LEVI KNEW THAT IN theory he loved his friends, but it was hard to remember that when they were ruining his carefully planned date - again. The door to the swimming pool was slightly ajar, causing them to be easily able to follow the conversation, but even if it had been closed, they were screaming so loudly he could have heard them all the way back in St Joseph. He and Eleanora had simultaneously leaped to the side of the swimming pool, their noses barely peeking out above the water as they stared over the edge at the door.
"Why are we hiding?" Eleanora whispered.
"Don't pretend like it's only my fault, Ava!" Alex shouted then.
Levi gave Eleanora a pointed look, before contemplating whether he should just drown himself at this point.
"Maybe they will leave," Eleanora suggested.
"They will never leave," Levi said somberly," I have been cursed."
"You've been spending too much time around Alex," Eleanora said," I can hear it."
"Yeah," Levi replied," against my will."
"We can't hide away all night, Levi," Eleanora said, glancing at him.
"If we're determined enough, we can do anything," Levi said, the motivation he felt once every decade suddenly surging up at him when faced with the thought of a fighting Ava and Alex.
Sure, he had known them since forever, but that was exactly the reason he wasn't going to interfere. He had tried, at first, because a Wikihow page online had told him it could be effective, but not only had that page been wrong, but it had somehow caused him to be their personal relationship therapist for the next month. Needless to say he had given the article a thumbs down and never trusted in any advice written on Google again.
If there was one thing he had gotten to know over the years, it was that Ava and Alex weren't going to work. Perhaps it was because both of them wanted it so badly, the way they were both holding on to each other's hands so tightly only causing their skin to bleed. The four of them had been so close when they were younger that they were practically inseparable, so even Levi at some point had noticed the change in Alex' gaze when he looked at Ava.
He wasn't surprised that Alex had started to like the girl. Ava had a charm to her which Levi had seen her use many times, but more importantly, she had this way of listening without any judgement, one which made anyone feel heard. She had listened when he had told them his mother was finally going to rehab and she had listened when Alex' mother had died. More than any of them, she had been there.
Levi could remember the moment very well. Just a week before Ava and Alex had finally stopped their unsubtle flirtations and gotten together, Alex beaming as he told them how he was planning to tell his mother. He never had gotten along well with his father, but Levi didn't blame him. In the rare occasion that Alex' father was home from his fights he always had a way of talking to Alex until his confident friend was just a shadow of himself.
Alex' father had never harmed a hair on his body, that Levi knew, mostly because the walls between their houses were so thin that he could hear everything what was going on. That didn't mean the perfection he expected of his son wasn't suffocating on it's own, every new sermon of how he was becoming a disappointment making Alex' voice smaller and smaller. Levi personally thought the man was a fucking douchebag and that Alex deserved better, but he knew that wasn't what his friend wanted to hear.
Alex always had been honest about everything except his real feelings, like an open book with many scratched out sections, hidden away under the surface of superficial emotions. It was easy for people to think they knew everything about him, simply because Alex always pretended what he was showing was all that there was to see. With that warm smile of his he had attracted many girls before and after Ava, but all of them were doomed to fail when he wasn't willing to tell anything but sweet nothings to them.
Levi valued Ava as well, as a good friend of his, but Alex had clung to her in a different way. He had introduced her to his mother as his girlfriend the day before she had passed and had beamed as he had told Levi and Will how proud his mother had been of him. Mrs Farrow had always liked Ava, but to be fair, she had joked to Alex she was disappointed he hadn't come home with Levi.
He wouldn't have minded. Mrs Farrow and Mrs Tyler were both more like a mother to him than his own had been. It was why his heart too had broken when she had suddenly died, the cancer she had hidden away from Alex having metastasized. She didn't want to burden her family with the payments or the worry, until finally the doctors had told her she had a few weeks left. It was while he was letting the news process in his room that Alex had found the hundred letters she had left for him, one for each birthday he would go through.
"She was optimistic," Alex had weakly joked," we all know I'll die at fifty tops."
Ava had simply hugged him, until Alex' smile had faded and the tears had come, streaming down his face as he had stared blankly in front of him. During his whole grieving period Levi and Will had tried to be there for him as much as possible, but it was hard to be there for him as much as Ava was. Alex clung to her like being with her would bring his mother back, like it was the only thing his mother still could be proud at him for.
That had doomed their relationship, the pressure he had put on it. Perhaps they could have worked if everything had just happened without the thick smoke of grief clouding their lungs, but it didn't matter. The only thing that did was the fights they had afterwards as soon as the mourning had passed and they started to see all the cracks in their relationship, both of them expecting a version of the other which didn't exist anymore.
It had gone on so long that now both of them snapped at even the simplest word of the other, the past eating away at their relationship until even the friendship wasn't there anymore. There were moments when everything felt like it was back to normal, but Levi had learned not to place any hope in them, the bomb of unspoken tensions always ticking away until one of them exploded again. They had fought so often now it seemed both of them had forgotten to listen to each other.
This was why Levi's conversing tactic was the best, honestly. Not talking had spared him so much energy and unnecessary conflict. Silence always was the way to go.
"Are you thinking, Levi?" Eleanora said," that's a rare sight to see."
Never mind, silence didn't seem to keep his girlfriend from bullying him.
"I'm letting that pass because you're breathtakingly beautiful," he said, narrowing his eyes," but you better watch out next time."
She giggled, his gaze wandering across the wet hair clinging to her neck to the drops of water kissing her lips and eyelashes. His eyes widened then as he realized he had forgotten she was wearing underwear, their clothes beside the open door, which he couldn't reach without making enough noise to alarm Alex, who would run in here with a stick to fight off any burglars in no time. He was not up for that brawl.
Turning towards Eleanora, he determinedly placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm going to protect you," he stated.
"From seeing me in my underwear?" she said amusedly, clearly having been able to follow his train of thoughts.
"Yeah," he said, completely serious," not only is it a privilege, it's a right and one they haven't been granted."
She laughed softly, pecking him on the lips. "You're cute, Levi."
"I'm done, Alex," Ava said then, her voice carrying through to them even though she wasn't screaming," how often do we have to fight for this to finally be over? Can't you see what has happened to us?"
"Ava," Alex began, his voice loud at first but quiet when he repeated her name, as if he was tired of the constant anger," Ava. This isn't fair to you, to us."
"What?" Ava said, taken aback by the change of tone.
Alex breathed out, his next words ones loaded with years of unspoken sorrow and love, heavy in the midnight air.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Why do you look surprised?" Eleanora whispered at Levi.
"They've never apologized before to each other," he murmured back.
Eleanora gasped, the both of them acting very much like an old married couple gossiping at their local bingo. Despite the apology, Levi was mostly focused on how poor Will was feeling, stuck in the same room as the other two were fighting. He sent him silent wishes to be strong, thankful that he was at least not pretending to be air right in between the two of them, as he had been used to doing before.
"Let's talk somewhere private," Ava said.
Levi's gaze snapped up towards the door as he heard their footsteps nearing, cursing underneath his breath.
"I have jinxed myself," he muttered.
"What?" Eleanora said.
He turned towards her, nodding her a solemn goodbye.
"Time to drown," he said.
And then, at the same time the both of them went underwater, Ava and Alex entered the room.