Chapter 8
LUCA
Noel’s quiet on the walk home, but he sticks close to me.
Not quite pressed into my side but close enough that our fingers keep brushing together.
He doesn’t recoil when this happens, either, which is what I expect him to do after our last encounter.
I don’t know if this is forgiveness and I don’t quite dare to hope it is.
Mostly, I’m worried about him. He doesn’t seem okay at all.
He looks good—he’s wearing jean cutoffs and a cropped t-shirt that puts his slender waist and navel ring on display.
But he is the very picture of misery otherwise.
His eyes are dark and downcast and there are tears drying on his face.
I know when he is subdued like this, it’s almost more dangerous than his impassioned outbursts and meltdowns. I want to take his hand, but I don’t.
Fifteen minutes later we arrive at the front door of the small one-story house Demi and I share, with its weathered shingles and the bright blue front door I painted last summer.
The garden’s half-dead (neither of us have particularly green thumbs) and the lawn needs mowing, but if Noel notices or cares about these particular defects, he doesn’t make a comment.
He pets Amelia absently as I unlock the front door and nudge it open, and then follows me inside.
I remove Amelia’s leash and collar and hang them both up. “Come on,” I say to Noel. “We can sit in the living room.”
And he’s taking it all in, this relic of my marriage, and he seems to come to life a little bit as he glances around.
It’s a lot more homey in here than either of his apartments and certainly where he grew up, the walls painted a faded yellow above the wainscoting and the furniture an eclectic yet complementary mix of old and new.
Demi’s hung a few impressionist prints here and there amongst some of my own flash I’ve framed.
I suppose the effect is sort of chaotic, but I don’t mind it.
He takes particular interest in the framed photos sitting atop the fireplace mantel, inspecting each one in turn. They’re mostly from family gatherings, either Demi’s or mine, and at the center in the largest frame is the two of us from our wedding day. He studies this one for a minute.
“You look so weird,” he says at last. “With your hair like that.”
Short and brown. My natural color, for once.
Demi had requested as much, for us both to look presentable and natural—she’d gotten her tattoos covered with makeup and everything that day.
I hadn’t gone quite that far, but I took out all my piercings and mournfully chopped off my color.
After the honeymoon I bleached and colored it again. “I know,” I say. “I hate it.”
Noel picks up a smaller frame to get a closer look. “Is this your mom?” he asks me.
I step closer to look over his shoulder.
It’s a grainy photo, taken with one of those old disposable wind-up cameras, of my mother and I in the midst of building a sandcastle.
There’s a smudge of my father’s finger in the bottom right corner.
“Yeah,” I say. “Summer at Cape Cod in ’99. I was five, almost six.”
He replaces the picture very carefully on the mantel. “She sorta reminds me of Demi.”
Slight and dark, I guess he means. I clear my throat. “Do you want anything?” I ask. “Water, maybe?”
He shakes his head and brushes past me to sit down on one of the couches.
It’s so strange to see him here, in my actual house, amongst all these things I’ve kept so separate from him.
Bringing him here was stupid and impulsive and strictly against everything Demi and I agreed on, but it’s Noel. There’s nothing I can deny him anymore.
I sit on the other couch across from him, where Amelia’s already curled up.
His amber gaze lingers on the dog and for a moment he seems so distant.
Like he’s not even at home in his own body; it’s someone else who has taken over and is piloting it for him while his own consciousness has fucked off. It’s eerie.
The moment passes, though, and he sort of rouses himself. “I fucked someone,” he says, and my chest seizes. He’s still not looking at me. He’s not really looking at anything. “I tried to fuck someone,” he amends. “It didn’t really work.”
My heart is in my throat, even though I have no right to be upset. I have no real claim to him, I know. I gave it up months ago. I deserve this, him moving on. I swallow hard and say, “Oh?” and I put all the neutrality I can muster into that one word.
“Yeah.” He shrugs one narrow shoulder. “Figured I might as well get back on the horse.”
A week ago he was assaulted. Is it not too soon, to be trying to hook up with strangers, to put himself in a potentially dangerous situation?
I swallow hard and try to think of something to say that won’t come off as infantilizing or patronizing.
