Grace age 13
Noah age 13
When it rains, it pours.
N.P.
I slept in that Saturday morning and didn’t wake until something slobbery and warm slid over my cheek repeatedly until I opened my eyes. A black puppy with blue eyes wagged his tail at me and I raised up. “Oh God, where did you come from?” I asked and scooped him up in my arms. He kept trying to get to my face and I laughed until I saw Mom standing in the doorway watching me.
“Your dad picked him up at the shelter today and brought him home for you,” she said, stepping into my room and sitting down at the edge of the bed.
“I don’t understand.” I kept petting the little black monster. “I did something I shouldn’t have and you guys finally let me have a puppy?” I asked in disbelief. I’d wanted a pet my whole life and this was how I got one?
Dad stormed in my room next. “I’m sure this little guy will bark his head off when we get unexpected visitors at night.” I sighed, so that was what he was for. My guard dog. “They said he was most likely a Husky and German Shepherd mixed,” he added before leaving the room. His ears made him look like a German Shepherd. I rubbed my thumbs on the inside of them.
“His puppy pads are downstairs, it’s your job to teach him how to use them until you can train him to go outside.”
I nodded quickly. “Um, Mom.” She sighed as soon as I said her name. “Do you think you and Dad are going to let Noah come back over again? He’s spent half his life over here at our house!”
“Stop trying to make us feel like the bad ones, Grace.”
“I know.” I looked down at the puppy. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I feel like Noah needs me in his life, especially right now…”
“I don’t know, your Dad’s really upset. Give him time.”
_____
My heart hurt. My stomach protested to food. I felt guilty that I hurt my parents. I felt lonely and sad that I couldn’t just walk over and talk to Noah, who I knew I’d feel at ease next to. I’d sit on the porch with Gus—the name I gave the Husky mix. I couldn’t stay outside more than a couple of minutes at a time because it was too cold out. Noah wouldn’t come over today, he wouldn’t make things worse for me, and for someone that had always cared what my parents thought of him, I knew this must be making him feel guilty too.
Which meant I probably wouldn’t see him until Monday at school.
Only that wouldn’t be the case. Sometimes things happen that you’d least expect, then there were the things that happened that you tried to prevent. The ones that kept you up at night in fear of them becoming a reality.
That night, the sirens pierced through my dreams. Normally, nothing could hardly wake me but the sound was deafening through my room. The first thing I thought was it was going to Noah’s house. In my head, I told myself I was wrong, and in order to prove myself that, I just had to see which house the ambulance pulled into.
Being next to Noah for so long, maybe I slowly tapped into his same fears because I thought briefly that hearing sirens, seeing cop cars, or random strangers pulling into your driveway where all things to be afraid of. His fears were somehow mine now.
I needed to know Noah was safe tonight. One more night.
I ran downstairs, Dad was already out on the porch. The cold air crawled up my bare legs as Mom stepped into the hallway. She watched me skip the last few steps and dash for the door. Dad stepped into the doorway. “What are you doing up?” he asked.
“I heard the ambulance, whose house?”
“Go back to bed.” He wouldn’t let me get by him.
“Whose house!” I snapped.
“Whose house is it, Steven?” Mom asked this time. “It’s not Noah’s, is it?” I felt a small bit of relief knowing that Mom still worried for him.
Dad leaned his head out the door and sighed. “It looks like it’s near the trailers.”
“I have to go check on him. What if it’s Noah?” I panicked.
“You know who it’s gonna—”, Dad sighed, “Let me put on my shoes and I’ll go check.” The moment he bent down, I slipped through the tiny space between him and the door and ran out. “GRACE!”
I was already running down the road, feet burning against the frigid blacktop. I didn’t care that I was in my tank top and shorts. The cold didn’t bother me, knowing that Noah and his parents were okay was all that mattered.
Yelling broke out in the distance. My heart sank. I recognized Noah’s voice and he was angry, he was upset. I could tell he was crying. I saw the ambulance in front of his house and slowed, taking in Noah and his dad next to the porch. Noah pushed his dad, I was close enough now to make out their words. “You killed her!” Noah yelled at him and I stopped, eyes widening.
Killed…?
“I didn’t kill her,” his dad cried out. “She kept begging me, Noah, begging me to give her just one more, one more. I’ve never been able to say no to her!”
Noah reared back and punched his Dad in the face. He staggered back. “You could have gotten her help, but you didn’t, you just fed her the drugs she wanted!”
“What about you?” His dad moved into Noah’s face. “You could have told someone, maybe got someone to help her, but no, you let her just as much as me!”
I covered my mouth. How could he say that to Noah? How was it Noah’s fault?
Noah stepped back, tugging his hair with a face so broken, my feet started moving again. “Because I didn’t want to lose her! But I lost her anyway!” Noah was furious again. “And now you’re dead to me!”
“Grace!” Dad yelled behind me.
Noah and his dad turned to look at me. His eyes were remorseful. He wished I hadn’t witnessed what I did.
Our eyes broke contact when two men carried out his mom on a stretcher. My throat filled with bile when I saw that she was covered completely up. No…
Another man stepped up beside them. “I’m going need you two to come in with me.” Noah looked like his worst fear had come to pass while his dad simply dropped his head and nodded.
I felt Dad’s hand come down over my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go home.”
How could he say those words so easily after what he just saw? After what we knew Noah was going through. Noah wouldn’t even look my way. He started following the guy to the ambulance. “Noah!” I screamed and he finally looked at me. He stopped and I ran to him.
What was even scarier was how Dad didn’t stop me. I should have known that wasn’t a good sign. I already saw where this was heading for Noah, and I was truly afraid that if he got in the back of the ambulance, I might not see him again.
I started shaking my head frantically and he couldn’t look at me again. “It’s going to be okay, Priss. I’ll be seeing you soon,” he lied.
“Noah,” I cried. “Wait!”
But he didn’t and Dad pulled me aside as one of the guys nodded toward us before getting in the front seat and driving away.
Dad led me back to the house where Mom took one look at me and cried herself. I ran upstairs because I knew Dad would tell her what just happened.
Noah’s mom died from an overdose. His dad came home the next day alone. He buried his wife without a funeral. I didn’t know if Noah got to say goodbye or where he was. Our teachers—Mom being one of them—informed us that Noah was transferring out that following Monday. Everyone asked me questions at school like I would know. He didn’t even have our house number because he never had a phone and we were always seeing each there every day so there had been no point.
Life was all wrong. A terrible imbalance to what used to be. I’d adapt, but I’d never forget Noah or the way just the thought of him made me feel.
A week later, Mom found me in my room where she sat down on the bed and told me, “If Noah is the kind of boy you think he is and the kind of man I know he can be someday, then this will be nothing for him. He’ll be okay, he’s been taking care of himself his entire life. And if he’s meant to be a part of your life, he’ll make his way back when he’s able.”
At school, Tiffany asked, “Did you tell him you loved him?”
It was then I realized Noah and I never said that to each other once. It wasn’t something I ever had to hear him say, it was in the way he called me Priss, or in the way he always looked out for me, or in the way he scolded me when I did wrong and smiled at me differently than he did for everyone else.
Some things didn’t have to be said in order to be known.
I loved Noah, I thought he must know that the same way I knew that he loved me.
Without my parents’ permission, I would start to sneak over to Noah’s dad’s house and ask if he heard anything about Noah, in which the answer would always be no. I knew his dad didn’t care as much as I did, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t stop bugging him.
Life without Noah was…