“Where's the old man at?” Noah asked. He knew his father would want to speak to him about his game last night, and Noah thought it was best to just get it over with rather than dealing with it later. Actually, now that Noah thought about it, he was surprised that his father hadn't been the one to wake him up and tell him to do some crazy type of drills. Sometimes, his father still thought he was his coach, and Noah had a feeling that would never change.
“He was talking to mom,” Timothy said as his attention went back to his game. Noah closed his brother’s door and went down the hallway. He decided to go to his mother's study first to see if his father was there. As Noah got closer to her study, he heard their voices carry from her room, and wondered what they were arguing about this time. It's not that his parents argued often, but they definitely had their disagreements often. Sometimes, it felt like his parents were water and oil, and Noah couldn't help but wonder what made them fall in love when they were so different. They had disagreements about everything, from his father's drinking and partying habits to the way his mother put on a show to impress others around her. It was endless, but right now, what they were having was definitely the beginnings of an argument. Noah listened to see if he should wait for later or interrupt them now, depending on the severity of their conversation.
“…she should be dating people her own age. Why does it have to be him, huh? Why does it have to be our son?”
Noah frowned as he took a step closer to the room.
“Alie, you made a mistake. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I made a mistake? What if it was Allison dating someone older than her? Would you say the same thing?”
Even through the door, Noah could hear the sound of his father’s frustration. “You should have seen how he played out there. I’ve never seen him play like that before. Weston is in the Final Four now, and they barely won by the skin of their teeth. The media is dragging our son through the mud. People are worried if he can handle the pressure of stronger teams. What if his game continues to be like this?”
“That’s all you care about, Allen. You’ve never cared about anything else other than hockey. You don’t even care that your son is dating his professor. That should bother you, Allen. But no, you’re more worried about his game. You've never cared about Noah unless it involves hockey. Well, I'm tired of it, dammit. I don't want to hear about hockey again.”
“No, there won’t be any of that. I care about my son, dammit. And I know Noah has worked too hard for this. Besides, he’s a grown man now. He has to make decisions for himself. Noah knows what he’s doing. Besides, she didn’t seem like a bad wo—”
“I don’t care. I won’t accept this. I’ve accepted the fact that you threw your dream on our son, and I’ve never said a peep about it. I never said anything about the fact that you’ve always valued his hockey skills over his education and well-being. You were never a father to him, and you were only his coach. That's why he's been so lost when it comes down to girls, so much so that's he's run to his professor, for Christ's sake. But I won’t accept her with my son. He’ll get over it. She’s just another girl. She should be lucky that I didn’t tell the school board about her. She should be fired—”
Noah couldn’t take it anymore before he burst through the door. Both his mother and father looked at him in shock as Noah breathed heavily, processing exactly what he heard and what it meant.
“Did you…” he looked at his mother, shaking his head in disbelief because she couldn’t have done that. The meddling in his life had always been his father, but his mother had never done that. She had trusted him, so how could she... “Did you tell Melanie to break up with me?”
His mother stared at him momentarily before her gaze dropped to the floor, revealing her guilt. Noah's heart dropped. Everything made sense now, why Melanie had broken up with him and started to talk about things she had never mentioned before. She had been perfectly fine that morning, but when he saw her that night, she looked broken. He had no idea, and he could only imagine the words his mother had told her.
“How could you do that?” Noah asked, rage taking over him. “How could you meddle in my life like that? Why the hell did you fucking do that, mom?”
“Now, calm down, son,” his father said as he tried to grab Noah's shoulder, but Noah shrugged off his father’s hold. He didn’t want to hear anything about calming down when they were melding in his life like he was a fucking child. He had thought Melanie didn’t love him anymore, but everything that happened was all because of them.
“I expected this from dad, but not from you, mom," Noah said, disappointed in her. "I’m grown enough to make my own decisions. I’m not a kid anymore."
“And I know that,” his mother interjected quickly, “but that woman is too old for you, and it’s not just that, but she was your professor. Do you know how shocked I was when Barbara told me she saw you guys together at breakfast?”
Noah didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t care about any of those things. He didn't care about his mother's pride when she had to explain why her son was out with his professor. All he cared about was what he had lost.
“Do you know I had to beg Melanie to be in a relationship with me because she was worried about what other people would think of her? Do you know how much I had to chase after her just to get her to accept me?”
His mother’s mouth dropped. “Wait. Youwantto be in a relationship with her?”
“Of course, I do. I love her,” Noah explained. “I’m in love with her, and just like that, you ruined it. How could you do that to me?”
His mother shook her head as she turned away from him. “It’s not love. It’s just an infatuation. You’ll find someone your own age who didn’t teach you someday, and then you'll look back on this and see that it's strange. You'll see that I did this for you.”
“Alie, just listen to the boy," his father pleaded.
“I won’t accept it.”
Noah shook his head as he stared at his mother’s back in disgust. “You're no different from dad. You're not doing this for me. You're doing this because you're worried about what other people will say about our family."
His mother spun back around her face hot with anger. "That's not true!"
"The truth is it doesn’t matter what you won’t accept. I make my own decisions, and if I want to be with Melanie, I will be."
"Noah!" his mother called after him as he left out of her study, but he didn't turn back. He didn't want to hear anything from either of them. This moment just confirmed what he had always known— his parents were selfish, and the reality was that both of them had always cared more about how the world saw them than they had ever cared about him. Noah left the house, taking one of his father’s cars.
CHAPTER
48
