Half of My Heart ✔️

48 | when worlds collide

TW: depression, suicide, homophobia

♔

I immediately shut my laptop, standing and turning to look at Levi. His eyes are slightly narrowed as he looks straight past me.

"What was that?" He asks, his voice losing its playfulness. "I thought I saw my name there for a second."

I open my mouth to say something to quell his suspicions, but I'd be lying if I refuted what he was saying. On top of that, I swear that Levi can hear my heart beating out of my chest from learning about the death of his brother. So I tell him the truth, hoping to ease the guilt I'm feeling for snooping into his past.

"I was just searching a few things up," I say as calmly as I can, hoping to not provoke him further.

"Searching me up, you mean," Levi says, his voice betraying his agitation. Then he gets up, reaching past me to open my laptop. The screen lights up, and Levi's dark eyes scan the headline.

"I wanted to learn more about you, that's all," I try to explain, feeling terrible. But I begin to see how this makes sense, looking back on what Levi told me about his brother—his sexuality and his parents' lack of support. "I wasn't trying to find anything specific."

"So instead of asking me, you decided to go behind my back and do your own digging?" he asks, turning away from the laptop. From the wild on his face, it's obvious that the content of the article has only furthered his annoyance.

"I wasn't digging—"

"That's exactly what you were doing," he cuts me off. "Are you happy with what you found?"

"No, of course I'm not," I insist. "I didn't want to find out about your brother's death like this."

"Well that's your own fault, isn't it?" he says coldly. "You don't have to keep digging: I'll tell you everything you want to know, since you seem so interested in my family's trauma. My brother was depressed because my parents wouldn't accept him so he killed himself two years ago, and my town still hasn't gotten over it. I left right after, and you can't really blame me for not wanting to talk about it."

"Levi, I don't blame you," I say, taking a step closer to him. "I understand why you'd want to keep this to yourself. I'm sorry about what happened to your family."

"Do you not trust me?" He asks, disregarding what I just said. His face twists. "How can you expect me to trust you when you go around doing things like this behind my back?"

"I don't think this counts as 'behind your back', I've told you I just—"

"I'm gonna go," he says, not letting me finish. "But feel free to continue your research about me. I'm sure there's a lot to learn."

I press my fingers into my temples, feeling a stress-induced headache coming on. I don't even try to defend my actions any further as he leaves without another word. Honestly, I can't even comprehend what exactly just happened. I feel like a tornado just blew through my dorm and left a minute later.

I shut my laptop, not bothering to finish reading the article.

♔

"I just don't know what to do," I complain, pushing open the doors to the studio, feeling a wave of warm air wash over me, a stark contrast from the winter chill. "You should've seen the look on his face when he left. He was furious."

"I'll tell you exactly what to do," Mya says, trailing behind me. "You go right back onto your laptop and keep research. Why the hell didn't you finish your snooping?"