Chapter 32
ALEX
The sound of Noah crying is gut-wrenching. It rips right through me—raw and sudden.
I don’t understand. A second ago, he was shaking in my arms, clinging to me like I was the only thing keeping him upright. Now he’s on the floor like someone pulled the plug.
I stand there for a beat, frozen. Heart hammering, brain scrambled.
I want to help him. I feel the need to. But part of me still doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.
His arms come up, gripping the sides of his head. “S-stay away. Stop talking to me! Please stop.”
His voice splinters—high-pitched, frantic—like he’s being cornered by something I can’t see.
Hesitantly, I step toward him. He’s hunched over, now clawing at scattered papers like they’re all he has left. He grabs fistfuls of them, crushing them until his knuckles turn bone white.
“Noah! It’s me—Alex!”
His head jerks up, startled. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide—like he doesn’t recognize me. Like he’s not even in the same room.
Then his head tilts sharply to the left. My own head follows before I can stop it—some instinct to mirror him, to reach him. Maybe if I move like him, he’ll see me. Maybe it will make it better.
Maybe I should just call Gabriel.
But I stay rooted. Still. Watching.
He’s down on all fours now—tense, trembling—like a cornered animal… or a child just learning to crawl. The energy in the room is warped. Unsettling.
No. It’s more than that. It’s eerie as fuck.
“Noah?” I say softly, choosing not to move any closer.
“Oui?” he replies, straightening his head slowly, eyes narrowing in confusion.
I stiffen.
The French. The pitch.
It’s higher than his usual voice—breathy, delicate, unsure.
It doesn’t sound like Noah at all.
He seems thrown by it too. He clears his throat, as if trying to shake something loose, then crawls toward the desk on shaky limbs.
Silently, he opens one of the drawers and pulls out a pink, felt-covered box, cross-stitched along the edges. Something homemade. Something precious.
He holds it like it might shatter in his hands.
When he opens the lid, he sighs—a soft, almost wistful sound—as he stares down at whatever’s inside. Then, slowly, he disappears into someone I don’t recognize.
I extend my neck, trying to get a glimpse over his shoulder.
And for half a second, I do.
A photo? A family photo?
But before I can make out the details, he snaps the lid shut with a sharp click that startles me back into the moment.
The awkward conversation with Dr. Belize flashes through my mind—disjointed, weird, and way too vague.
Maybe if I circle back, ask the right questions, I’ll finally get some real answers.
Answers that might help me make sense of what this is.
Because right now?
Nothing makes sense.
Not Noah’s breakdown.
Not the way his voice just… shifted.
And definitely not the bombshell he dropped about Meera being his sister.
I ease in a little closer, careful not to spook him, and ask softly, “Noah, where are your parents?”
He doesn’t answer.
He just closes the drawer again—gently, like he’s sealing something much older than whatever’s inside that box.
It dawns on me—just like Meera, his family is a topic wrapped in barbed wire. Too sensitive to touch. Maybe he’s opened up to Gabriel. Maybe he’s shared parts of his childhood that I never got close to.
And really, why would I? It’s not like I’m his boyfriend… or even family, for that matter.
But if Gabriel knows anything about his relationship with Meera, I’ll be pissed.
Noah’s silence feels like a closed door, so I take it as my cue to give him space. I walk back into the bathroom and twist off the faucet. The scent of spicy coconut and cinnamon lingers in the air—soft and warm. I close my eyes and let it settle over me.
I can still feel the memory of Noah’s body against mine. So soft. Feminine.
Curved instead of carved.
And the tattoo—a trail of rain and tears spilling down his leg like a storm captured in motion. Could that be the storm he’s talking about? The one he said he can’t survive?
“Alex?” His voice cuts through my thoughts, fragile but clear. “Can you come here, please?”
“Coming,” I call back, turning away from the tub.
“Alex!” he shouts, louder this time. More urgent.
I hurry back into the bedroom, eyebrows drawn together as I spot the felt box now open on top of the desk. Noah is holding something in both hands—a piece of paper, maybe?
No. Not just paper.
It’s a drawing.
He passes it to me wordlessly, and I sit on the edge of the bed, taking it from him gently. For the moment, I push my anger from earlier aside.
“Is that… you?” I ask, running a finger over the image. The texture surprises me. It’s not glossy or smooth like a photograph. It’s rough. Grainy.
It’s a sketch. And a damn good one.
The boy in the drawing looks to be about four or five—all bony shoulders and spindly legs.
Blond. Undernourished. Haunting. A faded pink shirt slips off one narrow shoulder, and oversized shorts droop low, cinched at the waist with a frayed string.
