20. Noah
20
NOAH
“Are you okay?” Luke asks, panicked, as he rushes over to Izzy.
I move out of the way so he can get to her, but then confusion kicks in. Why is he so worried?
He’s first aid trained as part of his placement and Mr. Reid said we can go to him if anything happens to one of us. Luke’s been nice to me since the first day I met him, and I figured an extra pair of eyes to look over Izzy wouldn’t hurt. I called him as soon as we got here, but I didn’t expect him to be this concerned.
“I’m fine, Luke. Stop being dramatic.” Izzy rolls her eyes, a heavy sigh escaping her as Luke starts peppering the nurse with questions.
She answers them all before excusing herself and leaving the room, clearly tired of dealing with him after just a few minutes. Luke puts one hand on his hip as he drags the other through his hair.
“Have you texted Isaac yet?” Luke asks.
He knows her brother?
“I fell over, it’s not a big deal.” She swats his hand away.
“It’s a big deal to him,” he says, crouching to check her ankle.
“Luke, if you tell him, I will fight you.”
He points at her ankle.
“And how are you going to do that?” Luke says, deadpan. “I have to tell him.”
“No, you don’t,” Izzy says, exasperated.
She surprises me when she swings her good leg and knocks Luke over. I have to stop myself from laughing at him sprawled out on the floor. They’re way too familiar with each other to just be a teacher she’s comfortable with, but I still don’t know exactly what their relationship is.
“And why was he the one to tell me?” Luke stands up, swinging his attention to me and pointing his hand in my direction.
I back away from him, getting closer to the wall as if I can blend into it and turn invisible.
“He carried me here,” Izzy tells him.
Luke stalks closer to me, his eyes narrowed.
“Noah, what are your intentions with my daughter?”
Daughter?!
“I… Your… What?” I stutter out at the exact same time that Izzy lets out a groan.
“Oh my god. Noah, ignore him. Luke, leave Noah alone.”
“I can leave if you want me to,” I suggest, looking toward the door and figuring out how quickly I can get to it before Luke takes me down.
“No, stay,” Izzy says. So I do. “Luke is my brother’s best friend and the biggest nuisance in my life.”
“That’s hurtful,” Luke says as he goes back toward her, his hand on his heart.
“How has Isaac put up with you for so long?” She pushes him away as soon as he gets close to her. “He’s just being weird.”
“I still want to know his intentions,” Luke says, pointing his finger at me.
“There are none!” Izzy raises her voice, and the force in it reminds me that this is meant to be fake.
Everything I’ve done for her since I saw her drop to the ground—my heart going with it—wasn’t for show. Not a single thing that’s happened since then has been fake for me.
“Can I tell him?” she asks me, something in her eyes I can’t quite name. All I can do is nod as I swallow the heavy lump in my throat.
Izzy lets out a deep sigh, closing her eyes for a few seconds before she turns back to Luke.
“Ryan wouldn’t leave me alone so Noah’s pretending to be my boyfriend. He carried me here, and now he’s going to help me back to my room. If Jinhee had an accident, you’d do it for her, so he’s doing it for me.”
I try to ignore the fact that she’s left out half the story, that she didn’t tell him that I cleaned the blood off her face and knees, that I wiped her tears away, that I kissed her. But all that is seared into my brain and I don’t think it’ll ever go away.
“And what’s in it for you?” Luke turns his attention to me, his expression softer than it was before.
“People don’t really like me so Izzy thought this arrangement might help with that.”
My throat tightens as I reduce our relationship to what it was originally meant to be—an arrangement to help us out.
It wasn’t meant to be holding her hand when no one’s around, it wasn’t meant to be putting my arm around her and kissing the top of her head when she confides in me. It wasn’t meant to be kissing her jaw, her cheek, because I wanted to soothe her. It wasn’t meant to be a single thing that I’ve been doing.
“Is that what’s been happening during practice?” Luke asks, his eyebrows furrowing as his expression morphs from confusion to concern.
I’m too embarrassed to admit to anything while Izzy’s in the room, but he takes my silence as enough of an answer.
“Leave it with me,” is all he says. Panic fills me at the thought of Luke confronting any of them about this.
“No, it’s fine,” I tell him, my voice coming out louder than I intended. I glance at Izzy for a quick second, but have to look away as soon as I see worry in her eyes. “You don’t have to say anything to them. It’s not a big deal.”
“Noah, if they’re bullying you, then it is a big deal,” Luke says gently.
Is that what’s been happening?
Logically, I know he’s probably right. They’ve been singling me out, spreading rumours about me, taunting me, and Ryan even knocked me down that first day. If I saw all this happening to anyone else, I would say the same thing as Luke. But for some reason, denial still overpowers my brain. That can’t be happening to me.
Luke must see something in my expression because he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before he speaks again.
