by M. J. O'Shea
“N-Noah?” The blond head turned and looked at me, still for a second. Then he jumped up in one smooth movement and he ran right for me. Before I knew it, my feet had been lifted off the ground and I was enveloped in a tight, spinning hug.
“Zack!”
NOAH HARPER and I met when we were five years old. It was the first summer my family went to Harper Lake, my first real trip out of New York City. You might notice that his name matches the name of the lake. It also matches the name of the huge stone mansion that crouched like a giant on the shore at the end of the lake. I didn’t even want to know how loaded his family was. All I knew was that they’d been there forever, like part of the landscape.
That first year, he’d heard from his nanny that a boy his age was spending the summer at the lake and had been excited to make a new friend. His nanny, sweet old Mrs. Clooney, had walked him over to meet me. He smiled but hung back, looking nervous and shy. She had to tell me his name since he spent most of the introduction hiding behind her legs. I didn’t have much of a problem with shyness, so for the first hour or two I did enough talking for both of us. By the end of the day, I not only had him talking but laughing and shouting and chasing me around the dock with a garter snake he’d found in the bushes. It was the beginning of a long friendship.
I don’t remember a ton about that first vacation, but I do remember every single one after. Vividly. Starting from the minute I’d get there, usually greeted by an impatient Noah waiting at the cabin’s front door, and lasting until the car was packed and ready to head for home in August, we were inseparable. All the fort building, hiking, swimming, and fishing, all the summer adventures I had were shared with him. He was my best friend in the world. All year we’d keep in touch, through childish letters at first and e-mail and Internet chat when we got older. We’d spend the long months planning our summer campouts and various adventures. I looked forward to his e-mails and our nightly chats more than any other part of my life.
If I’m being honest, I think I always knew what I felt for him was bigger than friendship. There was a moment, somewhere when we were twelve, maybe thirteen, where I looked at him and really knew, but it had always been there. Of course, I didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure he wasn’t into boys, and I didn’t want to lose him by doing something stupid.
Happened anyway. I blamed myself.
Last summer, one long, lame year ago, had been the best by far. At least, until I ruined it. Noah and I had outgrown fort building and digging for worms, but we still spent every waking moment together. We talked and wrote stories, read comic books and dreamed about the future. I decided we’d both go to NYU when we got out of high school. He agreed, and we planned to share a dorm room. I was so desperately in love with him by then that I could barely wait to spend every single night with him only a few feet away. I remembered wishing senior year could pass in an instant so we could be together. Every once in a while, I’d get a twinge when I thought of him meeting a girl. I knew he would soon enough, with his gorgeous blond looks and easy smile, but I hoped I had at least a little time with just us two.
It happened in August. He’d been acting a little strange for a while; ever since we’d gotten back from our yearly campout for his birthday. I’d tried to pry it out of him, figure out what was wrong, but every day he seemed a little more distant. I got the feeling like he was trying to say good-bye.
“Noh, what’s going on?” I’d asked him. “You gotta tell me what I did. I’m your best friend.” The look he’d given me that night was so sad I nearly cried.
“Zack, it’s not you. I promise.” He tried to smile but it looked a little off. He leaned over and nudged me with his shoulder. “I’d tell you if I could, but I can’t talk about it. It’s family stuff.”
I’d reached over, intending to comfort him. I swear that was the only thing I wanted to do. Instead, I found myself cupping his chin in my hand and leaning my forehead against his. Funny thing was, he didn’t pull away.
“I get it,” I whispered, our faces only inches apart. “I’m here if you need me. I’m not going to pressure you to tell me what happened.”
And that’s when I did it.
I still don’t know what got into me. Maybe it was too many years of wishing and wanting. But something made me kiss him. Yeah, you heard right. I said I kissed him. Could I have been any more of an idiot? I kissed the guy I’d been friends with since we were five years old, sitting on the dock in the dark with our legs dangling in the lake. But it was too late to take it back.
The amazing thing, though, was that he kissed me too. Really, he did. I know I wasn’t imagining the way he smiled against my lips or the gentle fingers that tangled in my hair and touched the skin on my neck. I still get all shivery when I think about it. I know when we said good-bye that night it was with more kisses and shy smiles, looking back at each other over our shoulders a million times as we walked away. What I’ve never been able to figure out is what happened between that night and the next day.
I’d been up all night, grinning at the ceiling and spinning fantasies in my head about loving Noah forever, but when I met him on the dock in the morning, the expression on his face made my stomach clench in a knot.
“What’s wrong?” I knew I didn’t want to hear his answer.
“I’m not going to NYU with you anymore. I talked it over with my parents this morning and we all think it’s best. Actually… they think it’s best if we’re not friends anymore at all.”
“What? No! That was the plan. What about the plan? What about last night?” I was desperate and near tears.
Noah looked distraught, like he couldn’t stand to be saying what he was saying. “Look, Zack. I can’t do this. I think it’s probably better if I just listen to them. We can’t be friends.”
