Grace age 17
Noah age 18
My love hurts. She’s truly gone ugly. I pull and she pushes.
I reach out with phone calls, I drive forty-five minutes to her house almost every day where she doesn’t come to the door, and then another forty-five to get back. I’m anxious and afraid, yes, she has me terrified, and it’s truly the worst when it’s her that’s making me feel this way because she’s the one I want, the one I need when I feel lost and confused.
I stare at her mom’s text and convince myself a dozen times that she supported us, she believed in me, but I can’t say those things to Grace because she’s letting the guilt she feels swallow her whole. I want to save her, save us, but she won’t let me. If I push her on it, I’m afraid of pushing her away from me completely.
When I’m afraid that the guilt is threatening to swallow me whole along with her, I turn to Janet and let her listen because I need someone to listen and tell me that the one thing I’ve had that’s beautiful and exceptional hasn’t led to this. My feelings for Grace are powerful, they’re real and strong, that’s why it hurts so much more to think that we kept making mistakes when it came to her parents.
I know my priss loves me, it’s plain to see… that’s why she’s trying so hard, but I know her efforts are in vain. She won’t stop loving me, just like I let her make me suffer, and suffer even more because I love her, and I still think my future’s worth the pain she’s bringing me.
Because she’s the only future I’ve ever seen.
N.P.
Our house was no longer a home. It was a place where two people ate, slept, and lived without interaction. Not that I was the one making it that way. The first few weeks after Mom passed away, Dad went to work and came home and slept… I didn’t know if he was eating, I wasn’t…
I finally built up the nerve one day to tell him we needed food at the house, so he simply gave me money and I started going to the grocery store once a week in his truck. I’d make food, sometimes I thought my food tasted good, but most of the time it couldn’t compare to Mom’s cooking. I’d wait for him to get home before I’d eat in hopes that one day he’d sit down and eat with me. Instead, he chose to eat before coming home or eating when I was finished.
I thought I might understand Noah a little more in the past few months… The more Dad ignored me, the more I needed him to smile at me again. The less we talked, the more I missed him even though he was hurting me. If Noah craved his parents’ affection the way that I needed Dad’s right now, I don’t understand how he could smile and go on like he did growing up.
Dad stopped asking about Noah. He stopped asking about my life or caring since Mom faded from this world. Not that I had a life now. I rode the bus to and from school every day and that was it. I quit cheerleading. I stayed home on the weekends. I cleaned this empty house and washed our clothes while Dad stumbled around the house in a stupor. I wanted to be mad at him, but when I caught him with that look in his eyes sometimes or the way he cried while holding a picture of the three of us together, I’d run to another room and cry for Mom and wish she was here to make us better.
Noah tried to reach out to me every day. He came to the house every other day and on Christmas but I didn’t answer the door and Dad never came out of his room. He left me a present, a small necklace with my name written in cursive. I told myself not to wear it, but I never took it off once I tried it on that night. Every night he called and texted me knowing I’d never respond back. Dean and Janet tried reaching out to me many times.
Noah finally stopped coming in May and that set my world into another crisis. Even though I wouldn’t let myself have him, the thought of him giving up on me was hard to swallow. For six months I’ve ignored him, I didn’t plan to change it now. Even on the fifth, I never called and wished him a happy birthday when I should have. Noah deserved so much love, yet I only knew how to be this ugly creature right now. He might meet someone soon, what if she set his world aflame much better than what I could? My flame had dulled into a rotten apple.
I hated this future girl with a burning passion. I hated this pathetic person I’d become. Her friends were slowly giving up on her. Her father already had, and one day, Noah was going to wake up and see how dim she’d become. Or maybe he already had because he no longer tried to get in touch with me...
Until the day he sent me a friend request on Facebook. In my mind, I was already panicking because by doing this, I felt like he was invading on what I hid from him. The online world was always safe from his eyes. I never took our pictures off my page, I never changed my relationship status to single.
