girl would probably panic and burst into tears in a situation like that – a situation where her boyfriend was seemingly trying to crush her wrist with his bare hand. But, since I wasn’t that normal to begin with, I didn’t. Once my sense came back to me, I just tried twisting my arm away from him, which only made him grip tighter and me yelp in pain.

“Levi, get off of me,” I muttered, moving my hand around. “You’re hurting me.”

“I don’t care,” he said sharply, tightening his hand again and making me wince in pain. “I don’t care. I’m so fucking sick of arguing all the time; you’re not even worth half of the arguments we have, Leila.”

I stopped trying to get away and raised my eyebrows at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t speak after that. He looked down at his lap guiltily and I felt his hand loosen around my wrist, but not enough for me to pull my arm free from him.

“Nothing. Look, I’m sorry,” he said, trying to pull me closer by my wrist. I yelped from the ache again and jumped away, so that my back was pressed against the car door. He kept pulling me closer still, despite my yelp and my desperate bid for freedom. He leaned in and tried kissing me on the mouth, but I just turned my head away; I was even angrier at him now.

“I said, get off of me, Levi,” I said, my voice cracking slightly in fear. Levi glared at me and started up his retaliation by saying my name sharply. He didn’t have time to say much more though, as somebody knocked on the window behind him. He instantly released my wrist and wound the window down into the door. Dean leaned into the car, his head surpassing the limit of the window.

“Everything okay here?” he asked, looking at me as he arched his left eyebrow.

“We’re talking,” Levi said pointedly, before I could get a word out. Dean shook his head and nodded towards me.

“Sorry, mate, but I was talking to her.”

Levi turned his head to look at me. The small, warning of a glare he sent my way didn’t go unnoticed by me, but Dean seemed oblivious. I looked between them for a second or two before nodding my head and saying, “Yeah, we were just talking.”

Dean gave me a look, one that I recognised. He was going to want to speak to me later on, I knew he would. He knew I was lying to him and he was going to call me up on it and manipulate me into telling him what was really happening. But I wasn’t going to let him do that; I wasn’t who I was six years ago, and I’d managed to build my defences up more than that now.

I took the only chance I had and opened the car door, grabbing my bag and leaving the car as fast as I possibly could. On the way to the back entrance of Flux, Johnny was standing there, watching as I walked over towards where he stood. I flashed him an unconvincing smile and brushed past him without looking at his face. I knew he was following me through the back door, and I knew that he would follow me up to the staff room on the upper level of the building.

Once we reached the staff room, Johnny gave me a couple of minutes to hang up my bag and coat. I stayed facing the wall, my back to him. I felt his hand touch my shoulder lightly – I flinched away from the contact, still shaken.

“Leila,” he said. “What happened? Are you okay?”

I did my best to ignore the ache in my wrist and nodded my head in response. Johnny’s hand on my shoulder turned me, gently, around to face him. He looked me in the eye for a couple of minutes, scrutinising my face and trying to decide what he could say. He didn’t say anything else, though, he just pulled me into him and wrapped both his arms around my back and rested his chin on top of my head.

Johnny and I both sighed in unison. Johnny chuckled, but I remained silent. I couldn’t believe that twice, in less than forty-eight hours, Levi and I had argued. And he’d actually tried to inflict physical pain on me, which shocked me more than anything. I knew he and Georgia didn’t exactly see eye to eye, but I didn’t know that he could be so hurtful about things like he was with me earlier.

“Everything’ll be fine,” Johnny said, keeping his voice down and stroking my back lightly with his left hand. I heard the door to the staff room click open and Maddox ask if everything was alright – apparently, he’d seen Dean and Levi arguing outside. I felt Johnny nod his head and heard the door click shut again, meaning that Maddox had left us alone.

I realised just how much I had missed Johnny Owens in that moment. Honestly, I think I missed him more than I missed anybody else.