Chapter 19
Noa
Dad:
Click here to see the link – Girl kidnapped in Cambodia talks about her journey since .
Just a reminder, don’t talk to any strangers.
Noa:
I’m 28, not 8. I don’t need the reminder.
And don’t worry, I have my bodyguard…REMEMBER!!!
Ryan:
I fear that was a dig aimed at me.
Noa:
Great, it landed!
N oa’s first day in Koh Tao had been a happy surprise.
She and Alex had done a 180 when it came to their relationship, and she had actually enjoyed his company.
She could see them being real friends again, and not just because they had her brother in common.
She just hoped it continued. She’d always felt like he’d truly seen her when growing up and last night, despite all the time that had passed, she felt that again.
It was almost enough to make her want to reconsider her plan to torment him.
Almost.
Their current hostel was right on the beach and, as she walked down the steps towards the breakfast area she was greeted by Alex’s smiling face. Teeth bared and all. Odd.
‘What have you done?’ she asked, sceptically eyeing him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re smiling.’
‘And?’
‘It’s scary and suspicious,’ she grumbled. ‘Stop it.’
‘Charming. Remind me never to catch you before coffee again.’
‘Alex…’
‘Noa…’
‘Out with it.’
‘So, about that list,’ he began. ‘Well, there’s no time like the present right? We are ticking off number ten and we are doing it today.’
After showing Alex her ‘30 before 30’ list, they’d moved on quite quickly. She assumed he had just forgotten about it. She’d had to bury the hurt she’d felt at his lacklustre response, his reaction feeling too similar to Lucas’s often disinterested ones.
She blinked rapidly at him, now, her mouth dropping open and closing again as she tried to figure out the appropriate response.
‘Sorry, come again?’ was all she could come up with.
Maybe she really did need that coffee because, not only had he remembered, but this felt an awful lot like him helping her.
‘I’ve booked us a full day diving course at Shark Bay. Come on. Chop, chop. I need you ready and right back down here in the next twenty minutes.’
‘I… I…’ she didn’t finish the sentence, just stood there slack-jawed for a minute.
He really was helping her. And in such a thoughtful way. She’d done her research, and Shark Bay was where people went to swim with turtles and that was something she was dying to do. She’d never told him that was where she’d been longing to go, he just knew.
So, before he could change his mind, she let out an undignified squeal of excitement, turned on her heels, and hurried back where she came from to get ready for what was going to be one of the most epic days of her life. And she had Alex Fletcher to thank for it.
T hey sat side by side with their legs dangling over the edge of the wooden boat, bobbing up and down as it floated over gentle waves. After a long briefing and a short practice run in the shallow waters of the beach, they were now gearing up to finally take their first dive.
Noa couldn’t help the nervous shaking of her leg as she thought about being so far below water, relying only on the oxygen tank that now felt heavy on her back.
She focused on her breathing to quell the overwhelming urge to panic and overthink everything that could go wrong.
She felt her heart beating too fast in her chest, her vision starting to blur in the corners, a telltale sign that she was about to be pulled into a panic attack.
It felt like she was drowning before she had even touched the water and she just stared into the waves, trying to focus. To remember why she was here.
She had come to do things that excited her, that would push her out of her comfort zone. This would achieve both. She just had to force herself to take the plunge.
Literally.
The panic was in her head and manifesting into physical symptoms, but she could get them under control if she could just ground herself.
She needed to focus on her senses. What she could hear: the gentle song of the waves, the birds in conversation above them, and the whispering of the wind past her ears.
What she could smell: salt, suncream, and a warm sea breeze. And what she could see .
Peering down at the water, a stunning shade of topaz, she tried to think of the wonders that would lie below it.
Their briefing had promised the possibility of starfish and turtles, colourful reefs, and tropical fish.
And she knew that if she quit now, she would probably never get the opportunity again. How hard could it be?
She could do this.
As she tried to run through her senses again, focussing on what she could feel, a warm, calloused hand covered hers.
She realised her breathing had rapidly picked up, her chest heaving.
Lifting her chin, she saw Alex was nodding, his kind smile reassuring.
Steadfast. He squeezed her hand in three steady pumps, and she had to refrain from falling into him and letting him wrap her up.
She had a feeling his arms could calm a whole load of anxieties, but she could do this herself. She would.
Feeling bolstered by his presence, though, she took a long soothing breath, becoming steadier now. She realised that, without even knowing it, Alex had helped her with her grounding techniques. Although, maybe, he had known.
A memory surfaced of her sitting on her parent’s sofa, clutching a pillow to her chest as a panic attack threatened to take her over.
She felt underprepared for her GCSE English exam and, unable to rationalise, she had slipped into hyperventilating.
As her vision started to blur, Alex rounded the corner, having clearly let himself into their house to look for Ryan.
He immediately ran to her, asking what he could do.
And, after she managed to choke out the grounding techniques she’d been developing with her therapist, he got to work guiding her to stock check everything around her.
Using all five senses, he had talked Noa through her panic, tethering her in the present and automatically calming her .
And he’d subtly done the same right now, as she’d shown signs of the same panic all over again, giving her other things to focus on—the feel of his rough hands, the sight of his amber eyes that had flecks of white and gold in them as the sunlight reflected off them.
She realised she’d gotten lost in them when, suddenly, his lips were moving, and she wasn’t sure of the words that had come out.
‘Sorry, what?’ she said, shaking off whatever form of hypnosis she’d just been under.
‘Are you ready?’ he repeated.
She nodded, and she realised she really was.
Even though so much had changed—they weren’t sixteen anymore and he wasn’t talking her out of a pre-exam melt down—it seemed that some things stayed the same.
