Between Never and Forever by Brit Benson

30

I don’t seeLevi all week.

I’ve seen Brynn every day on my lunch break for guitar lessons, where we’ve stayed safely within the confines of my trailer, but nothing from Levi.

I watch for him on set like an obsessed teenager with a crush. I haven’t been sleeping at night because I keep replaying what he said over and over in my head.

You’ve always been my forever. My one. My only.

But how?

I just want to see him. I want to see if it feels the same in the daylight. When he’s sober and our emotions aren’t in overdrive. It’s tomorrow. Does he still want me?

At lunch, there’s a knock on my trailer door, and I expect it to be Brynn, but I open it to find Dustin instead. He jumps back and gapes at me for a moment like he didn’t expect it to be me behind the door that says my name. I’m sure seeing my silver hair is startling since they’ve all gotten used to the brown wig, but I’m still me. I quirk a brow.

“Um, Boss told me to tell you that it is with great regret and pent...penti...um, penitence that she must skip guitar lessons with you today.”

His words shoot from his mouth like they’ve been rehearsed, and I give him an amused smile. This grown man is running errands and passing messages for a seven-year-old. She really wasn’t kidding when she said she was the boss.

“She say why?”

He shrugs, mouth opening and shutting like he’s surprised I asked. He wasn’t prepared to say more. It’s cute. I’m used to people being tongue-tied around me, but they’re usually not 6’3” construction worker country boys wearing hard hats and American flag t-shirts.

“Something about it being the only time she could video chat with her friend in Connecticut, so she stayed back at the office. She does that sometimes. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Cool. Thanks for the message, Dusty. You did a good job. I’ll make sure to pass it on to the boss.”

His grin is adorable.

“Thanks,” he says, then he just walks away.

What’s he even doing here? The only person in Levi’s crew I’ve seen around since we started filming at the house has been Levi. I think this man really came all the way here just to pass on the message from Brynn. When I turn my smile on Red, he’s smirking too.

“That kid has everyone wrapped,” he says, and I chuckle. She definitely does. “You got another request for materials, by the way. Did you want to approve it?”

“Yeah.” I wave my hand at his change of subject. He knows I’ve approved everything without question. Then I have a thought.

“Hey, we have a longer lunch break today since we’re shooting later. You want to take a ride and check it out?”

Red takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. I know what he’s thinking. It’s not safe. What if someone sees. Blah blah blah blah. But he also knows I’m going to do it anyway, so when he pushes himself to standing, I clap my hands, turn around, and skip out the door.

The drive inland is eerie. My nerves build with every mile marker. I start picking at my nails. My leg starts bouncing. I start craving something to put my body at ease. Some chemical, artificial fix. I start missing my guitar. Even Ziggy snoring in the backseat isn’t calming my nerves.

“We don’t have to do this, kid,” Red says, eyes never leaving the road. “We can turn around and just send the money.”

I shake my head no, but I don’t speak. I need this. I think.

We make the rest of the drive in silence, and when he finally turns down my old street, I’m sitting straight as a board and twice as stiff. The neighborhood comes into view, newer houses popped up in place of the old, beat to shit ones, and a bunch of white work trucks, a van, and some other vehicles are lining the streets. One says something about plumbing, one says something about HVAC, and several say East Coast Contracting.

Red pulls up to the curb and I flip down the visor, double-checking my ball cap and aviators. I’m wigless right now, so my silver hair could give me away, but my sleeve of fake tattoos is still decorating my arm. I guess if someone sees me, though, they see me. Too late to turn back now.

I glance at Red, nod quickly, then open my door and climb out. He cracks the windows, tells my dog to behave, then gets out after me.

I walk into River View and note that sidewalks have been installed. There were never sidewalks when I was growing up. No streetlights, either. I walk up to one of the first houses and stare at it. God, it looks so nice. So unlike anything that was here before the hurricane.

When I’d read about how the neighborhood was decimated after the storm, I went on a seven-day bender. So many people, my old neighbors, dead or injured or displaced. When I finally sobered up, I had Red do a search for my mom’s name, but she wasn’t listed as one of the casualties. I had him search every day for weeks, and the next month, the money I’d been depositing in her account went through without a problem. The deposits have been going through for the last two years, so I’m pretty sure she survived.

