19. Noah
19
Noah
C onsidering Zoey is now more than aware of my stalker tendencies when it comes to her and my antics over the past few years, I don’t bother wasting time knocking on the door. Instead, I climb straight up the side of the house and to her window.
I’m not exactly in the mood to deal with her father tonight, not that he’s a bad guy or anything, but I haven’t got a single doubt that he would tell me to fuck off. Well, maybe not quite that way, but the idea would be there, demanding I speak to Zoey at school rather than keep her up. And I’m damn sure he’s not going to approve the idea of sneaking in through her bedroom window instead. So, for now, this little visit will be kept on the down-low.
Glancing into her room, I find her curled up in bed, her blankets pulled up to her chin as she lays on her side with one arm scooped beneath her pillow.
I shouldn’t be here. I should be giving her space after everything that went down tonight. That kiss meant something, but then I also broke her heart all over again, and that pain has got to be sitting fresh in her mind. Just as raw and painful as it’s always been.
Gripping the bottom of the window, I pull it open, having to give it a slight wiggle to get past the mangled lock that Zoey and I broke when we were kids. Sliding it up, I slip inside her bedroom, and the second my feet hit the ground, a fearful gasp sails across the room. “It’s just me,” I tell her, not wanting her to assume the worst, but I know she did. What else would she think seeing a man climb through her window in the middle of the night?
Zoey lets out a sleepy groan, needing a moment for her heart to stop racing, and when she does, she scrambles up her bed, sitting a little higher against her pillows and staring at me through the darkness. She grips her blankets to her chest, much like she’d held on to her towel to keep it from falling down. “What are you doing here?” she murmurs, sparing a glance toward the digital clock on her bedside table. “It’s almost midnight.”
I creep closer, inching in as she watches me like a hawk, and even through the darkness, I can see her red-rimmed eyes, no doubt caused by my need to walk away from her tonight. I hate that my actions caused tears to fall from her beautiful eyes, but what fucking choice did I have? “Nice song selection,” I tell her.
She glances away, a smugness creeping into her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I scoff before taking another step. “Leukemia, Zoey,” I state, letting her hear the torture in my voice, the torment I’ve felt since those words came out of my mother’s mouth.
Her gaze falls away, and a flicker of shame flashes in her eyes before she forces a small smile to spread across her lips as if somehow trying to make this easier for me. “You didn’t waste any time looking for answers, huh?” she whispers as sadness fills her tone.
“How the hell could you not tell me?”
“Why would I?” she questions, adjusting herself against her pillow to get comfortable. “You always wanted to protect me from the things that would scare me, and I wanted to protect you from the ugliness of this.” She pauses for a moment, her gaze shifting away from mine. “You were the only person who didn’t look at me like I was a ticking time bomb, and I needed that more than you could ever know. I needed my bestest friend, and maybe it was selfish of me not to tell you exactly what I was up against, but I needed the real, unapologetically amazing Noah that I loved with everything I had. If you had started looking at me the way that everyone else did . . . I wouldn’t have survived.”
Unease pounds at my chest, and I clench my jaw. The thought of little Zoey not surviving cripples me. “Don’t fucking say that.”
“Noah,” she whispers. “It’s true. You’re the reason I’m still here. You saved me. You got me through it. During those torturous chemotherapy sessions, I remember thinking all I had to do was get through that and when I was done, I would get to see you again. It’s your optimism and that stupid smile that forced me to fight.”
I shake my head. “I knew you were sick, and that it was bad, but I never thought . . .” My words trail off, not able to bring myself to say the rest of that sentence out loud. That I could have lost you.
She just sits there in the comfort of her bed, looking at me as though not knowing what to say, but this is Zoey fucking James, she’s always known the right things to say. “I guess I just assumed that at some point, your mom or someone would have told you.”
“ You should have told me.”
Zoey scoffs. “And there’s a lot of things you should have done too, but you don’t see me sneaking through your bedroom window to dig up the past.”
