I went to sit on the sofa. I’d need to be sitting down with what I was about to say. “If I didn’t know better, I’d venture that you’re arranging my life as if I’m your mistress or . . . something. As if you’ll need me close to you in New York.”
There.
He went back to the window, where I couldn’t see his face.
I went on. “Or are you paying me off with a sweetheart deal so you can wipe your hands of me?”
My pulse was knocking around, running in place, not knowing where to go.
When he didn’t answer, my nerves screamed. “Talk to me. Dear Lord, I can’t stand how you’re leaving me hanging, shutting me out.”
“I don’t mean to.”
I could barely hear him. “Would you just turn around? Do me the favor of at least facing me if this is the day you let me go.”
Oh, it’d hurt to say that. I didn’t want this to be the end. Now that it was right in front of me, every cell in my body protested, clawing to hold on and leaving marks inside me.
Slowly, Noah turned around, fisting the ends of that towel. He was beautiful in the room’s faint illumination, framed by a city gradually falling into night. If I got up from this sofa to take him in my arms, to feel his naked chest against my cheek, would that end this conversation? Would he want me to stay and see if I could be more than just his happiness dispenser?
Or would it be the last time I could embrace him before everything crumbled around us?
“Look at you,” he said, his voice thick, his gaze cloudy. “This is what I do to you. Make you sad.”
“If you’d talk to me I wouldn’t be that way. What happened today?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Noah.”
It must’ve been something in the way I said it, because he wearily leaned back against the window, looking at the ceiling. I had a clear view of that scar on his neck, a network of white, tortured skin. A burn.
Who had burned him in the past besides the usual suspects?
In that flatline voice, he said, “Uncle Silas is still hemming and hawing. I don’t know if he’s going to come to my side or not because he’s afraid of the consequences. He says that Diamont is too powerful now and he’d be sacrificing his position in order to back me. My own uncle.”
His grief echoed through the room, and I hurt for his sake.
“But you’ve talked to other shareholders on the sly,” I said. “Doesn’t that matter to Silas?”
“Fear matters to Silas, and that’s unfortunate because I need him more than ever right now, even more than the other shareholders and board members. He can help me get to my other brother and uncle, and that’s what would put the nail in Diamont’s coffin.”
Bitterness traced his words like slow-acting poison, and I found myself leaning away from him. He’d become a black hole of hatred, far worse than what I’d seen in him before.
“Silas is going to come around,” I whispered. “Just keep trying. Keep being patient.”
“You don’t know that’ll happen. Don’t say it if it’s just bullshit.”
I flinched. He shut his eyes as if he regretted his comment, as if he despised himself for it.
His words had snapped at me, a clear warning to keep my tongue, but I couldn’t help thinking there was something more profound going on here than just a thirst for revenge, and even if I hadn’t known Noah more than a week—Lord, only a week—I cared too much about him to get up and leave him in this mood.
I’d gotten sucked in to a guy’s life yet again, and I hadn’t been able to fight it.
I didn’t want to fight it with Noah.
“There’s something else bothering you,” I said, the nurturer until the end. “What is it?”
“Maybe you ought to change medical gears and be a psychiatrist. You seem to enjoy tooling around in my head.”
Another ouch. Another remorseful expression from Noah.
“Dammit,” he said, “I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
As he dwelled by himself over on the darker side of the room, all the jigsaw pieces in my head started floating together: Noah, looking at his mom today with that haunted shade in his gaze. Noah telling me early on, “It’s not so crazy, even if most areas of my life are.”
The recklessness, the flare-ups of anger, the erratic sleep habits . . . I thought about Noah showing up at my door in Aidan Falls before dawn to take me on a fishing trip. I thought of how he might have never even come back to the penthouse last night, after his meeting with his brother. And then there was the fact that he didn’t touch most of his food, just the brownies I’d brought him that once.
I didn’t know a lot about clinical depression, but I thought it could be hereditary. Was I seeing proof of it now? Was he worried that it’d been passed down from his dad and his mom? Did it run in his blood and that’s why he constantly needed to find new adventures to keep him feeling lively?
Now everything Simmons had done to encourage me to make Noah happy even made sense.
In the aftermath of Noah’s harsh words, he’d been watching me, his head tilted, a yearning in his eyes that he extinguished as soon as he saw me notice it. He trained his gaze over my shoulder, as if he couldn’t stand to see me anymore.
“And you wonder why I’m so good at fake relationships,” he said. “It’s what I’m best at.”
“Don’t say that.” I was repeating what he usually told me, but now it was my turn. “If you’d just open up and let me in, we could—”
“Do what? Work it all out? Make Diamont go away?”
I hadn’t been referring to Diamont, but if that’s what Noah wanted to think, I’d let him. Yet the longer he fixed his gaze beyond me, the lonelier I felt.
Hadn’t I mattered to him at all? Was this what I boiled down to for him—a good-time girl who’d learned too much and needed to be let go?