But I couldn’t for the life of me be angry because his profile picture was one of me and him. It was taken the first night we tried to have sex and we were lying in the back seat of his Jeep holding each other with smiles that I thought would never leave our faces. I covered my face and cried because the relief I felt was instant and it made me sick and happy all at once.
He hadn’t given up on me, even when I was trying my hardest to push him out.
_____
Noah never transferred senior year. He still wasn’t calling or texting me, but I wondered if he kept up with me through Facebook the same way I saw when he was hanging out with Lance and Jack when they’d tag him at places. I’d randomly post pictures just for him to see. Noah never posted anything, but he followed everything I posted.
I knew it was wrong of me to keep him this way, wrong of me to cling to him when I needed to cut ties completely.
I wish I could say John changed, but it took him months of occasionally asking for Noah’s number or money before he found out my mom had passed away. You’d think he’d see the empty spot where her car used to be and at least wonder, but it wasn’t until I finally broke down and told him that she was gone and that I was no longer with his son that he had the sense to look sorry. It kept him away for a bit but he eventually came back and it was after Noah turned eighteen that I handed over Noah’s number.
I never saw Noah’s Jeep at his trailer, not that I looked for it every day, and John finally stopped coming around completely. It made me wonder if Noah was letting him take advantage of him, not that I had a right to care or even think about him every day like I did.
The nights I was tempted to break down and call him, I’d pull out my phone and stare at Mom’s text and remind myself that my feelings for Noah led to her death even if the wreck was an accident that could have happened to anyone, these feelings of guilt were never going to go away.
And neither would my feelings for Noah. I grew into him, and I loved him for too long and so deeply that his presence was never going to leave its place in my heart or mind.
That was maddening itself when you were trying to push him out while desperately seeking your father’s forgiveness.
Some nights I cried for Mom, other nights I cried for Noah, and the nights I cried for them both were the worst.
______
Noah had quit the football team senior year, I had only found out when Jack posted about missing him out on the field. Sara and Tiffany’s magic was slowly working on me again because it was easier to want to get out of the house as time passed. I ended up going to the movies with them or escaping to one of their houses on the weekend to take my mind off everything else. Instead of dwelling on the things I wish I could change, I started avoiding my thoughts with my actions.
I stayed busy. I smiled too much and laughed at things that weren’t funny. I flirted with Dustin at school and I’d feed him the illusion that I wanted him. I dyed my brown hair completely blonde, I actually liked it and thought Mom would have too. She was always into fashion and all the cool things, unlike me who was only ever into Noah.
My eighteenth birthday came that next November and I was left with another gift from Noah on the porch that he placed on the other side of the doorway. I knew Noah loved me and that was the reason he did it, but my knees hit the cold wood as I fell and cried as I stared at his creations. Mom’s voice drifted through my head like a ghost and I swear I could hear her saying how much she loved this one too.
When I thought I was doing better, it all came rushing back.
______
Graduation was near and everything was changing for everyone. We decided to stay or leave this town. I told Mom I’d think of my future and I hadn’t.
Only I couldn’t think of the future when I got on Facebook to see a picture of Noah that he was tagged in. It was a group picture but he was smiling and talking to some girl that wasn’t me. She was cute and I knew that look well, she liked Noah.
I felt like throwing up. The picture made me restless and I couldn’t stop wondering if Noah smiled and laughed like I did or if he was truly happy without me now. I hated the twisted way my mind thought. I started wondering if he touched another girl the same way he touched me and when I did, I started shaking because the thought killed me. Once again, I wasn’t moving on and he was.
When Sara asked me to go to the bonfire Mark was throwing for our graduation, I said yes because I felt like it was time for me to change. I needed to fully commit to letting Noah go, but first I needed the ability to stop thinking about him to do it.
In my head, I heard Sara and Tiffany rambling on about how I needed to experience more than Noah. They always said how could I know Noah’s the one when I hadn’t tried any others? The words were calling to me tonight and I began to wonder if maybe I could find someone that could make me forget the way Noah made me feel. Maybe there was someone better, someone that I was allowed to love and touch and keep without feeling the guilt.