His feet are filthy, stuffed into mismatched flip-flops—one too big, one too small, each a different color.
He looks like a child the world forgot.
“Yes,” Noah says softly, handing me another sketch.
In this one, he’s older—maybe a year or two. He’s sitting upright in bed, knees hugged to his chest. White underwear clings to his hips, loose against skin stretched too thin. His eyes are hollow, vacant, like he’s staring straight through the page. Tears streak down his gaunt cheeks.
Before I can say anything, he slips another drawing into my hand.
This one’s… different.
It’s just rain. Lines of it. Falling in every direction, filling the entire page. I tilt my head, searching for something else—a shape, a shadow, anything.
But no. It’s just the rain.
“That’s one of me too,” he says softly, tapping the center of the page.
I blink up at him. “Where?”
“Right there,” he says, pointing again. “It’s hard to see me, but I’m there… in the rain.”
My stomach tightens. I scratch the back of my head, trying to piece it all together—the boy, the sketches, this.
“Noah…” I start, my voice gentler now, thick with something I can’t name. “What happened to you?”
He sighs—not in pain, not in sadness, but almost in annoyance—and drops yet another sketch into my hand.
This one hits differently.
A tall man stands in the doorway of a child’s bedroom. Just… standing there. Watching.
Behind him, a storm creeps in through the pencil lines—the sky so meticulously shaded it feels alive. Angry clouds roll in, heavy and dark.
And then I see it.
An eye. Hidden, yet unmistakable—staring out from the heart of the storm.
My jaw goes slack.
It’s not just art—it’s a mirror. A reflection. And it’s looking right at me.
My lungs forget how to breathe. I drag in a sharp inhale and let it out slowly, hoping it might quiet the sudden crawl across my skin.
But it doesn’t.
That fucking eye.
It makes me uncomfortable. Like I’m the one being watched.
I rub my arms, trying to shake the discomfort. I get the sense I’m supposed to look—like that was the intention of the artist. To really look. Into the eye of the storm.
So I do.
I stare straight into it.
And what I see steals the rest of the breath from my chest.
In the far corner of the room, nearly swallowed by a shadow, is a boy. Huddled. Terrified. Skinny arms wrapped around bony knees.
He’s bracing for impact.
He knows what’s coming.
He’s lived it before.
He’s the still point in the chaos—and somehow, also the center of it.
I can almost hear his thoughts. Feel his fear rattling through the paper.
He passes me another sketch. Once again, it’s rain.
I pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth, ready to ask what makes this one different, when he gently taps the page with his finger.
“I’m not in this one,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow.
“But those are my tears,” he adds, like that explains everything.
It doesn’t.
At all.
In fact, there’s no difference between this picture and the last one—just sheets of rain, filling the page. And honestly, I hadn’t seen him in the first sketch either. He’d said he was there, hidden in the center of it, but…
My confusion deepens.
“It’s before the rain,” he clarifies softly, as if reading my thoughts. As if adding more words might untangle it. But all it does is tighten the knot in my chest.
Then his hand rises to my face.
“Rain and tears,” he whispers, fingers ghosting down my cheek. I pull back slightly, blinking, trying to hold on to the thread of logic.
I’m in no mood for this poetic shit.
I snatch the last sketch from his lap, holding it up in front of me.
This one is definitely different.
In this one, the artist has drawn herself into the scene.
A girl with a braid stands in the corner of the room, almost invisible, sketched in the softest graphite. Her sketchbook is folded into the crook of her arm, a pencil poised in her hand.
But it’s not her I notice first… it’s him.
The man kneels in front of the boy, face contorted, clearly crying—though with all the rain cascading around them, it’s hard to tell which droplets belong to him and which are falling from the sky.
Still, it’s clear.
The girl’s eyes are fixed on the boy. Not the man. Not the tears. Just the boy.
And something about the way she’s drawn herself—so quiet, so present—makes my skin crawl all over again.
An eerie feeling seeps from the page. This is not a pretty scene. There’s something chilling here—not just in what’s drawn, but in what’s felt.
With nothing but pencil, the artist has managed to trap emotion itself—raw and volatile—in the eye of a storm.
And I feel it.
God, do I feel it.
A shiver runs through me as I stare at the boy in the drawing—wide blue eyes fixed on something just beyond the frame.
I try to separate his tears from the rain, but it’s useless. The storm isn’t looming anymore—it’s landed. It’s here. And the boy?
He’s disappearing.
Line by line, drop by drop… he’s being swallowed whole.
I blink.
Once.