Grace age 13
Noah age 13
This isn’t the first time Mom’s OD’d and we’ve had to rush her to the hospital or call an ambulance, but it doesn’t change the fact that every time it happens, I think I’m finally going to lose her and my heart falls to the floor and I freak out on Dad every single time. This woman I call Mom has done nothing other than give birth to me, yet I can’t give up on her.
I don’t know the meaning of give up. I don’t give up on myself and the things I want, and I don’t give up on the people I care about, no matter how messed up they are.
Grace is going to worry. She gets afraid a lot and tends to worry more than a normal person. I’ll go to her as soon as I can. I’m scared too, and I feel like she’s the only person in the world that can make me better.
N.P.
Noah wasn’t at school the next day. It had me worried that maybe he came down with something bad because he never missed school unless that was the case, unlike me, who could just tell Mom my throat felt a little scratchy and she’d call into work so that she could take me to the doctor.
After the back hug I gave him yesterday, we spent the rest of the evening playing video games until Dad got home. Noah had gone outside and helped him cut up some firewood because Mom and I liked using the fireplace in the winter. It was November, but I didn’t think yesterday had been too cold. Was that the reason?
I could tell even Dustin and Mark looked a little bummed out that he wasn’t at school. Sara and Tiffany always asked me about him, this time was no different but I didn’t have an answer to give them.
On the way home, I said to Mom in the car, “I’m going to go check on Noah.” I didn’t want her to tell me no.
“You’ve got one minute.” I jumped out the moment she put the car in park. “Grace, I’m serious. After you check on him, hurry back. He won’t feel like coming over today if he’s sick anyway.”
I nodded then started running across the street to the trailer park but slowed down when I saw that his dad’s beat up car wasn’t in the driveway. Did something happen? I tiptoed around the holes on their porch and knocked on the door. When no one answered, I jumped off the side and ran to where I knew Noah’s room was. I’d only been to his house a handful of times but every time I came to get Noah, his dad just told me to come on in like he didn’t care that the house was a mess or his mom was passed out on the couch. I was old enough now to understand the things his parents did, and it scared me so I could only imagine what it must feel like for Noah, watching his parents destroy themselves over a high—an escape from reality. Noah still didn’t like talking about them, sometimes I wanted to just hug him and the days I encountered what he lived through, I hoped for his parents to get better and to love him more than their drugs.
I peeked into his window. He wasn’t lying on his bed and his light was off. No one was home. Now I was more worried than I was before. I walked back home in a slump. When I stepped through the door, Mom asked, “How’s Noah?”
“I don’t know. Nobody’s home.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Mom told me. “You’re too young to worry this much.” That was the thing about adults, they thought being young meant your uncertainties weren’t worth the anxiety you felt.
I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t a feeling I could make go away, at least not until Noah came home and told me everything was all right with him.
He didn’t disappoint me and somehow, he must have known I was waiting for him because he cracked open my window silently about ten that night. All that anxiety slowly poured out as I got up out of bed and helped him with the window. He used my old playhouse that was kept next to the house to climb onto the roof so that he could reach my window. Even without the playhouse, he was tall enough now that he could probably climb up from the porch.
Just one glance at him and I could tell he was tired, even in the dark. The way he moved through the window and the slouch in his shoulders. “Noah…” I was caught off guard when he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me like his life depended on it. “What’s wrong?” I whispered, my lips pressing into his collarbone.
“I’m scared, Grace.” My heart dropped as I felt the first tremble rack his body, seeping into mine. Noah didn’t cry. Noah never cried—but he was crying now. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose her.”
My throat constricted and my eyes burned with the need to cry. “Who? Your mom?”
He nodded, still holding onto me. “She overdosed again today, the doctor told us her heart wouldn’t withstand another one—how do I make her stop, Grace, when death doesn’t even faze her?”
“Shh,” I tried to soothe him. “Where is she now?”
“Still at the hospital. Me and Dad just got home. She might get to come home tomorrow.” He leaned away from me, I watched in fascination and awe as he pulled himself back together after briefly falling apart in a way I had never seen before. “Do you care if I stay here and sleep tonight?”
I shook my head in reply and he walked over to the closet where I kept the covers he used to sleep with. “No, I want us to share the bed tonight.” I didn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed when I said it. I hadn’t meant the words to mean any more than what I said.
I crawled under the covers and patted the other side. He walked over to the bed, slipping off his shoes and jacket. “I won’t do anything,” he told me quietly as he slipped under the same covers as me.
I smiled into the darkness. “I know.”
If I said, touch me, Noah, I knew Noah would.
If I said, no, I knew Noah would listen.
If I said, I want you to kiss me, then decided I’d rather not, I knew Noah would accept that I changed my mind.
Because that was the kind of boy Noah was, and the kind of man he’d stay.
“I want to kiss you goodnight then maybe you can hug up to me while I fall asleep,” I whispered toward his darkened face. I couldn’t see but I felt and heard as he moved in to kiss me. His lips were dry this time around, and it made me wonder how little Noah drank and ate today.
When he pulled back away, he said, “Turn around and I’ll hold you.”
And he did. It started out as the most comfortable position, having his arms around me, but quickly became the worst. I was sure his arm was numb underneath my head because my neck was killing me yet I didn’t move because even though our bodies were uncomfortable, our souls were at ease.
Noah was gone before Mom woke me the next morning, like he always was.
Only this time, it was so much more different than all the times before… And it was only the beginning.