Chapter 16
NOAH’S MOUTH OPENED, but he didn’t say anything. He stared at me for what felt like an eternity. The beats of silence stretched on as my question reverberated in my mind over and over: You don’t remember me, do you?
“Wait. I think I do remember you,” he said.
“You really don’t have to say that,” I quickly followed. The last thing I needed was for Noah to pretend to know who I was out of pity.
“Yeah, I—”
I interrupted him. “It’s really okay.”
“No, no, no, I do . . .” He trailed off, then snapped his fingers. “You’re the chocolate milk girl.”
“The what?”
“The chocolate milk girl,” he repeated. “I, uh, didn’t recognize you.” His eyes swept over me. I stared at him, mouth agape, a small, nervous laugh escaping. He remembered that too?
“I have this vague memory of you stealing my chocolate milk,” he continued, his eyebrows wrinkled in thought.
The notion that Noah had noticed a single thing about me that he could recall a full decade later left me stunned.
Especially that it just so happened to be the same moment I’d replayed thousands of times in my mind throughout the years.
“I did not steal it,” I blurted out, immediately regretting that I’d just shown my hand by acknowledging I knew the exact incident he was referring to.
Way to be cool about it, Jane.
He pointed at me. “Wait, you remember this too?”
“No, I mean—not really, I—”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded, grinning mischievously as he leaned back against the bookshelf. My heart skipped a beat at the sight.
“I mean, it wasn’t yours,” I breathed.
“It was just the last one. It’s okay, I’ve forgiven you,” he teased. I felt an unintentional smile emerge as I dropped my gaze, as if his were contagious.
So this was what it felt like to have Noah Elliot pay attention to you.
“Yeah, it’s all coming back now,” he said, looking off as he jogged his memory. “You were kinda quiet.” He chuckled, lightly kicking my leg with his foot. A shiver danced down my spine. Then he continued, “The weird girl in the corner of the cafeteria with a book.”
My chin jerked back. Weird? The word dug into me like a knife.
“Yup, that was me. And thanks for that—‘weird.’”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” he clarified. “I was just having a flashback. Man, I hadn’t thought about you in . . . ten years? It’s kinda fun thinking back to those times.”
Embarrassment washed over me like a torrential rain. I couldn’t say the same. As much as I’d fought to forget about him, Noah had been a recurring character in my mind for the last decade. And clearly, based on my reaction to him, my inane crush on him was still alive and well.
I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling small and insignificant. Just like when I sat at that table in the cafeteria, day after day, all alone. In one fell swoop, with one offhand comment.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I whispered, leaving out the rest of my thought: for you.
“What, it’s not fun?”
“I mean . . .” I paused, carefully selecting my words. “Not really? High school wasn’t a great time for me.”
“It wasn’t?” Noah knitted his brows.
“No.” I shook my head. His perplexion struck me. Did he really not understand that life outside of his bubble wasn’t as rosy?
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t one of the popular kids like you were.” I gestured to him.
Noah shrugged. “And?”
“And so my experience included things like sitting alone at lunch. Every single day. Without fail.” I threw in a fake chuckle for levity.
Noah pondered this. “To be honest, I always assumed you wanted to be left alone.”
Did he really think that? Did he believe that all those solitary lunch hours and unaccompanied walks down the hall and absences from every party could be attributed to my wanting to be left out? To leave an impression no deeper than being the weird girl in the corner with a book?
“Well, it got old after a while,” I murmured. Noah and I locked eyes. I broke my gaze and looked down at my hands folded in my lap, suddenly feeling sheepish for allowing myself to be so honest. What had I been thinking, letting him in like that?
“Sorry—” I started, petering out. I shook my head.
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard,” he said. I let myself steal a glance back up at him. Noah was staring at me, his eyes soft, genuine, safe. And captivating. I felt my breath stop.
Time slipped into slow motion for a few moments as we looked at one another, sitting on the floor of a tiny bookstore, shrouded in shadows, the world around us fast asleep. But we were here, the only two people in this moment, together. Were we having a . . . romantic moment?
Keep dreaming, Jane.
“Yeah. It was.” I nodded, bringing myself back to the present.
“Interestingly, so was not being alone.”
“What do you mean?” I tilted my head.
“Going to parties, doing crazy stuff, being expected to be a certain way . . . that got old too.”