“Jadyn,” he said, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the past always has a way of manifesting itself. Diamont came from my father’s past, and now he’s out of his hole, striking at Dad’s legacy. We all inherit problems, and there’s no escaping them. Sometimes we even spend a lifetime making up for what’s in the past.”
Was he finally talking about his mom’s depression, as well as his father’s? Did he just not want to admit there was a connection out loud?
My gaze settled on his scar again, but he pulled away from the window, blocking my view of his wound.
“I was selfish for even wanting to bring you here,” he said.
“I wanted to come with you.” I stood from the sofa. “Noah, you had a setback today. Don’t let that get you down.”
His laugh wasn’t pleasant.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s just get out of here, regroup. Is there anything you want to do while we’re in the city? A Broadway show, dinner at your favorite restaurant . . . ?”
“I can arrange either one for you, but not tonight for me, Jadyn.”
With that, he headed for his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
As the city winked at me from outside, I walked to the window, to the table where he’d set down that stupid troll.
I held it to me, wishing Noah had taken my gift with him.
***
Soon, I shut myself behind my own closed door, trying not to let Noah’s setback bring me down.
I took out my laptop; I’d brought it with me to do some studying that I hadn’t remotely gotten around to, and I sat straight up on my bed, firing up the computer. That’s right—I didn’t have time for sadness. After a summer of it, I’d decided it was useless. You know what wasn’t useless, though?
Research.
I typed in “major depressive disorder” and followed the first link, my emotions already pushed to the bottom of my chest. I was already aware of the bas
ics: depression can be caused by neurotransmitters in the brain, trauma, stressors. Noah definitely had that last qualification down pat, but had his parents’ physical makeup contributed to how his body functioned?
The thought made my stomach churn with nerves, and it only got worse when I read about depressive symptoms, many of which matched what I’d already noted in Noah.
But another symptom was hopelessness or self-hatred, and I’d certainly gotten glimpses of both tonight. In fact, hadn’t there been flashes of them before, including in the gym when he’d clearly been fighting off a dark mood? Hadn’t he said he’d needed the endorphin rush from the exercise?
Exercise was a way of managing depression, and he’d been going at it like he was warding off demons.
I swallowed as I realized that Noah had looked as if he’d just gotten out of the shower today. Could it be he’d been battling another bout of depression in the hotel’s gym?
As I read on, I found the most telling symptom of all—the loss of interest or pleasure in activities that a person usually found to be enjoyable.
I lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, more of the puzzle locking into a bigger picture.
As you might know, Simmons had told me, Noah’s been in need of some fresh air . . . so getting him some seemed like just the thing.
He’d come to Aidan Falls to find more than peace; he needed something—anything—to make him believe he could experience joy again. Good Lord, all this trouble with Diamont might have only been a trigger for depression. Had it always been inside him, lurking, waiting to come out?
Something else Simmons had said punctuated everything.
“It’s more than just a few bad moods, Jadyn.”
More than just a passing thing. More than just a bad day.
I wasn’t sure how long I stared at the ceiling, reality staring right back at me. Noah was a Heathcliff, wasn’t he? He was exciting but a little scary, tempting me to step off emotional edges but always there pulling me back before I could.
Now that I suspected what was really happening, was he worse for me than I was for myself?
No. That was my chicken side talking, my wariness. I wasn’t the type to leave someone in need behind, even if I’d just started to find a new life post-Rex scandal, post-Uncle Joseph.
I laid my hand over my chest, bunching my cashmere sweater over my heart. It was as if the organ was being needled out of me while sharp affection for Noah spread all over my body. How could I let him sit in his room, knowing what he might be up against?
If I’d been brought here to pull him out of despair, payroll or not, then I would. So I gathered my guts and told myself that I had to be strong. Then I went out of my bedroom and toward his.
Before the cautious Jadyn could catch up with me, I knocked on Noah’s door.
Inside, I could hear a TV playing, and I wasn’t sure my knock could be heard above the sounds. I didn’t want to barge in, but I had an idea.
I went to my purse and grabbed my phone, wandering back to Noah’s door.
Jadyn:
At the risk of competing with whatever is on TV, can I come in?
The sound went off.
555-8465:
I’m still not in a talking mood.
Jadyn:
Tonight’s my last night in the city, Noah. Please.
Seconds trudged by. Maybe even a full minute.
555-8465:
It’s open.
I turned the knob, slowly entering the blue-tinged room. Light from the mounted LED TV flashed over Noah as he lay in bed on top of the duvet, surrounded by a sea of white, his head propped up by pillows. He looked like that fallen angel I’d first seen when he’d shown up in the café last week, but now he was the picture of an angel of vengeance, nothing heavenly about him.
He had the remote in his hand, and I was willing to bet that he hadn’t moved since he’d come in here.
“What can I do for you, Jadyn?” he asked.
“For one thing, you can go back to calling me ‘Jade.’ Or are you just distancing yourself from me, like I was doing at first when I was calling you ‘Reeves’?”
