by Beth Reekles
It sucked that Noah had to go to college on the other side of the country. Why did Harvard have to be so damn far away?
I hated not being able to walk to his house to be with him.
I hated not being able to take a nap wrapped up in his arms next to him on the couch.
I hated not being able to argue with him about what to watch on TV, even though we’d end up not paying that much attention to it anyway.
I hated that he wasn’t here to make me laugh and kiss my nose and look at me like I was the only thing that mattered in that moment.
I hated that I missed him so bad and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Sure, I’d had plenty of things to take my mind off how badly I missed Noah, but times like this, it felt like there was a chunk of me missing—specifically, a Noah-sized-and-shaped chunk. It was like an ache in my chest, or something heavy pressing down on my lungs, and a kind of sadness that not even cute pictures of kittens or funny memes could alleviate.
Alleviate was one of the SAT words on my list to learn this week.
The longer the phone rang, the closer I got to the edge of my bed, and I started biting my thumbnail.
Why wasn’t he answering? He hardly ever answered me lately when I called.
Was he studying? He was probably studying and had his cell on silent, or maybe even turned off so he wasn’t disturbed.
Was he out with friends?
Why wasn’t he picking up?
Was he ignoring me?
Finally, Noah answered. The video of his face filled the screen. His beaming smile, his crooked nose, the dimple in his cheek, his bright blue eyes. His hair was short and…Was that a beard? Was he actually growing a beard?
Damn, if it didn’t suit him. He looked so much older. There were trees in the background, a low sun, blue skies. He was sitting somewhere with his headphones in and the breeze stirred his hair.
“Hey, you.”
And he sounded so happy to talk to me that I stopped biting my nail, flopped onto my stomach on my bed, propped up on my elbows, and smiled back at him. “Hey. How are you?”
“I’m good. Yeah, everything’s good. What about you? You look stressed. Did you get wasted last night and grounded?” He chuckled, giving me a look of mock disappointment.
“No, I’m good. The party was okay. I’ve just come back from dinner with Lee and your parents.”
Noah knew Lee had been blowing me off for Rachel a lot lately, and we’d argued for, like, twenty minutes a couple of weeks ago, until he swore not to talk to Lee about it on my behalf. I got the feeling telling him everything about the party last night would only cause a fight between them.
“Elle, c’mon. What’s up?”
I sighed, biting the inside of my cheek. I shouldn’t have video-called him. “Lee was kind of a jerk last night, at the party. To everyone, not just me. That’s why I went over to your place, actually, to talk to him.”
“And?”
“We’re good. He’s gonna try not to ditch me for Rachel so much.” And then, before I could stop myself, I frowned and blurted, “Did you know he wants to apply to Brown?”
“What, like Dad did?”
“Like with Rachel,” I clarified.
I watched it dawn on Noah. His eyes drifted away from the screen and I watched his eyebrows draw together and his lips press into a line. I waited for him to start on some kind of rant about how Lee was out of order, how that was too far, and what about me, and Berkeley?
But when he finally opened his mouth, what he said was, “You know, there’s plenty of good schools in Boston.”
It knocked the breath out of my lungs for a second, and we stared through the phone at each other. I drew a breath through my nose—it sounded loud, sharp, uneven. Lee had made a throwaway comment about it yesterday, but hearing Noah suggest it…
He really wanted me there with him?
I must’ve been quiet for too long because Noah shuffled, uncomfortable, his cheeks faintly pink. His eyes looked anywhere but at his phone and he ran a hand back and forth through his hair.
“Maybe I can look,” I said. “Or something.”
“So Lee’s looking at Brown,” he said. “That must’ve been weird for you. Is that why he’s been such an ass to you lately?”
I tried hard not to look as relieved as I felt that he’d changed the subject away from going to college in Boston with him. I was flattered he wanted me to be nearer to him, but…I couldn’t choose a school just because my boyfriend was there, could I? And what about Lee? And there was my dad and Brad to think about—Berkeley was close. That was always a factor. I couldn’t just leave them.
It just didn’t feel like the kind of conversation to have on a whim, over the phone.
“Actually…,” I said, and explained that Lee’s attitude had less to do with Rachel, like I’d thought, and more about him feeling he had to live up to Noah’s reputation. I watched Noah’s expression cloud over as I told him about it, torn between guilt and annoyance.
“Maybe I should talk to him. Tell him to cool it or something. I don’t know.”
“Seriously, don’t—he was pretty upset about it. He’ll probably just feel worse if you try and talk to him.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Damn straight I’m right. I’m always right.”
“Sure, Shelly. Always right.” He flashed me his trademark smirk, turning my insides to goo…and making me miss him. So. Damn. Much. I wanted to reach through the screen to grab his face and kiss him.
“I can’t believe you’re growing a beard,” I told him.
He tilted his head back, rubbing a hand over his jaw and giving me a better view of it. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s hot.”
