L E V I ' S   P O V

A couple days had passed and it was Friday. I had given Ophelia her paycheck about a couple hours ago and her eyes nearly bulged out their sockets when she saw the number of bills that she had received.

In my opinion, I wanted to give her more but I knew that she would know that I was up to something.

That thing being wanting to assist in her funds to go to college.

It wasn't per say that much, but I knew that Ophelia would be grateful for any extra cash that would go towards her college fund. Hell, with the money she was now currently getting at the diner, plus what I gave her, she was making nearly a thousand dollars weekly, along with tips that she was making at the diner and if she decided to work overtime.

Anyways, if giving her an envelope every week got her to throw her hands around my neck and place a kiss on my cheek like how she did earlier, then I wished that I could do it every day.

Ophelia was at work and was working a lot of overtime for the past few days at the diner. However, she still managed to have dinner ready every night and breakfast on a morning.

I also hadn't been able to spend as much time with her because of this.

I just hoped that sometime soon, we would both have some days free together.

I had other things on my mind at the moment, the main one being currently sitting in my parents' house, waiting for one of them to break the silence that had engulfed us.

I picked up my glass of bourbon that was sitting on the glass table. If both of them wanted to sit in front of me and keep their mouths stitched close like dummies, then I wasn't going to entertain them by being the first to speak.

Only then, did my father decide to throw two magazines on the table, one being the one that Ophelia saw with my statement, and the other being the one that Kace and Elijah showed me a couple days ago.

I looked at both of them boredly.

What was he expecting me to say?

"Care to explain this, honey?" My mother's voice rang through my ears.

I took the last sip of my alcohol before swallowing and speaking, "What's there to say? It's printed in big bold letters at the top of each magazine." I stated as I stood up.

"Don't play dumb, boy. What's this shit about you saying that you and Amanda's relationship are over?" My father's voice boomed.

My mother stood up with him and rested a hand on his bicep to calm him but that did no good. Instead, he glared at her and shrugged her off.

"Look," I poured another round. "I'm sick and tired of Amanda and her selfish and disgusting ways." I shook my head.

I was in no mood for an argument at the moment.

"This better be a joke." He laughed humorlessly. "If not, you better tell me that you've found a better investor's daughter to invest your time in." He boomed.

Truth is, my parents didn't care for Amanda. It was what my parents believed that she brought to the business which just happened to be her father.

He was of no importance to me and I had no idea why my parents felt the need to suck up to him when he needed us, not the other way around.

"Ding, ding, ding. Wrong answer." I shook my head. I rested my hands down as I looked between the both of them. "I'm tired of these games that the both of you are playing." I said. "Besides, I've met someone." I finished.

My mother's eyebrows furrow, "What? Do we know them? Is it the Petersons? The Glasgows? Oh, maybe the Husbands?" I shook my head and rolled my eyes at my mother's guesses.

If they didn't have a dollar sign after their names, then they were of no importance to her.

My father's eyes flared in anger. "Seeing someone? What the hell does that mean?" He asked.

I was going to come up with some half ass reply about the fact that he didn't know what seeing someone meant but I decided against it.

"It means that I'm off the market, not single, taken, indisponible." I said every word I could think of that justified the fact that I'm not available.

I knew that Ophelia and I hadn't talked about that yet and she didn't know it, but I was hers, even if she wasn't mine.

I had eyes for not another soul but her and soon enough, she was going to understand that.

I also knew that my father hated when I spoke French because my mother's side of the family were from Paris and they despised my father, which made him want nothing to do with him.

I could tell that my father was angry but he didn't show it, and I knew why.

"Okay, I want to meet this girl." There it was.

I laughed at his request. Frankly, it was the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

"That's funny. Great." I wiped an imaginary tear until my face turned serious. "You really think that I'd bring her here for you to talk down on her and put shit into her head?" I questioned.

Both of them were silent and I knew neither of them could deny it.

I huffed another laugh and grabbed my jacket.

"Well, this visit has not been so great," I smiled. "Hope we can do it again sometime." And with that, I exited.

----

I was extremely tired by the time I got home and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep but I had tasks to finish up from the papers that I collected from the office on my way home.

I stripped myself of my jacket and made my way to my bedroom where I would take a shower before getting on with my work.

I opened the door to my bedroom and immediately froze at the body lying on my bed.

Adorned in that uniform that she so desperately wanted, Ophelia lay on the end of my bed curled in a ball. She had a broom on her hand which gave me the idea that she must've came to tidy the room and got tired and fell asleep.

As I said, she had been working a lot of double time and extra shifts which obviously made her tired.

I smiled softly to myself.

I was actually happy that she was finally getting some rest.

Sitting by the edge of my bed, I lifted my hand to carefully push the hair covering Ophelia's rosy cheeks.

She was snoring softly, almost inaudibly and that sound made me smile to myself as my thumb gently caressed her cheek.

The feathery touch obviously had an effect on Ophelia because her eyes slowly fluttered open and she looked confused for a second or two as she looked up at me before she looked around the room and up at me with squinted eyes and afterward, her eyes grew the size of saucers and she jumped off the bed quickly, startling me in the process.

