41. Noras Mixtape #17
CHAPTER 41
NORA'S MIXTAPE #17
NATE
Scott's words detonate like grenades in my head. I'm used to my father's usual arsenal—useless, fuck up—but what destroys me is his final blow before Nora interrupted.
"You're exactly like your mother. I should have given you away when I had the chance."
Molten rage courses through my veins as I storm to the boat shed, each step weighted with years of accumulated pain. The world constricts around me, familiar panic clawing at my chest. My lungs forget how to work, my heart is like a wild animal trying to break free of my ribcage. The boat shed walls press in, suffocating me with memories I can't outrun.
Too tight.
Too fucking tight.
I demolish the nearest object—an old toolbox—sending bits of metal and plastic flying. Blood wells from where steel slices my hand, but even that sharp sting can't silence the war zone in my head.
I need something.
I need out.
I need release.
The bags of pills—oxycodone and opioids I'd had stashed in the boatshed weeks ago—mock me from the table. They whisper an old truth: once an addict, always an addict. Once a fuck up, always a fuck up.
I'm dancing with the devil, both in my mind and in those small white capsules that promise oblivion. My hands tremble as I run them through my hair, desperately seeking stability in reality. The demon inside me pirouettes on the edge of my sanity, every fiber of my being craving that chemical silence.
One second is all it would take.
One moment of stillness.
One breath where my mind isn't a battlefield.
The truth cuts deeper than any blade—I don't chase these pills for pleasure anymore. It's pure survival, a desperate attempt to numb the chaos. The addiction coils around me like a serpent, promising peace.
"Don't do it, Nate."
Nora's voice slices through the storm like a lighthouse beam. My knuckles whiten against the table's edge, shame burning through me.
"I told you I needed to be alone." My voice is fragile.
"No." Her response is steel wrapped in silk.
I can't face her, but her reflection in the window haunts me—a silhouette of salvation I don't deserve.
"I need you to come back," she whispers, words threading through my madness.
"I'm not going back to that fucking house."
"No." Her presence warms my back. "I need you to come back to me, Nate."
I shut my eyes, her words hitting like a physical force. "I can't beat this fucking devil in my head, Nora," I confess, barely above a whisper. "I can't??—"
"I know."
"I'm no good for you."
"I know."
Her acceptance unravels me.
"Then why won't you just walk away?" My voice cracks as I turn to face her, terrified of what I'll see. But her eyes—a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of green that words can't capture—hold only warmth.
"Because I know you believe those things, Nate," she says softly. "But I don't."
She closes the distance between us, her touch igniting every nerve ending when her hand finds my arm. My pulse thunders, electricity crackling beneath my skin where we connect.
"I'm here," she murmurs, steady as a heartbeat. "I just need you to come back and be here with me too. Can you do that?"
"Nora, I??—"
"You know what I think the devil is?" she asks, surprising me.
"What?"
Her hand cups my face, her eyes pierce through my walls, seeing straight to the broken pieces I try to hide.
"I think he's just a fallen angel in pain," she whispers. "A lost boy trying to find his place in the world. His home."
The universe shifts in that moment, reality bending around her words. I realize then I would love her in every lifetime—my atoms could scatter across galaxies, and they'd still spell her name in stardust. I'd always searched for someone to look at my darkness and still choose to stay. Here she stands, seeing all of me and refusing to look away.
"Nora…" Her name catches in my throat, heavy with so many unspoken truths.
"I told you, you don't have to do this alone anymore." Our bodies press together, gravity drawing us closer. "I got you," she murmurs, cradling my face. "Every part of you."
I lean in, expecting her retreat. "I'm not strong enough to walk away right now, so if you tell me to leave, then I'll go. But if you don't, then I won't be sorry for what I'm about to do next."
Her answer comes in the form of a kiss—soft at first, then igniting.
"Stay," she breathes against my mouth.
She's my worst fucking addiction.
I recognize it in every tingling nerve ending, every fixated thought. Wanting her is pure compulsion, raw need. Guilt wars with desire as I back her onto the workbench, hands pushing her dress up to grip the soft curves of her thighs. Her whimper shoots straight through me as I explore her mouth, tasting sweetness that puts honey to shame. Her kiss is shy but electric, setting my blood on fire in ways no one else ever has. Her body presses against mine, drawing out a groan as I pull her closer, fingers threading through silken hair that smells of vanilla and summer promises.
One second.
That's all it took for everything to change.
One second to come alive again.
One second to fall even harder for the girl who's held my heart hostage since we were kids.
"Your heart is beating so fast." She smirks against my lips. "Do I make you nervous, Nate?"
"Yeah," I admit. "You do."
Her laugh is pure music, melting my defenses. I kiss her again, pouring everything I've never said into her before slowly pulling away, letting the taste of her linger on my lips.
"Sometimes I don't know how to be in the same space with you."
"Why?"
"You make me feel," I confess rawly. "Everything. All at once. You make me feel better, and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to feel better. When I find what I want, I fucking drown in it." The truth burns my throat. "I can't do that with you. I can't drown you in my shit."
Her eyes soften like morning light. "You're right. You do drown in the things you want. You always have. But you want to know what I think? Someone who gets their addictions confused with a true need to feel things. That energy, that passion, it's yours to own, not the substances around you. When you love, you love hard. That fire inside you, Nate… it's you."
