35. Noah
35
Noah
I ’ve been pacing back and forth in my room since five this morning, and as seven rolls around, I can’t wait another damn second. My car roars to life, and I’m speeding down the road toward Zoey’s place.
After leaving her place last night, I sat in my car at the park, staring out at the empty swing set where we used to share all our wild secrets. By the time I got home, I was about ready to turn back around and crawl straight into her bed, desperately needing to hold her. Instead, I stayed up and packed my bags, a job I’d put off for weeks simply because I didn’t want it to feel this real. But now, there’s only three hours left.
Three hours before I drive away, and I’ll be damned if I leave without saying goodbye. I’ve made that mistake once before, and I’ll never do it again.
I think I slept all of two hours before flying out of bed to get to my girl.
Last night sucked, but I don’t think she’s angry with me. If she heard our conversation, then she knows I told Liam to fuck off, so that’s not the problem. I think she’s angry and frustrated with the whole situation, and I can’t blame her. She hates that I’m going away, hates the thought of putting this distance between us again, and hates that she can’t just reach out and hold me.
Shit. I hate it too.
But it’s only a year. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. No amount of repeating that is ever going to make it an easier pill to swallow.
A whole fucking year.
I don’t know how the hell I made it through three.
Two hours. Two fucking light-years.
Pulling up at her place, I cut the engine and make my way toward the side of the fence, more than ready to take the shortcut straight up to her room, but the front door opens, and Zoey’s dad appears before me, his lips pressed into a tight line.
Shit. I guess I’ll be going through the front door after all.
“I don’t know what happened between you two last night,” he says, “but she’s not here.”
I stop in the middle of the lawn, my gaze pointedly shifting to her Range Rover still parked in the driveway. “Really? She’s not here,” I question, letting him hear the doubt in my tone, more than happy to call him on his bullshit if it means making things right with Zoey.
Henry gives me a blank stare, and I inch closer to the front door. “Please. I just need to see her,” I beg. “I’m leaving today, and I—” I let out a heavy sigh, “I can’t leave without telling her goodbye.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Noah. She’s really not here,” he says. “She took off about an hour ago.”
“Fuck.” I turn and start pacing across the lawn, just as I’d done this morning, my jaw clenching. If she’s not here, that means she’s still upset, still falling apart. I should have left ages ago. I could have made things right by now and taken the pain and fear out of her heart.
It takes all of two seconds to figure out where she’s gone, especially considering that her car is still here. There’s only one place she ever goes to be alone.
Just as I turn away, Henry calls out to me. “Noah,” he says, stopping me in my tracks. I glance back, my hands balling into fists at my side. “Don’t break her heart this time.”
“That’s the last thing I’ll ever do,” I tell him. “She’s just anxious about me going to college, but I’m not going anywhere. This isn’t like last time.”
“I hope not,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sit up at night listening to my daughter cry herself to sleep.”
Jesus Christ. It’s like a rusty blade right through the heart.
“Like I told you last fall, Zoey and I are two halves of the same whole. She won’t be able to get rid of me, even if she tries. I’m in this for the long haul,” I tell him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m in love with your daughter, sir. I plan on having a whole life with her. Marriage, children, a whole fucking zoo if she wants it, and I’ll be right by her side until fate comes to take me out of this world. We only have a year of distance to get through and then we’ll be done. She’s strong, she’s going to be okay, and in those times she’s not, I’ll be straight in the car, flying down the highway to get to her. This year is going to be hard and sometimes she’s going to hate me for being so far away, but we’re going to get through it.”
He just watches me through a curious gaze as though he still hasn’t worked out if he wants to forgive me for the three long years of hell I put Zoey through, and honestly, he shouldn’t. Those years caused his daughter irreparable hurt and left scars all over her heart—ones I’ve been desperately trying to heal, but scars never fully go away. Once you’ve been hurt, the memory will always linger, terrified it could happen again.
“Okay, Noah,” he finally says with a slight nod. “Go get our girl.”
I nod, breathing a sigh of relief as I storm back to my Camaro and kick it over before the door even slams behind me. I hit the gas, performing a U-turn right in front of Zoey’s house and doubling back the way I came, kicking myself for not having checked the park first.
Pulling up a few minutes later, I spy Zoey on a swing like always. When she hears the roar of my engine, she glances back over her shoulder and meets my stare through my windshield, offering me a small smile that doesn’t meet her eyes.
She’s broken, and it has everything to do with me.
My gut twists into knots as I step out of my car, and as Zoey turns her attention back to the ground in front of her, I walk across the park, the Arizona sun already bearing down on us.
I walk around the swing and plant myself in front of her, my knees dropping into the sand as my hands reach out, gently gripping her calves. There’s a deep sadness rooted in her eyes as she looks up, and it’s clear by the puffy redness that she’s spent the night in tears. “I was wondering how long it would take before you showed up here.”
“I would have been here earlier, but I convinced myself to wait for the sun to rise first,” I tell her. “I’ve been up since five.”
“Packing?” she questions, a hesitant tone in her voice.
“Yes,” I say, “But that’s not why I was up. I couldn’t sleep, not after leaving things like that.”
