Grace age 11
Noah age 12
Grace’s body is changing. I’m always with her, I always notice. She’s tall but I’m taller now. It shouldn’t make me happy but it does. I’m the only guy that’s lucky enough to be close to her. I’m not afraid to hint around that no one’s to mess with her to the other boys in our class. It doesn’t mean that they’ll listen.
I wouldn’t listen if I were in their shoes either.
But my relationship with Grace, no one will ever compare.
I’m only a boy, but I know already with every new moment I spend with Grace, she’s my future. I just have to be someone that can take care of her. I’m my father’s son, instead of teaching me how to be a man, he’s taught me every way not to be.
I can’t give her wings, but I’ll make her heart soar, the moment she lets me.
I’m still waiting… to grow up.
N.P.
Everyone was talking about “it”. The “it” I was referring to was the things that went on in the video I could never forget.
Sex.
Most of the girls in our grade were starting to get boobs, me included. I hadn’t started my period yet but Sara had already. It was getting awkward to be around Noah when we were alone anymore. All I could think about was the things everyone whispered about at school.
Why was everyone so curious about something like that?
Noah was at a weird stage himself. I kept remembering how we used to be the same height. Now, his inches were leaving mine behind. He often slipped into my room at night to shower and sleep on my floor the nights his parents held parties. He was becoming increasingly more self-conscious about the way he looked and smelled. I often teased him the same way he did me, but sometimes I remembered the moments he made me feel strange and I was at a loss for words.
I still didn’t want to kiss Noah.
I didn’t—
I didn’t want him to say yes to any of the girls that asked him out either.
Luckily, he always said no.
_____
“Here,” Dustin muttered, slapping a folded piece of paper on my desk. I jumped, and some giggled as he walked off. Sara whispered my name from across the room but I ignored her.
“All right, settle down you guys,” Mom told the class. A lot of the boys had a crush on her. It made me even more proud of her. I haven’t met a person that didn’t like my mom.
As she wrote on the chalkboard, I opened the paper.
Will you be my girlfriend?
Yes or No
Dustin liked me? That seemed impossible with how much he picked on me. I grabbed my pen and circled no, and gave it to him when the class was over. I hurried away because I didn’t want to see his face when he saw that I turned him down.
After lunch, everyone was talking about Dustin and me, saying we were a couple. I looked for him at recess because Tiffany and Sara said he was the one going around telling everyone I said yes.
He stood next to Noah and some other boys from class, leaning against the snack machine. He smirked when he saw me approaching. “There she is. Come to hold my hand?” he asked, and everyone laughed but Noah.
“Why are you telling people I’m your girlfriend?”
He tossed the paper in the air, I barely caught it in time. It was the same question, but the yes was circled instead of the no. “You said yes,” he lied.
“No, I didn’t,” I crumbled the paper up in my hand. “You obviously changed my answer. Why are you such a jerk, Dustin? Who would date someone so mean?”
Noah smiled then Mark jumped in and said, “So that’s how it is…”
“It’s okay, I know you’re embarrassed about it,” Dustin went on, clearly not wanting to give up his lie.
“Enough, Dustin,” Noah finally said before casting a somewhat devious look my way. “You know, Grace doesn’t like boys and things like kissing…”
Dustin rolled his eyes. “Give her a few years, I can change her mind.”
Noah looked unimpressed. “She said no, so leave it.”
“I knew you’d be this way,” Dustin hissed then laughed. “You always make sure to drop hints so that none of us will crush on Grace. She’s not your girlfriend. Stop acting like you’re any different than us just because you live close to her.”
I threw the paper in his face and he turned to me surprised. “Noah’s clearly different than the rest of you!” I screamed then looked at my surroundings. Everyone heard me. “He doesn’t worry about those kinds of things like the rest of you idiots!”
I stormed off but not without seeing the expression on Noah’s face and Dustin’s words, “If that’s what you think…”
_____
We didn’t really get to go on adventures anymore. My favorite time of the year used to be the warm months so that he could take me hiking in the mountains where we’d let our imaginations run wild. Now we didn’t do that either.
