Love & Ruins (#2)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three: Maggie

Being transparent has its consequences, it's something not a lot of people have the strength to do because although it takes courage to be vulnerable, empathy isn't going to compensate for the possibility of someone using their knowledge of who you are against you.

When I conferred Evan the knowledge of my trauma and insecurities, however, I have incited a part of him that appears to be too confident in his understanding of who I am.

The events from Monday have clearly driven a wedge between Levi and I's relationship and has been having a hard time recovering since, and although explanations were established I find it hard to believe they genuinely alleviated Levi's worries.

If anything, his paranoia only became more visible to me in the same way my ongoing charade became more evident to Evan, who knew everything was clearly just for show.

I couldn't help but despise him for seeing right through me, but at the same time, I despised myself just as much for allowing him this much power over me.

It's not that he's doing anything extreme, he's not walking up to me telling me straight at my face that my relationship with Levi is fake and that I am simply tricking myself into believing any of this could be fixed because it's been shattered a long, long time ago.

No, he doesn't have to verbalize it. The thing with letting someone know you for who you are is that you wouldn't allow them to if you know what they see in you isn't lost in them either.

You reflect one another, that's why he doesn't need to tell me that he doesn't believe me when I pretend that my relationship with Levi is still stable, it only takes one look from him to know that he's not convinced, which is infuriating because he knows that I can't afford to be vulnerable with him. It's not like I can run to him when circumstances become overwhelming.

It's like speaking a foreign language only you and another person could understand, but when spoken to with anyone else, it only leads to ostracization.

So yes, as much as I miss him, as much as I want it to be him, the odds are stacked against us and we can't just breach the barrier my father has built to keep us apart, and if we tried to climb over it, one can only imagine what my father would do as an act of retaliation.

I know I promised him that I'll do whatever it takes to make up to him and find some common ground, and maybe someday I'll be able to do that, but as of now, I'm just trying to focus on rectifying another broken relationship with a man I know if I don't appease anytime soon, will get me in more trouble than I'll ever get with Evan.

Levi has grown weary, and back then I would've found this offensive but everything is so brittle between us now that I just can't help but almost sympathize with him.

I've done my part to tell him everything. No white lies and no leaving out important details, which means that I was only compelled to tell him about the school project Evan and I were working on. He tried to appear indifferent about it, but if pestering me about the mundane details was anything to go by, it was obvious it meant a great deal to him.

But I didn't call him out on it, he has every right to worry as I haven't made it easier on him either, however it is tiresome considering I'm just walking on eggshells, at this point.

It doesn't help that we're still quite far away from the deadline, meaning I still had to be around Evan constantly. But once this is out of the way, I'll have no issue easing Levi's conscience because his only concern is my interactions with Evan during this shared task, and it's not like he can monitor me during this time because he has his own classes to attend.