by Nicole Fox
He snorts, rolling his eyes dismissively, and I stab my finger into his pec again, hard enough he winces.
“That’s another thing. Your music. Do you remember how many times I asked you to play something for me? You always claimed you needed to practice the piece more, but the truth is you were terrified. Afraid I’d think you were bad or laugh. Afraid your dream wouldn’t pan out. Why take a risk and expose yourself when you could just hold it all in your head and imagine, right?”
“I think we both know I’ve exposed myself to you.”
I shake my head. “What we’ve been doing is another façade. It’s just another way you convince yourself you’re being vulnerable, when really, you’re only revealing the things you feel confident in. You know you’re gorgeous, so you seduced me, but you won’t let me into your head. I think because you’re afraid of what we both might find there.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I grab fistfuls of his cashmere sweater, holding him close to me, refusing to let him turn away.
“I do know what I’m talking about because I’m talking about you. I know you, Noah. We’ve always understood each other, even when we didn’t speak. You always knew what I needed, and I knew what you needed. Right now, I know you need someone in your life to tell you the truth.”
I release his sweater, smoothing down the wrinkled material with the palms of my hands, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath his rib cage.
“You may hate me now, and that’s fine. It’s your choice. But we both know I didn’t do a damn thing to deserve any of this. Not you leaving me or hating me or whatever the hell has been going on between us the last few weeks. None of it. What happened wasn’t my fault. You just needed someone to blame, and I was the person who tied your old life and your new life together. I reminded you of what you lost, so you cut me out.”
My frustration with Noah seeps away with my energy, and I step away from him.
I’m tired.
Physically. Emotionally.
Exhausted to the soul.
Noah is staring at me, his dark brown eyes blank, his square jaw clenching and unclenching.
I have no idea what he’s thinking or if he has even been listening to a word I’ve said, but it doesn’t matter.
For too damn long I’ve been doing and saying things for the benefit of other people. I’ve become who they wanted me to be and played a part.
But I’m not going to do it anymore.
Not with Noah, at least.
He can continue thinking I’m the monster who ruined his life, but he’ll have to wage this war on his own.
I won’t be a participant in it anymore.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I say, gesturing back and forth between us. “You may have spent the last two years hating me, but I’ve spent them missing you. Desperately. So, go ahead and do what you have to do to make things right for yourself, but I’m not going to participate in it. Make my life hell if you have to, but you should know, someone else already beat you to it a long time ago.”
Noah is still watching me, unmoving. I figure that’s all I’m going to get out of him. He’s spent so long pretending he’s made of stone that he’s convinced himself he is.
Even I can’t crack him.
I take a deep breath, feeling a weight I didn’t know I’d been carrying lift off of me, and walk past him.
I think he’s going to let me go. I reach the door and grab the knob, pulling it open.
But before I can open it even a few inches, Noah reaches around me and slams the door shut.
I freeze, hand on the knob, feeling the heat of him on my back, unsure what’s happening.
Then, Noah’s hand moves slowly from the door to my hip.
Carefully, he tugs on my hip, turning me towards him, and then backs me against the door.
We’ve been in this position before—recently—but it felt predatory. The look in Noah’s eyes in the bathroom today was dark and hooded.
Right now, his gaze is clear.
He’s looking at me, studying me with an intensity I haven’t felt in a long time.
I’m afraid to move, worried I might do something to scare him away, like he’s a wild animal I’m trying to lure closer.
But I take a risk and reach my hand up to stroke his jaw.
His chest stops mid-inhale, his breath catching in his throat. He leans into my hand as he releases a shaky exhale, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since I arrived.
Noah lays his hand over mine, drawing his fingers down my knuckles and over my wrist. His other hand wraps around my lower back and pulls me flush against him.
The connection is the most intimate thing we’ve done in years. It’s not like our interactions at school, frantic and tinged with shame.
There’s an innocence in the way Noah is touching me, outlining my shape like he wants to make sure I’m real.
I’m not so sure I am.
I’m not sure any of this is real.
For years, I’ve buried my feelings for Noah. My mom taunted me with the break in our friendship, convincing me he must have learned the horrible truth about me, too.
That I’m not worth it.
Not worth anything.
I was alone without him. And I was certain I had pushed away everyone in my life. That they left because of me.
So I changed.
I morphed into the kind of person who couldn’t be hurt.
I did what my mother demanded, despite it never being enough to satisfy her, and I promised myself I could get through my time in this town without anyone being on my side.
I didn’t need a friend. I didn’t need an ally.
Now, however, as Noah pulls me closer and presses his face against the soft skin of my neck, as I feel his lips brush against my body, whispering words I can’t hear, I feel my heart crack.
Heartbreak for all the years we lost.
For all the friendships and opportunities and days I gave up believing I wasn’t enough.
In Noah’s arms, with his tenderness wrapped around me, I feel worthy.