I’d felt lost for months following the storm. I followed news articles about clean up and rescue missions, rehoming and rebuilding. When I stumbled on a story mentioning that a contracting company had plans to reconstruct my old neighborhood, it was like I’d finally found a rainbow.

I had Red contact the company and offer to fund the rebuild—materials, labor, everything. We set up a dummy account and hired a lawyer, and we’ve been sending money blindly ever since. I’m as hands-off as possible. Before today, I couldn’t even have told you the company doing the rebuild, but every so often, I’d worry whether the contractors were doing as promised. From the looks of it, my worries were unnecessary. The neighborhood looks amazing. Beautiful, even. I’m almost jealous of any little girl who will grow up here in the years to come.

“How does it compare,” Red asks, stepping up next to me as I gawk.

“It doesn’t,” I answer honestly. “The houses that were here before were shacks in comparison. These are veritable palaces.”

My eyes sting, and I have to reach behind my sunglasses to swipe away the tears that have started falling. I wasn’t expecting to feel so moved by this transformation, but I can’t help but think there’s a sign in here somewhere. Some message from the universe about rising from the wreckage, about extracting beauty from something ugly.

Where I come from has always been a point of tension for me. Even my Wikipedia page lists Miami as my hometown. The only good memories I have from this small North Carolina town involve Levi, and after that summer when I was eighteen, those memories were tainted, too. Coming back here, though, I can’t shake the idea that something is changing. A transition, or a revelation, perhaps.

“This feels significant,” I whisper to Red. “It feels like healing.”

I hear him hum in response, and I blink up at the house until my tears start to dry. I turn and face the rest of the houses, noting there are crews working on a couple unfinished ones toward the back of the neighborhood. I don’t want to disturb them. I’ve seen what I came to see. I’m about to head back to our car when a voice calls my name and stops me in my tracks.

“Savannah,” he says again, closer this time, and I turn around slowly to face him.

My brain tries rapidly to put together the puzzle pieces scattered in front of me. Levi in jeans, a t-shirt, and a hardhat holding a clipboard. Dark brown work boots on his feet. A basic, white logo on the breast pocket of his shirt. My eyes fall to it and focus.

East Coast Contracting.

I look back at his face to find him studying me with just as much surprise.

“Your company is East Coast Contracting,” I state slowly. He jerks out a single nod.

“You’re the anonymous donor,” he says, and my nod mirrors his.

So many thoughts swirl through my head and I can’t make sense of any of them, but I feel relieved. Warm. Buzzing, even. Levi has overseen the rebuilding of my old neighborhood. Levi is the one who insisted on not cutting corners—quality materials, quality labor, quality housing. Is Levi my message from the universe?

Before either of us can say anything, I hear a vehicle rumble up behind me and the engine cut off. I watch Levi’s eyes flick over my shoulder and the color drain from his face as he brings his attention back to me. He looks like he wants to speak, but I turn to the vehicle on the curb.

I expect to see paps, but instead, it’s another East Coast Contracting truck, and Brynn hops out of the passenger seat carrying two large fast-food bags. When she sees me, she smiles and I smile back, until a woman comes around the truck with more fast-food bags.

My stomach falls. My heart stops. I can hardly breathe.

“Dad,” Brynn shouts, running up to us. “We brought you and the guys lunch.”

“Thanks, Boss,” I hear Levi say.

“Hey Sav!” Brynn says, but I don’t look at her.

I can’t take my eyes off the woman, and when she sees me, she halts. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t take another step closer. She just stares at me, and my foggy brain grapples for more puzzle pieces.

“Mom?”

My voice is nothing but a rasp, small and lost. I sound fifteen again. My mother opens her mouth but shuts it without saying anything at all.

“Mom? Ms. Sharon is your mom?” Brynn turns to my mother with a familiarity that almost knocks me over. “Why is Sav calling you mom, Ms. Sharon?”

My mom doesn’t answer. She just gives Brynn a small smile, and then looks back at me. She stands still as a statue, and my eyes eat her up. She looks younger than I remember. Her dark hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, her body finally has some weight and shape to it. Her cheeks aren’t gaunt. Her eyes aren’t sunken in. I zero in on her arms and as if she knows what I’m looking for, she turns her forearms out so I can see the inside of her elbow clearly.

