by Beth Reekles
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “I was already taking school seriously. I just made people think that I wasn’t. At high school, to stay on the football team, you have to get a straight-A average, right? Or, you’re supposed to. Coach cut some slack for a couple of kids. But I did that, and because the other jocks did, too, I wasn’t called out on it. And, to be honest, I liked being called the bad boy. It was fun to cut class and know my teachers would just roll their eyes if I sauntered into class late and without my homework, because they’d come to expect that of me. They expected to fail me by the end of the year.”
“And you, what, you liked to surprise them by doing really well and finishing with the third-best grades in your class?” I guessed.
“I did well at school for myself, not for anybody else. I didn’t want to be valedictorian or whatever. I didn’t need that, didn’t want it, or the attention that came with it. I kept up the bad-boy reputation not just because I didn’t want to be pushed around anymore, or because it was kind of fun, or because sometimes I’m kind of an asshole, but because if people never expected anything of me, they’d never be disappointed.”
We were both quiet for a long time. At first, Noah’s breathing was shallow and ragged, but it calmed down after a while. He’d always been kind of closed off to some degree, making comments about how he didn’t deal well with emotional stuff. This was the most vulnerable I’d ever known him.
I realized that I didn’t actually know who Noah was anymore: not because of what he’d just told me, but because he seemed like a different person coming home from college. He was quicker to smile, more relaxed. Even when we’d argued about the photo—he’d been rational, way calmer than I was used to.
“And now? Now you got into Harvard and high school’s over, you’ve dropped the whole rebellious act?”
“Who says I’ve dropped it? Here I thought that was the reason why you fell for me.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to keep a smile from my face. “Yeah, because you’re a badass who says he’s gonna go kick over his mom’s potted plants.”
“I could eat some ice, too,” he deadpanned. “Whole cubes. Tell me that’s not badass.”
I swatted at his chest gently, and he caught my fingers in his hand, kissing each fingertip. I giggled, happy he was being playful again instead of sullen and withdrawn. Noah had never really dealt with his emotions well, for as long as I’d known him, so it didn’t surprise me that after being bullied he’d wanted to lash out instead of cry. That was just who he was.
“I just mean—” I started, but he cut me off with a light kiss.
“I know what you mean. I just don’t really know how else to be, is all. But I’m trying not to put up so much of a front now. Not argue with people so much. It’s easier because everybody’s new, and I can…reinvent myself—and everyone at Harvard is pretty smart, so it’s okay to be a geek.” He smirked. “But it’s still hard to be anything else, because I’ve spent so long being like this.”
“I’ll love you either way,” I told him sincerely. I think I loved him more in this moment than I ever had.
“Even if I start wearing pink polo shirts and tying sweaters around my neck and trade my motorbike in for a golf buggy?”
“Okay, now you’re just being totally ridiculous.”
“You started it.” But he was grinning at me.
“No, you did.”
“You definitely started this.” Then he pulled me on top of him, his fingers poking at my ribs and waist and neck, and I shrieked, trying to squirm away from him, but giggling too much to put up a fight. Noah chuckled in my ear. “But I’m starting this.”
Chapter 12
I slept better that night than I had in weeks. When I woke up the next morning, sometime after ten, Noah was sat up, awake, watching YouTube videos, and I was snuggled into his side.
It was a good way to wake up.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said, dipping his head toward mine as I went to kiss him. He tasted like toothpaste, so I guessed he’d already gotten out of bed, and I probably had morning breath, but neither of us really cared. I smiled against his lips.
“I’ve missed you—” I told him, then broke off to yawn. “I missed this.”
“Watching videos in bed first thing on a Saturday?” he joked.
“Waking up with you.”
His smile stretched wider, and so did mine. Noah paused the video and set his phone aside, rolling on top of me and holding his weight on his elbows. I slipped my arms up his toned chest and over his muscular arms, pulling myself closer against him and pressing my lips to his. Whenever we kissed, it filled me with the same euphoria it had the first time.
Why did I ever doubt this relationship? I must’ve been crazy. I’d thought I’d missed Noah a lot over the last few weeks, but now that I was here with him, I realized just how lonely I’d been without him. There was nothing wrong between us. We weren’t just good—we were perfect. We’d just needed some time together, that was all.
The rest of the morning was lazy, cozy, and completely idyllic.
At some point, I worked up the courage to ask him about the dance.
“Noah…”
“Yeah?”
I gulped, wet my lips. My mouth had turned dry. “It’s…There’s a dance soon. At school. The Sadie Hawkins dance. And I was wondering if you’d come home for the weekend to go with me?”
Noah sighed, looking away from me. My stomach sank; he didn’t need to answer me. The sigh was answer enough.
This was exactly why I’d been avoiding asking him. Because I’d been dreading this reaction.
“I would,” he told me, voice full of apology. “You know I would, Elle. But this weekend was a one-off. I can’t keep coming back here, especially for a high school dance. It’s too much time out of studying, and football, and it’s not exactly cheap to keep flying back and forth.”
