Goodbye Levi

The sea hinted outside and slapped against the windows, with gentle waves pulsing, and it painted the room in liquid light. It was like caged inside a snow globe that someone never let settle.

Naomi DeWitt sat along the sunken side of the bed in the sunken honeymoon suite and looked at the shadows moving across the coral outside. The room was elegant—too elegant. Too much silk and shine and “forever” for a girl who wasn’t sure she could sign up for dessert, much less forever.

She’d requested Levi to give her ten minutes alone. He’d been delighted to hear that she wanted to “freshen up,” not knowing the panic booming around her ribcage like the afterflicker of a caged marlin.

The proposal hadn’t happened yet. It was on its way –- she felt it massing, substantial and unavoidable. It was how he had organized this lavish underwater retreat; he had constantly been refreshing his watch as if timing fireworks.

Her throat tightened.

Levi was sweet. Earnest. Safe as a GPS that is predetermined to “safety first”. They’d dated for three years. She liked him. I loved parts of him, even. But that wasn’t enough anymore.

She needed some sensation piercing and pulling her out of that quiet sleepwalk her life had become.

All of a sudden, movement, an eruption of bubbles at the far window.

Naomi flinched. A figure emerged from out of the thick glass, waving animatedly.

Levi.

He wore a flashy red wetsuit emblazoned with a heart and clung to his lungs like a child’s costume, with glittering fairy wings strapped over his oxygen tank. A ridiculous heart-shaped dive mask concealed his face, and he held a waterproof sign in one hand. The other side was behind him.

Naomi blinked. Her lips parted in utter shock of disbelief.

Then he flipped the sign.

It read:

“NAOMI, YOU MAKE MY HEART DIVE DEEP—WILL YOU MARRY ME?”.

A doodle of a diamond ring sinking next to a cartoon Titanic was next to it, in waterproof marker.

He produced the ring box in his other hand – clear plastic, which you’d use for snorkeling equipment. Inside: a monstrous diamond. What kind of rock may blind a whale?

Naomi covered her mouth.

Levi smiled, not realizing the face she had frozen onto. She compelled herself to wave goodbye. Her fingers trembled.

No.

No.

Not.

It was not only a cheap pun. Or the wings. Or the irony of suggesting through mime with a Titanic joke. It was all of it. The pageantry. The pressure. The way he’d seem so sure he’d get a yes.

She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Levi frowned behind the mask.

Naomi shook her head.

And then she saw it, behind him, a mile away.

A shape. Long, sinuous. Moving with purpose.

Her eyes widened.

A shark.

Not any of the slow, sea-grass-skimming kind. This was sleek, fast, and terrifyingly curious.

“Levi!” she screamed uselessly. Her voice echoed on the thick glass.

He didn’t hear her.

He was still knee-deep in the water, floating face up with the sign and the ring on his finger, waiting for her joy.

She dashed to the window and thumped it with panic in her limbs.

The shark surged.

Levi turned when the creature darted.

The bite was clean and vicious. At this point, Naomi could hear her breath roaring in her ears as Levi’s oxygen mask got ripped free by a blow. He thrashed, bubbles tearing his backpedal, blood blooming like a thundercloud in the water.

Naomi screamed. She put both palms on the window while the shark’s teeth shut it again. This time on Levi’s arm.

The ring box twisted slowly and stupidly—a distorted satellite floating through the veil of crimson.

And quite miraculously, as if through her horror, there was something else Naomi felt.

Relief.

It shocked her, that voice of freedom—that flicker of terrible peace.

He would never have allowed her to go off easy. Not Levi. He would hold on; he would create a life, a jigsaw puzzle, and stick people into the wrong spaces because he couldn’t tolerate missing pieces.

And she was over with the missing piece.

Naomi slumped to the floor. Levi’s limbs thumped back in the shark’s hold behind her. The creature turned and flailed, and then it was gone – melting into the deep with what was left of him.

She should cry. She wanted to cry. But the tears wouldn’t come.

No, instead, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Levi. You didn’t deserve this. But neither did I.”

The water outside stopped, and the blue darkened as the sun sank behind the waves.

For a while, she sat. Then she rose onto her feet, unsteady legs becoming stronger and stronger with every second.

She placed a hand against the glass and saw Levi’s arm, which had been sliced, still twitching, holding that damn plastic ring box, swim by.

Naomi turned and walked away.

She didn’t need a sign. She didn’t need a proposal. She lacked air, space, and a future of her own choice.

The room fell silent behind her, the ocean, not a secret, still.