I know that no matter what I say, it’ll come out wrong.
It’s okay, though. Noel’s still talking.
“So I get back on the apps again and go through that whole shit show, and like, half the guys who message me accuse me of being too fem and the other half are ugly or whatever. But I finally found someone who seemed okay, so I met up with him. Over in Malden.”
“Was it…was it okay?” God, don’t let him have gotten hurt again. Please don’t let that be the reason he’s so upset. “Was he good to you?”
Noel goes quiet for what feels like a long time.
Head lowered so his dark hair falls into his face, hiding it from me, and I can see his nails digging into his bare arms. “You know what?” he says softly.
“After you were gone, I didn’t even want anyone, meds or not.
I was just…mourning you. Us. And then weeks and months went by and I was starting to come out on the other side, I guess.
Like, figuring out how to live while I was basically cut in half.
Then that shit with—I mean, at Anathema… ”
“Noel.” I say his name just as softly. Like a tethering, trying to ground him, because with the way he’s talking, I feel like maybe he will disappear like he used to threaten that he would, and if I can’t touch him, then I have to reach him this way.
He releases himself, holding his palms out before him; he’s left angry red crescents in his fair skin.
“Now I can’t even do that. I can’t go out anymore.
I don’t fucking feel safe anywhere. I can’t trust anyone or talk to them about it, because it’ll just be—it’ll be this whole thing, and I’m not…
” Hands come up and rub his face, scrubbing it roughly before his head snaps up and his gaze snags mine, and there are tears in his eyes.
“There’s just you.” Despairing, coming out half-choked as he tries to swallow a sob.
“Because you were there. You saw it, and you…you’re all I fucking have and I don’t even have you. It’s so fucked.”
I can’t take it anymore. I get up and go to him and he doesn’t resist me when I sit and pull him into my arms. He comes right to me like he’s been waiting for this and wanting it, his arms going tight around my neck as he buries his face in my shirt.
I hold him close and rub my cheek against his hair and it’s so familiar, this, we’ve done it so many times before and I’d do it a million more times, forever.
Because his pain is so visceral and outsized and he can’t help that.
He’s been through so much he didn’t deserve, been hurt so badly by people who were supposed to care.
Including me.
But I do care. I will spend eternity making it up to him, if it’s even possible. I love him so much and my heart’s shredding itself on my ribs and peeling open. I can’t stay away from him and watch him hurt. I won’t.
“You have me,” I whisper to him. “You have me, baby. I’m yours.”
And Noel’s butting his wet face beneath my jaw like how he used to do, and his fingers are furling in the front of my shirt.
He’s half in my lap now. I take his face in my hands and wipe the tears away with my thumbs, and when he leans into my touch, I press my lips to his forehead.
I don’t dare to do more than that. Don’t want to push him, don’t want to scare him, don’t want to hurt him any more.
I could be happy just like this, anyway. Him, here. It’s all I want.
But Noel lifts his face and his mouth captures mine in a soft kiss.
It’s tender and searching, uncertain almost, but I don’t leave him hanging for long before I’m returning it just as tenderly.
My hands slide down the sides of his neck and the front of his chest until they reach his waist and I pull him closer to me, my stomach fluttering like it’s the very first time.
I am so careful; I let him take the lead.
Despite the dizzying depths of my desire, I am terrified of shattering this fragile moment.
I don’t know what it is that he needs, but I want to give it to him.
Soft lips yield beneath mine and the tips of our tongues touch.
He’s trembling in my arms and I almost stop and ask if he’s okay, but his fingers card through my hair and anchor my mouth to his, as if he can sense me about to pull away.
And I’m losing the power of speech anyway, of coherent thought, because I’m surrounded and enveloped by him.
His scent, his taste, his warmth, it’s all so intoxicating and familiar both.
And when we do at last break the kiss Noel presses his cheek to mine. We’re both breathing too fast, shallow and tremulous, my chest so tight with want it’s hard to get enough air. “Luca,” he whispers against my ear, and I shudder. “I…could we…”
“What?” I whisper back.
He rubs his cheek against me like a cat, and my rough cheek audibly scrapes against his skin. I can feel his eyelashes fluttering as he exhales. “Could we go to bed?”