Tim stepped forward.
“You should probably come with us.” He nodded, and I watched as they took her away from me. There was nothing I could do. She’d almost died before and was pardoned. There was a good chance she wouldn’t be dealt with so graciously this time.
“Get dressed, guys. We’ll follow them up there.”
I stepped back and put my hands up. I wasn’t going anywhere. Anger hit me with brute force. My anger at Noa, which I hadn’t even realized I was feeling, took hold. I ran into the house and grabbed one of the bottles, my hands shaking as I unscrewed the top. I looked at the bottle in my hand with disgust. I tipped it back and took a deep pull, downing the burning amber liquid. After a few hated gulps, I threw the bottle on the
ground,
picking up another and smashing it too, nearly hitting Ralph. Bottles and bottles until the kitchen floor glittered with glass, liquor splashing against the expensive tile.
What was it? What was it about this shit that made her come back for more? I had to know. I had to experience the numbness for myself. At the very least, if I understood, losing her wouldn’t be such an unfathomable idea. Certainly not when I was losing her to the liquid that was causing me to feel detached.
“I give her everything, and she
still
picks this over me. Why?” I asked, throwing one more bottle. I felt the fire inside, from the liquor, and it lit my fury.
“Calm down, Dex. You don’t know what she was thinking.” He tried his best to avoid the glass on the ground as he came closer.
“She wasn’t thinking about me. She…I’m always thinking of her! I can’t do it anymore, Ralph. I can’t be with this beautiful person who damages everything without a single thought. I can’t always pick up the pieces. I can’t be the only one who cares!” I took a step forward and slipped. Ralph reached for me as I cried out, “He didn’t tell me it was this hard…we never even had a chance….”
Tracey ran in and took me in her arms. I felt stupid but I cried against her. Because no matter how good I was to Noa, no matter what promises I made and kept or how dedicated I was, she was never going to love herself as much as I loved her. And if Noa died, coming back would be for nothing. I’d face that lonely fate, at the hands of the one who was supposed to love me back.
Chapter
22
A
fter twenty-four hours passed, Noa regained consciousness. She asked for me as soon as she was able to form sentences.
For forty-eight hours, I remained in the bedroom at the lake house that belonged to Dexter Andrews pre-accident. I didn’t know that I was searching for answers or what I would figure out in locking everyone out. But I did just that. I ignored everyone in that house because I knew they would try to reason with me. I wanted to feel what I was feeling. I didn’t want to see reason or wonder how she felt.
To have given someone every piece of yourself, to have promised them the world, to have offered everything they could’ve ever wanted…and to watch them nearly die….
I loved Noa. And all through my love for her, I forgot to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t. I was angry and disappointed, and I could not be moved to see her. Her demons were stronger than I could ever be. They made her forget love, forget the stars, and forget me. I couldn’t be there when her demons won. Because whatever killed Noa would kill me. We were tethered that way, regardless of distance. And now…I had to stand clear of the impending blast. Despite what hold we had on one another, my self-preservation was kicking in.
Tracey finally knocked on my door and begged me to see her, telling me Noa was distraught and uncooperative with the hospital staff, insisting that they were keeping us apart. I was afraid to see her. I was frightened of the idea of living without Noa. But I was more afraid of my feelings. The anger festered during those forty-eight hours. I couldn’t keep it from Noa anymore.
We
pulled up outside the hospital with our bags in the car, packed and ready to go. Tim packed his things as well as Noa’s and checked into a hotel. Tracey, Ralph, and I were driving back into town today. I’d already missed two days of school, and while finals had already been processed, I knew I at least had to show my face to graduate.
“Are you sure about this, Dex? Once you do this, it can’t be undone,” Tracey told me with a frown, her hands in fists on her lap. It was insane that this woman who’d held me as I lost my shit over this girl would still encourage me to stay with her. But that was the way it was with Noa. You tended to love her beyond reason.
“There are too many things that can’t be undone.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car. Tracey had told me her room number earlier, so I headed there as quickly as I could, reading the direction signs and scanning the numbers on the doors.
