Alive (14 page)

But things are different now. Death follows me around like a shadow.

“I think about what holds me here.” He sits back in his seat now, chin tilted up, staring at the car ceiling. “There was this philosopher, Eckhart, who said he saw hell and
that the only thing that burns there is the part of you that won’t let go of life. You know, like your memories and attachments and stuff. Hell burns them all away, but it’s not
punishing you. It’s, like, freeing your soul. So if you’re afraid of dying, Eckhart would say, you’re holding on, and you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if
you’ve made your peace,” Levi shrugs, “then the devils are really angels, freeing you from Earth.”

I sit in silence for a minute, remembering the feel of Levi’s lips on mine and contemplating his words, morbid but strangely beautiful. An invisible thread links us, knowledge of our own
mortality, and I feel inextricably bonded.

“What holds you here?” I finally ask, almost too low to hear.

“Right now?” His head rolls to the side and he stares at me as if he can see all the way through me to the other side. He says simply: “I guess it’s you.”

As a teenager with a terminal illness, I got used to low expectations. So when my phone buzzes on Saturday at a quarter to three with the name Levi hovering over the message,
I’m surprised and more than a little skeptical.

I’ve spent the entire day suffering. The space between my ribs feels like someone took a metal trowel and raked it between my bones. I’m getting to the point when I have to debate
telling my parents and risk going back to Dr. Belkin.

Mom makes excuses to check on me by carrying the world’s smallest stacks of folded laundry so that she can come and go as she pleases. I think she’s weighing whether I’m sick
or hungover. The answer is neither.

I don’t know much about booze, but I’m fairly confident a hangover doesn’t set up shop between your lungs. And I’m not sick, unless I’ve been that way since the day
after surgery.

I’m in pain. There’s a difference, however minuscule. I rub at the sore spot over my heart. The tenderness makes my limbs heavy, but when I sit up and read the message, I smile
despite all this.

I once read in a
Teen Vogue
magazine that there are three ways to know a boy likes you. I’m looking at number three. Cue the victory dance.

“Mom, I’m going out,” I say, next time she swoops the vacuum into my bedroom. I’ll wait another day to tell them. At least. Things are going well and I have to protect
them. I have to protect my new life.

“Stella Cross, you’ve been moping in bed all day and now you’re well enough to go out?”

“Uh-huh.” I slip on a fleece jacket and a pair of fluffy boots. “Pretty much.”

She unplugs the vacuum. “And what about your Stanford application? Your dad said he was going to take a look at your essay but that you hadn’t sent it to him yet.”

“I will,” I say, grabbing my keys. And maybe I will, but right now Stanford University is the farthest thing from my mind.

“Stella—” It’s the last thing I hear before I slam the door. I can’t believe I just did that. I smile stupidly, pulse pounding in my eardrums.

Once in the car, I punch the address into my phone’s GPS. It’s a spot on Ballard Street, one I’m not familiar with, and on the drive over, I have to force my foot off the gas
pedal. My nerves, frayed from the hours of monotonous throbbing, are eager for a distraction. For the span of a breath I worry that my quick acceptance of his invitation reads “too
available.” Another sliver of wisdom gleaned from the glossy pages of back-of-the toilet literature. But then again, he asked me first, I reason. I take a deep breath. Those magazines really
ought to be more specific.

After a short drive, the female robot voice tells me I’ve arrived at my final destination, and when I determine I’ll have to squeeze my compact car into a tiny parallel-parking
space, it’s all I can do not to leave it in the middle of the road with its hazards blinking.

For me, Levi Zin appears to have his own gravitational pull.

I pay the meter and stroll along a tree-lined stretch of sidewalk, searching for an address. It doesn’t take long before I locate the right numbers on a shabby storefront. The sign marking
the entrance depicts a cartoonish red fox wearing a blue suit and carrying a saxophone. The letters spell out
BOP STREET RECORDS
.

A cowbell chimes when I walk through the door. A kid with curly hair that covers his ears welcomes me without looking up from a comic book. His style walks a thin line between punk rock and
homeless.

Vinyl records fill shelves upon shelves from one end of the small, musty shop to the other. The bell clangs again and in walks Levi. A worn hoodie hangs open over a gray tee. He spots me and
grins. Almost at once, my chest quiets. It’s like burning your finger on a curling iron. First the sting grows and you want to shake it in the air to force it to stop, but then you remember
to stick the burned skin under cold water, and it’s magic. The finger doesn’t burn anymore. And that’s how it is with Levi—he’s the cold water.

As he walks over I’m suddenly self-conscious of how, I don’t know,
dorky
I look in comparison. With my cable-knit sweater, skinny jeans, and flats, I could be swapped with a
suburban housewife, while Levi could pass as an off-duty rock star.

“What are we doing here?” I ask.

“I heard you were in the market for a Thing,” he says. I hear him capitalize the
T
with his voice. I think at this point I should explain to him that I’m not completely
milquetoast, that I had a Thing, but that thing was taken away from me. The bite of ice-cold water in the morning when it’s still dark outside, the red sting of chlorine, the strain of lungs
filling to the point of near combustion, these were details that required a deep and pure love, the way a mother loves her child even though everyone else can see he’s mean and nasty and
always has dirt underneath his fingernails. I miss swimming like I’d miss a person. This, though, is too much to explain and, besides, what does it matter, really?

“I am, but—” I protest while he takes my hand and pulls me into the heart of the stacks.

“Then I thought maybe you could borrow mine.” He turns to walk backward through aisle. “At least for now,” he adds.

“I’ve never even heard of this place.” All around me I’m surrounded by large, square sleeves filled with vinyl records. I don’t have a clue where to start.

