“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
The following weeks were the longest Noah could remember. Time froze, suspended midair, while the rest of the world kept rotating like everything was the same. It was a strange stasis thatled nowhere but was better than the riptide of misery pulsing behind his ribs whenever he thought about Kaj.
Val and Theo did everything they could to make it more bearable for him. They texted nonstop, made plans out of the blue, and invaded his house unannounced after class. They also not-so-subtly pulled weird faces and moved in front of Noah ifhe—Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—was around, which was almost every day, since they went to the same high school.
It hurt seeing him so lonely, wandering in the hallways like a lost soul, even if he didn’t want to talk to either of them—apparently, he’d been an ass to them when they tried. Noah wasn’t going to complain, though. Embarrassed and confused, thinking he wasn’t good enough compared to Jesper, he hadn’t told them what he’d seen, just that they had a huge fight.
Val couldn’t believe it at first. Theo got mad. But they both comforted him, so he wouldn’t push them away now. The last thing he needed was to be left alone in a room with his mind. It was all noise and incoherent words that slithered into his chest, dragging him to the bottom despite how hollow he was.
Later, as summer rolled in, an emptiness like never before assaulted him. Cycling around town. Going to the beach. Snorkeling. Jumping off the cliff. Getting his first tattoo and a second. Concerts. Parties. Although he’d managed to not cross paths with Kaj, nothing made sense anymore. Food didn’t even taste good, and the sounds that used to make him feel warm inside annoyed him now. But for some reason, he was still alive. Alive, sad, and angry. Something he hadn’t realized until the day he had a ridiculous outburst when Mom proposed to go to Malmö together for the weekend—a plan that at a different time would have been fun.
Since then, she’d kept a low profile, just making sure all his needs were covered, trying to talk over dinner and getting mostly monosyllables as a response. Noah felt bad, but he couldn’t findthe strength to apologize when the light had been snuffed out of his heart.
Dramatic much. He knew that now, but at the time, his entire world was crumbling around him and there was nothing he could do to stop the disaster. But nothing that year was as painful as not seeing Kaj in school when they returned for eleventh grade.
Gossip said he had been in an accident and was unrecognizable. Others said that he had dropped out and was working. Some said that he’d become a male prostitute and had moved somewhere else, which was highly unlikely since Katja still lived in town, and as far as Noah knew, Kaj had no other relatives—except Jesper.
His stomach constricted, and a mouthful of bile traveled up his esophagus.
But it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered anymore.
What happened had split his heart in half.
While a part of him had dreamed about never seeing Kaj again, about him being bitter and alone forever, the reality was that Noah was going crazy without him. There were so many things he hadn’t said. So many memories they wouldn’t be able to share. But this untenable situation—the regret that kept clinging to their story—was like a crutch he didn’t want to let go of. He had no idea how he’d walk without it.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Val had said, concern lacing his voice as he slumped down on his beanbag chair. “I went to his house this past weekend—”
“Without telling me? Or him?” Theo grumbled, pointing a finger at Noah. “Traitor.”
“I don’t mind,” he mumbled, too conflicted to talk. “I mean, he was your friend first.”
That was what he’d said, but inside, Noah was hoping they wouldn’t go back to normal, because that would mean he’d be left without friends. There was no way that after their bitter breakup, Kaj and Noah could be part of the same group.
“I wanted to test the waters alone before telling you anything,” Val continued.
“Whatever.”
“Anyway, I told him that even though things have been weird between us for the past few months and all that, he could still talk to us if he needed to vent or something, but he shut the door in my face.”
“You seriously thought that if he wasn’t answering our texts, he would talk to you in person?” Theo scoffed, crossing his arms. “He clearly isn’t interested in being part of our lives anymore.”
To an outsider, it might have looked like he didn’t care about Kaj or the fact that he was nowhere to be found, but for anyone who knew him well, it was easy to see that he was hurt and fucking afraid. But Theo had never been good at expressing his emotions.
“I had to try. I was worried, you know? And the fact that he left town like this without even saying goodbye... It’s not like him.”
“Do we even know him anymore?”
The worst day of all had been Noah’ seventeenth birthday, though. It would have been two years since the kiss that changed it all. Then Christmas. And Valentine’s Day. And spring break. And every other fucking day that reminded him of the deepest adoration and the loss. The heartbreak.
The only thing that helped him keep his shit together was music, his first true love, the one who never lied and never hurt.
Aside from resuming his singing lessons at the start of twelfth grade, Noah was also learning to play the piano. He was going four hours per week. His teacher was impressed with his pitch and exceptional musical memory. It had always been like that.Although he worked really hard, he was a fast learner when it came to music. But having a professional encourage him made him truly believe he could do anything he put his mind to. And now, he had a clear goal: getting into the Royal College of Music in the UK, one of the best in the world, which would allow him to experience living abroad, too.
