Chapter 40
Luca
“Mon Papillon?” Noah hates it when I yell his pet name through the house, so in ten seconds he’s at the door.
“Hold on! I’ll be right down. Did you pack the backpack yet?”
I’m just getting to that, but I need to know if he wants to take the cheese and bacon muffins or the cake pops.
Paps baked them, they are delicious, so maybe I’ll just pack some of both. Main course and dessert, or something like that.
“I’m coming!” From the kitchen, I watch Noah walk down the stairs without crutches.
He’s still holding onto the railing, and you can see the instability in his right leg despite the brace.
That probably won’t get any better. Micki and the doctors say he could have another surgery—something to do with the ligaments in his knee—but Noah doesn’t want that.
He’s too scared of having to start from scratch, to lose his independence once again, and he says he can live just fine with the brace.
Today we’re finally fulfilling his wish and hiking up the Hohe Horn.
The brace is fully adjustable at the knee, depending on how much support is needed.
Together with Micki, Noah has spent the last two weeks finding the perfect fit and buying new shoes.
Now he’s standing in front of me, and I can almost feel the excitement radiating off him.
“We’re really doing this, right?”
“Absolutely. Get in the car, let’s go.”
Even from a distance, you can see the steel tower, whose platforms rise above the treetops. Noah stares out the window, spellbound. “Micki told me that the first hike he went on with Mathéo was up the Hohe Horn. The two of them had a race, and Mathéo still can’t believe he lost.”
“Really?” I laugh out loud. I can just picture the two of them racing each other up the narrow path. “I didn’t know that story. I’d suggest we skip the race today and focus on the wonderful view.”
Noah has been training every day for the past two months.
He’s gone for walks every spare minute and often accompanied Dayyan and Flocke into the vineyards in the evenings to get better at walking uphill and downhill.
Still, he looks at the narrow path that takes us up to the tower the shortest way with a lot of respect and even more skepticism.
“You can do it. Let’s go! You lead the way and set the pace.” He’s scared, I can tell by how frantically his chest rises and falls, but there’s so much determination in his eyes that I have no doubt we’ll make it to the top.
On Micki’s recommendation, he’s using two telescopic poles, and the climb goes better than either of us had hoped. Almost surprised, Noah looks up as we round the last bend and the tower rises up in the sky before us. Grinning, he turns briefly toward me, then sets his sights on the final hurdle.
Ninety-eight steps, the hardest challenge for someone like Noah.
He takes his time, pausing briefly on each landing, but he doesn’t give up.
I walk right behind him, always ready to catch him should his legs give out.
Honestly, I would have carried Noah up just to make his dream come true, but he doesn’t need me, and that’s so much better.
“Oh, wow! What a view! I’ve imagined this a lot when I’ve been home alone, but this is a thousand times better.”
Noah turns to me and I see the tears in his eyes.
Not the shame or despair I had to witness for so many months, joy and pride are shining brightly in his eyes, and I have to swallow hard too.
I could have lost him, twice, but he’s here, with me, fighting for his happiness.
Noah is so much stronger than he ever thought he could be.
Slowly, I step up behind him and wrap my arms around him. He leans into me immediately, and I hold him a little tighter. “I’m so proud of you, mon Papillon. Do you want me to show you around?”
The view is clear, the Vosges Mountains feel close enough to touch, the Black Forest behind us bathed in sunlight, and Strasbourg lies in the distance like a little Playmobil town.
“I don’t want to leave this place.” Noah sits on the low bench, munching on a muffin. “Will you pick me up here tomorrow?”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you up here alone. How am I supposed to sleep without you?” Noah laughs and kisses me, even though he knows fully well that I’m not joking. Sleeping is still difficult for me. It depends on so many different factors, and now he’s one of them.
Since Noah was discharged from the hospital, we haven’t slept apart. Sometimes closer, sometimes more distant, but never without each other. The rhythm of his breathing calms me, his heartbeat is my lullaby. I’d probably fall asleep eventually if I had to, but I don’t want to try.
“Then take me to bed. I can already feel every muscle, and I’m going to be completely wiped out by the time I get back down.”
Noah wasn’t exaggerating. Completely exhausted, he plops down on the big sofa in the living room and falls asleep immediately. Smiling, I take off his glasses and tuck him in.
“Coco?” Papa stops me outside my room. “Do you have five minutes for us? We’d like to talk to you about something.”
Paps is sitting at his desk grading a math test when we walk into my parents’ office. “Hey, kiddo, how was your trip? Never mind, your grin says it all. Did you make it to the top?”
“Yeah, even faster than expected. But Noah was so exhausted he fell asleep on the couch.”
Paps smiles. “I thought about you guys a lot this morning at school. I’m so happy for Noah.”
I love chatting with my fathers, but not when Noah is sleeping alone on the sofa without his glasses. I’d love to be there when he wakes up. “What’s up? Papa said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“As always, we’ve booked Saint émile for the summer, and we wanted to ask if you’d like to come along?”
My family travels to ?le de Saint émile every summer.
We have a big caravan, but I can’t imagine sharing it with my parents and my boyfriend.
I’m about to say no when Papa cuts me off.
“You’ll get a mobile home. Jannis and Dayyan have already booked for themselves and the twins, and Louis and David are coming too. We thought Noah might like it there.”
“We can book it now and cancel if it doesn’t work out for you two. Just don’t forget to check the right box.”
I love the idea of sitting on the beach with Noah and watching the sunset. “I don’t want to decide this without him, but I can’t imagine he’d have anything against it.”