“Blasphemy.” He stares greedily at the overcrowded rows as if he’s a dog eyeing a juicy piece of steak. “This,” he mutters, “was worth coming back for.”
I’m about to ask when he was last here when he pulls out a record, decorated in collage and newspaper scrap art. He holds it out for me and I take it gently because, at least to him, the
flimsy sleeve with torn-up corners seems valuable.

“‘Mother Love Bone,’” I read aloud. “What kind of name is that?”

“They started from…hold on.” He holds up a finger and then skips further down the row, rifling through a pile of records until he finds what he’s looking for.
“These guys. Green River.”

“Look.” He turns to the back of the Mother Love Bone album, where there’s a black-and-white photograph of five long-haired boys. “Three of these guys started out in Green
River, which was sort of this grunge rock band. They didn’t get much airtime, but they’re, like, the great-grandfathers of the real scene. This one in the middle—he’s Andrew
Wood. He was from a different band. Malfunkshun. Completely insane. Would have been an icon, too, but he overdosed when he was only twenty-four.” Levi grows solemn, as though this might have
been a close personal friend.

He rebounds quickly, though, and we’re off on a whirlwind tour of Seattle’s music history. Every so often, he passes me a record with an explanation, like “These guys were
influenced by Hendrix” or “This band shared the same label as Kurt Cobain.” I teeter under an armful of vinyl that feels like a musical graveyard of singers that, according to
Levi, died too young.

When my record load threatens to topple over, Levi leads me to one of the sound booths. I’ve begun to think of this record store as Levi’s version of a temple and the music as his
religion. The way his eyes dance as we put on Nirvana’s first album I can see that he practically worships them.

I slide a clunky pair of headphones over my ears. A snare hit ricochets through percussion. Kurt Cobain—I know only because Levi tells me—starts singing quietly and then carefully,
gradually, the music builds to the chorus until it’s loud and angry. Before I know it, my foot is tapping along to the furious beat. The music is unlike anything I’ve heard on the
radio. I’ve always enjoyed music and I love Action Hero Disco, but this is different. It reminds me of unfair things like the random injustice of my illness and the fact that I’ll never
swim again and about the moments I’ve missed that I’ll never ever get back. The song makes me mad, but what’s weird is that I like it. It’s as if someone finally gets me.
The heated voice inside, the little bit of rage that feels like a rush.

Like standing on top of the pier looking down.

I don’t know how long it’s been when I realize that my eyes are closed. I peel them open to peek at Levi. His teeth dig into his lower lip. His nose scrunches. He uses his fist to
drum on his thigh. At the instant I open my eyes, our stares meet, and we’re caught in a split-second flash. I imagine the expressions on our faces as mirror images and I know that somewhere,
at some time, he’s experienced the same anger and that it’s reflected here between the notes and words blaring through the headphones.

At the end of the track, he lifts the pin and places it on another rib of the record. I don’t know how he selects the songs, exactly, since there are no titles or search functions the way
there are on a smartphone or computer, but the fact that he can seems sophisticated: it’s something no other boy at Duwamish High would know how to do.

As the static breaks to mark the beginning of the next song, my phone buzzes. I slide it out of my back pocket.

We on tonight?

Henry.

I’d forgotten all about the new episode of
Lunatic Outpost
tonight. Earlier this week, they’d aired a repeat of the twice-weekly show. In fact, I’d forgotten it so
completely that even after reading the text, it takes me a few blinking seconds to recall what he means. That’s how narrow my focus is when sharing a room with Levi.

I glance at Levi. In the tight booth, our knees touch. Occasionally he leans over and drums on my thigh, a gesture that sends my heart into the same frenzy as a June bug in a jar. I’m not
ready to leave yet.

And so I pocket the phone unanswered. It’s easier to ditch Henry the second time, I realize. If I’m not careful, it’s bound to become a habit.

“What do you think?” he asks, lifting the headphone from his right ear. “This was the first song I learned on guitar.” He bites his lip and mimics riffing on an electric
guitar. His fingers fly in midair, so precise that I get the sense that if a real instrument were in his hands, he’d hit the notes exactly.

“I didn’t know you played guitar.” I shrink when I realize that I’ve been yelling to compensate for the music, which is only playing in my headphones.

“Used to. Hendrix was my idol until I got introduced to Stone Gossard.” He finishes the air guitar, but even when he rests his hands back on his lap, his fingers continue twitching
like he’s dying to play. “All of the good ones die early, you know. Blaze out like comets. When I was younger I’d get all sad about Cobain. I’d, like, mourn the loss of all
the music he could have made if he hadn’t killed himself. But now I get it.” Levi leans over and switches the track again. “If you live that hard you run out of wick fast. Cobain
said in his suicide note that he hadn’t felt the excitement of listening to music in years. Can you believe that?”

I shake my head. But I think Levi and I can both understand it, even if just a little.

I don’t keep track of how long Levi and I spend in Bop Street Records. The clerk at the front never bothers us or asks if we’re going to buy anything. We wander around the store and
I pick out records for Levi to try while he picks out ones for me.

Most of the albums I select are terrible. A noisy racket of screaming, yelling, and thrashing that makes little sense. But even those are worthwhile, since they serve to increase our
appreciation of what I’ve come to mentally call “the good stuff.”

Levi’s mania for the music is like the flu—contagious. By the time we leave—cowbell clanging behind us—we’re bleary-eyed and staggering. The sky is a deep shade of
navy, pricked with pinpoints of light. I should have noticed this first. Instead, I notice the cold numbness in my fingertips and Levi must notice it, too, because he pulls me tight into his chest
and my heart beats happily against his stomach.

“Thank you,” he says into my hair.

“Thank
you
,” I return, nearly overwhelmed with the feeling of completeness.

Reluctantly, we part. Our hands drop away and I tear my eyes from him, worried that I’ll go to sleep and this will all disappear.