Authors: Karina Gioertz
Then, Noah’s face changed suddenly. He had an expression I hadn’t ever seen before. It was serious, almost seductive as he lowered his voice and said, “Nope, just you and me.” Then he walked across the room to where I was standing, pulled me close and kissed me. The kiss was long and intense, and everything it hadn’t been the night before. I felt my knees go weak as his grip around me tightened, pressing my body against his.
Out of nowhere, I heard the sound of someone’s voice and it snapped me back to reality. I was still standing by the door, shopping bags in hand while Noah was positioned on the other side of the room near the kitchen. He was looking at me as if I had done something strange, and for one horrified second I allowed myself to wonder whether or not I had in any way acted out the sudden daydream I had fallen into. Then I heard his voice for the second time and I forced myself to remain focused.
“You ok?”
“Yeah...I'm just a little hot...” I finally replied as I set down my shopping bags and began to take off my coat. I could feel the heat rising to my face and could only imagine the deep shades of red that were currently displayed on my face.
“Are you working tonight?” I asked, trying move on to something else in an effort to get Noah to stop staring at me.
“Nope.” Noah looked away at last. Instead he began searching the room for something else to focus on.
“I was going to order in some take-out do you want to join me?” I asked sounding as normal as I could, although the thoughts I was having were clearly anything but.
“I can't. I have a date,” he responded simply. Not an unusual occurrence under other circumstances, but given what had just happened between us I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that he had already moved on in less than twenty-four hours. Instantly my nerves turned to anger.
“You have a date? With whom?” I demanded, realizing that in reality, he owed me no such explanations.
“Amy.” Noah appeared to be getting aggravated himself.
“The girl from the other day? You're seeing her again?” My voice had risen a few octaves and the shades of red on my face hadn’t faded, rather they had deepened by the new shift in emotions.
“Yeah. Why do you care?” he snapped angrily, shaking his head at me.
“I don't care,” I began to flounder. Rather than taking a moment to respond to him sounding equally detached, I just blurted out the one thing that had been on my mind since talking to Tara. The one thing, I knew in my gut would be the one thing he would be most annoyed to hear, and would likely cause him to shut me out, but I said it anyway, because I needed to say it, “I just thought we could talk about what happened last night.”
“There's nothing to talk about. It wasn't that big of a deal!” he spat as he turned to stomp back into the kitchen.
“It was a big deal to me!” I shouted, searching the room for something to hurl at his head and bring his attention back to me. Thankfully it didn’t come to that, as he spun back around the moment I started shouting. Then he began to shout as well.
“Of course it was. You always have to make things bigger than they were!” His words hit me like bricks in the gut and I wanted to curl over from the pain, but I didn’t.
“Why are you being like this?” I was analyzing his face, desperate for some kind of softness, something – anything - to show me that he had meant the things he had said the night before, but there was nothing.
“What are you talking about?! I'm being the same way I always am.” His voice was cold when he spoke and his eyes were shooting through me like daggers, something they had never done before. Nothing about the way he was treating me was the same as it had always been. The only thing that obviously had not changed was his incapacity to feel anything for anyone that was equipped with a vagina. My shoulders sank as I accepted defeat.
“Yeah, I guess you are. Have fun tonight,” I said dully, unwilling to engage in any more battle with him over something that was quickly making me look like the fool, even though he had been the one to act like a jackass in the first place. Something I knew now, he would never admit to.
Disappointed in the way everything had played out and feeling let down by a person I had grown so dependent on over the years, I turned my back to him and slowly climbed the stairs up to my room, leaving Noah standing in the middle of the living room alongside my shopping bags where I had dropped them.
Noah watched as I disappeared in the curve of the stairway. He stared at the stairs intently for a long time without moving or saying a word. Then, when he had won the fight within that had kept him from following me, he slowly walked over to the door, stepping over my bags in the process. Noah pulled a jacket from the coat hanger and grabbed his keys off of the hook before he opened the door and walked out; slamming it shut behind him loudly to be sure I would know that he had left.
I flinched at the sound the door made when it hit the doorframe. Feeling foolish enough as it was, I denied my instinct to run to the window and watch him leave. Somehow, the idea of being pummeled by his rejection twice in one night didn’t seem too appealing. By the time I had reached my room, the anger I had felt towards Noah had shifted, and I was now busy scolding myself for acting just like such a complete ass. Really, what had I thought was going to happen? Even if I had gotten Noah to admit that he had said he loved me, had I really planned to pursue that any further? This was Noah, after all. Commitment phobic- disrespecting women – male slut – Noah, and there would never be any future for me and him. It had been stupid of me to allow myself to think otherwise. Nevertheless, I had to admit, that for that split second, it almost sounded like a good idea. Like maybe all these years that I’d been single, my happily ever had just been sitting here right under my nose. And maybe, I just hadn’t been willing to see it because I was too afraid of getting hurt again the way that I had been before. Though really, I knew that it was that same fear that was the real reason I had never allowed myself to see Noah as anything more than a friend. Falling in love with a guy like him, I couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying than that when it came to my heart. And yet, a part of me had begun to wonder if maybe falling for him hadn’t been as scary as admitting it would be…
After an hour of stewing in my room by myself I succumbed to the loud growling coming from my stomach and went back downstairs in search of some sort of nourishment. However, it didn’t take me very long to realize that nobody had been to the store in a really long time and therefore what was left in the fridge could hardly be considered edible. I reverted back to my original plan and pulled out the take-out menus. Although my hunger had seemingly multiplied at the sight of all of those menus, I managed to settle on just Chinese versus the pizza, tacos and eggroll combo I had initially considered. I quickly made the call and then anxiously waited by the door for the bell to ring, announcing that my dinner had arrived at last.
