Chapter 16
LUCA
It was Jordan.
I grapple with that all the way back to the hotel, sitting silently in the Uber with Noel as my phone’s buzzing nonstop; Killian’s sending me barely coherent texts asking if everything’s okay and where are we going and why.
I reassure him once that things are fine, we just want an early night—not sure it sets in, because he messages me again reiterating the same questions, and after that I ignore him.
With as many distractions as he has where he is, he’ll forget about me soon enough.
I can’t believe that was Noel’s ex-boyfriend, of all people, in the alley with him that night.
Right there in front of me and I didn’t even know it.
He’d had his old address, yeah, but I figured he’d found that in his wallet on his driver’s license.
It never even crossed my mind it was someone Noel actually knew and I guess that was dumb of me. To not consider it.
I’ve never seen a picture of Jordan, never been curious enough to look him up.
I’ve only heard stories about him—how much of a piece of shit he is, how poorly he treated Noel; no, scratch that, he was outright abusive.
And I know Noel will protest that he was no saint in their relationship, but that doesn’t matter.
He still never deserved anything Jordan did to him.
The emotional abuse and the lack of care, the thorough and relentless deconstruction of Noel’s already frail self-esteem.
Using him and discarding him, over and over, until he was no longer worth the trouble.
I should’ve hit the little bastard much, much harder. Should’ve called the fucking police, taken him to the hospital like I wanted to; fuck it if he was mad at me for it, it would’ve been the right thing to do. It would’ve solved all of this, wouldn’t it?
Can’t help feeling that is my fault. For leaving him the way that I did, high and dry and vulnerable, knowing well the precarious state he was in.
For asking him to make a choice that was impossible and unfair.
If I hadn’t been wrapped up in my own selfish bullshit and fear, this would’ve never, ever happened.
I would’ve been with him. I could’ve protected him.
Not that I’ll voice any of this, because I know Noel will feel the need to assuage me, and I don’t want that. I can sit with the guilt while I try to figure out how to make this right for him. I can’t go back and undo any of it, but there has to be a way to move forward.
And I fucking knew, too, that it was hurting him more than he was letting on.
That it wasn’t something he could just brush under the rug the way he was trying.
That it was something that needed more resolution than just pretending it never happened and was nothing at all.
He’s strong, but something like this would make anyone stumble.
I wish he’d have let me help him sooner.
I wish a lot of things.
We sit across from each other on the hotel bed in our club clothes. His eye makeup is a little smeared. I think he was crying in the car, but he seems calmer now. “Do you want to talk about this?” I ask him.
He sucks in his breath and lets it go just as noisily, raking his hair back from his face.
Despite everything, I do love when it’s back like that.
It puts all that fine-boned structure of his on display, no distractions.
The silver hoops that ladder his ears glitter in the light of the bedside lamp. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Whatever you want. Whatever feels comfortable.”
“You sound like my therapist.” Noel draws his knees to his chest. He’s taken off the big boots and I can see his pedicured toenails curling through the sheer, ripped tights.
“That guy at that club…I was already on edge, ‘cause your friends were doing G in the car, and then that pushy asshole rocked up—he just reminded me of Jordan, the way he was so insistent. It set me off.” He peers up at me through his messy fall of hair. “Are you mad at me?”
“Remember when I said you wouldn’t do anything without a reason?” He nods, reluctantly. “I meant that. Same thing applies. If you’re reacting to someone like that, I know it’s not just because.”
“It’s ‘cause I forgot my meds,” he mumbles.
“You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think anything would happen. I’m in withdrawal, I think. It’s making me all moody and shitty and my brain feels like it’s being electrocuted—fuck, I almost glassed him.”
“Wouldn’t have been great if you had,” I admit. “But I don’t think the lack of medication is why he bothered you so much, Noel.”
“I just reacted.” He jerks his head up. “It’s all so stupid. All of this, everything. What happened with Jordan and I—like, why do I even care so much? Still?”
“Because it was traumatic?”