“Zo,” I whisper, inching closer. “I’m not asking you because I want you to have to relive all of that bullshit. I just . . . I need to fucking know.”
“I don’t want you hurting for me, Noah,” she says. “You’re already hurting enough for the both of us.”
Pain rockets through my chest, and I drop down on the edge of her bed, keeping just out of reach so that I can’t be tempted to throw myself at her and pull her into my chest, right where she’s always belonged. “Tell me about it,” I beg her. “Every last excruciating detail, and don’t even think about trying to spare my feelings. I can handle it.”
“The same way you’re handling your feelings now?”
“For fuck’s sake, Zoey,” I groan, unable to bear being left in the dark a second longer. “Please just tell me. Do you have any fucking idea how it feels to learn that there was this huge, monumental thing that you went through, something that could have easily taken your life, and I just stood by, fucking clueless?”
“You didn’t just stand by, Noah,” she tells me. “You knew enough to help me through it, and that was everything I needed. We were only kids. You were seven when I was diagnosed. I barely understood what was happening to me, and it’s not like any of our parents were willing to put the weight of that on your shoulders.”
Leaning forward, I brace my elbows on my knees. “Please, Zoey,” I whisper, my voice trembling.
Zoey nods, grabbing the spare pillow from beside her and hugging it to her chest as if that can somehow offer her just a snippet of comfort, and damn it, I’ve never needed to be the one to offer her that so badly in my life. “I was six,” she says. “I don’t really remember much of it.”
“Just tell me what you do know.”
She nods again, and as her words flow through the dark room, my head falls into my hands, taking in every last detail. “It all happened really quickly. One minute I was at the doctor’s office because my mom thought I had the flu, and the next, I was in a hospital bed, connected to a million different machines with nurses fussing over me. I remember thinking that I just wanted to get out of there and see you,” she says. “At the beginning, the tests were really scary. I didn’t understand what was happening or why I had to go to the doctor’s office all the time. They would always take blood tests and then there was the bone marrow biopsy. That one was terrifying, and while I had been given local anesthesia, I remember screaming. Not because it was painful or anything, I was just . . . scared.”
She takes a deep breath, worrying her bottom lip, but I remain silent, taking in every detail. “People seemed to cry a lot,” she continues. “I had people I never really knew holding me in the street and wishing me well. Actually, a lot of that I’ve worked hard to try and block out over the past ten years, but those memories just seemed to have stuck. Our moms were the worst at it. Every time they’d look at me, they’d burst out crying, but you would roll your eyes as if they were being ridiculous and then we’d end up laughing.”
My lips press into a hard line, somewhat remembering that. It seemed everyone we talked to knew that Zoey was sick, and I remember thinking they were all exaggerating and making her feel like she was broken. I hated it. Especially considering she was trying to get better, and all those assholes were going out of their way to remind her just how sick she was. She didn’t need that. She needed me.
“Fuck, Zo,” I mutter.
“I can stop,” she suggests. “If it’s too much—”
“No,” I tell her. “Keep going.”
“Okay,” she says, her voice a little shaky. “After the diagnosis came, we were pretty much straight in the hospital to start my chemotherapy treatment. There were three rounds of it over the course of eighteen months. And they really sucked, Noah.”
Her voice trembles, and I find myself reaching out, my hand dropping to her foot that’s hidden beneath the blanket, and she flinches, pulling her foot away. “Don’t,” she warns me, her tone filled with pain. I meet her stare, my brows furrowed. I thought she wanted this from me, wanted to feel me coming back to her. Seeing the confusion in my stare, she explains herself. “Not like this. The old Noah, the one I loved and needed, he’s already gotten me through this. He’s already given me what I needed. This new you, this stranger sitting at the end of my bed, I don’t need or want his pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Zoey,” I say, pulling my hand away and accepting her reasoning without question. “Never.”