“Right again, Shelly.” He winked, making me laugh. “Honestly, I broke my razor and haven’t gotten a new one yet.”
“Classes keeping you busy?”
“Something like that,” he said, expression stiffening.
I felt my stomach knot. What had I said? He’d stopped talking to me so much about his classes and stuff. Honestly, I was kind of worried about him. He always seemed to change the topic when I asked about how he was doing in his classes or asked him about that essay he’d been working on lately. Sure, maybe he just didn’t have much to say, or thought I’d find it boring or wouldn’t really get it, but I could tell he was holding back.
But I asked, “So…how are you finding college? Are you handling everything?”
He gave a blasé half-smile, shrugging one shoulder. “Sure I am. I’m not top of the class or anything but I’m coping, you know?”
My voice was quiet when I responded. “No, not really. You don’t talk to me much about college.”
Apparently, it was my day for brutal honesty with the Flynn brothers.
“Sure I do—”
“Not really. You tell me about people, and stuff that’s going on socially, or about football, but you don’t ever talk to me about your classes.”
“I’m doing fine, Elle.” There was an edge to his voice. A muscle jumped in his jaw, which only solidified my impression that something was up.
“It’s okay if you’re finding it hard. You know, I was reading some articles on this lifestyle blog by a college sophomore about how a lot of students struggle to settle in at college, you know, with the workload and stuff, and—”
“Elle!” Noah didn’t exactly shout my name, but he raised his voice. He didn’t seem mad, just…tired. He lowered the phone to his lap and I saw him rub a hand over his face. “Would you please stop hounding me about this? I’m fine. All right?”
Maybe I should just let it go.
He’d talk to me when he was ready, right?
(How long was that going to take, though?)
I could’ve pushed him on it, but I wanted to be able to trust him. I wanted him to be able to trust me. I didn’t want to be a nag, and I hated having actual arguments with him now, when we couldn’t kiss and make up. He obviously didn’t want to talk about this, and I knew the easiest thing to do right now was drop it.
So I did.
“All right.”
“So,” he said, smile stiff, and I could hear the effort he made to sound casual, “you got any plans for later?”
“Not really. Have another go at my college essay. Maybe watch a movie. Lee was going to stay in and do some reading for English class. He needs to keep his grades up for football, so I figured I’d leave him to it.”
“Fair enough.”
“What about you?”
“There’s a party at one of the frat houses. Steve managed to get us an invite. His girlfriend knows one of the guys there or something.”
“Oh. Um, cool.”
There was a lapse, one I didn’t know how to fill.
Over the summer, we’d fall into silence sometimes, but it never mattered—we didn’t need to fill the quiet, because it was comfortable. I told myself that it was only awkward right now because we were on the phone, and that was different from going quiet when we were together in person.
I considered bringing up the Sadie Hawkins dance. Asking him if he’d come home for the weekend to go with me. But I had a feeling he’d say no, and I didn’t want to hear that right now. Especially after we’d just avoided an argument.
And when the silence just got worse and more uncomfortable, so much so that Noah cleared his throat but didn’t bother to say anything, I said, “I’d better let you go, then. To get ready, or whatever.”
He was visibly relieved for the out.
I tried not to appear so obviously disappointed.
“Yeah. Yeah, I promised Am—I promised Steve I’d get there a little early with him. The frat said they’re not taking any more new pledges this year, but he’s still trying to get in.”
“Okay.” I sucked in a deep breath, but it was hard. It was hard to sound genuine when I said, “Well, have fun.”
We said goodbye before ending the call, and I sat up, leaning back on my elbows and trying to draw in deep breaths through my mouth, past the lump in my throat. I blinked hard. Nothing was wrong and there was no reason to cry. Nothing was wrong. Things were just…strained…because we were so far apart and it had been over a month since we’d seen each other. That was all. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Everything was fine.
I hoped.
The awkward silence, the almost-argument, and my unconvinced response to his suggestion that I apply to schools in Boston gnawed at me. I lay on my bed for a while, feeling queasy, scowling at the dark screen of my phone. It lit back up—another text from Levi, begging me to check out a vlogger.
When had things stopped being so easy with Noah?
Chapter 10
By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was actually glad of it for once. Noah and I had talked on the phone again on Sunday, but it had been worse than usual: stilted and full of pauses and so not like it usually was. I just couldn’t figure out exactly what had gone so wrong to know how to fix it.
I was being stupid, right? There was nothing wrong, and I was getting paranoid for absolutely no reason, and things were fine. We’d just been away from each other for a while and that was why things were weird. I was being stupid.
Lee was running a little late in picking me up for school—it was his turn to drive this week—so we arrived just as everybody started pouring from the student parking lot to homeroom.
“Is it just me, or are people staring at me?” I asked him, dropping my voice and looking around furtively. Maybe it was leftover paranoia from thinking about Noah, but I was sure that people were looking at me. And not glancing over my way and smiling, like they might on any other day, but staring at me and muttering to their friends.