There hadn’t been a minute when I wasn’t yearning to know what it felt like to have eyes on me, to be invited, to be thought of, to be known, to matter to someone. I didn’t understand how he possibly could have gotten tired of the very thing I had been so starved for.
“But everyone knew you, liked you.”
He nodded slowly. “I guess.”
“How could that have gotten old to you?”
“I didn’t always want to be the life of the party. But there was a lot of pressure to be.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He paused, his drifting eyes letting me know that he was lost in thought. “So I wouldn’t say you necessarily got the short end of the stick.”
I thought on this. I could accept that Noah’s experience might not have been quite as marvelous as I’d imagined, but I couldn’t let that comparison pass. He wouldn’t have lasted a day in my shoes.
“Well, that’s very easy for you to say, as the guy who was elected ‘most likely to become a rock star.’”
Noah chuckled at this and held his arms open. “Yeah, well, look at where I am now. I dunno, it would’ve been nice to be on my own sometimes. No pressure to become a rock star, no drama.”
“No one who knew you even existed,” I quipped. Noah cracked a smile in response, but I could tell my joke hadn’t convinced him.
“All I’m saying is, sure, I sat with the ‘popular’ kids. But honestly, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t even talk to most of them anymore,” he said, his tone serious.
The realization struck me. Maybe, despite my own leftover hurts from those days, he had a point.
In all my years sitting at that corner table of the lunchroom, observing the rest of Avila High as if from the outside of a snow globe, I’d never stopped to consider what things might have looked like from inside the snow globe.
And that perhaps sitting at the center of it, at the popular kids’ table, wasn’t as rewarding as it looked.
“They knew a version of me, you know?” he said.
“But not all of you?”
What could Noah have kept hidden about himself? He was always center stage, unrestrained, seen by all—certainly not the type to leave much concealed. Or so I’d thought.
“I mean . . . no.” He shook his head. “At least everyone assumes the kid in the corner is smart, capable of having some kind of deep thought, right?”
He wasn’t wrong. Despite the undeniable attraction I’d felt to him all those years ago, I had always surmised that he was nothing more than a mindless popular kid. And I’d detested the fact that I found myself drawn to him, chalking it up to a senseless, skin-deep crush.
“I guess you’re right,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pricks of guilt about all the conjectures I’d made about him, the host of uncharitable assessments. The idea that I’d not just been wrong about Noah, but unfair to him all along, swirled in my mind.
“But anyway, who really cares about high school?” he said with a half smile and another gentle kick to my leg.
“Right,” I agreed.
“So . . . what’ve you been up to since then?”
I pulled my thoughts away from my collection of awkward adolescent memories and back to where I sat.
“I’m a writer,” I started.
“Surprise, surprise. The girl with her nose in a book became a writer.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “What kind of stuff do you write?”
I considered how I might present my life to Noah, the life I’d created since being that weird girl in the corner. I decided I’d lead with what seemed to impress most people.
“I ghostwrite books for celebrity clients.”
“Oh, wow.” He raised his eyebrows. “Like who?”
I thought about the contract I’d signed stating that I’d never tell anyone. Was it worth the risk to impress Noah?
Come on. Who’s he going to tell, Jane?
“Well, technically I’m not supposed to share this, so you can’t repeat this. But I’m working on a book for Liv right now.”
“Liv Liv?” Noah leaned forward.
“Yup,” I said, satisfied with the awe that stretched across his face.
Worth it.
“Well, that’s a lot cooler than anything I’ve ever done . . . and again, I sat with the cool kids,” he teased. I chuckled.
“I’m also working on a novel right now,” I said, choosing not to tell him that I hadn’t the slightest clue as to when, or if, that novel would ever come out. Noah’s jaw dropped open.
“A novel? That’s amazing. What’s it about?” His eyes peered into mine so intently that I felt my mouth go dry. I swallowed hard.
“It’s a coming-of-age novel. About a young girl who discovers herself after moving to a big city.” Saying it out loud, it suddenly sounded trite. A stray thought that told me I should scrap the whole thing ran through my mind. I slipped a gummy into my mouth to distract myself.
“Well, color me impressed, Jane.”
I still wasn’t used to the way my name sounded when he said it, the way it suddenly seemed more elegant and less plain.
“What about you? What do you do?” I asked. Noah laid his head against the books behind him.
“My day gig is at Hardware Haven. Sometimes the odd handyman job. And I do some music on the side.” So Noah wasn’t just visiting Avila Falls like I was. He lived here. He had a day job here and everything.