“Okay,” she whispers with a slight nod before pressing her lips into a hard line. Something softens in her eyes as if deep in thought, and for a fleeting second, I see that six-year-old girl who so desperately needed me by her side. A moment later, she throws her blanket back and crawls across her bed, climbing straight onto my lap and straddling me.
She sits far enough back, her ass resting against my thighs with plenty of space between us, not at all like the way my body was pressed against hers in her closet earlier tonight. I keep my hands down, not daring to touch her despite the overwhelming need to do just that.
Then with her gaze locked on mine, she raises her hand to the neckline of her pajama top and pulls it aside, pointing out a small scar just below her collarbone, one I’ve always known was there but never thought to ask why. “This is where they put the port for my chemo,” she tells me. “The first round was brutal. I remember it making me sick all the time, and I would cry non- stop. I’m pretty sure that first round I was only in there for a few weeks and then I got to go home.”
“I remember,” I tell her just as someone appears in Zoey’s doorway. My gaze flicks across the room to find Zoey’s mom, clearly having heard voices in here, and I wait for her to tell me to leave, but instead, she just hovers, listening to Zoey’s recap of her chemotherapy.
“The second round was intense,” she murmurs, clearly not realizing her mom is listening as she focuses her whole attention on me, her gaze far away as she recalls those painful memories. “But I think I was better prepared because I knew what to expect. Only, that round was a lot longer. I can’t be sure exactly how long that hospital stay was. Maybe a few months? I don’t know. The details are fuzzy now.”
“And the third?” I ask.
“The third wasn’t quite as bad,” she tells me. “By that stage, the first and second rounds had already killed all the cancerous cells. I was pretty much in the clear, but I still had to complete the full treatment. They call it the maintenance round. It’s like when you kill a bug, and then you step on it again just to make sure it’s really dead. You know, just in case.”
I nod. “Just in case.”
Seeing Erica’s slight movement out of the corner of my eyes, I glance back to watch as she wipes a stray tear from the side of her cheek, and seeing my gaze, she gives me a sad smile before slipping away.
“Exactly,” Zoey says, her gaze dropping as her hand comes up and gently presses against my chest, gripping the soft material of my shirt and rolling it between her fingers. “I hated those long stays in the hospital, but I knew that when I got home, you were going to be there, and it didn’t matter to you how sick I was. You just sat by me the whole time, not caring when I fell asleep in the middle of a game. You just pulled my blanket up and made sure I was comfortable.”
The corner of my lip pulls into a broken smile, and I can’t resist reaching up and gently brushing my fingers down the side of her face, watching as she tilts her head into my touch. “I remember the day my mom told me you weren’t sick anymore,” I tell her, the memory forcing my smile to widen. “She had guests over, but I made her kick them out just so we could race over here.”
Zoey’s eyes sparkle with a fondness that warms my cold, dead heart. “I remember,” she whispers. “You came storming through the door and nearly knocked Hazel on her ass. But then you kissed me right there in the living room, right in front of my parents.”
A cocky smirk stretches wide across my face. “Damn fucking straight, I did.”
Zoey laughs as her hand falls from my chest, dropping between us, and as the silence stretches on, I find myself desperate to fill it. “I’m sorry I’m making you relive it all,” I tell her as my control begins to slip, and my hands gently move to her thighs. “Losing Linc was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. It fucked me up in a way I’m not sure I’ll ever come back from, but if I lost you . . . I’m not sure that I could survive it.”
Her brows furrow, and she watches me for a moment before leaning in and wrapping her arms around me. Her face burrows into the curve of my neck, and I can’t help but reach around her and pull her into my arms, her body pressed right against me. She breathes me in, her chest rising and falling in sync with mine. “Is that why you pushed me away?” she murmurs against my neck.
I close my eyes, not knowing if I have the strength to tell her the depth of the reasons why I needed to force the distance between us. “That and other things,” I tell her, wanting to offer her at least something to help her understand, even if it’s only a little bit.
“I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder for us,” she tells me.
My brows furrow, and I move my hands to her arms, gently pushing her back so that I can see her beautiful face. “What do you mean?”
