“My parents’ marriage started to suffer. Ricky got into so many fights that he got expelled from three different schools by the time he was a teenager. My dad wanted my mom to homeschool Ricky, but she was too afraid of him. The apartment only had two bedrooms so I had to share a room with Ricky,” Levi murmured.
I could feel his skin starting to cool so I leaned down and pressed my mouth to his ear. “I’m right here, Levi. You’re safe. He can’t ever hurt you again.”
Levi shuddered in my hold, but nodded. He took several deep breaths. “When Ricky was fourteen, our building’s maintenance man found a whole bunch of decapitated animals hanging in the boiler room. He also found a notebook belonging to Ricky. It proved Ricky had tortured and killed the animals. When he asked my father to come down to the boiler room, I followed him, even though I wasn’t supposed to.”
“You saw everything?” I asked.
Levi nodded. “I threw up and passed out. When I woke up, I was in my room. I could hear my parents arguing. My dad had paid off the maintenance man along with a neighbor whose cat had been among the victims. My mom was terrified and kept begging my father to send Ricky away, but he refused. When Ricky came home and my parents confronted him, he told them he’d wanted to know what sounds an animal made when it was dying. My dad threatened to have him locked up in a mental hospital and that finally seemed to get through to Ricky because he promised he wouldn’t do it again. They…they actually believed him.”
As Levi’s words started to drop off, I felt his skin grow more chilled and I quickly turned him around.
“Baby, look at me, I need you to focus on me, okay. Listen to my voice.”
I could see that Levi was checking out so I cupped his chin and forced him to look right at me. “Levi, take a deep breath.”
I was pleased when he did it. I ordered him to take several more. I felt his skin start to warm up a little bit, but it was still clammy. I tucked him beneath my chin and whispered, “We’re done, Levi. You don’t need to tell me anymore, okay?”
I felt him shaking his head. “Have to,” he said. “You need to know who I really am.”
“I know who you are,” I said, though it wasn’t quite the truth. I just couldn’t stand to watch him suffer for even another minute.
“I asked my parents to let me sleep with them in their room that night. They said no…that everything was fine now.”
I flinched as Levi continued, his voice steeped with determination.
“Ricky was listening to his headphones when I got into my bed. I was so fucking scared,” Levi said hoarsely. “But I managed to fall asleep.”
I felt Levi shift in my arms and I looked down to see him wiping his eyes. “I woke up face down on my bed with him on top of me. He kept punching me in the side and calling me a coward for running to Mommy and Daddy. I told him to stop and tried to call out for my parents, but he shoved my face down into my pillow.”
Levi’s voice broke as he dashed more tears away. “I couldn’t breathe…I thought that was his plan…to kill me.” He shook his head. “I wish he had.”
Agony tore through me at his words and I dropped my lips to the top of his head and curled my arm around his neck so I could hold him close to my body. “It’s okay, Levi, you don’t need to tell me.”
He let out a gut-wrenching sob, but then he barreled on. “When he pulled my pajamas down, I actually thought he was going to spank me,” Levi said with an ugly laugh. “He told me to shut up and called me a coward and then said we’d see if I went running to my parents after he was done with me. I didn’t understand what was happening…I thought maybe he’d stabbed me or something because it hurt so fucking bad. I was sure I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe. When he finally let go of my head, I turned my head enough so I could breathe, but I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t scream, I didn’t beg him to stop. I just cried and lay there until he finished. Then he leaned over me and told me if I told our parents, he’d string them up just like he had Mrs. Hurley’s cat and then he climbed off me, went back to his bed and put his headphones on and started reading a comic book.”
I could feel my own tears streaming down my face as I held Levi, but I refused to release him long enough to wipe them away. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to him as I kissed his hair. I kept repeating the words over and over, even though they seemed utterly inadequate.