He walked away then, ending everything we’d had and whatever had blossomed the night before with a few words that felt like shards of glass ripping into my insides. I collapsed on the dock and cried, not caring who saw or heard. My heart was broken, and I knew it was somehow my own damn fault.
“NOAH, WHAT on Earth are you doing here?”
He pulled back and looked at me sadly. “I like the dock. I come out here when I need to think. It reminds me of better times, you know?”
He looked different. More than I did, I thought. The hints of roundness had melted out of his cheeks in the past year. If anything, he was even prettier. I wanted to kiss him. Still. Even after all those months with nothing, that hadn’t changed.
“I don’t mean what are you doing on the dock, I mean here. At the lake.”
He gave me a confused look. “Why wouldn’t I be here? I live here.”
“But I haven’t seen you all week. Like at all.”
He looked at the ground. “I’ve been here,” he mumbled quietly.
Ouch. Of course he did say that he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Why would he come and find me?
It still freaking hurt that he didn’t want to be near me when I would have done anything to see him. I shrugged and turned to walk away but his hand on my arm stopped me.
“Please don’t go,” he whispered. I looked at him, not even trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. “Listen, I don’t even know if I have the right to ask, but how’ve you been?” He cocked his head to the side like he’d always done when he asked a question.
I didn’t know how to answer him. How do you tell someone that you’ve spent the last twelve months keeping as frantically busy as possible so you didn’t have time to miss him?
“Okay, I guess.” Awful.
He reached up and traced my cheek with his thumb. The gesture was so wonderful, so confusing that I couldn’t even react.
“I’ve missed you, Zack.” The combination of the words and the touch made my pulse leap.
“Then why?”
Noah sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a second. “Because I was stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“I let my family stu
ff take over. I wish I could explain it to you, but it would sound so crazy.”
“Everyone’s family is crazy, Noh.”
He smiled at his old nickname. “I know, but I let mine get in the way of the best thing that had ever happened to me.” He touched my face again and rubbed the ends of my too-black hair between his fingers.
“How can you really mean that? I thought I’d scared you off by kissing you.”
“No! It wasn’t like that at all.” He shuddered and wrapped me in his arms. “I hated what I did to you last summer. It was what my parents wanted, and I should have said no. I’ve regretted it ever since. Losing you was awful.”
I looked up at him and smiled hesitantly. Our faces were only inches apart.
Is this really happening?
Ten minutes ago, I was angry and lonely and now all of a sudden, I had Noah back in my life, holding me like he’d never let go. I guess I could have decided to be mad at him, to walk away and hurt him like he’d hurt me. I didn’t. He was forgiven the second I felt his arms around me.
I was pretty sure he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. My eyes drifted shut, and suddenly I was engulfed in another tight hug. I felt his body trembling. His mouth descended on mine, sweet and pliable. I trembled too and shimmied closer, knowing in a second that I wouldn’t have forgotten such a feeling. I did everything I could think of to touch him.
“Noah,” I whispered against his mouth, never wanting the kiss to end. It was just like I remembered. Better, even, because I knew what else was out there and it was nothing like him. When we finally broke apart, our foreheads were still connected.
“I’m sorry. It was probably way too soon for that,” Noah said.
“I’m not sorry.” I grinned and pulled his lips to mine for another small kiss. “Anyway, it’s not too soon. It’s forever, practically. I’ve been waiting for that kiss for a whole year.”
“Do you know how bad I wanted to kiss you on that awful morning?” he whispered.
“Probably. I know I sat up that whole night thinking about kissing you again.” I threaded my hands through his hair, loving the softness against my fingers.
“I’m such a jerk,” he muttered to himself.
I lifted his face with my hand so he had to look at me. Any residual hurt I may have had slid away. He looked so sad and alone.
“You’re not a jerk, Noah. You were a scared kid who listened to his parents. I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have done the same. Hey, it’s not like I’ve ever brought any of the guys I’ve dated home to meet my family.”
Noah looked horrified all of a sudden. “Wait, do you have a…?”
I smiled, understanding. Even if I’d been with other guys, the thought of him with a boyfriend made me want to hit things.
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend. Do you think I would have kissed you like that if I didn’t mean it?”
“But I kissed you. I didn’t even ask.”
“You didn’t have to.” I tugged on his hair, bringing his mouth to mine for another kiss. There was no point in playing games. He had to already know how I felt about him. I sure did. It only took me minutes to feel everything with him that I’d never come close to feeling with anyone else.
WE SAT on the dock, legs crisscrossed and facing each other. I had no idea what time it was. We’d been there for hours talking, kissing, staring at each other like love-drunk morons. I didn’t ask Noah about his family drama. I was so happy just being there with him, and I didn’t want to ruin it by bringing up the past. Instead, he asked me questions about high school, New York, and the guys I’d dated. It was inevitable but painful to admit that I’d never wanted any of them. That I’d only dated to try to keep my mind off him and it didn’t work for a second.
