A/N: there it is, the next chapter told from Levi's POV. I hope you enjoy my story and reviews really make me happy. I'm glad you're reading this fanfic and I hope you like it! 3
Italics represent memories.
"I don't want you to stay here any longer." She said looking outside the window at the waves crashing onto the sand. The sky was grey, the spirit long gone and the whole place looked like a broken heart closed for renovations: glass shards all over, empty alcohol bottles and other's trash that has started to smell.
"So that's what you want" and there is an endless pause before I manage to say the next words. "You don't want us to be together anymore." I sighed. I hated it. I hated everything. Every little piece of her. I hated how she never cut her hair, how her nose arched up, how she always had sand under her nails and how she wore weeds in her hair. I hated the mug she was holding, how the handle was broken, how I knew that it had 3 coffee rings on the inside and 3 lipstick stains on the outside.
"Yes. And if you love me you'll do as I say." I hated that she's right. I hated that she always won the fight, that I let her win. I hated that even though I had the last world, her sheer eyes looking into mine were worse than a judge's hammer. Until then, every moment spent here had its own melody. Like a faint buzz in every rustle, wave or touch that made me sure I was on the right way: a yell in the distance, an old song upstairs, her feet following mine in the morning on the cold floor, the sound of a shell cutting my palm, the cheers of the beer bottles every night. And now…
Now everything was silent. The clock on the wall was not working anymore, since I had forgotten to turn it, so it looked like time was no longer flowing, that we were stuck on our chairs, suspended in a fight. Except this time, there were no longer us against the world, but us against each other. And in the end, I had to accept the idea that everything was nothing more than the natural order of things: I had to lose her in order not to lose myself.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Again, this fucking dream. I open my eyes and see that it's time to get up, as usual. My curtains are pulled apart even though I always close them before I go to bed. I feel my whole body heavy, my back is hurting and those grey sheets are too cold. I look on the empty space beside me, where the sheets are ruffled up and the pillow on the side, the person who warmed them long gone, as per usual. Scratch that. This tiny house is cold like a fridge, even though Petra always turns the heat up whenever she comes over. I want to close my eyes and never get up again, I want to curl up, turn into a fetus, then an embryo, disintegrate myself, cell by cell, until I slip from this existence and become an atom. Just me, my nucleus and my electrons flying around me, not a care in the world anymore.
"Levi, I have to go."
Apparently, that has to wait. Petra leans in the doorway, and she is dressed up and with make-up on, as per usual. Cotton dress, nylon tights and brown eye pencil. Same as usual. Everything is the same with her, as it should be. Outside the apartment, I can hear the morning screams that marks another day in this shithole I'm living in: common arguments, money spent on booze, cheating husbands, the rest. Or maybe a drunken good-for-nothing unemployed man fell on the tulips that some lady carefully planted.
So no chance for me returning back to sleep. I look at Petra once more; she has her shoes in her hand that I once said I liked out of politeness. As she looks at me with a sad smile, I realize that she's needed. Even though I want to deny it every time. Even though she assures me everything is fine and that she wants something different. I know for sure she is somehow the much needed constant, like the flower you put in a glass cage in order to keep it to yourself forever. If one day she would say something out of place, not wear heels or not take pity of me anymore, the whole order of the world would fall apart around her, people would not get up in the morning, the earth wouldn't spin and everything would burn down. I feel the weight of everything that's right, rigorous and fair pressing on her small shoulders. She's waiting, I can see. She's waiting for me to say something, anything remotely lukewarm to her.
"Go then, you're not supposed to take care of me. See you in school" And so my words fall like a rock from the fifth floor. Unfortunately, I can't love her, not the way she wants me to. So I get up and slid past her, and I can see in the corner of my eyes that she's clutching her hands around her chest, her eyes are down and her hair framing her face. She turns around and wants to leave, but she's not sure if she did something wrong again, if she's not enough or if we are simply puzzle pieces from different corners. Either way, she lingers like the sun in April, so in conclusion I'm the bad guy again, the asshole. What can you do?
I go to the bathroom and I turn on the faucet, but what greets me sounds more like a gurgle of some sea monster: Titans cut our water again, to save money, help the country's economy, etc, so, I guess they're not used to washing their mouths after all the shit they eat in the government every day. I sigh and have to manage to go on.
