Merry Christmas from Tim

Dear Levi,

12.25.13
Christmas Day

I didn't want to sit downstairs with Kate Walley, but she had saved me a spot with her parents and Kendon said he didn't have room with his guy friends. In my head, driving sad and numb along the highway to church, I would go inside and sit up in the empty balcony, up in the back corner where I used to sit before Levi walked into my life, when I was in grieving from the Chicago crisis. That is where my soul longed to be. Alone. Away. Grieving.
But I ended up carrying in bags of Christmas gifts and slipping in with the Walleys, smiling and laughing in all the right places. Like Kate and I are best friends. Like I am so popular I have people clamoring for my presents. Like I'm someone that I don't recognize.
I usually am not so cynical. I smile. I breathe. I say a prayer and try to be a better girl than who I was, someone Levi can be proud of. Maybe that is who that girl is, the one sitting there with presents by the Walleys. But the old Noelle, the little sad Gothic girl, is still in my head and sometimes she still speaks up. Like earlier that day in a text to insensitive Michelle, bubbling about how well I've adjusted to Levi being with Anna.
"You're doing just great!" she gushed.
I couldn't help the bitterness in my reply. "Yeah, if waking up each day is a great way to live life."
She didn't respond and I didn't care. Everyone else was so happy about this life now, it was my own fault I couldn't be like them. I didn't want to, anyways.
After the sermon, I scanned the room like crazy for Joseph. He used to come pester Levi when I sat with him, and I was touched that Levi had a special bond with a random bus kid. Now Levi was too busy with Tim or now Anna and it was me that Joseph was coming over to talk with. I'm not sure why. There's nothing funny or intriguing I have to offer him, but he reminds me of my days with Levi so I wave at him whenever I see him and make sure to take time to talk to him about school, his dad in Saudi Arabia, his family. Now apparently he's become an adoring fan.
He came running over on his own accord, bringing me a Christmas gift. A plastic bookmark, unwrapped. The price tag was still stuck to the back, 1.26$ It made me smile so big. "Thank you, you didn't have to give me a gift," I said softly.
He looked embarrassed but proud. "I didn't want to forget you today."
I handed him a small gift bag stuffed with crepe paper and a glittery Christmas card. Inside was tucs and Roshen white chocolate, gifts from Ukraine. He was almost speechless, and it made me laugh.
"It takes an acquired taste, so if you don't like it, don't worry about offending me, okay?"
Joseph took off to find his brother and sister, since I'd never met them.
Curious, I followed into the center aisle and faced two little kids. The girl, Sarah, was in a big poofy white Christmas dress with red roses. She was ten. And the boy, Abraham, in jeans and a tee shirt, was nine and very proud that he was taller than Sarah.
I didn't know what to say to them. They weren't adults, so I couldn't just hide behind polite conversation. Instead, I told them I gave candy to their brother and I hoped he would share. They were really cute and very squirmy, so the little meeting was only a few minutes. But Joseph seemed very proud and he and I exchanged pleased smiles.
And as they were getting ready to go, from across the pews approached two very intimidating figures... Amanda and Tim Mickey.
I thought of Twilight, when the two small dark children with the most menacing powers step out of the ranks of the powerful Volturi to face off with the heroes, the Cullens. Maybe it was because they are both small, slight, and very much alike. And wearing matching black wool coats. Maybe I'm just highly paranoid.
My stomach literally clenched. Amanda looked... less than thrilled to be crossing paths with me. And Tim looked... well, it's hard to think straight when I'm looking at him. My mind goes crazy, mixing past with present with future. Was he happy to see me? Leery? Holy cow he looked so much like Levi, same build and height, same black coat. Levi, my Levi. Levi and Tim. Tim and me.
I had this crazy urge to step behind the pew and put some solid wood between us. We were so very in public and not the kind of public that makes me feel safe. And it was two on one, so unfair.
Since March when Levi took down my things in Santana and turned me away that night I came into Walmart crying, my new defense has been offense. So I just went with the plan instinctively, not really having time to figure out what the right response should be. A pleasant smile, bright eyes, and the first one to greet them.
"Hey, guys, Merry Christmas!"
I got the feeling it was Tim who wanted to say hi to me, and he was bringing along his sister for... protection, or something. They had spent Christmas day at the Hainlines. I felt sad that I had missed hanging out with him Christmas Eve there... so I let him know I had been there, just to rub it in that he wasn't the only one to frequent that haven. Part of me what furiously calculating what that meant. Is that where Levi had been, too? Probably not.... the boys didn't seem to be talking yet.