“But nothing happened!” he cries. “He was just being an idiot! I know what he was doing it and why. I know exactly what was going through his dumb head when he did it. He’s just a spoiled shit who was counting on me to be easy—”
“He hurt you,” I say. “Someone you once loved and trusted hurt and violated you, Noel. What he did isn’t okay.
It doesn’t matter why he did it, and it doesn’t matter that he didn’t actually follow through.
It’s not okay and you don’t have to force yourself to be okay with it.
And you definitely don’t need to make excuses for him. ”
His honey-brown eyes flick sidelong, towards the dark windows and the lights of the city beyond.
He’s not seeing at anything in this room.
His brow creases like tissue paper and I know the tears are coming, and that’s okay.
Something bad happened to him. He deserves to cry, needs to.
I reach for him and he gives me one hand to take and squeeze.
“Okay, fine,” he says at last, and he almost sounds angry. “So what if it did? What am I supposed to do about it? I have to just sit here and wait until it feels better, which is sort of fucking hard when he keeps texting and calling—”
“He’s what?” I raise my voice, furious at once. “He’s bothering you about this? Noel, why didn’t you say something?”
“Why are you yelling at me, Luca?” he says in bewilderment.
“I’m not, I—” Am going to fucking kill Jordan, I really am. The next time I see that scrawny sack of garbage he’s going to wish he’d never, ever glanced Noel’s way. I take a very deliberate deep breath and steady myself. “I’m sorry. What’s he saying to you?”
“He wants me to say that we’re cool. Like nothing happened. It’s like he wants an admission of his innocence.”
“Of course he does. He knows good and goddamn well that he did something very wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter what he knows or doesn’t know, Luca. Even if I try to tell anyone, they’re not going to believe me. Everyone but my friends think I’m his crazy ex-boyfriend, and even then…I’m going to sound like a huge liar. It’s not like I can prove it.”
“That’s not true,” I say at once. “There’s the footage from Anathema. They’ve literally got him on camera doing something to your drink.”
“If I don’t want to go to the police, what good is it?”
I wonder if Anathema would send it to him, if he asked.
Or me. Just to have, just in case. Is it unethical to blackmail a would-be rapist with a video of him spiking someone’s drink?
Do I care what the actual answer is to that?
I voice my idea out loud, in part: “We could ask the bar for the video.”
“But I don’t want it. I don’t want to see it.” He sounds so small. “I don’t want to do anything. I just want it to go away. I want Jordan to go away.”
My heart’s rattling apart to see him like this, so wounded; it’s a physical ache in my chest. His characteristic fire I adore so much is flickering out before my eyes.
Like he’s accepting that this terrible thing will alter him irreparably.
I open my arms and Noel crawls into them, tucking his head beneath my chin.
“I keep thinking of how bad it really could’ve been.
” His cheek comes to rest against my bicep, and his words are halting.
“If he’d actually kept going like a sick fuck.
I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. I couldn’t move at all.
” I feel him swallow. “Should I be grateful he had enough of a conscience to stop?”
No. No. “No.”
“It was awful, Luca. Even just lying there, not being able to do anything. When I was still conscious anyway. Knowing he could do whatever he wanted to me if he sucked just a little more…I mean, in the moment I wasn’t scared, it was all just sort of unreal. But afterwards…”
“I’m sorry, baby.” I press my cheek to his hair. “I’m so sorry.” I hate the what-ifs. I’ve run through them myself so many times already.
“Maybe I deserve it?” he whispers. “For all the bad things I did when we were together, the way I treated him. Screaming and crying and breaking things all the time, because I was so scared he was going to leave me. Was he just punishing me for that? Is he still?”
“Oh, Noel. No.” My heart’s fracturing, piece by piece, for the wounded boy in my arms.
He’s such a fragile thing beneath all that fierce bravado, I know.
Somewhere deep down he’s that child who never got nearly enough love from the people who owed it to him, and forever blames himself for it.
For not being enough, or for being too much.
He can’t pin down where it all went wrong or how, only that it did, and that must be his fault because he’s the common denominator.
The reality is that he’s not done anything wrong. He is the one who was failed, over and over. By his family, by his lovers. By me. No wonder he hid how badly he was feeling from me for so long, the truth of who did it to him and the harassment that followed.