“After Linc,” she tells me, tears pooling in her eyes. “When you first pushed me away. You needed me more than ever, and I was too blinded by my own hurt to see that. I should have tried harder and refused to let you push me away. You were always right there by my side when I needed you, and when you needed me, I was too broken to see it. I didn’t fight for you.”
“Zoey—”
“No,” she says, cutting me off. “If Hazel had been hit by that drunk driver, and I’d told you to leave me alone, you would have told me to shut up and just held on tighter. That’s what I should have done for you.”
“You’re right. If it had been Hazel and you were the one pushing me away, I would have broken down your fucking door and refused to go, but it wasn’t Hazel. It was Linc. And whether you fought harder or not, whether you physically held on to me and refused to let go, I still would have pushed you away, but it would have only hurt more.”
The tears spill over her eyes, and I reach up to wipe them away. “Don’t cry, Zozo,” I tell her. “You know I never could handle your tears.”
“Can’t help it,” she mutters.
Letting out a breath, my hand curls around her back again, pulling her in, and she falls right back into me. Her arms lock around my shoulders, and her face burrows into the curve of my neck. “I’m sorry I hurt you tonight,” I whisper. “That wasn’t my intention when I came into your room.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have let you get that close,” she says, her fingers roaming up into my hair, just as they had inside that damn closet. “Don’t get me wrong, that kiss was . . . I don’t even have the words for what that was, but the second you followed me into the closet, I knew what you were going to do, and I knew you were still going to pull away, but I didn’t stop you, and that’s on me. You gave me every chance to tell you no.”
“It was selfish. I shouldn’t have walked in there,” I tell her before scoffing. “I should have walked away the second I got my keys, but you know just as well as I do, I’ve never been able to control myself when it comes to you.” I pause, my hand moving up and down her back. “I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea about what’s going on here.”
“What is going on here?” she questions, pulling back to meet my stare. “Because I’ve never been so confused in my life. I’m assuming you’re just going to pretend that you didn’t rock my world in my closet and go straight back to treating me like trash .”
“Fuck, Zoey,” I say, my chest aching as she uses that filthy word. “You know I never meant for that to happen.”
“I can handle Shannan,” she tells me. “What I can’t handle is having to watch as she throws herself all over you, knowing damn well you can’t stand her.”
“I haven’t touched her,” I say, not understanding why I feel it’s important for her to know that.
“I know,” she says. “The whole school would have known if you had.”
I groan, knowing just how right she is before pressing my lips into a hard line and meeting her saddened stare. “And as for you and me?” I ask.
Zoey shrugs her shoulders, and the sadness in her eyes only increases. “You know what I want, Noah. That’s never changed,” she tells me. “I stand by what I said in that closet. When you’re ready to come back to me, I’ll be right here waiting. Just promise that if there ever comes a point where you change your mind or decide that I’m not what you need, let me go because I’ll never be able to pull away on my own.”
My arms tighten back around her, and I clutch her tightly to my chest. “You’ll never not be what I need,” I promise her.
“Then I’ll never stop fighting for you.”
I close my eyes, my forehead tipping against hers as we sit there in this warm silence, our arms wrapped tightly around one another. Then when a yawn tears through her, I scoop her up into my arms and lift us off the end of her bed. I take two strides to the top of her bed and slide her back in between the sheets, pulling the blanket right up to her chin, just the way she likes it. “Go to sleep, Zozo,” I murmur, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her temple.
I pull back, and before I can convince myself to stay, I turn and make my way back across her room, my fingers clutching the window. “I’ll miss you, Noah,” she says, and the way her tone makes this feel like goodbye tears me to shreds, but it’s nothing less than what I deserve.
Glancing back, I see her eyes shining in the darkness, one perfectly round tear rolling down her cheek. “I’ll miss you too, Zo.” And with that, I climb back out through her window and sit right there on the roof until the sun peeks up over the horizon.