Five.
Four.
Three.
Two...
Just then, right before jumping into the new year, Noah’s heart was torn into pieces. His insides rattled, sending cold chills in every direction as he saw Mads two tables away, kissing Kaj.
Eighteen
A thundering noise reverberatedin the space when everyone jumped. Whistles, laughter, and loud chatter mixed in the air with distant explosions of fireworks as the New Year’s celebration began.
Meanwhile, Noah was there, paralyzed, heartbeat slamming against his eardrums, sending aftershocks rippling through his entire body. He had to be hallucinating. Kaj couldn’t be there. Could he?
“Happy New Year, dude!” Val pulled him in for a hug.
Theo launched himself at them, bumping their heads together and patting their backs. “And now we drink until we pass out!”
“Noah?” Val called when they moved away, a dash of concern in his tone. “You’re pale. Are you okay?”
“I-I think I just saw Kaj?” He winced, the name painful on his tongue. He was so dizzy he wanted to throw up.
“What?”
Both Val and Theo looked to the sides, searching for a ghost of the past, faces twisted with anguish. Kaj had not only disappeared from Noah’s life, but had also vanished from theirs without saying goodbye.
They had talked about it briefly two years before, as deeply as some knucklehead seventeen-year-old teenagers could, but they had never mentioned it again after that. It was obvious it was a sore spot. They had faced his departure with false bravado and anger, but losing Kaj like that, with no warning, note, or anything at all, had probably left them wondering if there was something they could have done to bring him back so things could be like they used to. Noah knew because it was exactly how he felt. The bad things didn’t matter. Kaj had been a cornerstone in their little world. He still thought about him from time to time. Missed him even. Though he would never say it out loud.
“Are you kidding me?” Val said. “He’s been here, in Copenhagen, all this time?”
“I have no idea. He looked different, so I might be mistaken.”
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t recognize him in the dark.” Theo scoffed.
“If it was him, he was with Mads.”
“Wait, what?” Val asked. “Mads? The one from class? The one who refused to work with you because he was busy and, I quote,didn’t want to betray a friend?”
“I don’t know if I’m mad or happy that we might get to see Kaj,” Theo added.
Noah was still trying to process what he’d seen when he saw him again, forearms resting on Mads’s shoulders as he whispered something in his ear.
“There.” Noah tipped his chin up.
Kaj had changed so much. He was taller, his back was broader, and his jaw stronger. He’d bleached his hair and modified the style a bit, too, leaving the top long and messy while the sideswere trimmed quite short. From this distance, he also seemed to have some piercings adorning his ears and... bottom lip? Scattered tattoos covered the skin showing under the rolled sleeves of his black dress shirt, too. And there was this aura around him, like he owned the world and everyone in it.
But it was definitely him—painfully and beautifully so.
As if he’d heard the loud alarms in Noah’s head, Kaj let go of Mads and turned, finding Noah in the middle of the crowded room.
His eyes, those stunning ice-blue irises, once again knocked the oxygen out of him. His legs wobbled slightly, and for a moment, it felt as though they were alone and he was about to devour his soul.
“Fuck, I need to breathe.” Noah spun around before his friends could say anything and walked toward the exit, forgetting his coat in the cloakroom.
Their past flooded his mind like a string of incoherent images. The good, the bad, theI love yous, the betrayal... And he saw it again, that scene in Kaj’s bedroom with Jesper fucking him from behind.
The heavy door slammed as he stormed out of the club. He was panting and so tense that he didn’t even feel the ruthless cold enclosing him. People walking by looked in his direction like he’d grown two heads. He wanted to snap at them, shout at them for staring when all he wanted was to be left alone, but he had no strength for that.
