Page 46 of Havoc

“I don’t know.” She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “An hourglass, maybe?”

It’s not surprising, since she’s always drawing them on the corners of notebooks and flipping them over if we pass one in a store. But I’ve never asked her why.

“What’s with you and hourglasses anyway?”

“My mom used to have a collection of them.” She swallows her emotion, and I realize I’ve hit a nerve. “It’s thefirst thing my dad got rid of after she left. They reminded him of her, and he didn’t want that.”

“So you want that to remember your mom?”

“No. Not her.” She scoffs. “I want to remember that everything is temporary. That every moment is important. That every grain of sand means something. Because they all slip away eventually, whether we like it or not. Might as well appreciate what we have. Nothing is infinite.”

“Except us.”

Her eyebrows pinch. “You’re leaving, Levi.”

“And I’ll be back.” I shrug. “It really doesn’t matter where I am or where you are. You’re always with me. This. Us. We’re infinite.”

She hums, dropping her gaze to my tattoo. “I hope you do come back. For the record.”

Aimee’s eyes meet mine, and she drains the rest of my soul.

“I will,” I promise. “I hope you’re still waiting when I do.”

15

Aimee

I don’t bother closingLevi’s bedroom door behind me as I walk in. There’s no point when I feel him following so closely.

He could just be following to explain Reina’s tantrum, but I couldn’t care less. What she says or what he did with her doesn’t affect me like she probably wishes it would. That wasn’t even why I walked away.

But the tattoo.

I saw it when we first came face-to-face at the bottom of the staircase, but I was too distracted by Levi himself to process it. Now that I’ve had some time to clear my head, I’m seeing it in a new light, and I need answers.

“I’m sorry,” Levi says behind me. “She’s—”

“I don’t care about Reina.” I mean it as I spin around to face Levi, who is closing the door behind him. “Why did you get that tattoo?”

He rests his back against the door, watching me pace throughout his room. “You know why.”

“No.” I shake my head, stopping in place. “I know what it means to me, and what I told you about it when we were teenagers. But I don’t know what it means to you. Why you put it on your body. Onthatfinger.”

His ring finger.

Levi doesn’t do anything without careful consideration, which means the placement isn’t an accident.

Before he shipped out, he got three tattoos, and I knew the meaning of every one, from the design to the reason he chose the spot to put it. His collection has grown significantly over the years, but I doubt that changed. Levi picked that tattoo on purpose. He put it on that finger on purpose.

Even after I disappeared.

Levi’s face remains neutral. “You left, but I still meant what I said that day.”

“I didn’t leave.”

“I know that now.” He lifts off the door. “Poor choice of words.”

With every step toward me, his body moves with lethal efficiency.