I stopped short outside her door. Bumping into Noa had been a gift. And even in that moment, I felt the same odd sensation of being filled with love from lives before. Memories of what she
could
be like. But having experienced Noa, they wouldn’t happen that way.
I almost turned back the way I came. It felt like I was giving every kiss, every touch back to the Angel of Death. I was returning his gift, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what the future would hold for me. Was this it?
No.
I had to do this. Because if I stood with Noa, she would think what she’d done to me was fine. She’d think the way she continued to poison herself was fine.
I walked into her hospital room with purpose. Her hair was fanned across the pillow, and I itched to run my fingers through it like I always did. Her skin was pale and she looked fragile.
She opened her eyes like she knew I was there. Eyes that didn’t blink, like she was afraid to miss a single
moment.
When she did blink, it snapped me out of my hypnotized state and I remembered why I was there.
Her smile was faint and she reached out her arm to me, telling me to come to her. I stood where I was. Her smile faded.
“Noa.” I cleared my throat. I knew I was going to break her heart. But I was going to break mine too. I hoped she’d know that.
“You’re leaving,” she whispered. Her eyes bore into mine, facing the collision head on. I looked away. For all of the love I had for her, she couldn’t love herself the way she needed to. Maybe if I left, she’d have a better chance at survival. Because with me, it didn’t look like it. If anything, I should’ve listened to her and left her alone. I wasn’t good for her.
I nodded, afraid to speak. When I looked at her again, her eyes were cold. And she turned away from me, looking at the ceiling.
“Don’t hate me. Noa, you—you’re amazing. But I can’t love you enough for the both of us. You’re too self-destructive. You almost
died
. How could you? How would I have been able to live with myself with your death on my conscience?”
She lay there silently, taking in the words I was giving her, giving nothing in return.
“Fine. I’m talking to a wall.” I paused, “I love you. I’ll never stop. And I’ll never forget you.”
I looked at her again, watching silent tears run down her face. Other than that, she remained stoic. I couldn’t do it anymore.
I turned and walked slowly out. I had to get out of there before I changed my mind. She could do that. She could make me forget my anger and take her in my arms. I was suddenly thankful for her stubborn silence. As I neared the door, I left the pieces of myself that Noa had uncovered. I left my soul in there with her, to keep her company. Because that’s what you did when you loved
someone.
You left before shit blew up in your face, killing you both. And you left them with the parts of you that no one else would ever be able to claim.
I decided that it wasn’t self-preservation that made me leave. It was the hope that she had a better chance of surviving without me, the way she had before I bumped into her.
If you loved someone, you set them free….
She’d never come back.
Still, I walked.
“Dex, no.” I heard her sob when I’d gotten a few feet out of the door. “No. Don’t leave me.”
One step after another, I walked away from Noa until I couldn’t hear her crying out for me.
•••
The last few days of school passed in a blur. No one asked me about Noa. No one even saw Noa. It was rumored that she’d had her diploma mailed to her and skipped town. But I knew how false rumors tended to be.
It wasn’t like she had an abundance of friends that she regularly spoke with. No, the privilege used to be mine, knowing what was going on in Noa’s world. But now only Noa knew. And try as hard as I might, I wondered and I thought of her and….
I missed her. I missed her so much; I played everything over in my head. I went back and forth between regretting everything to blaming myself and dialing her number, only to never actually call. She’d come into my life like a bolt of lightning and was gone just as catastrophically. Was I the only one who suffered? She was gone, and while I’d promised her the world, it seemed all I’d done was ruin her like she warned me not to.
“Ready?” Tracey asked as she took a picture of me in my shorts and white shirt. “Oh, I wish you’d wear something nicer.” She fussed over me in her dress and heels.
I
merely grunted and pulled my hair into a bun, it being too hot to let it stick to the back of my neck.
“You can always go back, Dexter.” Her eyes were on her camera when she said it.