Sara handed me a drink, then it became drinks, and soon I felt freer than I’d felt in a long time. Everything felt and looked so loopy. Tiffany steered me away from the fire as I laughed. And when a guy from my class named James approached me, I didn’t stop him when he kissed me. Even with the alcohol giving me that freeing feeling, it wasn’t enough to make James a better kisser, it wasn’t enough to send me free-falling. I let him kiss me, still hoping for a miracle until someone jerked my shoulder back. I looked up to see Dustin lifting me to my feet.
“Okay, pretty sure you don’t want to be kissing James,” he told me as he seated me on a different log.
“I did,” I corrected him as I almost fell backward, I would have if it weren’t for him catching me.
He frowned at me. “You make me sad, Grace.”
I smiled, leaning into him. “Why? Do you want me to kiss you instead?” I slurred, leaning in to kiss him.
He held me away from his face with a sigh. “No, I mean. You acting this way, it’s not you. It’s like you’re begging someone to ruin you.”
I pulled away from him to stand but he planted my butt back down. “I didn’t come here to get lectured.”
“I know,” he muttered. “You came here to feel numb. Too bad it’s not what you’re gonna get.”
Sara came to my rescue. “Leave her alone, Dustin. She needs to let go and live a little.” She pulled me up and he let her. “But even I know it’s just not you to go kissing someone to forget Noah,” she told me once we were away from him.
I swallowed and looked down at our feet. When I looked back up, my eyes widened. Tiffany was kissing another girl. Sara saw my expression and smiled. “She’s been meaning to tell you, but you’ve been… ya know, weird about Noah and losing your mom.”
“How long?” I asked.
“She’s been dating Brittany for a few weeks. It’s not a phase, Grace, she’s bi.” I looked back at Tiffany and smiled as I watched her laugh and kiss the other girl. She looked happy. Just what kind of friend have I been not to have noticed? “No need to look guilty. She understands you’ve been dealing with a lot… Let’s just pretend you didn’t see so she can tell you herself, okay?” I smiled and nodded. Sara stopped abruptly and I looked at her. She pointed ahead, and my chest seized.
Noah stood a couple of feet in front of us, only his eyes weren’t smiling as he took me in. I shrank back in my skin as I turned to step away from Sara and stumbled in front of her. “Grace!” Sara screamed because I was too close to the bonfire.
I didn’t have to see who it was that yanked me back, but I did and was met with his hard glare as he picked me up in his arms and carried me away from the fire despite my protest. “Let me go! What are you even doing here?” I growled.
“Dustin sent me a pic I couldn’t ignore so I came here to take your ass home.”
“I’m not going home,” I slurred and pushed at his chest.
“Home or you’re stuck with me.”
I stared at his lips then turned my entire head the opposite direction. “Home.”
He pulled me into his arms tighter willing me to look at him once again. “You little asshole, if I didn’t love you, I’d—”
“You’d what?” I poked back, even pinching his arm to provoke him into making him say something that would give me a reason to hate him.
He snarled and jerked his arm away from my fingers as he searched my face for something. “How much have you been drinking?” he asked.
“Not enough,” I muttered. I still felt entirely too much being in his arms. When I remembered that it had been over a year since the last time, I felt like attacking him again.
“Drunk enough to have some guy’s tongue down your throat?” he asked darkly. “Dustin sent me a picture. It’s crawling through me right now, I’m so fucking pissed that I had to see something I didn’t want to!”
“Then why’d you come?”
“To stop you from doing something stupid. I gave you space so you could find acceptance, not to bring us further apart.”
Tears stung my eyes and I looked away. “Put me down. I can do what I want with who I want. You have!”
“What?” he growled. We were at his Jeep now. He placed me on my feet. “What are fucking talking about?”
“You’ve probably already slept with someone else since we broke up, why can’t I?”
He pinned me to the Jeep. My insides were burning, I was so angry. I wish I was only angry. Livid Noah was doing something to my ovaries, my entire body was tingling with him near. His angry blue eyes glaring into mine as he got up into my face. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“I saw the picture of you guys with all those girls,” I yelled. “I saw the way you were laughing with that girl!”