“Okay, Jade,” he said without inflection.
He wasn’t being mean, but I had the feeling he just wanted me out. That made what I had to say a little easier, because I had nothing to lose . . . except my pride and my heart. Not much at all.
“Today,” I said, “at your mom’s place, something occurred to me. You’re frightened to death that what happened to her and your dad is going to happen to you. You talked about the past manifesting itself, and this was what you were really trying to tell me—that what they have or had is inside you, too.”
His expression didn’t change. He seemed exhausted, done. “Is that your official diagnosis?”
“It’s common sense. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
Was he being macho in front of me? Or was he really in denial?
My gaze wandered to his neck, where the TV light pulsed over his scar.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Now you’re wondering if I tried to kill myself at some point, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t think until now that you might’ve hurt yourself.”
“You can stop wondering.” Short, sharp words, no explanations. “Are we done here?”
The urge to run—to get away from any hurt coming my way—crept up on me again, but I pushed back at it. It was hard, though, because here I was, standing in his bedroom, the most intimate place possible. Not long ago, it seemed as if we would eventually end up here, kissing, working off our clothes, touching one another in ways that dizzied me, but now?
Now he wanted me gone.
“Noah,” I said, not giving up, “have you gotten help?”
“I’m fine, Dr. Dandritch, and if you’re going to recommend that I should be on meds to regulate my bad days, then don’t bother. I don’t do any drugs, even if I was surrounded by them at those nightclubs and jet-set places I used to go. Pills dull the brain, and I can’t afford not to be as sharp as possible.”
“You could use something other than drugs to correct any issues. There’re holistic remedies, like herbs, you can use. And you already exercise, so that’s a start.”
“Jadyn,” he said, “what happened to my mom won’t happen to me. And my dad? He was a drunk whose weakness overtook him. It kills me to say that since I loved him, but it’s the truth.” He switched the channel with the remote, even though no sound was on. Maybe he was hoping he could switch the channels on me just as easily.
“I can help you,” I said, ignoring his refusal to admit to reality. “If you’d only—”
“I’m trying,” he said softly, his tone suddenly torn.
The change was so unexpected, from steel to this, that I started walking toward the bed, once again wishing I could bring that smile back, wishing I could bring him back.
As he watched me approach, I saw the longing in his gaze.
The same craving for a touch, even just one of comfort, wound through me, bringing out my bravery.
I rested my knee on the mattress, his free hand inches from my skirt. I was dying for him, and not in a physical way. My heart was crying, constricting.
“What can I do, Noah?” I asked.
A whole lifetime seemed to pass over his gaze within a second. Was he imagining dark nights when he would shut himself away in a room so he didn’t have to talk to anyone? Or was he picturing me, cradled against him, keeping him warm when he needed it the most?
My hopes responded, rising, but my realistic side balanced that. I wasn’t fool enough to think that being friends—or more—with someone who suffered from depression would be easy. But I couldn’t leave this alone.
Here’s a solution, the realistic Jadyn said. Just get him some help and then you
can go.
When his gaze got dark, I ignored Realistic Jadyn and reached for his hand in a last ditch effort to bring him back to me. But he was untouchable, even as I rested my fingertips on his.
His voice was flat again. “Your plane is leaving at noon tomorrow.”
My plane. As I took in the fact that he wouldn’t be on it with me, that he was staying here to battle on without me, I withdrew my hand from his. He turned the volume back up on the TV, as if he’d switched me off.
My heart felt as if it was ripping itself up as I walked toward the door. He was saving me from what could’ve been a huge mistake, I told myself. And hadn’t that been my goal this entire time? To have fun and be grateful for a good time while it lasted?
I glanced over my shoulder to find him watching me, and as my pulse jumped at that yearning on his face, his expression went blank, and he turned the channel again.
I walked out, my head held high . . . even if I was feeling rock-bottom low.
17
When I returned to Aidan Falls, the town hadn’t changed at all.
Odd that I’d expected it to, because I felt changed, schooled by yet another failed relationship, if that was what you could even call the adventure I’d had with Noah.
Part of me wanted to be angry with him for the way he’d dismissed me, but I’d set myself up for it. I’d lied to myself, creating a fantasy in which I’d meant more to him than a lackey who’d been there to pep up his spirits. But another part of me told me to move on.
Yet that heart of mine . . . it hurt. I’d opened it up, just as Noah had wanted me to. Why had he even given me hope if there hadn’t ever been any?
I spent days obsessing about that question as I caught up on my classwork and got back into the groove of waitressing. Everyone wondered how my “time with Delroy” had gone, and I didn’t say much. I told them “fine,” smiled, and went about my business.
Meanwhile, Halloween was lighting up Aidan Falls with jack-o’-lanterns in shop windows and on porches. If the holiday and its parties couldn’t cheer me up, then what would?
Shelby, that was who, and thank goodness she came home that weekend.
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