“Everyone, Liv, literally everyone. That’s why no one was surprised when you started “dating” in high school,” Cole says.
My face heats with embarrassment and I hide my face in my hands willing this feeling to go away. I feel overwhelmed and silly for not realizing these facts in the moment and feel myself sitting here reliving every moment between Noah and I from the last twenty plus years of my life.
Sure, with every fall, every fight, literally everything, he was there. I know he was always at our house between his friendship with Cole, parents being busy, and then working at the farm, I just thought it was just a coincidence not that he was actually being present.
I can’t help but stop at one memory that is glued to the back of my eyes. Penelope and I were fighting in her bedroom, I was sitting on her bed, demanding to get ready with her as she was getting ready to hangout with friends.
“Olivia, get out of my room,” Pen yells without turning her face from the round, perfectly lit mirror hanging on her vanity. She pulls a tube of mascara from her pink and yellow makeup bag and begins applying it.
“No, I want to do makeup too,” I reply, crossing my arms and sinking deeper into her bed.
“You’re too young for make up,” she snaps back, acting like Mom, who is working late at the hospital tonight.
“Mom would let me wear it,” I say, hopeful that she’ll let me join in.
“Mom isn’t here and this is my room and my makeup and I’m telling you no. Now, get out.” I can tell that her patience is thinning but I just want to be included. Being the youngest is the worst because the boys have each other and their friends, who want nothing to do with me and Penelope is six years older than me, so our lives are so different.
“Please, Pen,” I cry
“Now, Olivia.”
“Why?”
“You’re my lame ten-year-old little sister, I don’t want you hanging out with me or my friends. We are too different and you’re too young. Get out now before I have to drag you.”
It wasn’t a particularly brutal fight between us, we’ve certainly had worse, but what sticks in my memory the most is the aftermath of it. Penelope did end up pulling me out of her room and then locked the door behind her so I couldn’t get back in. But the worst part was in the upstairs hallway was Cole, Carter, and Noah standing outside their room, looking in my direction. My face reddened with embarrassment as I couldn’t keep the tears from filling my eyes and blurring before I took off down the stairs and ran outside.
I had made it to the swing in the back part of the yard overlooking the pond when a gentle hand was placed on the rope of the swing, turning it slightly.
“Hey Liv,” the familiar voice said but I was too embarrassed to look up.
There was silence for a moment before I finally looked up and saw Noah.
Noah Kneland, was standing in front of me with a sorrowful look on his face.
“What do you want?” I said through tears.
“Just wanted to see if you were okay?” he asked tilting his head to one side, looking into my eyes.
“No. No one ever wants to hangout with me. Pen hates me. The boys have each other and you and then there is just me, alone. Why do you all hate me?” I blurted out through labored breaths.
“Liv, no one hates you,” he said pulling me off the swing into a hug. I wrapped my arms around his waist and continued crying into his shoulder.
“She okay?” Cole asks from behind us.
“She’s slobbering all over my shirt, Cole, what do you think?” Noah responded. His comment pulled me out of my stupor and made me chuckle.
“Sorry, Noah.” I responded when I pulled my head away and dropped my arms.
“Come on, kid, why don’t you come hangout with us? We were about to take the cart out around the farm.” He said, and wrapped one arm around my shoulder and turned us toward Cole. Cole instantly wrapped his arm around my other shoulder and we headed to the barn.
The rest of that day was one of my favorite memories of us all as kids. We rode the carts around the property for hours, singing, the wind blowing through our hair. Cole driving through the mud puddles and tried to spray us all with the spray before we had to clean the car which turned into a water fight.
Through everything, Noah was the first one there.
The first one to react.
The first one to care.