I wasn't prepared with something to talk about, so I rambled about trying to find eggs for the brownies I made. Amanda looked bored and Tim... well, there was just something so superior about his gaze tonight. Like he was layers above me. Maybe it's because he had just been talking for a long time with Sam Davison, President of Heartland, who probably didn't even know I exist let alone graduated this spring. Or maybe it was all in my head. Part of me had an uncontrollable desire to fly at him and attack his perfect face and scream at him, 'You stole him! You stole my best friend!"
And the other part of me... had this uncontrollable craving to kiss him. Why did his eyes have to be so much like Levi's? Beautiful, warm chocolate. So alive, so animated when he wanted them to be. It made me so humiliated, to feel so ordinary compared to that life and shine. But it was not Tim I wanted to kiss, it was Levi.
I asked what they were doing for New Years... nothing, apparently, because they exchanged surprised and blank looks. It made me laugh. Okay, obvious that wasn't a big deal in Kenya. I told them how New Years kicks off a week of celebration in Ukraine, ending in Russian Christmas on the 7th. They didn't know that, which was odd to me because I feel they know everything about me. It's just the paranoia from having seen them with Levi for so long and he... he truly knew everything.
It was frustrating that I couldn't invite them over. It would be funny, maybe to put in a movie and pop some faux champagne and count down the New Years. But so impossible. And they advised they are both on campus for the break. Oh, well. A girl could dream.
Tim laughed at me and said, "You make it sound so wrong," in regards to partying up New Years.
My face went so red and I looked down at my Russian boots. If only he knew how truly messed up I was. The scars, the alcohol, the car wreck, and Brandon. He wouldn't come within a billion yards of me, just like Levi. I knew it was my fault, but it was also how I was raised. I can't help the world I came from. I didn't know what to say to that.
Amanda must have got fed up. She announced someone was waiting on her and left. Just Tim and me... and I'm sure his ride was probably about to go, too. I wanted to just sit down with him and beg him to talk to me again. To hear his thoughts, so mysterious and unfathomable to my mind. What is his thinking? How is he doing? To look at his hands again, the way I used to look at Levi's. To just feel like he was my friend, rather than a political leader combing by on campaign obligations.
It was so awkward, just he and I. In public, in church. I couldn't be myself here. And I didn't know what he wanted from me. I wanted to ask if he got my Christmas card, but I was too embarrassed. I looked up from my boots and he was looking over at the others across the church, probably just as desperate for an excuse to break away. I was surprised he hadn't excused himself with his sister. Maybe he was kicking himself for that now, too.
Something about the way he was looking off, avoiding looking at me, made me sick, angry. It was the same way he had looked away back when I was Levi's recent girl. When he and Levi used to pretend I didn't exist, treated me like an annoyance. I was so mad, I couldn't say a word.
An itty bitty girl bumped my leg. I looked down to see a blond-haired toddler wearing black and sparkles staring at me. I stared back, out of my league. But I didn't want to look unkind in front of Tim, and decided she would make better company anyways.
"Hey there cutie, what's your name?"
She held up two fingers.
"Oh, you're two?"
She nodded. I laughed. She walked off. I turned to Tim. 'Do you know her?'
"No." he looked just as surprised.
'She's cute."
"Adorable." he was already inching away.
Seriously. I took a deep breath. I wasn't going to get a repeat of the night at the Hainlines. That was a fluke, a random breakdown that I'd probably just imagined in my fragile, mentally sick mind. Well, I didn't have stand here and torture him, too.
"Well, if I don't see you before then, have a good new years." And I smiled brightly, and turned and walked away without looking back.
I had looked backed for Levi too many times. I knew they never looked back for me.
I was running to my car when I got to the foyer. Sobbing by the time I hit the car door. Stupid keyless entry, I couldn't even crawl in. I had to fumble in my pocket for the remote and hit the button first. I shut the door and faced the hollow, aching darkness and sobbed like my heart was dying.
Why were his eyes so much like Levi's?
My prince, my prince with caramel eyes, those caramel eyes that turn to verdure...
Stanza from the poem I'd written Levi haunted my mind like a broken record, over and over. Why? Why did he have to come over? Why did he have to remind me of what I lost? That I'll never be good enough for him and his sister? That there's no going back, just moving on to something less? Why? Why did he have to come to me tonight, when I was hurting so badly already?
I sobbed and sobbed all the way home, and then curled up in the driver's seat in the parking lot of Isola Bella and watched the silent night sky while the sick, cold tears ran drown my cheeks. It was easier, somehow, to be outside in my car. My safe haven. I could cry, and no one could stop me. No one could get to me. And looking at the sky, I could feel like God was closer. That Levi was closer. That I was closer to the little girl whom I'd once been when I looked at the sky across many places in the world.
That's all that is left. The memories, the emptiness, the darkness and the silence.
I began to sing faintly to myself, haunting songs, songs of death.
Death, peace, quiet.

Your star,
Rigel