“Can we…not talk about this today? I’ll see you there.” I grabbed my keys and got in the car, determined to get through this graduation ceremony and get on with the life I was pretending to live.
Sure, I was headed to an elite school. I had my future successfully mapped out, ensuring that, monetarily, I would do well. But once you had a taste of what really mattered, what wars were fought over, what poems were written about, it was hard to look toward the tepid horizon with anything more than dread.
When I pulled up at the school, I parked and sat there, my forehead against the steering wheel. I heard a knock on the passenger side window and looked up. Ralph opened the door and got in.
“Don’t want to talk about it,” I whispered, putting my head back down.
“Of course you don’t. What man does?”
It was quiet, neither of us speaking. I looked up, noticing everyone lining up for the ceremony.
“We should probably go,” I said, opening the door and getting out. Ralph walked up to me and hugged me. It was unexpected, and a huge part of me wanted to push him away. It was too hot.
“I’m sorry. I never knew what it meant to you until I saw it for myself. And even then, I didn’t fully know. Not until now. I’m sorry, man.”
“This totally constitutes talking about it.”
He apologized and let me go. We lined up in alphabetical order and began to file into our seats.
Some man stood up and gave a speech and all the while I wondered why they’d picked him. He didn’t know any of us and none of us knew him. Next was Mouse,
valedictorian.
She talked about life and school. Then she talked about loss. I tuned it out.
They started to file rows out and hand people their diplomas. When my turn came, I smiled for the camera, knowing Aunt Tracey would kill me if I didn’t, and walked off, following the line back to my seat. They said Noa’s name, and it was like a kick in the gut. Her name was forbidden in my house. No one said her name around me. But when it was announced and she didn’t walk up and claim her diploma, I wanted to scream, punch things, burn the whole fucking ceremony down. Instead, I took a deep breath. After all of the diplomas were distributed, the principal came to the podium. He congratulated us and wished us well. Then music began playing, and a series of pictures took over a large screen on the stage. When a picture of Noa and I came up, I closed my eyes tightly. But it was the picture right after that knocked the wind out of me.
On and on while everyone else around me threw their caps up in celebration, my eyes remained on the screen in front of me. I knew those faces. Her eyes, bright and blue, were so full of life and joy and the eyes that belonged to him—belonged to me—didn’t bother leaving her face. He watched her with pure adoration and I knew
everything
: the moment before we collided, my hand caressing her face as we made our way to dinner. Her breathless sigh as my eyes kept steady contact with hers, not bothering to watch the road I’d driven on a hundred times. The sound of her crying out when she noticed someone—Dexter—running out into the road. The thump of his body being hit by my car and then the swerve that landed us smack into the tree. Silence.
The sound of her last breath, quiet and peaceful as we died together.
Her name was Annabelle. Mine was Greg.
Chapter
23
I
said my goodbyes, not quite looking Ralph or Tracey in the eyes. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to feel and the one person I wanted to talk to would likely never want to speak to me again.
I was still fuzzy on a lot of things. But I knew the way Annabelle felt and how wonderful it was to be in love with her and to feel her love for me. I didn’t know where I was headed to when I got into my car but when I pulled up in front of the place that had once housed me, I knew I had to go inside. I threw my cap and gown in the backseat and got out of the car, taking in the house in front of me. It was a grieving house. The flowers weren’t cared for the way they might’ve been, had the owners of the home not been dealing with a recent tragedy.
I walked up the steps, wiping my hands against my cargo shorts before pressing my fingers against the doorbell. I heard the gentle pad of feet coming downstairs and the door creaked open.
“Dexter?” Dark hair, graying, and eyes surrounded by laugh lines. More memories surfaced. I grabbed onto the doorframe, feeling ill. “Dex? Are you all right?” When her hand reached out to steady me, I stepped back.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shook my head. “You know Dex—I mean, me. You know me?”
She smiled. “Of course I do. I feel like I hardly know you anymore. It’s been a very long time. Seven months now. I didn’t think I’d…ever see you again.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, still holding onto the door. “Did you want to come inside? I think you need to sit down.”