No marks. No visible scars. No sign she’s been using in that way.

Then I notice something else. She’s wearing a shirt just like the one Levi has on. Just like the one Dusty and the rest of Levi’s guys wear at the studio. East Coast Contracting is displayed proudly on her breast pocket. And when it clicks, it’s like I’m being kicked in the side with Terry’s steel-toed boot all over again.

Only this time, it’s not Terry doing the kicking.

I drag my eyes to Levi.

“Does she work for you?” I ask quietly, and he jerks out another single nod. “Since when?”

He swallows before answering, but that’s the only sign that he’s worried about how I’ll react. His eyes stay focused on mine, his face stays stern, his posture stays rigid. No hint of shame or remorse.

“Since after the storm.”

I blink, clearing my eyes of more tears. This feels like a betrayal. This feels like a lie, or a maliciously kept secret. She’s been working for him for two years.

Two. Years.

My mother has been part of Levi’s life. Part of Brynn’s life. And now, more than ever, I feel like an outsider. After everything my mother put me through. After being the reason why I had to run away. After all of it, Levi gave her a job? Welcomed her into his life?

My mother was the enemy. The villain. She’s not supposed to have access to the thing I wanted most but couldn’t have.

“Why?” I ask Levi, but he doesn’t answer. I drop my voice to a whisper. “How could you?”

I turn and walk away, pushing right past my mom and Brynn without a word. I speed walk to the car, but when I reach it, Levi is right there behind me.

“Savannah, wait,” he says, and I whirl on him.

“She made my life hell, Levi. She put me in situations that fucked me up so thoroughly I’m still not recovered. You said I was the bad influence. I’m the one who you’re worried about with Brynnlee. But my mom is okay? Are you forgetting who she is? Are you forgetting who fucking made me this way? How could you do this?”

He was supposed to be on my side. My enemy is his enemy. How could he befriend her?

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is,” I grind out. “It is that simple. She was a terrible mother. She made me miserable. I was abused, and she just let it happen because she cared more about getting high than she did about being a parent. She cared more about Terry than she did about her own kid. He would have raped me, and she would have let him do it. I know it. And you’ve just...”

How do I say it? He’s forgiven her for what she did to me? How could he forgive her? It wasn’t his place.

“You were supposed to be on my side,” I whisper through clenched teeth.

I don’t know which emotion is stronger, my anger or my sadness. Levi steps closer, until my back is against the car, and slowly spins my baseball cap around so the bill is at the back. Then he removes my sunglasses and sets them on the top of the car, so our eyes meet. He takes my hands in his and presses them to his chest. I can feel his steady heartbeat as he rests his forehead on mine.

“I have always been on your side. Always.”

“Then how could you do this?” I shove at his chest, but he holds firm. “How could you forgive her for what she did to me?”

“It’s not like that, Savannah.”

“Then what’s it like? Enlighten me. Because it definitely doesn’t look like you’re holding a grudge. It doesn’t look like you’re holding her accountable for what she did to me.”

Levi sighs, then pulls back and meets my eyes again, but he still doesn’t let go of my hands.

“I haven’t forgiven her. But she’s not the same person she was back then.”

I scoff and try to look away, but he keeps talking, insistent and hushed. I can feel him still looking at me, and like a magnet, I look back.

“When I hired her, it was because she was displaced from the storm and trying to stay sober. She’d been sober for a year before she lost the house. She had been turning things around, and then the hurricane—”

“No. I don’t care.”

I shove at him again, and this time he takes a step backward giving me space to seethe. My temples pound from the force of my scowl, my jaw aches. If I look, I bet I’ll find cuts in my palms from my nails because of how hard I was clenching my fists.

“You don’t get to humanize her. You can’t just make her a sympathetic character in my life story. She’s not. She’s not. She’s the villain. She’s the bad guy, Levi. And you just...you just...welcome her? You welcome her with open arms? You give her a job? You let her around your kid?”

Levi shakes his head.

“Don’t bring Brynn into this. Don’t judge my decisions as her parent.”