Her gaze falls away, the sadness radiating out of her and crushing me. “Zo,” I whisper, reaching up and stroking my thumb across her cheek, wiping away the fresh tears. “I hate that you’re hurting like this and there’s nothing I can do to take it away.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I ruined our last night together. That wasn’t how I pictured last night, but when I heard Liam talking about the kind of life you’re going to have in college, it just became all too real.”
I shake my head, taking her hand in mine. “Liam was wrong,” I tell her. “What he said . . . That’s not my life or one that I want to have. That’s his idea of the perfect college lifestyle, but for me, all I want to do is focus on training, games, classes, and you. I don’t give a shit about the girls or the parties or the booze. All I’m focusing on is training and games until I get to have you there with me.”
“Are you sure?” she whispers, her bottom lip wobbling. “Because if you need to take this year to go be wild, sleep with every girl who looks at you, or go crazy at every single frat party that pops up, then do it. Rip it off like a Band-Aid, but don’t string me along. I’ll understand, really. I’ll hate it, and I’ll be devastated, but it’s better than being lied to. That’s what college is for, right? We’re so young to be in a committed relationship. It’s a lot. I get that, but I just don’t want to get five or ten years down the track and come home to you saying that you resent me for not having those years to go crazy.”
I shake my head, unable to believe what the hell I’m hearing. “Zoey,” I breathe, my hands sliding back down to her calves and gently squeezing. “Where the hell is this coming from?”
She shrugs her shoulders, wiping away more tears. “I just—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. “Have I ever given you the impression that I give a shit about that kind of stuff?”
“No, but—”
“Have I ever led you to believe that I want to be with anyone but you?”
She swallows hard, her throat bobbing. “No.”
“Then stop working yourself up over this,” I beg, giving her a tug until she’s falling off the edge of the swing and down into my lap. I wrap her in my arms, and she buries her face into my chest, wiping her tears on my shirt. “I don’t want to spend these last few hours with you hurting.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my chest. “I’m just . . . I’m so terrified of watching you leave again. It hurts so much, but I know deep down that we’re going to be perfectly fine. You’re going to come home as much as you can, and I’ll come visit. But no matter how much either of us tries to convince ourselves that nothing is going to change, we both know that the second you get in your car, everything changes.”
“Fuck, Zo,” I murmur, my voice breaking as something grabs ahold of my heart and squeezes. “I don’t know what I can say to you to make this better or how to make the hurt go away, but just know that with every single beat of your heart, I’ll love you even more.”
My hand runs over her hair, feeling her finally start to calm against me. “We’re not going into this blind, Zo. We know this next year is going to be hard, and you’re right, we can pretend all we want and try to convince ourselves that everything is going to stay exactly the same, but it’s not. You’re not going to be right there when I need you, and I’m not going to be there to hold you when you’ve had a shitty day, but I promise you that every chance I get, I will be there for you. All you need to do is call, and I will drop everything to get to you. Whether we’re in the middle of a tornado or you just want someone to hold you because life is shit. I will come. Do you hear me, Zo? I. Will. Come.”
She nods against my chest before finally lifting her head, her red, swollen eyes lingering on mine. A moment of silence passes between us when she drops her forehead against mine, closing her eyes and simply breathing me in. “I’m terrified of how much it’s going to hurt to miss you, and Noah,” she whispers, “I’m going to miss you every second of every day.”
My heart shatters, and I crush her to me, holding on as though I’ll never let her go. “I love you so fucking much, Zoey,” I murmur into her hair. “The thought of leaving you behind, of not getting to touch you every day, to see the way your eyes light up when you smile at me or feel that pull between us when you walk into a room. It’s killing me. I don’t want you to learn how to not need me.”
“I will never not need you,” she vows.
We remain in each other’s arms, and I lay back against the sandy ground of the park, refusing to let go. She silently cries into my chest, her tears soaking my shirt as she sniffles, and each time she does, I tighten my hold around her, my fingers slowly brushing back and forth over her skin.
Almost an hour passes before she lets out a shaky breath. “When do you have to leave?” she asks. “Ten,” I tell her. “But I can push it out to eleven.”
“What’s the time now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eight-thirty. Nine.”
“Shit,” she mutters, pulling herself up off my chest and hastily wiping her eyes on the back of her arms.
“Do you want to get breakfast?” I ask, determined to make every minute of this time count. “I can take you back to my place to get my stuff. Then drop you home and say goodbye to Hazel and your parents.”
I specifically don’t mention saying goodbye to her, knowing what those words will do to her. Instead, I just watch her, waiting to see what she wants to do. “I don’t think I could eat,” she tells me. “But I don’t want you to go without me.”
“Okay,” I tell her, getting to my feet and offering my hand to help her up beside me. “Then it’s back to my place.”
Zoey steps right into my side, and I take her hand before looping my arm right over her shoulder. “We’re going to be okay,” I promise her. “We haven’t come this far and fought this hard just for something like a year of college to screw it up for us. I stand by what I said, Zo. You’re gonna be so fucking sick of me blowing up your phone, you’re gonna be begging me to leave you alone.”
A smile pulls at her lips, and it breathes life right back into me. “You and I both know that’s never going to happen,” she tells me, her smile stretching just a little bit wider before we reach my car, and with that, she drops down inside as I try to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to say goodbye to my whole damn world.