I got up not even a second later as I watched Ophelia begin to cower away from me.

It wasn't long before she started to plead, "P-Please, I-I didn't know it was your bedroom. P-Please forgive me." She was sobbing uncontrollably by now and it was giving me a weird sense of deja vu of the first morning that she woke up here.

Just like the first time, she began to frantically strip the bed of its sheets and I tried to reassure her that it was okay but she continued to mumble her apologies.

I didn't know what to do at this point so I tried a different approach and took a step forward to try and calm her down.

However, when I raised my hand to hold onto her shoulders, she blocked her face with her hand and pleaded, "Please don't h-hit me." She cried as she trembled.

I froze in my spot, my eyebrows shooting up.

I continued to watch as Ophelia closed her eyes tightly, her hands gripping the bed sheets for dear life with her cheeks wet with tears.

I slowly lowered my hand to my side and for the first time in a long time, I was speechless.

I didn't know what to do or what to say that would make this entire situation less tense.

But the mere fact that Ophelia would even think that I would lay a finger on her was just too heartbreaking for me to handle.

Hadn't I done everything I could to show this woman that I cared for her?

I did and I believed that she knew that, which was why I couldn't quite comprehend what just went down.

For the past few weeks, Ophelia had been comfortable and more open towards me.

She allowed me to kiss her, to hold her and to take her out on dates which only led to one reasonable explanation in my head.

My features softened as I watched her chest rise and fall rapidly.

I gently and slowly lifted my hand to hold on to hers. I took a little step closer to her and pulled her hands from her face in a calm, steady movement.

Ophelia slowly opened her eyes to reveal puffy, red swollen eyes looking back at me and tear stained cheeks.

"Want to talk about it?" My voice was just above a whisper and I knew my theory was right when I saw the distraught look on her face, the look that showed me a flash of what was going through that beautiful head of hers.

Ophelia looked at me as if she didn't know where she was, or how she had currently arrived in the same room as me.

Albeit, she nodded her head hesitantly like if she assumed she had no choice.

I gently led her back towards my bed and sat her down next to me.

Sweat was dripping from her forehead as she looked straight ahead with her eyes on the wall.

She looked completely out of it. Her breathing was shallow and her eyelids barely blinking.

"My parents died when I was five." She started.

At this point, I knew that she wasn't speaking to me. She seemed in her own little world and it was as if she was reciting this story to herself.

One obvious trait being the absence of stuttering and nervousness.

"You see, most kids at the age of sixteen wished to have bigger breasts and a bigger behind. But me? No. I wanted to remain just to way I was. A kid that hadn't even hit puberty yet." It was absolutely sad to hear how Ophelia was speaking. As if she was a different person with a different personality and that alone, scared me.

Despite this, I remained silent.

"He would go for those ones; you know? The ones that were more developed and would always tell me, a little girl like you doesn't appeal to me. I loved hearing that sentence." She said. "That didn't stop him from hitting me though. Every night that I didn't complete the chores, or because another child had gotten adopted. He wanted them all to himself," She continued.

"Then one night, I had to clean his room. I hadn't slept in two days and was dying from exhaustion. I thought that I would lie down just for a minute. And soon a minute turned into hours." She choked on her words for the last sentence.

My heart was beating rapidly in my chest as I anticipated her next sentence.

"D-Did he..." I trailed off.

I didn't want to say it, I couldn't.

She smiled softly at the wall ahead of her, slightly rocking back and forth.

Then she slowly shook her head.

"H-He came in while I was still sleeping, and I remember being grabbed and pulled up from the bed to meet his furious eyes. He said, 'you like sleeping in my bed? Let me show what else we could do in it.' That sinister smile he gave me made my gut turn and I knew what he meant. I tried pushing, kicking and yelling and I knew that the other orphans heard me but like any other child, they chose to ignore. He picked up the first thing he saw, which was a curtain rod and began hitting me with it again and a-again." She cried, tears welling back in her eyes.

She wiped her tears swiftly, "I-I couldn't take it anymore and blacked out, waking up the next morning in the hospital bed. He told them I fell down the stairs and they believed him. A child with hand prints and broken ribs and bones and they believed him!" She sobbed through her teeth. "I called him Levi! I called him and he never came, he never answered!" She was a trembling mess.

"Who? Who did you call?" I whispered.

"Kace! He didn't answer. He said he'd always be there for me and he never answered!" I swiftly pulled her into me and she buried her head in my chest, her fist grabbing tightly onto my shirt as sobs took over her entire body.

"Shhh," I mumbled into her hair and I stroked it. "I know." I rocked us back and forth.

"Why didn't he come when I needed him?" She continued to cry.

"I don't know, Ophelia. I just don't know." I whispered to her. "But you want to know what?" She peeked up at me and I felt a little ache in my chest when I looked at her broken form. "I'm here and I'll always be here. Whenever you need me." I said as I stroked her cheek, her face merely 3 inches away.

So many questions were raking through my head. There was still so much stuff that didn't make sense to me but for now, it wasn't important.

The only thing that was important was the girl in my arms.