So, without another word and still hand in hand, together they pushed off the boat and went tumbling into the waves below.
N oa and Alex sat in the hostel bar, surrounded by people they had met on their travels.
There was Lola, Thea, and Hattie, as well as two newbies, Marcus and Tom, who had been part of their diving group and, to Noa’s surprise, were also staying at their hostel.
She sat there wildly scrolling through her hoard of new photos and videos from their day, unable to wipe the wide smile from her face.
Having never dived before, she’d been apprehensive at first. but, after her initial panic on the boat, the instructors had guided her through it, and Alex had been there every step of the way.
She’d been in awe of the sights that surrounded her.
Pride filled her as she recognised she had embraced her fear and fought through it, only to have this as the end result.
The water had been so clear, and they’d been able to swim through schools of what looked like hundreds of varieties of fish, all an abundance of different colours. It was like swimming through a rainbow.
Reds, greens, purples, pinks. They were iridescent, scales shimmering as they undulated through the water in an almost rhythmic motion.
Watching them veer left and then propel right as the water rippled and pulsed around them was hypnotic.
She could have remained there, taking them in for days and never gotten bored.
The turtles were just as extraordinary. They glided through the water like they were at one with it.
Majestic. There was something about them that felt so wise.
Looking into their eyes, Noa felt like they held all the secrets of the sea.
She never could have imagined being able to get so close.
The whole thing truly was a dream come true.
She looked at the faces around her. All equally enthralled and enraptured by her story, watching every video and asking questions about every photo she showed them.
She couldn’t believe she had only known them five days.
Time had gone by so fast, and yet she felt like she had known them so much longer.
Like they were all old friends. It really was a time warp when travelling, and she loved it.
Her gaze passed across the circle until it hit Alex.
He was already looking at her with an expression she couldn’t place.
Contemplative, maybe?
Admiration?
Giving him a shy smile, Noa looked back at her phone and tried not to think too much about the butterflies currently taking flight in her stomach. They fluttered their wings rapidly against her insides, making it hard for her not to squirm in response.
‘I hate to disappoint guys, but I think I am in need of a post-adrenaline nap,’ Noa interjected into the conversation as she started to gather her things.
It was probably time to put some space between her and Alex before she misinterpreted the butterflies as anything other than gratitude for the man who had supported her to face her fears.
‘Girl, you are speaking my love language. No need to justify a nap to me. I think it should be a mandatory daily activity,’ Lola responded.
Noa laughed at that, because this girl was so easy to be around, and she hoped this was just the start of a blooming friendship.
Lola was so fun and free, and different to Noa in many ways.
She had an ability to lift any mood and pull Noa from her own head.
She, again, reminded her of her best friend Tes that way.
As Noa pushed away from the table, she felt the weight of a hand on her shoulder, and she turned, shocked to see it wasn’t Alex this time.
Marcus pulled his arm back, having gotten her attention, and tucked his fists in his swim shorts as he rocked back and forth onto the balls of his feet.
His crooked smile wasn’t quite exploding fireworks in the pit of her stomach or toes curling in her sandals, but it was handsome.
He was handsome. His sandy blond hair, long on the top of his head, was mussed from a day spent in salty waters.
The bridge of his nose was rosy from too much sun.
He was tall and lean and, as her eyes trailed his body, she couldn’t see a tattoo in sight. She didn’t know why that particular bit of information caught her attention, but she noticed it anyway.
As her eyes snapped back up to his dark blue ones, she realised he had been assessing her the same way she had him and, from the glazed look in his eye, she could tell he was pleased with what he saw.
She waited for that to make her feel shy or giddy or… something. Any normal feeling that a woman should feel from an objectively attractive man looking at her with hunger in his eyes. But nothing came.
It suddenly dawned on Noa that neither of them had spoken a word since she had turned to him.
‘Oh, hey,’ she croaked, feeling a little awkward.
But he seemed to have enough confidence for the both of them and didn’t falter when he said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to say well done today. You did good.’
The unbidden praise made her feel smaller than she had done earlier, with Alex’s hand in hers, encouraging her to make the jump. It didn’t feel like it was coming from the same place, a place where he knew her capabilities and was proud she’d reached for them.
It felt more like surprise that she’d not cracked and run away when she’d gotten scared.
The way that his lips tipped up in a slanted line and his eyes widened ever so slightly with the brief shrug of his shoulders.
It felt like a man feeling the need to praise a woman for just…
doing anything he could. It felt patronising.
But, maybe, that was just her overthinking the whole interaction.
She was good at that, after all.
So, pushing through the irritation, she returned his smile, ‘Yeah. You, too. ’
‘So, I… uh… I wondered whether you wanted to get a drink some time. Minus the cavalry,’ he asked, gesturing to the table around them.
But, as Noa glanced around them, she realised everyone had disbursed like she’d been preparing to do before he’d stopped her.
Everyone apart from the brooding man with dark features, who still sat burning holes in the side of their heads. Or, more like Marcus’s head. His expression from earlier was replaced by a dark, quiet anger, his shoulders tense and fists clenched on top of the table.
Noa remembered, then, Lola’s words about making his life a little harder whilst he was here.
Making him regret ever questioning her ability to do this alone and following her on her solo travels.
She realised this would be a great way to push his buttons like she’d planned, and that had the giddiness she’d been waiting for suddenly pulsing through her body.
She didn’t know why the thought of Alex riled up excited her, but it did… more than she wanted to admit.
She didn’t need to know why this encounter had gotten a rise out of him, but she could use it to her advantage.
So, turning back to smile sweetly at Marcus, she replied, ‘Yes, it’s a date.’