Chapter 48: : Chapter 48

The ocean is much like life, ever-changing and unpredictable. I’ve always found that to be the beauty behind it, but lately, I wonder if that’s true.

Where is the beauty in the possibility of a hurricane with the power to destroy everything in its path, both memories of the past and forecasts of the future? Isn’t that why we return to places we love? For the peace it offers and the memories it brings?

What happens when that’s washed away and there’s nothing to look back on?

How are you supposed to move forward knowing that?

The breeze picks up, and I cross my arms over my chest, but something pulls my eyes left. Thirty feet in the distance is Noah, and he’s headed right for me. My feet are moving before I even realize it, and then I’m meeting him in the middle.

A small smile forms along his lips, and he slowly passes me one of the two coffees in his hands.

Eagerly accepting, I use the heat of the paper cup to warm my palms. “How’d you know I’d be out here?” I tease, pretending the reason he’s out here is me.

“You always are.” He doesn’t miss a beat, and for a moment, my muscles clench.

Noah knew where to find me, so much so that he took a little detour to the coffee house first, knowing I’d be in the place he expected when he came back.

There’s a deep pull low in my stomach, but I breathe through it, and without a word, we walk toward the firepit, sitting down along its edge together.

I lift my cup, inhaling the rich scent.

“Don’t worry.” Noah adjusts his lid. “It’s not caramel.”

My head jerks his way, and the softness of his gaze has me whispering, “What kind is it?”

“Peppermint.”

My favorite. Noah knows my favorite.

He knew I’d be out here, close to the water.

Confusion whirls within me, and I think Noah sees it. He answers by breaking eye contact, and brings his cup to his lips, making me curious.

“What’s yours?”

“Spiked.”

A chuckle bubbles out of me and his lips pull to one side.

“Well…” I take the lid from mine and hold it out. “Share.”

He studies me a moment and with a hint of amusement in his gaze, he pulls a small bottle from his hoodie pocket, adding a splash of Bailey’s in my cup.

I give it a gentle stir, taking a small sip. “Nothing like a little liquor before lunch.”

“It’s not even eight yet.”

“Yeah, but lunch rhymed.”

Noah chuckles. “Surprised you didn’t hit me with a little Allan Jackson and say, ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere’.”

My smile is instant, and I admit. “I thought it.”

A soft hmm leaves him, and something warms inside me when his eyes meet mine. “I bet you did.”

My smile is broken apart with a yawn and Noah’s blue eyes soften.

“Still not sleeping well?” His voice is scratchy with his own restlessness.

I wince. “That obvious, huh?”

Noah shakes his head, slow and steady, whispering, “No. It’s not.”

He stares into my eyes a long moment, and an equally foreign as familiar warmth blankets me. No, it’s not obvious. He simply knows.

Because he knows you, Ari.

I blink.

You know him.

I blink again.

We stare at each other, and it’s he who faces the water first, so I follow.

We sit in silence, enjoying the heat our drinks offer and the calm each other’s company brings. I’ve been on edge for so long, but this is the first time in a really long time that I’ve felt like I can just be, like I can let my pain show where it will, without worrying about others and the concern they try to hide around me.

My family tries to pretend everything is normal, and I know how hard that must be.

Noah doesn’t do that. He’s simply here with me, and that’s it.

I don’t feel like I have to smile and that alone is invigorating.

Only once I can see the bottom of my cup, do I decide I want to share something with him, even if I’m not sure what it means or why I need him to know.

But I do need him to know, so I shift to face him.

“I looked for you last night.” My voice is lower than planned, and Noah’s head jerks my way so fast, air lodges in my throat. His blue eyes search mine, a mix of shock and settlement, of unspoken pain clouding his own.

“I thought maybe you left with Paige.”

His frown is deep and instant. Noah shakes his head, licking his lips as if biting back words he wishes to speak, so I nod, silently asking for them.

“Paige is my friend,” he tells me, tension tightening his features as he adds, “From high school, and from Avix.”

My pulse beats a little harder and I wait for more.

“I know you didn’t realize this, but that’s where you met her. At Avix.” His eyes move between mine. “Not before. Not in the summer. On campus, weeks into the semester.”

My lips part, my shoulders drawing in. “I met her at school?”

He nods.

“Why would I remember her face and name out of everything else?” I wonder. “Was she important to me?”

He shakes his head again. “No, not necessarily.”

The deeper implication of his words strikes me, and an unexpected sense of dread follows. “She was important to you.”

His face contorts, a million thoughts flashing across it before he speaks, “Not the way you might be thinking.”

“I don’t even know what I’m thinking,” I admit quietly. “It’s like I have thoughts and worry, or anger and sadness, but I don’t know why or where to direct it. I keep wondering if I made a mistake. That maybe I should have let everyone fill in the holes, but I didn’t want what someone else thought I felt to smother how I actually did, because does anyone actually share their every feeling with someone else? I mean truly, and without selection?”

Noah stares me directly in the eye and says, “We did.”