She retrieves the pills from the table, and shame threatens to swallow me whole.
"This," she holds up the bags, "this isn't you. Fight me on it all you want, but your walls are useless when I've seen the parts of you the rest of the world doesn't see. So, no. I won't walk away. And no, you won't be doing this on your own anymore. And no, the devil doesn't get to win this time."
She stands close enough that I can map every shade of green in her eyes—emerald, sage, olive, moss, mint—all swirling with intensity that steals my breath. A glance becomes an intimate exchange, a peek through the keyhole of someone's world into a vault containing everything they are. Their vulnerability, pain, vitality, power.
"Your demons don't scare me, Nate."
Our hands intertwine, and the universe tips sideways. It's more than touch—it's collision, sending shockwaves through my system. Her skin against mine feels like fate, like no matter how broken the path, we were always meant to find each other.
Again and again and again.
"Want to get out of here?" My voice comes out rough with need.
She hesitates, eyes darting between me and the evidence of my almost-breakdown, before nodding. I grab the bags of pills and hand them to her.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For saving me from myself."
Again.
The Mustang's engine rumbles through the night, a steady heartbeat beneath our unspoken words. The pull between us is magnetic, impossible to ignore.
"I have your birthday present," I say softly when we stop.
"Nate, you didn't have to??—"
"It's nothing, really. Just… close your eyes. Hold out your hands."
She complies, trust written in every line of her body. My heart stumbles at the sight—her vulnerability is a gift I'm not sure I deserve. I place the CD in her waiting hands.
"Nora's Mixtape #17," she reads, her smile blooming like sunrise. "I can't believe you remembered."
Her fingers trace the handwritten track list. Since we were six, this has been our tradition—me capturing our summer in songs, curating melodies that preserved our moments together. More often than not, the music said what I couldn't.
“Nora, I remember everything about us."
She puts the CD in and hits play. Aerosmith's "Angel" fills the car with guitar riffs slow as heartbeats. While Steven Tyler's raw voice pours emotion into the space between us, each note draws us closer, binding us together in ways that feel inevitable. Her soft sigh catches in my chest.
"This," she smiles.
"Is your favorite song?"
Her smile softens, and something cracks open inside me. Every buried feeling surfaces at once, truth hitting like a thunderbolt: I'm in love with this girl.
Wholeheartedly.
We keep driving and of all the moments I've had where I've allowed myself to just be, this has to be one of my favorite moments.
All because of her.
"Do you ever think about the future, Nate?" she asks out of nowhere.
The honest answer is no. I stopped dreaming past tomorrow long ago, learning to exist in single moments, surviving one breath at a time. Hope was more dangerous than any drug—it could kill in countless ways.
"I think learning how to just be in the single fleeting second that exists is more important than stressing about a future that doesn't exist yet."
She looks up through her lashes, beautiful enough to stop time. "You're right. There's no going backwards, but maybe it's not so bad to dwell on the past, as long as it brings you closer to the truth. So you can move forward." She turns to look at me.
"I don't know how to do that. I've made a lot of mistakes."
"Well, tomorrow is a new day without any mistakes in it yet."
By the time "Dare You to Move" fades out, we've circled town twice, ending up back at the lake house. The silence between us crackles with electricity, every breath charged with unspoken words. Under the porch light, she's ethereal—her cheeks flushed rose-pink, eyes dark with something that makes my pulse sprint. She bites her lower lip, gaze dancing between me and the door like she's wrestling with the same magnetic pull I am.
I can't let her just walk away. Not when everything in me is screaming to hold on.
My fingers circle her wrist, tugging her back before she can reach for the door handle. She spins into me, soft curves colliding with hard muscle, and the gasp that escapes her lips shoots straight through my body. My free hand finds the small of her back, pressing her closer until I feel her heartbeat thundering against my chest—or maybe that's mine. Maybe they're the same now.
"Nate…" My name on her lips is half-whisper, half-plea.
I tilt her chin up, and time suspends. The porch light catches the gold flecks in her eyes, turning them into their own constellation. Years of wanting, of denying, of running—it all comes down to this moment. Her fingers curl into my shirt, anchoring herself, tethering me.
The first brush of my lips against hers is feather-light, a question. Her answer comes in the way she rises on her tiptoes, pressing closer, demanding more. The kiss deepens, and it's like touching a live wire—electric, dangerous, absolutely necessary. She tastes like promises I want to keep, like every fucking dream I never let myself have. My fingers thread through her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, and the soft sound she makes nearly breaks me.
When we finally part, her eyes flutter open slowly, like she's waking from a dream she doesn't want to end. She's looking at me like I've rearranged her universe, and fuck if she hasn't done the same to mine.
"Happy birthday, Leni," I whisper, voice rough with everything I'm not saying. Everything I want to say.
"Goodnight, Nate." Her words ghost across my lips, one last temptation.
I watch her disappear inside, my body still humming with her touch, my lips still burning with her taste. My heart pounds with absolute certainty—it's her.
It's always been her. It will always be her.
The moment feels perfect.
Almost too perfect.
But in my world, happy endings don't exist.