“But…” I took a breath and sat up slightly. “I really want to go to the dance with you. And I hate going so long without seeing you. It’s hard, you know?”
“I know,” he said, scowling. “It’s hard for me, too. I miss you. But I can’t just come back every time you guys have some dance, or a party, or whatever. And Sadie Hawkins—it’s in November, right? I’ll be coming back just after that for Thanksgiving.”
I was about to argue again but bit my tongue and sank back onto the bed beside him. Both of us were stiff, the silence awkward, bordering on tense. It was just a dance, I tried to tell myself. It was no big deal. It made a lot of sense why Noah wouldn’t come home for it.
But was it so bad of me to want to spend more time with him, or go to a dance with him?
Noah leaned over to kiss my temple, arm wrapping around me. “Maybe I’ll be home around the Summer Dance.”
It was a peace offering and I took it, nodding and turning to kiss him again. Even if all I wanted to do was wriggle out of his arms and pull on a hoodie to hide my face in, his rejection sitting like a stone in the pit of my stomach.
* * *
• • •
Lunchtime, we headed downstairs for something to eat, and Lee was in the kitchen making a sandwich.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you know he was coming home this weekend?”
“No.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Noah said.
“Did you hear something, Shelly?” Lee looked around melodramatically, and I bit back a laugh.
“Just the wind. I think your mom left a window open.”
Noah sighed, walking past me and opening the fridge to peruse the contents. “Where’s the apple juice?”
“We don’t have any.”
“But we always have apple juice.”
“You’re the only one who drinks it, and Mom said there’s no point in buying it if nobody’s her
e to drink it.”
“So much for empty-nest syndrome.”
“I think that only kicks in when I leave, too.”
Noah took some orange juice (no pulp) from the refrigerator, gesturing with it to me in question. I nodded. “There’s no bacon, either.”
“Mom’s got us on a new diet. We’re all cutting down on red meat. Something to do with Dad’s cholesterol, I think?”
“God, it’s like a different place back here.”
“I think there’s some turkey rashers.”
“That’s not bacon.”
“Mom insists it’s the same thing.”
“Lies, all of it.”
I couldn’t help but smile at them. I’d forgotten how Lee and Noah got on almost as well as Lee and I did—if not better, in some ways.
Once we’d eaten, Noah announced that we were gonna go back upstairs and watch TV.
Lee snorted. “Watch TV. Right, sure. Don’t forget to use protection. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Et cetera.”
I blushed, ducking my head so my hair hid my reaction. Noah smacked Lee across the head and told him to mind his own damn business. Before Noah shut the kitchen door, I heard Lee making elaborate gagging noises.
I turned around on the stairs to stop Noah, shushed him, and then giggled loudly. “Noah! Stop it! Not on the stairs!”
“You guys are so gross!” Lee yelled.
“Ooh, Noah.” I threw in an exaggerated moan.
“You’re off my Christmas card list, Shelly!”
“Love you, too, man!”
“You guys are so goddamn weird,” Noah muttered, shaking his head.
I grinned at Noah before I walked up the stairs ahead of him, and he tapped my butt lightly. When I glanced over my shoulder, raising my eyebrows at him, his eyes were skirting the walls and he whistled, feigning innocence. I turned back, carrying on up the stairs—and he smacked my butt again.
I skipped up the next few steps and felt Noah swipe at me again, but his fingertips only caught the edge of my shirt. He laughed, chasing me up the stairs. I heard Lee yelling, “You kids keep it down up there! You’re disgusting! I hate you both!” but it only made me giggle, and I kept running just out of Noah’s reach until he tackled me onto his bed, rolling me onto my back before lying on top of me to kiss me until I was sure that nothing in the world felt as blissful as this.
* * *
• • •
I’d gone downstairs to make myself some coffee. Lee had gone to see Rachel—apparently, her parents were away at a relative’s wedding, and she was planning a big evening in, complete with candles and takeout and a movie. (She’d told me this might be “The Night.” As in, the night they finally had sex.) Lee and Noah’s parents were still out, at their friends’ anniversary celebration. They’d stayed the night in a hotel up there and weren’t due back till later tonight.
On my way back upstairs, I was silent: I was walking slowly anyway because I’d filled the mug too much, but since I was barefoot on their carpet floors, Noah didn’t hear me coming.
And maybe that was a good thing, in hindsight.
Or not.
I could hear Noah’s voice drifting out into the hallway, low and tense.
His door was cracked open, and I paused just outside, listening. He was sitting on the edge of the bed facing the window, his back to me and the door, his cell phone pressed to his ear and his head bowed. I could see his hand knotted in his hair. His shoulders were tense.
Something was wrong. And I…stopped to listen.
Okay, so I probably shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, and I knew that, but the urgency of his hushed voice intrigued me enough to stop and listen in.