Two words, so tender and candidly spoken, create an ache so deep in my bones, I have no idea where it ends or begins, no idea if it’s my pain I’m feeling… or his.

Noah tips his head, his smile is tight, but his words are genuine. “I disagree, by the way. I think what you’re going through is brave. Anyone could have sat there and listened to someone else tell the story of their life, but you chose to live it instead. Regardless of the confusion I know you feel and no matter the pain you can’t shake. You’re strong, Juliet.” He swallows. “So much stronger than you know.”

She’s stronger than she knows…

My throat runs thick, and as I stare at Noah, my mind sparks.

Like lightning during the day, the flashes are there, but by the time your eyes follow, there’s nothing in sight. No proof of what you witnessed, no sign of what was.

“What are you thinking?” he wonders.

“About how proud your mom was of you.” Pain flickers across his face, and his chest flares. “She must have been.”

His eyes fall fast, and he nods, facing away from me for a quiet moment. “I saw her the day she died. She was… it was a really good day. She gave me something we found years ago, something I’d forgotten about, and right over there by that pier is where we found it.” He sighs. “I can’t remember exactly where but somewhere near there.”

That brings a grin to my face and I look to the water. “The ocean always offers a surprise. I hope it’s a long time from now, but I’d like to be cremated, too.”

Noah turns to me, and for the first time, I feel like he just learned something about me he didn’t already know. “Yeah?”

I nod. “That way my ashes can be buried or spread, and it’ll be like being in my favorite place forever.” I look to him. “Want to know where that is?”

“I know where it is.”

“Oh yeah?” I chuckle, his response quick and unexpected.

Noah nods. “Here. At the beach.”

My mouth gapes. “How did you… never mind.” I grow a little embarrassed and look away.

“Juliet…” he calls, my eyes return to him, slowly shaking his head. “You didn’t tell me. You asked me to take you to my favorite place once.” I did? “So I asked if you would do the same.”

“I brought you here?” I whisper, my stomach whirling beneath my palm.

“You agreed to show me, but I said I’d bet I already knew, and you said… you bet I did too.” His grin is small and then it’s gone. “I never confirmed what I thought, but you just did.”

“This was the first time you guessed?”

“It was, but it doesn’t feel like a guess.” He swallows. “Feels like I knew.”

A shiver runs over me, and I bite at my cheek. “Because you know me.”

“Yeah. I do. Just like you knew what I needed to make yesterday the least bit okay.”

Pressure falls on my chest and I brace for the dizzy, for the fog and suffocation, but the panic never comes.

Curiosity does.

So, I turn to Noah, asking, “Where was your favorite place?”

At that, his eyes go soft, his voice nothing but a whisper when he says, “I could show you…”

Eyeing the length of the football field, I pull my legs up to my chin. “I wonder if this would be Mason’s favorite place too, if I asked him.” I turn to Noah, my neck stretching to follow as he jumps to his feet.

He holds a hand out, so with a critical squint, I allow him to pull me to my feet.

Noah chuckles, and then without hesitation, he tugs me into him. One hand plants on my hip, the other keeping hold of my right. Slowly, Noah begins to rock us, and only when silence falls over him and I does the soft melody reach my ears.

Peeking behind me, I spot his phone on the turf, and look back to him.

“You owed me a dance,” he whispers, the heat of his breath sending an electric current down my spine.

My pulse plays leapfrog and I try for an easy grin. “Do I now?”

Noah only nods, and we continue to move.

It’s a strange kind of torture, the soft purity being in his arms offers, and the devastating story the words the song playing around us gently tells.

It’s bone-cracking torture, but Rascal Flatts will do that to you.

The song sings about love and good graces. Of wishing nothing but the best for someone. But most of all, it sings of selflessness, of acceptance that only comes with loss, or the possibility of goodbye, and Noah’s lips move to the words of the song as if silently singing them.

It’s as if Noah knows what music does to me and is speaking to me through the lyrics.

He wants me to be happy above all else, and I wish I understood exactly why.

You must know why, Ari. Remember.

I blink, swallow, and then the song changes, and it only gets worse.

Because this time, Noah’s grip isn’t simply him holding me, it’s him needing me.

I can feel it, deep in my soul. I feel him.

The defeat, the loss the song tells a tale of, it bleeds from him, and I ache to take it away.

It sings of missed chances and future dreams. This is a song about the agony that comes from the ‘what if’ life leaves us with. That so close moment, when everything seems possible, your happiness dangling within reach, all to be torn to bits and burned.

When there’s nothing you can do but sit back and watch the ashes disappear into the wind.

A sense of helplessness washes over me, and it’s as if a weight dropped along my shoulder when Noah’s forehead falls to mine.

My ribs ache, growing worse as I try for a deep breath, and I realize why when his shuddered one fans across me.

Noah is breaking before me. It’s obvious in the creases deepening along his brow. In the way his eyes squeeze tight, and his moments begin to slow. He’s barely keeping it together.

My intuition is proven true when his next breath is an apology as he excuses himself.

I stand there, all alone in the middle of the end zone, wondering why with each step away he takes, my body grows heavier.