“I need a minute,” I mumbled.
“Sure.” Sadie walked straight out and shut the door behind her. It was a good thing she didn’t deal with other people’s emotions. I had a lot of those right now. More than even I wanted to deal with.
With four walls around me and no one to see me, I sank to the floor and let myself have a good cry. So many truths were hitting me at once and jumbling together in my head.
Fake. Noah’s sudden interest in me last year had all been fake. And he had picked me because my crush on him had been obvious. So obvious, even Elena, who barely knew me, had seen it. So obvious, it made my boss jealous to see it. They’d been right about that. Chandler had not liked Noah hanging around me, making me laugh, asking me about my weekend plans.
Noah and I used to laugh about that vein in my boss’s neck that would just about pop every time he saw Noah get off the elevator and walk onto our floor.
I wiped angrily at the last of my tears and then got up and stalked to the bathroom to wash my face. I was done with crying. Done with pining over Noah. Done with my stupid crush on him. Done with our friendship. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of friends, but dang it, I was only holding onto the good ones.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t done with untangling this whole mess, because I still had so many things I didn’t understand. I grabbed a notebook out of my purse and began taking notes. Every conversation, every look, from the moment I’d met Noah until now, replayed in my head. I put them into three categories.
1. Carpool Noah before he got recruited as fish bait. Normal Noah, if there ever was such a version.
2. Fake Noah. The confusing Noah who had messed with my head.
3. Guilt-ridden Noah. The one back here trying to be whatever he thinks I want him to be and still doing it all wrong. Wrong!
Even after I drew lines connecting things together, circled events, underlined things, and even made a stupid timeline, I still felt utterly lost. The more I put together, the more questions I had. And I needed answers.
I couldn’t call Noah and ask. Telling myself I was done with him was one thing. Dealing with the reality of it was another. I couldn’t bear to hear his voice. I knew he would literally tell me anything to earn my forgiveness, and I did NOT want to hear it.
But texting would give me distance from him. Through text, I could ask my questions with the perfect wording. I could type something out and delete it without sending. I could wait to respond as long as I wanted. I could end the conversation at any point. And he could do the same. No emotions. Just questions and answers.
I found the end of our last text thread and resisted the temptation to scroll up and reread every exchange we’d ever had. There was no end to how much second or third or fourth guessing a person could do. Besides, I had a feeling I’d be doing that later tonight instead of sleeping.
Instead, I tapped on his name and changed it from Carpool Noah to Fakest Noah Ever. That way I’d never forget while I was talking to him that nothing he’d said was real. Or at least, there was no way to know for sure what his motivation had been at any given moment. That thought made me sad for a minute. But I couldn’t do anything about those feelings right now. I was on an information quest and at some point Sadie would need back in here. This wasn’t just my room.
Jenny: I have some questions.
I sat back and went over my notes, trying to figure out what to ask first.
Fakest Noah Ever: Ok. I’m at the grocery store.
Seriously! Was he trying to make me feel small and unimportant or did it just come naturally to him? I typed out something completely irrational and emotional in response, deleted it, typed it out again with more zing and then felt relieved when Noah sent me his follow up first.
Fakest Noah Ever: Sorry, what I mean is do you want to wait until I get home? I bet you have a lot of questions and I want to be able to focus on answering them.
Oh. Well, that was considerate. Fake considerate, but considerate all the same. I went to hit the back button on my long rant in response so I could replace it with something calm and equally fake and considerate, but somehow my stupid thumb grazed the send button.
Jenny: Oh, you’re at the grocery store? Good to know I was just an item on your to do list. Destroy my friendship with Jenny. Check. Need macaroni and cheese. Check.
No!!! The message showed sent and read before I could delete it. Not that deleting it on my end did any good. I knew because Lauren accidentally sent a text meant for her mom to her boyfriend at the time, asking him if he had any ibuprofen because her cramps were killing her. Apparently, I’d laughed so hard Karma noticed.
Jenny: Sorry. I didn’t mean to send that.
Fakest Noah Ever: It’s fine. I deserved it.
I would have preferred teasing. It was just more evidence of how dead our friendship was. And that gave me the courage to press on. I skipped all the questions that had to do with things Noah had said while flirting with me. Or about why he’d told me later it wasn’t a good idea for us to go out after all. Those answers didn’t matter anymore. But there was one thing that had been bugging me, and before I faced anyone on Monday, I needed to know. Noah had been given a promotion for helping get rid of his boss. Was it tied to mine as well?
Jenny: Did you tell them to give me my promotion?
I told myself I wanted the truth, but that was hard to believe when I was chanting, “Say no. Say no.”
Fakest Noah Ever: Yes.
I put my phone down and flung myself face first on my bed. Texts continued to come in. I’m sure Noah was telling me how qualified I was, and how much I’d deserved a promotion. But he was a faker. And he was only trying to fix the unfixable, a desperate man throwing down last minute tracks in the face of an oncoming train.