“Yeah, I’m with her. She’s downstairs….What? No, of course I haven’t told her!…No, not yet. It’s not the right time….No…Look, I’ll tell her at some point, but not today. She doesn’t need to know. Well…No, fine, okay, maybe she does, but…” He sighed, and I watched him run a hand through his hair again. “What, you gonna ring her and tell her yourself if I don’t?” he scoffed. “Right. Listen, Amanda, it doesn’t mean anything. Elle doesn’t need to know.”
Amanda.
He was talking to her.
About me.
The blood stopped rushing in my ears, and I was surprised I didn’t drop the coffee when my heart plummeted. I felt cold all over. I’d known, hadn’t I? That something was wrong? That things were weird between us? It wasn’t just the distance. It was…
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not the right time. She doesn’t need to know. It doesn’t mean anything.
I pushed the door open, knowing the creak of the hinges would let Noah know I was back from making myself a cup of coffee. He twisted on the bed to look at me, a stiff smile on his face—but it dropped away in dismay when he saw my expression.
“Oh shit,” he muttered into the cell phone, his voice clipped and brusque. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, or something.”
He hung up, tossing the phone onto his pillow. He stood up to face me. I walked over to the nightstand, my limbs stiff but not paralyzed, at least, and set down the coffee before I either dropped it or threw it in his face.
“That was her, wasn’t it?” I asked, my voice void of emotion but shaking ever so slightly.
Noah bit his lip, looking more nervous than I’d ever seen him. “Elle, how much of that did you hear?”
Wrong thing to say, buddy.
“Was that her? The girl from the photo?” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. I hated her too much right now.
“Yes, that was Amanda, but it’s not what you think—”
“Oh? You sure about that?”
“Yes,” he said, almost snapping, but his voice was earnest and his hands were palm-up, held out toward me—begging with me, pleading me to listen, hear him out. My heart was pounding furiously and my hands shook. “I know what you’re thinking, and I already told you: nothing happened with Amanda, I swear. Nothing is happening.”
“How do you expect me to believe that?” I stumbled back a step, as though his words physically repulsed me, and my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t cry, not right now. I blinked, so hard that I saw stars against my eyelids, to clear the tears away. “After what I just heard? I knew you were hiding something from me. You’re on the other side of the country, Noah! For all I know, you’ve forgotten all about me and this visit is some…some last-ditch effort—”
“You’re overreacting.”
“Am I? With the history you’ve got?”
It was a low blow, and not even fair—he’d had a reputation as a player that was mostly all talk, and as far as I knew, he’d never cheated on anyone. But I couldn’t control the words coming out of my mouth.
His words kept punching me in the gut: It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t need to know….
What else could that even mean?
I put a hand on my stomach, even though I wasn’t sure where I hurt—my head was spinning, my legs were probably going to give out any second, and it was like a mountain had been dropped over my chest. I needed to scream, or cry, or…I didn’t know what.
The imploring expression on his face dropped away in an instant as my words hit home, and those blue eyes were suddenly ice and narrowed at me.
“You don’t trust me.”
I felt awful, in every way possible, but my voice was biting and I couldn’t seem to stop talking. I was destroying everything and some voice in the back of my mind begged me to stop, but weeks of nervousness and strain bubbled to the surface, taking over.
“Like you’re any better. You get jealous every time I mention that I’m hanging out with Levi, just the two of us. I know you do. Is it one rule for you and another for me? Like I’m not allowed to be cagey about hearing a conversation like that with
some bitch you—”
“Amanda’s not a bitch.”
“Stop defending her. Stop talking about her. I don’t want to hear how nice she is.” I was practically screaming now, and I was so glad that nobody else was home. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me? Everyone saw that picture online. Everyone knew, and they assumed that we must’ve broken up.”
“I know, Elle, and I’m sorry, but you have to believe me when I tell you—again—that nothing happened. And nothing is happening or is going to happen. I don’t know how else I can say it. Amanda doesn’t mean anything to me like that; she’s just a friend.”
“A friend you didn’t tell me about!”
“You’re the last person who should be getting jealous of a girl I’m friends with,” he snapped at me. “Look at you and Lee!”
“That’s different—you know it is.”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “And Levi? Do you tell me every time you hang out with him?”
I grit my teeth. What did Levi have to do with any of this?
“We have lab together, classes together. It’s intense. It’s…You wouldn’t understand.”
Maybe it was a fair comment, but it felt like a stab in the stomach. What, like I was too stupid? Like he was so much better now he was in college? Like I wouldn’t get it, but Amanda would?
“Why were you on the phone to her?” I asked, quiet now. The yelling had taken it out of me, and so had his last comment. “What was that about? Because if it’s not what it sounds like, then please, please, just tell me.”
Noah opened his mouth to answer, but words appeared to fail him, and he faltered, looking away. He closed his mouth, defiant, not answering me.
I shook my head. I wanted to believe him, but when I closed my eyes I could see that dumb photo: her arms around him, his around her, her lips on his cheek, leaving an imprint of ruby-red lipstick, the drunken grin on his face. It’s intense, he’d said. What did that even mean?
Nothing good, judging by the way I felt right now.