His eyes softened as his smiled dipped into victory. “That’s it.” He beamed as he pressed into me with a renewed look, one that flooded my panties. “You think I’ve been with someone else so you’re kissing some guy.”
“Have you?”
“Fuck, no,” he answered. “Are you drunk?” he asked again.
“I don’t know!” Our faces were so close, I could feel his breath across my cheek.
“Are you drunk enough to let me fuck you?” His eyes were smothering me. I could do nothing but swallow and look down. He leaned away only to grab my arms and flip me around so that my breasts were pressing over the hood of his Jeep.
“What are you doing?” I stuttered and shook from pleasure passing through me for what was to come.
“Showing you… and me that we still belong together,” he whispered into my ear as he yanked my shorts down.
“Someone will see,” I said right before I gasped as he pressed into me violently. It hurt because he never prepared me for him, and the rude awakening felt too good. He grabbed my hips and bit my shoulder as he pushed himself in deeper until I relaxed against the hood and took what he gave me. It was beautifully disgusting how perfect this felt to have him inside me again. It was nice to feel something other than self-hate. He fit so perfectly that I whimpered and cried out as he slammed into me like we were two deer rutting. Something felt different, more intense than every other time before, like I was feeling him so much more. It had my stomach basking in fire and his ongoing thrusts.
“Fuck, Grace,” Noah grunted as he pressed his face into my hair. “How can you keep me from this? What we have?”
His words provoked a violent tremble through me that exploded into an orgasm. “Noah,” I moaned and his rhythm increased to the point that I could hear him slapping against my butt. I couldn’t recall hearing him open a condom though, and the way it felt was too delicious. I lifted up and turned my head. “Noah, I’m not on any birth control.”
He grabbed my neck and tilted my face back to kiss him. “Shit,” he groaned as he thrust one last time before he pulled out and came on my butt. I watched every second as he did with a heated look. He stepped away and grabbed some napkins from his Jeep to clean me up.
I had a terrible thought, an awful pang of disappointment that he pulled out. In a way, I had wished he had taken the chance and tried to keep me. It was a horrible thought… but my twisty mind wondered if he had thought of it too.
“Still want to go home?” he asked, hopeful.
I nodded and he dropped his head. We rode in silence to the point that it was killing me. The closer we got to the house, the more I didn’t want to waste having him so close without expecting anything. I straightened up in the seat and sighed, grabbed my hands and squeezed before I finally turned to Noah. “Pull off beside the road,” I said harshly, moments away from breaking into tears. He didn’t even ask any questions, he just did as I said even making sure that we were well hidden from the road if any cars were to drive by like he knew what I planned to do.
He was already opening his arms and waiting as I yanked off my seatbelt and shorts once more and climbed onto his lap. “Unzip your jeans,” I whispered as a tear slid down my cheek. The moment he did, I sank down onto him and we both cried out. I rocked onto him slowly, touching and kissing the places I’d missed as his hands traveled over me leisurely. He kissed the tears that fell, slowly rubbed my body, and gazed at his necklace I wore around my neck like it was a treasure itself that I wore it for him. I fell apart in his arms so slowly that the orgasm that passed over me this time felt like it lasted a lifetime. “Oh, God,” I whimpered and sagged into his arms only to have him lift me up off him as he came on one of my legs and shirt.
I let him kiss me for a long time once we were finished, neither of us said a word so that I didn’t have to face the reality I created inside my head of what I thought was right and wrong.
Then it came to an end and I moved out of his lap and he drove me home.
I thought our night together would end like that, without us talking but of course, Noah jumped out of the Jeep and followed after me. “I don’t suppose to you want to come back to me now?” His voice was raw and unmasked.
I blinked my tears away as I turned to face him. “I’m leaving this town.” It was only when I said those words that I realized I had made a decision for my future.
He nodded, placing his hands in his pockets as he looked down then back up at me once more. “I’m going to wait for you,” he promised.
