51. Noah
51
Noah
M y pen taps against the desk as I stare down at my exam papers. There’s still forty-three minutes remaining, and truth be told, all I’ve managed to write is my fucking name at the top. It’s Zoey’s eighteenth birthday, very possibly her last birthday ever, and I’m sitting here instead of being with her.
If I’d somehow found a way to be with her today, I’m sure she would have been happy to pass on her ridiculous need to go to school. I understand her reasonings for wanting to go, but she’s too fucking stubborn to know when to call it quits. She’s not strong enough to endure a whole day at school. She needs to be in her bed resting, but she’s determined to see it through and prove to herself that she can.
Fuck, she makes me so angry sometimes. I don’t even care that I’ve been acting like a little bitch by blowing up her phone today. I need to know she’s alright.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I shoot my gaze across the room to my professor, making sure he’s still fully engrossed in the papers on his desk before slipping my phone out of my pocket, expecting a text from Zoey. Only it’s Hope’s name that flashes across the screen.
What the fuck?
I quickly unlock my phone and open the new text.
Hope: You need to get home. Now.
I’m out of my fucking chair so fast my exam papers fly off my desk, and I quickly scramble to pick them up before racing to the front of the room. I drop the papers on my professor’s desk, barely sparing him a glance before racing for the door with my phone already at my ear.
It rings twice before Hope picks up. “You on your way?” she demands, sheer panic in her tone.
“Yeah,” I grunt, hurrying across campus toward my car. “What the fuck happened?”
“Tarni,” she spits. “She was already too exhausted to be there, I was trying to talk her into going home, but Tarni—that fucking bitch—she had other plans. She humiliated her in front of the whole fucking school, tore her wig off, and laughed about her being bald to the point they were all laughing at her.”
“FUCK!”
“She’s in the hospital now. I’m on my way.”
“Wait. WHAT?” I demand, my eyes going wide. “How the fuck did she end up in the hospital? What happened?”
“Oh,” Hope says, realizing she jumped too far ahead in her recap. “She took off. She got all her shit and ran to her car, but it was too much, especially after how exhausted she already was. Apparently, she collapsed in the student parking lot, and if Principal Daniels hadn’t waited so long to tell me, I’d already fucking be there by now.”
“What do you mean apparently ?” I demand, throwing myself into my car and kicking over the engine, barely giving it a second before slamming it into gear and hitting the gas. “Where the fuck were you when this happened?”
The call switches over to the car’s Bluetooth, and Hope’s voice sails through my speakers. “I was too busy beating the shit out of Tarni,” she tells me. “I got her good too. Think I gave her a black eye. It was fucking amazing. She won’t be a problem anymore.”
I scoff. Tarni will cease being a problem only when I’m personally through with her. “Just tell me Zoey is okay.”
“I think so,” she says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her personally, but from what I understand, Principal Daniels found her in the parking lot and took her to the nurse, and then they called the ambulance. But apparently that was only for precaution. The lady in the student office said she was okay, but . . . I don’t know. Apart from when she was having her chemo, I’ve never seen her so exhausted.”
“Fuck. Okay,” I say, trying to calm myself. “I’m two hours away, an hour and a half if I’m fast. If they let you in to see her, let me know how she’s doing.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in ten.”
Hope ends the call, and I try Zoey’s cell but get nothing. I dial her mom next and check in. She tells me just about as much as Hope did, but unlike Hope, she’s actually been allowed to speak to Zoey, which goes a long way in calming my fears.
It’s almost an hour into my drive back to East View when my phone rings again, but this time, it’s Zoey’s name on the screen, and I quickly answer the call. “Babe?”
“I’m okay,” Zoey says in a small voice as if she’s already preparing for me to blow up.
“Zo, what the fuck?”
“I thought I could make it,” she says, her voice cracking, and fuck, I can just imagine the tears in her eyes as her voice wobbles.
“Zo, you’re fighting an aggressive cancer that’s trying to kill you,” I tell her bluntly. “I know you wanted some form of normalcy for your birthday, but you’re not normal. You don’t get to have normal right now, not until you’re better.”
She silently weeps on the other end, and I immediately feel like a dick.
“I’m on my way, okay?” I tell her. “Fuck, I need to hold you.”
“They’re discharging me soon,” she tells me. “Can you meet me at my place? Mom is going to drive me home.”
“Whatever you need, baby.”
