July

Dear Levi,
the sky is soft and dark tonight, a beautiful kind of quiet that comes with the settling of earth into sleep under heaven's watching care. The sky at Brixton Square, facing west, is always light up with spectacular sunsets but it has always been the twilight that I love most. The moment when I can almost hear the world nestling down into sleep. When timid deer cross the pastures, bunny rabbits snuggle close in their hollows, and lonesome owls take wing into the night. The moment when the skies are coming out, one by one, glittering and shining against the fading light of the day. The clouds are deep indigo and sapphire, layers of blue and darker blue and darker blue to black against the treeline. This is my favorite time of day, but it is almost the saddest.
May was agonizing, exhausting, blisteringly cruel.
June... just was Idabel. June was the slow seep of acceptance into my soul. June was restful.
July... July has been hard. The hysteria started up again, the tears, the sleepless nights with nightmares and screams for you. Horrible nightmares, your presence so close and so untangible. Always reciting the ways I have failed. The ways I have never been good enough. Not for Dri, not for you. July has been panicky. Changes with Panera. My new job at TGIF. Changes with my rent. Changes on the outside, changes on the inside. The anniversary of my car wreck... the renewal of the despair. If God is always going to take away the things I love and dream for, then why doesn't he just take me to be in heaven with him? The thought has been resurrected in my broken, lonely heart. But I know he wouldn't let me die for a reason... I try to find it. I try every day to make a difference for someone, to leave a reason for why I existed today. I am trying to be a better person than I was two years ago, and while the pain is still as bad, it's amazing how different I am than back then. God is with me always now. His comforter.... what would I do without him? I cannot feel him, but I know he is here. Every minute.
I miss you. You look happy, in church, from across the great expanse when I see you. You look boyish and energetic and happy. I am glad, because I pray each day for you. But you look skinnier... are you eating okay? Do you have enough money? I hope the 300$ I put on your last school bell helped you start out for summer. Did you get AC in Santanna, or are you dealing with the heat okay? I worry about you... pray... pray... pray. I never stop thinking about you, not a single minute of the day. There is not a person, situation, or moment I am in that does not somehow bring you into my mind. But as I think about you, I pray. Pray without ceasing, and I do. If you never let me be anything more in this world, I will be your biggest prayer warrior.
I miss you. I am still dealing with the hurt of what you did to my father. I don't want to forgive you, but holding resentment against you is wrong... but its' hard when you have hurt someone whom I love and respect. Why did you do it? How could you do it? When I grapple with the shock of it, I have to remember that I don't understand how you have done anything that has happened in the past seven months.
Seven months..... oh my word, how much times keeps draining by.
Will you never think of your little Noelle again?? Never???
Even if you don't... she will never give up on you.
She made a promise. A pinky promise, even.
To a little boy with caramel eyes in an empty parkinglot on the northeast edge of town, when he told her how his dad would make those pinky promises.
And she can't ever break it.
Because she meant it.
I love you, Levi Pierce.
I will never give up and leave you.
Seven months... they seem like 7 days.... for the love I have towards you, my sweet prince.
Come back soon.