After I make myself look a little presentable, I check my watch and realize that I have to be in school in half an hour. My first day as a homeroom teacher and the students are already bringing me bad luck. I slide into the kitchen chair, where everything is at the right spot, devoid of color, mostly in tones of sickly grey, moldy brown or plain crème. Only on the table, I can see a mug, so she must have drunk some coffee before she woke me up. She's on the chair at the other end of the table and her mug is between us. I take it in my hands and notice two lipstick stains on the rim. I let out a sneer. Nice, but not enough. There's a heavy silence, and I feel bad for the weight of it that must be pressing on Petra's heart. Her poor heart that must be the size of her fist. And her hand is so much tinier than mine, I'm left perplexed. She puts her arm on the table, her long fingers searching mine, and I let them find mine, my index tracing the contour of her trimmed nails, her ring and the peachy fuzz on them. I drink the coffee I long for and it tastes amazing, very strong and with a nice aroma. She's good at one thing, I give her that.
"Why do you always hold your cup so funny?" her voice rings through the air, like some basic cliché harp chord. I look down at my hand which is holding the coffee cup from the rim, instead of from the handle, very useless and unusual, some might say.
"Levi" her voice was barely above a whisper but it seemed like a wave that crashed against our four walls and went back to hit me tenfold,, and she was sitting right in front of me, so all their struggle was quite useless. She looked like a child who suddenly discovered all the wrongs in the world and I looked into her pale blue eyes and wanted to keep her to myself forever. Even with her sweet pout, big dark circles and eye gunk. Even if she smelled like a sailor from my cheap cigarettes. She looked to the side and I see some eyeliner from the day before and a scratch near her shoulder blade where she had cut her skin with a seashell. Women just didn't get it. A beautiful woman stays a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman with dark circles is not ugly, it's just…a beautiful woman with dark circles. However, things turn a little difficult when you're both woman, girl and spirit. I saw her wolf ring on her middle finger and I hoped that she would punch me in the face with it one day so that I would wake up and go further than this end of the world.
"I broke my cup Levi. I'm sorry" I saw it in the corner of my eyes. Her cup, rolling on the floor, the handle broken. I thought it's kind of funny, because she looked like she just saw one of the greatest Greek tragedies and witnessed the fall of a thousand kings. But that's just her. I had a cup of my own, same as her, that we had bought on the beach when we first started talking. I still remembered how she held her breath when…
Well, that's a story for some other time.
"Well, what can you do about it…?" I raised an eyebrow and took my own cup, full of cigarette butts. It was made from cheap china and it had half a wing, mine was black and hers was white. I decided that I had to ruin my cup too, in order to fit the chaos in front of me. And if I messed up and ended up turning everything into shards, I still would have to try it. I understood that some things must be done quietly, with no questions, with no reason. For her. For the single white strand in her hair and her small ankle that bumped into mine. For her sweet pout and this end of the world. She was worth it. All the shards and all the battles.
I raised my hand and smashed the handle against the edge of the kitchen table. It broke loudly, with a clink, but she did not move at all. Almost like she was waiting for it. So weird. Now I had to grab my cup from the rim, like some awkward retarder aristocrat.
"Happy? Now they're both broken" I said in a tired tone and placed both our cups near each other. She lowered her head on her forearms to observe them better and smiled, and I saw her cute little crooked canine peaking in the corner of her mouth.
"aww" she half gasped. "It's a match! Now they can fit and be broken together forever".
"Except we will have to drink like creeps from now on because you couldn't keep still for a second" I scolded her, but I saw in her eyes that she didn't care at all.
"I don't mind it being broken, as long as it's with you." I closed my eyes and threw my head back. I loved it there so much. And I knew it, that she must be some kind of witch, or maybe something like Nietzsche's demons, that wars were ahead of me and words and poems and knowledge were waiting to be discovered.
"Me neither." But for everything there, I would gladly post-pone a battle or two.
"No reason at all, it's just habit, believe me." I want to gulp down the whole thing, but I see her standing in front of me and a lump stands in my throat. I get up, slowly, without a real whish to do anything, and place the cup in the sink. I feel bad about it all, about her perfect hair, about her hand into mine and about the world on her shoulders.
"I'll give you a ride to school, come on." It make me depressed how I see her whole face light up from a few simple words that she tries to find meaning to. Don't they give Nobel prizes for being a selfish bastard?
So now we're on our way to school, on this shitty road full of shit and shitty holes. I'm driving the car the government wants me to drive, nothing special. Maybe that's why I think about clashing into a tree with it from time to time, no big deal after all. If you look anywhere inside my house, you will see everything is more than in order. The chairs are more than in order, the glasses are more than in order, hell, even Petra is more than in order…so why am I not able to lo-
"I love this song, Levi!" she smiles discreetly and turns up the radio, a song from a random artist beyond our Island is playing.
My car on the other hand, is a complete mess, it smells unpleasant and it's very unkempt, because it's not something wanted, it's something given. By them. My small quiet objection against the Titans is not cherishing what they give me, mostly because they tell me exactly to do it so. It's hard to be a rebel when you're thirty.
