Chapter 14
I worry that the distance growing between me and Noelle has ventured into dangerous territory. It’s not a tangible, aggressive tension, but the effect feels the same. I miss her, and as much as I enjoy my time with Verit, he can’t provide the kind of intimate camaraderie I crave from my best friend.
Girls’ night? I finally text, in a fit of guilt after cancelling on our plans to hook up with Verit for the millionth time in a row. Girls’ day, actually. Saturday? Brunch, spa, happy hour? My treat :)
It’s the magic itinerary that we normally only treat ourselves to a couple times a year, usually on a birthday or Valentine’s Day, if we’re single and sometimes even if we’re not. If done right, these days usually culminate in drunken rewatches of our favorite old-timey romcoms, and us passed out slumped against each other on the couch, with half-empty popcorn bowls precariously balanced on our laps and red wine stains on the carpet.
Of course!!!!!!! Noelle texts back almost immediately, accompanied by a wild array of excited emojis. Don’t you fucking dare bail on me, Ariana.
I text her our emoji code for cross my heart, and I mean it.
***
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in today?” Verit asks faux-innocently, wrapping himself around me as I brush my hair, his hand slipping sneakily into my jeans. “Stay in bed, I mean?”
“I’m sure,” I say, pulling his hand out of my pants with more self control than I knew I possessed. “I owe her this. But we can stay in bed all day tomorrow, if you promise to cure my inevitable hangover.”
“Of course,” he says, settling for a consolation kiss before I grab my purse and head out.
I had Verit come over for a quickie before I met Noelle this morning. It’s pathetic, but just the thought of not feeling his touch for over 24 hours seemed unbearable. And considering the eagerness with which he responded to my request, it’s possible he may have felt similarly. With Verit, sex isn’t just a want, it’s a need. Oh god, just thinking about him…
“Wow, you’re really far gone, aren’t you?” Noelle teases, knocking me out of my bubbly-induced daydream.
“Hmm?” I ask, drawing my attention back to our brunch and mimosas. Bottomless, of course. “What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe you should slow down just a touch,” she says, gesturing at my glass. “We’ve got a long day of drinking ahead of us, and you’re already totally spacing out.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling as if I just got away with something. “Right, of course.”
We get through the day like varsity players: bottomless mimosas, champagne at the spa, a long stroll through Central Park with spiked coffees to re-energize before the main event, and then happy hour, keeping a running score of who can get the most drinks bought for them.
“I think I’m going to break up with Robbie,” Noelle spits out that night, as Meg Ryan falls in love on screen and I nearly choke on a handful of potato chips in real time.
“What?” I ask, struggling to sit up straight and face my friend. “What are you even talking about?”
“We fight too much,” Noelle says, eyes still fixated to the television as if it’s her lifeline. “We fight all the time, about the smallest shit, and it’s been this way for months now.”
“You’re supposed to fight,” I say, the words coming out of me automatically. I’m way too far gone for this moment. “That’s how you know the passion is still—“
“No, don’t give me that shit,” she says, rolling her rapidly moistening eyes. “That’s something people say in movies, to make us all feel better about our dead-end relationships. Constant arguments might be a kind of passion, but it’s not a sustainable one, and it’s not what I want.”
She pauses for a second, then punctuates her statement with a handful of popcorn thrown at the happy couple on TV, and a frustrated shout.
“Noelle…” I say, and trail off, because this is how these conversations go. She knows what she wants, and she doesn’t really need my input for this part of it. She just needs me to listen.
“It’s okay,” she says, right on cue. “We haven’t even been together for a year, and I always knew he wasn’t the one. I mean, remember that mustache he had when I met him? Ugh, what was I thinking, Ari?”
I start giggling despite myself, and after a beat she joins in, and we trade shitty Robbie stories until she’s crying with laughter now. Maybe she’ll break up with him, maybe she won’t. She’s right, she probably won’t end up with him at the end of her story. But I’m in no position to judge her for taking the long way around.
“What about you?” Noelle asks a little later, when we’re cuddled up in her bed, eyelids heavy with liquor and emotion.
“Me?” I repeat, blinking into the darkness.
“Yeah, what about your K?” she says, her shape warm and familiar beside mine. “It must be going well. You spend practically all your time with him.”
I roll the possible responses around in my mind before speaking, trying to decide which half-truth to lean into. But lying here in the dark together, wrapped up in the pure, untouchable kind of intimacy that only longtime friends can share, I feel compelled to tell the truth. I’m not sure what I’m going to say until it’s spilling out of me, the reality of my situation unspooling in real time.
“I’m in deep, Noelle. Real fucking deep. Maybe this is a huge mistake, and maybe I’ll regret it. Hell, I’ll probably regret it. But right now, it doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever known before, good or bad. This is life changing, one-in-a-million, otherworldly, and I’m not going to run away from it just because it’s a little scary.”
“I thought it was just sex,” Noelle says very quietly, as if afraid she’ll spook me.
“Yeah, it is,” I say after too long a pause. Then again, not sure which one of us I’m trying to convince. “It is.”