I covered my eyes and whispered, “Don’t wait.”
“You’re it for me, you’re always going to be it.” He stepped closer. “So, go find your yourself. Find that peace you need and while you do, I’ll be building our future until you come back to me.”
My lips quivered as I cried, but I didn’t uncover my eyes. “What if I don’t come back?”
“Then I’ll still be waiting.” I couldn’t see the blue in his eyes, it was so dark… they were truly haunting me though, his earnest gaze and rugged beauty. I wanted to forever push him to see how much he stayed. I was twisted because I wanted him to while I continued to make myself suffer… that’s what I was doing, wasn’t it? Making myself miserable to accept the guilt. “I can’t have you right now, I see what you’re doing to yourself and us. I can’t walk away, I can’t stand to see you this way but you won’t let me be next to you. You’ve got me stuck in a pause. You know it, I know it, and I can’t not wait for you… so yes, Grace, I’ll still be right here waiting for you to realize how wrong you are about what you should feel.”
I dropped my hand and met his eyes. He was so beautiful standing underneath the moon with his heart on his sleeve and his soul bared for me to see within the words he spoke.
“You won’t wait. You’ll move on,” I cried childishly, knowing I wasn’t supposed to want him to wait but I still did.
He wrapped me in his arms one last time. “I promised, didn’t I? I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want to touch another woman and I won’t. Just like I said.”
“Don’t wait,” I denied my feelings once again as I walked away from him. I pushed his reassurance right back in his face.
Dad was sitting on the bottom step when I opened the door and it spooked me enough that I jumped, grabbing my chest. “Was that Noah?” he asked.
I was too stunned to answer at first, I couldn’t believe Dad was still up waiting for me to get home like he cared. I slipped off my shoes and looked at him. His red hair was unkempt and he was wearing his sleeping clothes. He had lost weight in the last year. “Don’t worry, we aren’t together,” I muttered. “I went to a bonfire and drank a few, so Noah thought he had to show up and bring me home.” He nodded and it made me angry. “What? You’re not gonna get angry that I was out drinking?” I laughed sadly. “You really don’t care at all anymore, do you?”
I didn’t wait for him to reply.
_____
The next morning, Dad stepped into my bedroom and sat down on my bed. I gave him a wide-eyed look as I peeled my hair from my face. He placed a bank book in front of me. “It’s your savings account that your mom and I made for you when you were little. I should have told you about it once you turned eighteen,” he mumbled as he got back off the bed quickly.
“I didn’t know I had one,” I told him.
“Your mom didn’t want you to know. It was meant to be a graduation present.” He placed his hands in his pockets and looked at the picture of me and her on my nightstand next to another one of me and Noah when we were kids. “I’ll buy you a vehicle for graduation, something I’ll be comfortable with you driving all year round.”
I raised up and frowned. “I don’t understand…”
“You’re planning on going to college somewhere other than here, ain’t you?” he asked. “I heard bits and pieces last night… your conversation with Noah.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I sighed. “I mean, why are you suddenly doing this? That eager to get rid of me?” It hurt even more to say the words.
He walked toward the door. “I don’t know how to be, Grace, your mom took care of you and me both. I miss her so bad I can’t stand it.” He hurried back out the door no sooner than he said what he wanted to say.
He brought me home a white Ford Escape the following week and handed over the keys. The money Mom and Dad had saved up for me since birth was enough to do me for years, but I had already decided that I would search for a job once I moved to Kentucky. I decided on an out-of-state college. It wasn’t about the school as much as it was just wanting to get away from Dad and all these memories. It also hadn’t been easy to find an apartment that allowed dogs. I couldn’t leave Gus behind.
I spent my summer hanging out with Tiffany and Sara before we all went our separate ways. I didn’t talk to Noah anymore, but I kept up with him on Facebook.
Then fall arrived, and Gus and I were gone.
Only a few days after we settled into our apartment, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, I was surprised to see a familiar face.
“Dustin?”
And, so college life began.
Life without Noah and Mom was...