I also feel terrified.
I’m scared this is going to be taken away from me, that I’ve somehow lured Noah into a trance that he could wake up from any second.
To keep him with me, I pull away from him, grab his face, and bring my lips to his.
I feel it—the same stomach bottoming out connection I felt in the bathroom today.
I kissed Noah, and it felt like taking my first breath of fresh air in years.
He’d pulled away then, but I think now it’s because he felt it, too. Even when he was playacting as the boy who hates me, he’d felt it.
I want him to feel it again.
Immediately, Noah responds.
He moans, deep down in his throat, and crushes me closer to him. Our kisses are messy, growing more hurried by the second, but it’s only because we can’t get enough of one another.
Because kisses aren’t enough for the feeling in the air.
Kisses don’t express the degree to which we’ve come home to one another after so, so long.
I push on his chest, moving him further into the room.
Noah obeys, stumbling over a chair and his guitar before falling back onto the couch.
He takes me with him, pulling me on top of his body. I feel his excitement beneath me, hard against my leg, and I roll my hips.
Noah squeezes my ass, grinding me harder against him until I slip my hand between our bodies and into his jeans. He stills, breathing heavily, as I stroke him, moving in slow, deliberate thrusts.
He grabs the collar of my sweater and jerks it down, exposing my bra before that, too, is pushed aside. His mouth is warm over my nipple.
He gives my breasts the attention they’ve been missing, moving back and forward between them, massaging, flicking his tongue over my sensitive center, sucking until I moan.
I could stay in this moment for hours, taking the time to explo
re each other and reintroduce ourselves to our bodies, but there’s a sense of urgency.
Not only because his mom is somewhere upstairs.
But because my mother is still at home waiting for me.
Eventually, no matter how much I wish it wasn’t so, someone will come looking for us, and I don’t want to be caught with my literal pants down.
“Do you have—?” I start to ask, breathless against his lips.
He freezes, his eyes going wide. Then, he shifts me off of him, gets off of the couch, and walks through the door.
I’m confused for a second, embarrassed for another.
Did my question break the trance?
Is he just going to leave me down here, with my breasts hanging out and an ache between my legs that I’ll never be able to satisfy on my own?
God, I hope not.
Then, before I can panic too much, I hear a cabinet open, a box rattle, and Noah appears in the doorway with a condom between his fingers.
His hair is mussed and sticking up on one side from my hands running through it. His lips are red and swollen with kisses, and his eyes are bleary from being closed.
He looks like a boy who has been thoroughly ravished.
Though, not quite thoroughly enough for my taste.
I smile up at him as he tears open the condom with his teeth. “I still have a box hidden down here from before.”
Before.
That’s a good way to describe it.
Our relationship and lives have a hard dividing line straight down the center—before and after.
Before things went to shit.
After our lives went in completely opposite directions.
I wonder how much different I would be as a person—as a daughter, student, friend—if there hadn’t been a before.
What if there had only ever been a present?
What if we’d been coming down to this room to be together for years?
What if we never stopped?
A kind of sad nostalgia fills my chest, but I try my best to beat it away. I don’t want anything to change how I feel right now.
Knowing Noah wants me…
Knowing I’m with the loving boy I used to know…
That’s enough for now. That’s all I need.
Noah slips out of his pants, and I pull my sweater over my head. We undress quickly, hands trembling.
When he goes to roll the condom on, I touch his hand lightly and take over, pushing the latex down his length with shaking hands.
He hisses between his teeth and pulls me up to standing. I wrap my arms around his neck, curling my fingers in the curls at the back of his neck I love so much, and kiss him.
His hand moves between my legs, but it’s not fast and frustrated like before. His fingers are tentative, worshipful.
He massages pleasure into me, sending reverberations of it into my chest and outward. I gasp against his neck, nip his earlobe with my teeth, and cling to him, begging for more.
More.
Eventually, we fall to the floor, and I crawl over him, my knees on either side of his hips, and it’s the first time I’m frantic.
I want him.
Now.
I position him at my center and push.
My body is ready, aching for him, and it’s easy to take him in all at once.
Our bodies connect, and Noah moans, tipping his head back, showing me the sharp cuts of his jaw and the bobbing of his throat as he swallows down his pleasure.
I’m full, physically and emotionally.
Noah is large, and I feel myself stretching around him, but my heart is stretching, too.
This is what I’ve been missing. Having someone who knows me and still cares.
With Noah inside of me, it feels like I’ve been given a piece of myself back.
A piece I’ve kept locked away for too long.
“Noah,” I gasp, sliding down his length, our bodies slapping together. “More. Please.”
He stills for a minute, his hands freezing against my lower back, his body going quiet.
Then, his movements turn hurried.
He lifts me off of him, moves around behind me, and grabs my hips.
When he thrusts into me, I let out a pleasured cry and have to dig my fingers into the floor to keep from collapsing.