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “It was stupid. I shouldn’t have gone to school, but I just—”
“You don’t need to be sorry, Zo. I shouldn’t have said that just now. I just hate this happened and I wasn’t there for you,” I tell her. “You fucking scared me, babe. When Hope called—”
“Hope was just scared. She overreacted,” she says. “Besides, if I wasn’t an idiot and used all my energy like that, I would have been okay. I just panicked and didn’t know what to do, so I ran, and I—I thought I was going to make it.”
“As long as you’re good now,” I tell her, though I say it for myself, needing to repeat the words a million times over. “You’re okay.”
“I am. I—shit. I have to go. The doctor is back to discharge me,” she says. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“You got it, Zo,” I murmur. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she says before ending the call and leaving me gasping for air. I white-knuckle the steering wheel all the way back into East View, only able to focus on the road simply because I know Zoey is safe with her mom, back at home, and hopefully tucked in bed.
The drive feels as though it takes a lifetime, and as I speed through the very streets my brother was killed on, I find myself passing Tarni Luca’s home. Her car is in the driveway, along with her friend’s Lexus. I can never remember the names of the girls she hangs out with, but they were all shitty friends to Zoey when she needed them most.
Before I know what I’m doing, I hit the brakes and pull up over the curb, my Camaro screeching to a halt and tearing up her father’s pristine lawn. The anger is like nothing I’ve ever known as I push my way out of my car and storm up to the front door.
I don’t knock, don’t stop to check who’s home, simply bring my foot up and kick down the fucking door, breaking right through the lock. The door violently swings open, and as I cross the threshold, I hear the terrified screams of the girls coming from inside.
I follow the sound, my hands in tight fists at my side, and I walk through to find Tarni and her two sheep hovering around the kitchen island. Their eyes are wide and filled with terror, gaping at me as though I’m an ax-wielding serial killer ready to turn them into a statistic. And honestly, the idea sounds intriguing. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Zoey, but despite how I feel about these girls, she wouldn’t want that. She’s too fucking pure for her own good.
Recognizing me, they all let out heavy sighs of relief, one of the friends placing a kitchen knife back on the counter and shaking out her hand as though she was clutching it with a death grip, but my venomous stare remains locked on Tarni.
She gapes at me, knowing damn well this isn’t about to go her way.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she demands, trying to find courage, but she won’t find it, not here. “You broke my door.”
“You broke my fucking girl,” I spit, walking straight into her and grabbing her arm, yanking her off the island stool and to her feet, needing to meet her stare straight on. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done?”
Tarni scoffs. “Dramatic much?”
I can’t fucking believe this bitch.
I know Zoey wanted to keep it quiet, but I can’t anymore. Tarni needs to know exactly what it is she did today. I want to see the exact moment the guilt hits her, and I hope she drowns in it just like I do every fucking day.
“How fucking stupid can you be?” I roar. “You were there the first time. You sat at her side for eighteen fucking months while she went through her leukemia treatments.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” she throws back at me.
I shake my head, unable to believe that she can’t put the pieces together by herself. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do yourself a favor and think about it for once in your miserable fucking life. She’s been gone for months at a time, coming back weak and slim and barely able to hold herself up. And now, she’s lost her fucking hair, and instead of seeing the bigger fucking picture, you humiliated her.”
One of her friends gasps, clearly putting it together faster than Tarni can, but Tarni just looks at me with a blank expression. “What . . . What are you saying?”
“Zoey is fucking dying, Tarni. That girl who stood by you for the past ten years, who had your back even when you didn’t deserve it, she’s fucking dying . You want to know why she hasn’t been at school for months at a time?” I continue. “She’s gone through two intense rounds of chemotherapy that have cost her way more than her hair, and for the record, the treatment didn’t fucking work. So instead of getting better, the cancer is killing her from the inside out. But you, you worthless piece of shit, made her the laughingstock of East View High when all she wanted was to have one normal fucking day for her birthday—probably the last birthday she’ll ever have, and you fucking stole it from her.”
Tarni gapes at me, her eyes wide and quickly filling with tears as the other two girls silently cry. “Her . . . Her leukemia is back?” Tarni asks.
“Congratulations,” I say with a disgusted grunt, pushing away from her. “You must be so fucking proud of yourself.”
Tarni sucks in a gasp, her wide eyes looking at her friends in horror. “What . . . What have we done?”
“ You ,” I spit, reveling in the grief filling her eyes. “Don’t even try to force your friends to carry that burden. You’re the one who turned your back on her. You’re the piece of shit who humiliated her. And you’re the one who broke her fucking heart. You let her down, and when she needed you the most, you were dancing on her waiting grave.”
And with that, I turn my back and storm out of there, desperate to get home to my girl, and as I slam the broken front door, the only sound I hear is guilt-ridden sobs behind me.