“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do, Angel. You feel it, I know you do. I’m not expecting you to just forget what I did, but cut me some slack, would you? I just want to get a chance to tell you why I said what I said. That’s all I’m asking.”
A minute passed, a minute that felt like an eternity, and neither one of us moved. His chest rose and fell with each breath he took and released, while I stood unmoving, trying to come up with yet another argument why taking him back into my life wouldn’t work.
Just tell him the truth, my subconscious cried.
But if I told him the truth, I would break him. Noah didn’t deserve to be broken. No matter what, I wanted him to be happy. I wanted to see him thrive.
“Let’s just go, Noah. Please. We’re gonna be late.”
“Are you serious?” There it was—the anger.
I would rather him be angry with me, because then he might let go of me easier. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to let go of him.
I stared back at him, gritting my teeth, trying to school my facial expression to as neutral as possible. “Deadly. Now can we go?”
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, rounding the car, opening his door, and sliding in.
My throat closed, the tears I tried keeping at bay pushing to the surface, and the headache I thought I had under control, taking over my entire head. But I bit my tongue and got inside the car, closing the door with a loud thud.
This was all we would ever be now. Two strangers with too much history. Two strangers ignoring each other, because we were too late.
He was too late.
7
SOPHIE
Time passed fastwhen you knew it was limited.
I had a feeling that since that first day Noah drove me to school, I had just blinked and one week passed, making me wonder, where did all those days go? We were already in the middle of March, and the dreadful sensation of not having enough time was driving me with force, activating the anxiety I managed to keep at bay for months.
And Noah… Noah kept showing up every morning to take me to school and take me back home. No words, no looks, no more attempts to talk to me, but he was always there. Every practice I had, I could see him in the stands, observing my moves silently, as if he waited for me to make the first step now.
But I knew I wouldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t drag him into this, no matter how much my heart bled every single time he showed up in front of my house. My hands itched, wishing to touch him, to tell him how sorry I was, because we didn’t have enough time.
I didn’t have enough time to tell him everything I wanted to.
I didn’t have enough time to tell him how much I wished to see the world with him, to go to Rome like we talked about so many times.
And worst of all, I didn’t have strength.
Life was beautiful when you didn’t know what was coming next, but when you did… nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but trying to fight as best as you could.
I knew I should’ve told him that he didn’t have to wait for me anymore. I knew I should tell him to forget that I ever existed, but every time I tried to open my mouth, the words were nowhere to be found. Every time he played those fucking songs that made my heart ache, and my eyes tear up, something inside me told me to savor these moments, even if they were laced with misery dripping from our skin like acid.
My misery was etched deep into my soul, but his… His was written all over his face. It was ever-present in every song he played for me, in every look he sent my way, in the clenching and unclenching of his jaw, because just like me, he wanted to talk.
I knew Noah better than I knew myself, and sitting here next to him, pretending that we were virtual strangers, cut through me. Maybe it was selfish of me, pushing him away like this. Maybe it was childish trying to stay on my side of the lane when he so obviously wanted to patch things between us, but I couldn’t bring myself to open up.
There was an endless well of forbidden emotions hiding inside my chest, covered by my bones, my ribs, and I wanted it to stay that way. If he didn’t know, then it couldn’t hurt him. Right?
But I couldn’t erase the way he looked at me a week ago. I couldn’t forget how fast my heart started beating, as if it was waking up from a deep slumber, shaking off the debris that collected on top of it. Ever since then, I again started thinking of things that could never be.
I started wishing for things I shouldn’t be wishing for. My mind and my heart were not in sync, and no matter how hard I tried, Noah Kincaid would always have a place in my heart. Who was I kidding? He owned my whole heart even without knowing it.