Noah tilts my hips, giving himself better access, and I lay on my chest, my arms extended in front of me.
I’m close, painfully close, and when Noah increases his rhythm, slamming into me again and again, it’s all I can do to keep from crying out.
Little moans escape my lips, forced out of me with each thrust, and I can feel Noah tensing.
His fingers dig into the soft flesh of my hips before, suddenly, his thrusts become more purposefully, holding himself in me longer.
I feel his pleasure pulsing deep inside, and I clench myself around him, drawing out every second of this.
When he’s done, he slides out.
I fall onto the floor in a spent heap, a smile on my face.
I sigh and roll onto my back, expecting to see him behind me.
Instead, he has already stood up.
Noah is throwing the condom away in the trash can and grabbing his clothes, roughly shoving his legs in his jeans.
“That was amazing,” I say, feeling self-conscious that I’m still naked with legs too wobbly to stand up.
He pulls his sweater over his head. “It was sex.”
My heart flops in my chest. I can’t breathe.
“What does that mean?”
Noah scratches the back of his head, turning his face away from me. “It means we’re done here. You should go.”
His words are like a knife slashing my emotions into unrecognizable shreds.
I don’t know what’s what anymore.
Is sadness causing the dry feeling at the back of my throat?
Is embarrassment making my face heat?
Or is the hammering in my chest anger?
Disappointed hopes?
Shame?
“I thought—”
“You thought you’d surprise me at home, fuck me, and fix everything between us?” Noah asks, throwing my clothes at me as he walks by. “Nice try, and my cock certainly appreciates the effort, but I’m afraid not. Better luck next time.”
Without another word, Noah walks out of the room and upstairs, leaving me to get dressed and show myself out.
27
Penny
The text from Noah is short and final.
We’re going to the party together. I’ll pick you up.
In another time, I would have seen it as a good sign that he wanted to spend time with me.
Now? I don’t know what to believe.
“When will you be at the party tonight?” Anika pulls out a compact mirror to readjust the bangs she cut over the weekend—a move I would have advised against had I not been so distracted thinking about Noah.
“I don’t know if I’m going.”
Anika and Jennifer both turn to me, mouths open. “What? You have to go.”
“Do I? Where is it written?”
Jen laughs like I’ve told a joke. “It’s going to be one of the biggest parties of the year. You have to be there. Everyone is planning to hook up.”
“Are you and J.C. going to find a bush somewhere to get wild in?” Anika asks sarcastically, nudging Jen in the ribs.
Jen does not find the constant teasing about her night in the woods with J.C. very funny, but Anika won’t let up.
Especially because Jen is still under the impression that J.C. is promised to her now.
As if having sex bonds you together.
I know better than anyone that isn’t true.
I thought Noah and I were sharing something special.
The sex in his basement felt good, obviously. It felt…healing.
As though we were sorting through all of the shit in our pasts and finding our way back to one another.
It was a spiritual experience
for me, but Noah practically ran from the room afterward.
In the days since, I’ve had time to go through all of the stages of grief. Or, at least a few of them.
I wish I could be at Acceptance, but I also know that if Noah showed even the tiniest hint of wanting me, I’d throw myself at him again.
If only to feel the way I did in his basement for a few more minutes.
When I got home, my mom was pissed I was home so late. She sent me to my room without dinner.
Over the weekend, I managed to grab a few granola bars from the pantry and eat a few bites of lunch, but otherwise, she told me it was about time I went on a fast.
“You’re looking a little bloated,” she said, taking my sandwich away. “Maybe no more bread.”
Even knowing Noah was right about me—about how I’m desperate for acceptance and love—doesn’t make it easier to stop looking for it.
So, the easiest thing to do is steer clear of him and hope the memories fade with time.
But that’s hard to do when he wants to escort me to parties.
Why does he want to go with me, anyway?
He didn’t want to see me after I had sex, so why now?
What’s his plan?
“J.C. is free to do what he wants, and I’m free to do what I want,” Jen says. “We aren’t exclusive.”
“Or in a relationship at all,” Anika snickers.
Jen glares at her and turns to me. “Have you heard about who might be The Sacrifice at Spring Fling this year? I heard a girl from Public might do it. Like, is that even allowed?”
“Only a girl from Public would have so little self-respect. Maybe it’s going to be Haley Cochran!”
“She goes here now.”
“I know,” Anika says, rolling her eyes. “But she used to go to Public. Maybe the story got garbled along the way. That would explain why Caleb has been hanging out with her. Maybe it was all a rouse to convince her to put out for everyone.’
Jen cackles. “She probably didn’t need much convincing.”
They both turn to me, expecting me to toss in an insult or laugh along with them.
But I can’t find the energy. Or the motivation.
For years, I became the person my mom wanted me to become, the head bitch in charge who everyone either loved or feared.