Chapter Forty-three
“Don’t cry, Madeleine Faith.”
Noah’s breath is sweet against my face. Spicy. His voice is even richer than in my dreams.
“Wake up, Faith. Open your eyes now. Come back to me.”
Oh, his arms! They’re stronger now. Thicker. And warm, as if he’s just come in from the sun.
How did I land in his arms?
Noah’s hand caresses my cheek. His lips press against my forehead. “I’m sorry, Faith,” he whispers. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
The wet skin on my cheeks lifts.
“Ah, there she is. My Madeleine Faith.” A soft, cinnamon-scented tune sends wisps of words—something about a corner, my smile, home—into my hair. The tune is familiar, but the words are . . . not quite right.
“Noah.” His name is an exhalation, a breath—my breath—held inside far too long.
He’s here.
He’s . . . real.
“Noah.” I open my eyes. “You’re here.” I press my hand to his cheek. “And you’re still a hack. You cheesed up that song from Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
“Busted. I guess I can’t get anything by you.”
Noah’s smile. Noah’s smile is everything. It’s everything.
“You’re here. You came.”
“Yeah.” The blue of his eyes is brighter than I remembered. Wetter.
Mom clears her throat. “I’m going to run upstairs and get some bandages. I’ll . . . be right back.”
I don’t move except to blink. I think I might never move again.
But what did Mom say? Bandages? For what?
“What is she talking about?”
“Do you remember dropping the jar?”
I bite my lower lip. I do vaguely remember the sound of glass shattering. I nod. “I think . . . I locked my knees.”
“Ah. Well, when you fainted, I . . .” Noah’s voice is a little strained but so beautiful, “I had to catch you.”
I lift my head. There’s a bright red stain on Noah’s left sock. “You’re bleeding!”
“It’s not that bad. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m not the one bleeding.” I move to sit up.
“Careful now.” Noah’s arms tighten around me. “Broken glass, you know. Give yourself a minute. Get your bearings.”
“Does it hurt? Is it deep?”
“My understudy will probably be disappointed, but I think I’ll live.”
“Good. But still, we should . . . I’m sorry, but did you say understudy?”
“Yes.” Noah grins. “We’re still in rehearsals, but starting next month, and then for the next eight months, I’ll be playing the part of Jimmy in an off-Broadway revival of Thoroughly Modern Millie. And in case you wondered, I do sing the correct words on stage.”
“You’re in Millie? Wait. You said off-Broadway. You mean . . . you’re in New York? But you’re supposed to be in London for another year!”
“Remember when I said I would try to switch to the two-year program?”
I nod.
“I finished in April, packed my bags, and headed back to the States. Long story short, I started auditioning and . . . got this part.”
“That’s . . . wow! Congratulations!”
My cheeks ache with sheer joy. With Noah back in my life, I should probably get used to the feeling.
“I can’t believe you’re really here. You’re in my mom’s house, bleeding on the laundry room floor.”
“It’s quite romantic, isn’t it?”
It kind of is. “You sound like a Brit.”
I run my fingers over the goldish-brown stubble that lines a more defined jaw than I remember. Noah Spencer is no longer a boy. He is a man. The romantic lead in an off-Broadway musical. It’s . . . surreal.
“Are you sure I’m awake?”
“If I am, then you must be as well. So . . . what are you doing for dinner?”
“What?”
“Would you have dinner with me?”
“Noah, it’s not even nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Madeleine Faith Prescott, I am officially asking you out on a date. In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it’s the usual course of action when two adults who are romantically inclined toward one another share a meal in a restaurant. I am asking you out. On a date. A real date.”
“A real date.” My grin spreads wide. “I would like that.”
“Good.” He winks, and my heart spins and flops over on itself.
“I hear there’s a pretty decent place in Sommerton,” I say. “It’s called The Smoked Salt Grille or something weird like that. Except—” I smack my hand against my forehead. “I have to be at work at nine.”
“So we make it an early dinner.”