Noah played basketball and football while I cheered, which took up some of our time. When we weren’t at ball games or practice, we were in the treehouse sitting next to each other reading silently, or in the house where we fought over our favorite characters in TV shows, and played video games.
Sara and Tiffany always wanted to spend the night, but I wasn’t ready to share Noah with them. They knew he came over sometimes, they just didn’t know that our lives were constant with one another’s. That’s something I knew I’d never grow out of.
He didn’t come over after practice today, though, and I wondered if maybe it had something to do with my outburst at break. Tiffany said everyone had been talking about it, but when she said, “You shouldn’t put Noah on a pedestal, he’s still a guy and his thoughts are most likely no different than the others,” I chose not to say a word.
Truthfully, I knew more than anyone how much Noah was like the others. He thought like the others or he wouldn’t have shown me that tape… And little things he’d do, like share his drink with me or touch my hair like it held a hypnotic hold on him sometimes, or just the way I’d catch him staring at my legs and chest that was growing.
I wished I could keep pretending I knew nothing. Even lately, I wished Noah wasn’t my favorite person in the entire world. I didn’t feel like myself sometimes. Someone new was taking the place of the old me. I was afraid of her. Afraid of what I’d continue to feel around Noah.
I couldn’t stop tossing and turning that night. If Noah would have come over today, I knew I would have been fine but he didn’t, so I was left thinking of him.
He was filling every part of me. Soon, I wondered if I would be able to think a thought without it being of him.
But, for me, it was always about Noah, whether I was six or eleven.
With the light off, I got out of bed and ventured to the window, and there my heart raced with both fear and excitement. The glow of a lantern drifted through the window of the treehouse. Why didn’t he come inside to sleep if his parents were keeping him up? He was avoiding me after today. With the press of my toes burying themselves into the carpet, I just knew with everything in me, he had to be.
Like I knew Noah, he knew me. He should know that I didn’t like to be pushed away, especially when it came to him.
My parents weren’t asleep yet, I heard their hushed voices talking with the TV on. I was careful as I tiptoed out the door and into the damp September night. I ran once I was outside, only taking a few seconds to make my way up the rope. He turned off the lantern once my knees were up. “Noah,” I groaned.
“Afraid of the dark, Priss?” His voice was raspy, it had a gruffer tone to it lately. My stomach swam with butterflies.
“Turn it back on,” I sighed, afraid to move it was so dark. I heard him shuffle around before he flicked a lighter and relit the lantern. “Why didn’t you come inside and sleep?” The lantern played shadows on his face. He didn’t answer. “Why didn’t you come over today?”
“Do I have to come over every day?” he asked, lying down and placing his hands behind his head. I crawled over and did the same next to him.
“Yes, that’s what we do, Noah,” I whispered. The only days we weren’t together was when my family went on vacations every year.
“We’re getting older, Grace,” he sighed, staring at the ceiling as I made shadows with my hands. He tilted his head and I did the same. His expression made it seem like he was hurting somewhere. “Why did you lie today?”
When I went to raise up, his hand shot out to stop me. My skin heated. “Because you promised,” I barely managed to mumble.
He leaned closer. “I remember, but Grace… I’ll grow up. One day, you’re gonna look at me and you’re gonna see what I’ve always seen.”
“Noah…”
He scooted his head closer, closer… I was too surprised and nervous to do anything but watch as he placed his lips against my forehead. Then he slowly raised up, “You should go.”
I raised quickly. “What was that for?” I placed my hand on my forehead.
“Because you’re you, and I’m me.”
I smiled because somehow, it made it perfectly okay.
As I slipped down the rope, I said, “Come stay in the house.”
“I’m heading home,” he replied, coming down the rope next.
“No one’s at your house tonight?” I asked.
He nodded. “Nope.”
“Then why…”
He grinned. “And Priss, don’t get too close to Dustin. He wants to do bad things to girls already.”
How long would Noah continue to stay safe before he stopped trying?
Or was the kiss already proof that we were changing?