Occasionally, I steal a glance to Petra when she's not looking. She's facing away from me, looking at the grey blocks on the side window, lost in thought. I know what she's thinking, most likely something about her dream of writing a book, escaping this town and running away. The saddest part is, she's not dumb at all. She has a literature major, so there must be a feeling there, when she's not teaching idiotic kids about what Herodotus wanted to say in Odyssey. She's brave, modern and quite pretty, so why…
Why am I so cruel to her?
Why can't I love her the way she wants me to?
Why don't we fit at all?
And I still know all the answers. It's because she's always with a foot in and one out, always ready to go if things get to messy, wanting it all but not going to commit. See, there is our problem. Love, life and anything special really is about fighting in the mess, about feeling it in your guts. It's a pain that you gladly accept and she still doesn't want to accept it. But, maybe one day, she will finally manage to climb the big wall I have built around myself and jump inside my heart. The wall is very solid and very high, so I would protect myself, so I won't lose the battle again. After all, the higher you built a wall around yourself; the better will be the one that will be able to climb it. And she will grow strong; I hope so, for both our sakes.
We are finally reaching the school parking lot and she's packing her things. I keep my mouth tied and park somewhere random, beside other emerald-mixed-with-vomit green cars around. When I turn off the engine, I sigh and I look at her. She has already resigned herself, but still smiling.
"See you tonight? You can come to my place…" I give her a faint nod and she opens the door, rushing to the teacher's room without any other words. How predictable. I light a cigarette and I take a long drag from it. First period is homeroom, which means the real fight begins and I want to look as decent as possible in the battlefield. Please, remind me again why I am a teacher…
The bell is ringing and everyone around me is trying to get to the class as quickly as possible. Not me. I see boys and girls rushing inside their classrooms and I'm nervous. I have a tough, shitty-paid job, because it's not about telling them to write this and that on a paper so that they will get good grades. It's about stomping in their messy minds and leaving a foot print that alters their way of thinking into something good. I have to show them beauty, truth and self-discovery, and God I wish it was easier.
The class I'm about to teach in is at the end of the hall, so that means walking past old walls, rusty lockers and peeled wallpapers. A portrait of someone, I think the founding titan or someone else as stupid, stands in the top corner of the hall, surrounded by mold. And as much as I want to spit on it, I'm not in the mood for another scolding from Erwin. Besides, it's not my fight anymore.
I take a deep breath and I grasp the door handle, thinking it's now or never. I hate it when I'm nervous, but there are perks in always having the same facial expression. I take the first few steps into the classroom, and I can feel around 20 pairs of eyes watching my every move. They're not making a sound and no one is moving. Good. That means they're paying attention for once in their lives. I bet each one will have gossip topics about me in the lunch break. Whatever.
"Good morning class. My name is Levi Ackerman and I'm your new homeroom and philosophy teacher, and this year, I'm gonna be your worst nightmare." I hope that settles it. The truth is, I enjoy being mean only too little, but I'm not going to be an open book softie to them. If they don't deserve it, at least.
I study their faces and I must admit I'm pretty impressed. Some are bored, some look like they want to kill me and some of them are too scared to move. In the left corner, a girl continues to eat potato chips. She's sitting next to a boy who has two different hair colors and has his arms crossed. Further back one tall boy struggles to keep a smile on while a bald guy will soon eat a fly from keeping his mouth open this long. In the front row, I see what I perceive is the alpha trio of the class. A girl with short black hair, who is not buying my shit, and I already see a pack of Marlboro peeking out of her school jacket. There is also a blonde boy who wants to look decent, but is panting like he went through hell and back to get here. All about the first impressions, I see. And in the middle, two green eyes are starring at me. He and the blonde guy are the only kids not wearing a uniform and instead, under their desks lay two large backpacks that still have sand all over them. I try to swallow my smile as I realize I'm dealing with sweet vandals. The boy in the middle cocks his head to the side and smirks at me.
I'm delighted; I see exactly what I was hoping for. Their eyes tell me everything I need to know: that they're brave, ready to do great things, willing to take if not given. They are naughty and arrogant. They're so young, they have a chance for saving themselves and they are not going to throw it away. So I'm going to teach them how. In order for them to love me, I must speak their language .But their language is something that you learn fast and forget even faster. We all spoke it once. Few of us still know it. They are still naïve and for them my knowledge is beaten by their courage. I look with envy at the blood running through their veins and how they look like a pack of young wolves sick of this world that is already so full.. They are noisy, crazy and always rushing and they remind me that they are the only thing pushing this world forward. Uncertain and vengeful, radical and never forgiving, easy to hurt and to manipulate. They look like children of life and sworn enemies of death and they are ready to follow their dreams until they drop dead. Time is on their side. They are…casant souls. The pretty wanderers of time's boulevards.
The boy in the middle has a book in his hand.
I can barely hide my shock.
Milan Kundera.