“How can I not? You saw how Sharon was with me. How many nights did you hold me because my house wasn’t safe? How many times did I cry myself to sleep in your bed? How many bruises do you remember seeing?”

“Savannah, please, just trust me when I say it’s different. She’s different. You spent all last night defending Torren, saying he’s not the person I think he is. Why can’t that be the case with y—”

“That’s not the same thing!”

“It is! Not everything is black and white, remember? Sharon is an addict. She was a terrible mother to you. She was a terrible person when she was high, and you deserved so much better. Those are facts. But it’s also fact that Terry got her addicted and kept her high, and he abused her and used her, and she was too fucked up to do anything about it. Your mom’s situation—not yours, but hers—exists in the gray space. And she, like you, still somehow managed to pull herself from rock fucking bottom. That deserves recognition.”

The silence stretches as we stare at each other. I hold, and I hold, and I hold, and then I crack.

“I can’t,” I whisper, closing my eyes against the sting of tears. “I can’t forgive her, Levi.”

I feel him close the distance once more, taking my hands back in his.

“I’m not asking you to. But she’s important to Brynn, and Brynn deserves people who love her. My mother hasn’t changed. And Jules’s parents...They’re worse. They’re terrible, and even Julianna didn’t want them around Brynn. But Sharon...Sharon cares about her. Sharon loves her. Brynn has already lost too much. She deserves more than just me.”

My heart sinks. I know he’s right.

And it doesn’t matter anyway, does it? In two short months, I’ll be back in L.A., and I’ll likely never see these people again. No Levi. No Brynn. No Sharon. The thought makes my whole body ache. Why is it that every time I get close to Levi, the universe yanks him away from me? It’s a sick fucking joke. A game. It makes me so angry, and all I want to do is lash out. I want to hit back harder. But I am so tired of being angry.

And yet...

There’s got to be more to this, right? He’s rebuilding my old neighborhood. He gave my mom a job when she was displaced. He put a music room in the house he built. He said he never loved Julianna. That he married her because she was sick.

Is it all just because he’s a good guy with a savior complex?

But he said I was always his one. That I’ve always been his forever.

I once thought I would take Levi Cooper in any way I could if it meant there could be a place for me in his world. Is that still true now? Can there be a place for him in mine?

I take a deep breath and push at Levi’s chest, forcing him back a step.

“The other night, you said I was your forever,” I say bluntly, and his face goes blank. “Did you mean that, or was it just a drunken mistake? Pretty lies on whiskey lips?”

He doesn’t answer. His jaw tightens and that muscle in his cheek twitches. I narrow my eyes at him.

“Got nothing to say now, Cooper? You make all these big declarations, stake outrageous claims, but in the light of day, you got nothing?”

He watches me like he thinks I’m trying to trap him. Like he thinks I’ll try to make him choose between me or Sharon. Me or Brynn. I wouldn’t. I’m just tired of lies and secrets.

“It doesn’t matter what I said,” he finally says. “It would never work. Once the movie wraps, you’ll go back to Hollywood with your life, and I’ll be here with mine.”

Your life. My life. Not ours. Never ours.

“Did you design that house for me?” I ask, switching tactics.

Another blink. Another muscle twitch. No words.

“When did you build it, Levi?”

He swallows, and I can tell he’s debating telling me. When he opens his mouth to speak, I brace myself on the car just in case I can’t handle what he says.

“There was about a year when Julianna was in remission before she got sick the second time. I did it then.”

“Did she help you design it? Since you were married?”

Levi shakes his head once.

“We were separated.”

“Why does it have a music room?” He doesn’t answer. “Were you going to divorce her?” Still no answer. “Give me something, Levi. Please. Just give me something.”

Still no answer. I huff out a laugh. It’s sad and tired. I open the car door behind me and swing it wide. I make sure when I meet his eyes again, mine are hard. I feel nothing. I give nothing away.

“You’re a coward, Levi Cooper. You’ve always been a coward. There’s no gray space about it.”

I climb into the car and shut the door calmly, then stare forward until Red slides into the driver’s seat. He waits until we’re pulling back onto the interstate before speaking.

“You okay, kid?”

I keep my head tilted back on the head rest and my eyes shut. Levi still has my aviators. I sigh and answer honestly.

“No, I don’t think I am.”