I guessed I understood his eagerness. I wanted to know everything about him too. To be honest, it hurt less to hear about the few guys he’d been with than when he mentioned his parents. I’d always felt they liked me, and to remember how they’d told him to push me away made my gut twist.
He told me he’d started working for his parents that first fall, taking high school classes online at night and learning the ropes of their family business during the day. I realized at that point that I had never known what they’d done all those years or how they’d come to live in that big stone mansion in the middle of nowhere. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but something stopped me.
There was one thing I had to hear him say, though.
“Before we go waltzing into the sunset, there’s something I have to ask, Noh. Your parents didn’t want you to be with me a year ago. I’m not sure what you think is going on here tonight, but to me it seems like we’re heading that way pretty quickly.” He nodded and squeezed my hands. I let out a long shaky breath. “I want this, believe me I do, but how is it going to be different? I mean, are you ready to tell your family to go screw themselves if they still don’t like it?”
Noah let go of my hand to run his fingers through my hair and down along my jaw. His touch sent little happy skittering tingles across my skin. He put his hand back in mine and threaded our fingers together.
“It wasn’t quite like that…. I mean, they didn’t—well, it’s hard to explain. Anyway, I really hope tonight is the start of something for us too, and I’d be ready to tell my parents to screw themselves in a heartbeat.”
My heart sped up and I grinned until I noticed the crestfallen look on his face. “Noh, you don’t have to say anything right away. I mean, we don’t want to start with the family drama before we’ve even had any fun together.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. I mean, it doesn’t matter what they think. It never will. They died, Zack. In a crash, that first month we were apart. I’d have come to you sooner, but I didn’t know what to say. I figured you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
I was floored. I realized his hands were shaking in mine and I squeezed them reassuringly. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too. A big part of me still hated them when it happened. I feel bad that things weren’t different. I never really had the chance to say good-bye.”
I leaned over and hugged him, kissing his cheek and running my hands through his hair. He pulled me into his lap and I wrapped my arms and legs around him as tightly as possible.
We stayed like that for a long time, comforting each other, wishing things could’ve worked out differently. I for one hoped that things were going to be a lot different, starting pretty much immediately. He’d basically told me he wanted to be with me, and I wanted him more than anything in the world. It would be just fine with me if we pretended the past twelve months never happened.
I breathed in, closing my eyes and smiling. I had walked past guys at school every once in a while who smelled just a little bit like him and my body would catapult back to this place almost instantly, remembering what it felt like to have his arms around me. It always hurt so bad, the remembering. I smiled, happy it didn’t have to hurt any longer.
After a while, he leaned back and looked at me. He rubbed my hair between his fingertips again and smiled absentmindedly. “You know, I like you like this.”
“Really, you like it? Maya keeps calling me emo-boy and wanting to put her eyeliner on me. My mother hates it, of course. I just wanted to try something different.”
He chuckled and leaned in for a slow, gentle kiss. “I think it’s hot,” he whispered, smiling the sideways half grin that had always made my stomach flip.
Noah gave me another long kiss. His hands slipped under my shirt to glide along the tiny hairs on the small of my back. I shivered hard. I still couldn’t believe it was real. None of it. After a few minutes, the kiss softened and we held onto each other, letting our breathing calm down. I didn’t want to ever let go.
I opened my heavy eyelids and smiled sleepily at him. When I finally focused, I noticed the sky was starting to get light, turning from midnight blue to pale lavender. I thought of how amazing it would be to si
t with him on the dock, holding each other and watching the sunrise.
“Look,” I murmured quietly, pointing toward the horizon. “Isn’t it pretty?”
He nodded. “I haven’t seen a sunrise in a long time.”
“Neither have I. Who the hell wants to get up that early?”
He smiled too, but I noticed the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Zack, I don’t want to go, but I’ve got a ton of work to do today and I need to get some sleep. Can I see you again later?”
Work? Since when do you work? I guessed it didn’t matter. We had all the time in the world to learn each other again. I planned to start as soon as possible. I smiled at him. “Of course you can.”
“Want to come over to my place and hang out for a while after you eat dinner?”
I nodded. I would have been happiest glued to him all day long, but I’d take what I could get. He gently untangled our legs and stood before pulling me up next to him. I was stiff from sitting for so long. I stretched and yawned hugely.
He reached over and rubbed his fingertips on my exposed stomach. “Cute,” he teased with a smile before pulling me into one last warm hug. We walked down the dock together, hand in hand, unable to stop smiling.
“I’ll see you later,” I mumbled through another big yawn.
“Yeah, you need to go to bed, sleepy.” He gave me one last sweet, lingering kiss before heading his direction on the lake path.
“Night, Noah,” I called after him quietly.
He waved, smiling, then turned, and I watched him walk until the path curved behind some trees and disappeared.
I nearly skipped home.
Chapter Three: Impossible Things
THAT EVENING, Noah seemed different. Not sad different with flashes of his old humor like the previous night, but weird different. Uncomfortable. Like there were things about himself that he didn’t want to air in the light of the moon.