As the night went on, the house remained empty while I gorged myself on Lo Mein and orange chicken and watched repeat episodes of The Golden Girls. By the end of the night, I was convinced that I would not only end up like Dorothy, but that I would probably do so intentionally. Sometime after midnight, I finally turned off the TV and climbed the stairs up to my room where I settled down into my bed to engage in further adventures with Dorothy and the girls. Time passed, and rather than get sleepy I remained alert and wired, unable to close my eyes or rest my thoughts. Since I had vowed not to waste even one iota of energy worrying anymore about Noah and whether or not things would go back to normal between the two of us, I was grateful for the marathon Lifetime was airing of my girls in Miami. By the time 3am rolled around I was not only still wide awake, but I had also gotten hungry again. After some internal debate about whether or not some ice cream at this time of night would be a bad idea, I eventually decided that what I had consumed at dinner had already blown my argument for a healthy diet. So, I quietly snuck down the stairs, trying not to wake anyone. Since I had been awake all this time I had been able to hear each of the guys’ cars pull into the driveway within the last hour. There had been little commotion within the house, so I was quite certain that they had all gone straight to bed, which was fine with me. I wasn’t up for any late night conversation, let alone explanations about why I was up to my nose in a pint of ice cream at this late hour.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs I felt around the corner for the light switch and flipped it on. A move I instantly learned to regret. The second the light came on it shone down upon a nearly naked Noah and a scantily clad girl completely entangled in each other on the couch.
“Oh my God!” I gasped as Noah quickly jumped up and reached for the nearest article of clothing.
“Can't you make some kind of a noise before you enter a room!” he demanded as though he was the victim in this whole scenario.
“I'm sorry I wasn't expecting to have to announce myself to anyone! God! And in front of Grandma Pearl!” I shouted, beside myself with anger.
“Who?” asked a voice coming from the girl in her underwear, whom I realized was Amy upon taking a second look.
“The Urn,” Noah answered and pointed at the mantle which was directly across from where they had been laid out on the sofa.
“Oh, that's kind of creepy...” Amy made a face. I didn’t know what was making me angrier, the fact that she felt absolutely no remorse about being caught naked on my couch in my living room, or the fact that the thing making her more uncomfortable than being caught, was the idea of my dead grandmother being kept in a vase by the fireplace.
“It is NOT creepy!” I said sternly as I glowered at her.
Noah stepped in between us and scoffed, “You know, maybe if you had sex every once in a while, you wouldn't be so shocked to see others doing it!” It was the second time that day I had felt a physical impact from something he had said.
Unable to hide the hurt in my eyes, I looked down. Hoping I appeared to be seething with anger as I stood there fighting my tears, I finally managed to compose myself enough to face him again.
“Really? So this is how it's going to be now?! Fine, you want it this way, that's not a problem for me.” The words were forcing their way through my teeth as I was trying not to shout at the top of my lungs.
“What?” Noah asked, defiantly towering over me.
“You have a room! You should use it! You're not the only one that can be an Ass!” I shoved him in the chest causing him to take a step backwards.
“That's fine by me,” he retorted with considerable less steam than before. Noah reached for Amy’s hand and practically pulled her up the stairs. I held my breath as they flew past me, afraid that I would smell his cologne on her as she passed by me. For a minute I just stood there alone in the living room, staring at the couch which now looked somehow different, and wondering if it would ever look the same to me again. Then I turned around, shut off the light and went back upstairs. I was halfway back to my room when I remembered what I had gone downstairs for in the first place. Two seconds later I was back in the living room flipping on the light and marching into the kitchen.
“I came down for some ice cream! I'm going to get my ice cream! ...and maybe some cookies...”
I rummaged around in the kitchen for a few minutes and then retreated to my bedroom, sweets in hand. I had added a soda to my snack. Since I had pretty much ruled out sleep at that point, I figured I might as well go the other route and ensure that I remained alert while I was watching my shows.
Couch Shopping
Friday had
come and gone, in what I could only describe as a bit of a blur. After the lack of sleep, combined with what was probably enough sugar to send me into a diabetic coma, I had been too exhausted to think, but too wired to sit still. Since I was in no mood to deal with anyone or anything remotely related to my personal life, I spent the majority of the day at school grading papers, organizing and then reorganizing my desk, preparing for the following week and doing just about anything I could think of to avoid going home. After cleaning the coffeemaker in the teacher’s lounge so thoroughly I was sure I could never drink coffee again (the thing had been extremely neglected for far too long and was beyond disgusting by the time I got to it) I finally glanced at the clock. It was almost 9pm, if I stayed any longer, the cops that patrolled the school grounds overnight would certainly get suspicious, so I packed up my things and headed home.
Thankfully, by the time I arrived at the house, everyone else was already out enjoying their Friday night on the town. I had hoped it would work out that way. Tara had mentioned she and Jason had a date during recess, and Gabe had texted me in the afternoon asking if I wanted to join him and some guys he worked with at a college basketball game, which I declined. Noah being out on a Friday night would be a given. More than likely he would be working, but if by any chance he had gotten the night off, he would no doubt be out on the prowl, provided he had had his fill of Amy at this point, which was likely.
I scoured the kitchen for something suitable to eat and quickly settled on what was left of the Chinese take-out. Without heating it up or reaching for a plate, I just pulled a fork from the drawer and ate it right out of the carton. With food in hand, I wandered up the stairs and climbed straight into bed fully clothed, flipped on the TV, and was grateful to find that the marathon I had watched the night before was still going on. I settled into my pillows and for the first time in nearly forty-eight hours, felt my body relax. Soon my tummy was filled and the sleep I had been seeking began to set in.