“No, you don’t understand. I have to be at work in Detroit at nine. It’s a ten hour drive, if I go really fast, plus I have to drop Janey off at my apartment in Ann Arbor. If I don’t leave pretty soon . . .” A strangled noise exits my throat. “I can’t believe you’re here and I—”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to cry again. Our time together can’t be so short! Not after two years! Not after the night I just spent and the strides I’ve made . . .
“It’s okay. I’m not expected back in New York until the thirteenth. I’ll go with you. I can change my flight from Moline to . . . where did you say? Detroit?”
I nod.
“Detroit. Huh.” When Noah shifts position, he winces. Reaching down toward his foot, he pulls an inch-long sliver of glass from his sock. “So while I’ve been combing every theatre-student haunt in New York this summer, you’ve been in . . . Detroit?”
“No, I work in Detroit. Well, one of my jobs is there. I live in Ann Arbor. I moved there in May because I’ll be attending the University of Michigan this fall. Long story.”
And I will tell it all. Someday. But . . .
“Wait, why were you looking for me in New York this summer?”
“Now that’s a fun story.” He frowns. “In retrospect. It wasn’t at the time, I assure you. Anyway, I flew in for your high school graduation, but you weren’t there—”
“You came to my high school graduation?”
“I did. But you didn’t.”
“Oh, yeah. I graduated early.”
“As I learned. Unfortunately, I only had a few hours in town.” He lifts a shoulder.
“Money was tight, but I’d found a really cheap round-trip fare I couldn’t pass up.
Anyway, I showed up at graduation, and Jenna told me you’d left town, but she didn’t know where you were. I guess you guys didn’t keep in touch?”
“No. We . . . drifted apart. Another long story.”
“Ah.” Noah nods but doesn’t ask for details. “Well, that silly little charm, wherever it landed, was going to be a graduation gift.”
“But I wasn’t there. Sorry.”
“No worries. We’d agreed to stay out of touch. You had no way of knowing I would come to graduation, and since my time was limited, I decided to leave it in the Dutchman’s pocket and hope you’d come home over the summer and find it.”
I can barely wrap my mind around it. He came back for me. Twice.
I’m bursting with a thousand variations on the theme, “I love you, Noah Spencer,” but Mom picks that moment to return with the first aid kit and a broom and dustpan, so I say, “Thank you,” instead.
As soon as Mom has swept away enough of the broken jar that we can safely stand, I help Noah hobble over to the dryer, and he boosts himself slightly up to sit on it.
While I see to Noah’s foot, Mom runs the vacuum over the floor to pick up any stray glass fragments, and then she makes a quiet exit.
“Your mom is different than I expected her to be.”
“The part where she let you in the house was different. That’s for sure.” My tone is dry but not bitter.
He nods. “People change.”
“Yes. They do. We do.”
He exhales a long breath. “Two years is a long time.”
“It seemed like fifty while I was in it, but now that you’re here . . . not so much.”
“Can we pick up where we left off?”
“Like you said, we’ve changed.” I taste the trueness of my words. “We’re not the same idealistic young dreamers who met at the waterfall. Picking up where we left off doesn’t really seem possible.”
Noah’s eyes cloud. “Oh.”
“But,” I add, squeezing his hand and smiling because I don’t recall when our fingers entwined. “Someone once told me that dreams can go through a metamorphosis and come out bigger and fuller on the other side. And there’s no one in the world I’d rather build a big, full dream with than you.”
The spark returns to Noah’s eyes. “It’ll take time, getting to know each other again. Especially with me in New York and you in Michigan.”
“Yes. But we’ll have technology at our disposal now. And I’ll have school breaks.”
“My contract with the production company is going to keep me busy for almost a year.” Noah groans. “A year.”
“What’s almost a year compared to the past two years?”
“Ask me that a week from now.”
I’m not sure if music begins to swell, and I can’t name the exact moment Noah wraps his arms around me, but when our lips meet, I know that somewhere, beyond this temporal stage on which we stand, in a realm we can’t quite see, a sold-out crowd has leapt to its feet and is shouting for an encore.
We comply.