I looked down at myself. Had I dropped peanut butter down the front of my uniform? Had one of my buttons popped off? Was my fly open? Was there toilet paper stuck to my shoe?
Nope.
“Is there something on my face?”
Lee gave me a once-over. “No, you’re good.”
“People are staring, aren’t they?”
“Maybe it’s me. I mean, now Noah’s gone, maybe they realize that I’m a hot piece of ass myself.” He tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. He’d been growing it out—now I realized, probably to look more like Noah. “Noah does take after me in his good looks, after all.”
“Ha-ha.” I rolled my eyes. I’d have laughed, except my heart was pounding and my palms were starting to sweat. I hated this feeling. Something between being the center of attention and missing out on something big. Whichever one it was, I hated it.
“Seriously. Please tell me I’m imagining things.”
“No, I think they’re staring. Yeah, see? That guy pointed.”
“Why? What did I do?”
I racked my brain, trying to think if I’d done anything at the party on Friday night that people would be talking about. Sure, I’d been crying, but so what? A sobbing, tipsy girl wasn’t unusual for a high school party. And I had a clear memory of the whole night and knew I hadn’t done anything really stupid.
We merged into the throng, not bothering to try and find the others—there was no point in trying to catch up with them now; it wasn’t long until homeroom. We’d just see them later. Lee started talking about this book passage he was writing an essay on for English class and how brilliant one of the metaphors in it was, but I wasn’t really listening.
I was too busy concentrating on what everybody else was saying.
“I feel so sorry for her.”
“Did you see her at Jon Fletcher’s? She left with that new guy, Levi Monroe. I bet they went home together. Slut.”
“You saw her leave with that Levi guy, right?”
“I heard they broke up.”
“She doesn’t even look upset. If that were me, I’d be devastated.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that to her.”
“He’s such a dick. I mean, she’s such a sweetie. How could he?”
“I heard she hooked up with Levi Monroe. I know, right? He could totally do better….Do you think they broke up?”
It was only when Lee pushed me in front of him into homeroom that I realized he’d had his hand on my back and had been guiding me here the whole time, and I’d totally zoned out. Now I froze, and he pushed me again, gently. I stumbled, feeling like Bambi on ice.
When we took our usual seats, Rachel leaned forward immediately. “What the hell, right?”
“Huh?”
“All these rumors going around. They’re crazy.”
“What rumors?” My brain felt fuzzy. Maybe they weren’t even rumors about me. Maybe someone else had pulled some crazy shit over the weekend. Maybe someone else had gone home with Levi, when he’d gone back to the party. I blinked a few times, but it didn’t help clear my head.
“Everyone’s talking about it,” Lisa pitched in, and even though she gave me a pitiful, sympathetic look, her tone was laced with the excitement that accompanied any kind of gossip. “How you left the party early. With Levi.” She glanced at his empty seat.
“But we know you didn’t actually, you know, go home with Levi,” Rachel added, cutting Lisa a glance that clearly said “Shut up.”
Then I caught on, gaping at them, and Lee said what I was thinking before I could recover from my speechlessness.
“Wait, people think Elle hooked up with Levi?”
The girls exchanged a look. Lisa said, “Yeah. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lee and I chorused. We exchanged a look, Lee pulling his best “WTF?” face.
&n
bsp; I carried on. “Why would they think that? Just because I left early and he took me home? Like that never happens to anyone else?”
The girls looked at each other again, more apprehensively now. My stomach was already tied up in knots, and now those knots pulled tight and I squirmed in my seat. My nails dug into my palms.
“What? What aren’t you telling me?”
“People are also saying,” Rachel said slowly, looking down at her fingertip tracing a pen mark on her desk, “that…that you and Noah broke up.”
That threw me even more than the rumors that I’d slept with Levi. “Wait, what? Where did that come from?”
“Well…did you?” Lisa asked, obviously unable to help herself.
My eyes narrowed. “No, we’re…we’re still together.” If a little rocky…“Why? What are people saying?”
Rachel suddenly hauled her huge Mary Poppins–esque purse up onto her desk, pawing through books and files and sheets of paper for her cell phone. “It’s less what people are saying”—she tapped on her phone a few times, before holding it out—“and more what they’re seeing.”
Lee got up and moved to Levi’s empty chair, then leaned over so his head was next to mine. He sucked in a sharp breath. I was pretty sure I’d forgotten how to breathe.
Blown up on Rachel’s cell phone screen in crisp, high definition, was a photo uploaded to Facebook from someone called Amanda Johnson.
Noah was tagged in it.
The caption read: Such a fab night! xxxx—with Noah Flynn.
The picture had sixty-two likes. It had seventeen comments. Eighteen—someone else commented while I was looking.
The photo showed Noah, wearing a white shirt lined with blue under the collar and with blue thread; I remembered him buying it just before he left for college. There was an extra button undone. There was a huge grin on his face, and he looked like he was laughing at something.
He had his arm around a girl, holding her in close.