“I won’t say anything,” he assures me, and I believe him. “But I want you to come to me if anything else happens.”
I nod, grateful that he can understand this is something I’m still trying to come to terms with myself. He turns back to Izzy.
“You need to tell Isaac before I do. What’s he going to think if you go home with a broken ankle and he finds out I knew?”
“It’s not broken. The nurse said it’s only sprained. I’ll call him later and let him know.”
“Good. Go back to your room and get some rest. Do you want any help?” he asks, glancing down at her ankle and the bandages on her knees.
“Noah’s got me. Right?”
Our eyes lock, and I can see everything that’s happened in this room reflected in her eyes, playing out as a cruel reminder to me that none of it was meant to be.
“I’ve got you.”
I walk over to her, passing the crutches and helping her to settle her arms on them. Once she’s got a good grip on them, I move to her side, bending my knees to wrap my arm around her waist and help her stand up.
My heart starts beating faster at holding her like this, but then she wobbles for a second before righting herself, and it brings me back to my senses. I keep hold of her until she’s steady, my fingers resting lightly over a strip of exposed skin from where her shirt has risen up.
“Text me later,” Luke says, and I remember we’re not alone. He leaves the room and immediately I hear the muffled chatter between him and the nurse outside.
“All good?” I ask Izzy, as she hops on her good foot to balance her weight. She nods and I remove my arm from her—it feels like it’s on fire.
I follow behind her as she slowly moves toward the door. It takes her a few steps to get her bearings, but once she does, she manages to keep up a good pace. We say thanks and goodbyes to Luke and the nurse as we leave the office heading toward her room.
The walk back is slow, and although I can feel the weighted stares of everyone around us, I’m only focused on her. My hand hovers over the small of her back, ready to catch her if she falters. We walk in silence, making our way through the bustle of students, and I want to put a bubble around us, so Izzy won’t notice the hushed whispers and pointed glances.
By the time we make it outside and halfway across the field to the dorms, Izzy’s slowed down. Walking on crutches is tiring, but she looks exhausted. Every step she takes feels heavier than the last, like every ounce of energy is being depleted with each one. Our earlier conversation runs through my mind, and I wonder how long she’s had to pretend to be strong just because she doesn’t want to bother anyone.
“Do you want me to carry you?” I ask her quietly, breaking the silence between us.
Izzy simply nods, taking her arms from the crutches and moving them next to each other as she bounces on one foot. She reaches her free hand toward me, and I scoop her up, taking care to make sure I don’t move her too much. Izzy keeps one arm around my neck as the other holds the crutches, and I walk us to her building.
When we reach the main door, she uses one of the crutches to open it. She angles it to poke through the handle and yanks it backward with more force than I expected. I almost topple backward, but manage to steady myself. I’m more worried about dropping her than getting hurt myself.
“Sorry,” she says quietly.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, manoeuvring us through the door.
A couple of girls are standing around the common room, and even though they give us some strange looks, they don't say anything once they see the crutches in Izzy’s hands. I’m not technically supposed to be here, but no one stops me. I don’t think I’d let them.
Izzy directs me to her room, and when we reach her door, she squeezes my shoulder to let her down. I hold on to her until she adjusts the crutches and finds her balance.
“It’s not locked,” Izzy tells me and I take the cue to open the door for her.
I step into her room so I can hold the door open, and she brushes past me, making it to her desk and throwing herself down onto the chair.
I’m frozen by the door as I realise that I’m actually in her room. It’s the same layout as mine, but hers is way more lived in. The pinboard above her desk is filled with pictures and scraps of paper, and the shelves above are lined with books, although there’s a stack on the floor, too. There’s clutter all over the desk, notebooks, pens, and revision cards, but the main thing that sticks out to me is the star-shaped lamp. I remember the day we looked at the stars together so clearly. It formed itself as one of my favourite memories even as it was happening. My hoodie hangs from a peg on her wall.
“You can come in,” Izzy says, and I have to drag my eyes away from looking at this piece of me that lives in her room.
I close the door behind me, stepping further into the room. The only other place to sit is on her bed, but that feels like crossing a line, so I stand, leaning against the desk next to her.
“Thanks for all your help,” she says quietly.
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s what a boyfriend would do, right?” I try to make it into a joke, an attempt to break the tension that feels like a physical shroud over us, but it doesn’t work.
Izzy doesn’t laugh, and neither do I. Instead, I feel another crack in my heart forming because I’ll never be that person for her. She’ll find someone else who can help her, someone she isn’t forced to be with because of some arrangement made out of pity.
We watch each other in silence. I track my eyes across her face, trying to memorise everything about how she looks in this moment so I can replay it in my mind.
I catalogue the way her blonde hair has almost completely come out of its ponytail, long strands hanging loose around her shoulders.
I figure out exactly what shade of green her eyes are, the soft colour of a meadow in spring.
I finally realise her lips are the colour of the light pink flowers that grow in Halabeoji’s garden.
In the future, when I’m all alone, I’ll pull this memory out. I’ll recount the day I helped someone who means a lot to me, how I was there for her when she needed it, how she managed to comfort me through it too, even when she was the one in pain.
But I’ll keep the memory of kissing her hand, her cheek, her jaw, locked tight. I already know that one will hurt every time I think about it.
Izzy reaches out, her fingers brushing against the back of my hand before she pulls it into hers. My shoulders drop as I swallow the lump in my throat, all the fight I have for denying my feelings for her leaving me with that one touch.
I close my eyes, my legs giving out as I sink to the floor in front of her. My hand is still in hers as I kneel in front of her, and she rests it above her bandaged knee.
“Noah.”
I gather all my strength to look at her, my heart in my throat. She smiles down at me, but it’s not like her other ones. There’s defeat in this one, like she’s given up on something.
“Thank you,” she tells me again, but I can’t reply this time. I can’t try to make it into a joke, brush it off, or pretend she doesn’t mean it. Instead, I accept it, lock it away in that same memory box for later.
Her thumb strokes across the back of my hand, and each pass feels like she’s wiping away a layer of the walls I’ve worked so hard to keep up. But I can’t do it anymore with her, she’s knocking them all down and I want her to.
“The reason I came to Coates,” I start, my gaze dropping to our joined hands. “You know my sister, Mina. At our old school, some other kids weren’t very nice to her. I tried to help her as much as I could, but I couldn’t protect her all the time. We’re in different years, had different schedules. I couldn’t keep an eye on her as much as I needed to.”
I let out a deep breath, flashbacks of that day playing out like a movie in my head. I force my eyes closed, shaking my head as if I can get rid of it and change what happened, but it’s already done. Gentle fingers rest under my chin, nudging it upward, and when I open my eyes, Izzy’s face is close to mine.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she whispers, her eyes kind.
“No, I do. I just…” I take a shaky breath, gathering myself before I continue. “I want to tell you, I really do. But I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”
“I could never think that about you,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
She might mean it now, but I’m not sure if she’ll be able to once I reveal the truth. I carry on anyway, mentally steeling myself for her disappointment. I make sure the image I have of her in my head is exactly what I’m seeing right now. I memorise the softness in her green eyes, preparing for the moment it’ll turn to disappointment.
“There was one day it was really bad. I saw a ton of kids crowded around in the hallway, and my gut told me that Mina was involved. So I ran over. I pushed my way through all of them and she was…” My breath catches in my throat, the words unwilling to escape, but I force them out. Izzy squeezes my hand, giving me the strength to carry on.
“She was on the floor. There was a group of girls around her, and they had their phones out recording. She was crying, her hair was a mess, and I didn’t know what had happened. All I saw was red. I went for their phones, I wanted them to stop recording my baby sister while they were hurting her. One of the girls had a brother in my year. I didn’t notice he was there until I felt his fist connect with my jaw.”
Izzy winces, but there’s no judgement in her eyes, no disappointment. She moves her hand from my chin to my jaw, runs her thumb across it, and places a featherlight kiss there as if she can take that hurt away.
“He was on me, yelling that I tried to touch his sister, that he’d kill me. I started fighting back. I kicked him off me, and just…”
I don’t know how to tell her that it felt like I was possessed, that I just kept hitting him and hitting him until a teacher came over and pulled me off, and even then, I was still trying to go for him.
My head drops again, eyes closed as I try to block out the memory, try to pretend it didn’t happen. Izzy tilts my face to look at hers again, and when I open my eyes, she simply nods. I know that I don’t need to explain that part anymore.
“I got expelled after that. It was toward the end of the year, so I was only allowed back to do exams. My parents went through so many schools until they found Coates. They wanted Mina to have a fresh start.”
“You got one, too,” she tells me, her voice gentle as she tries to soothe me.
“Did I?” I ask her. “I don’t know how people started figuring out what happened and why I came here. Most of the things they say about me are fake, but a few people were right.”
“No one has any right to talk about you like that,” she says. I want to believe her, but some days it’s so difficult not to let their words get to me. “You stood up for your sister. That’s brave. And I’m glad you did.”
I can’t give her any kind of response, all my energy spent from exposing myself so completely to her. Izzy doesn’t ask for more of an explanation though.
The room has gotten darker as we’ve spoken, the sun setting earlier as winter draws in. I didn’t switch on a light when we came in, so the only light coming into the room is from the glow of the moon outside.
I stare out of the window at it, not letting myself look too closely at Izzy anymore. She turns her head to see what I’m looking at and then pulls me up so I’m standing over her. She twists in her chair to face the window and nudges me to lean on the desk close to her. We gaze out at the starry sky together for what seems like a lifetime. The silences with her are never uncomfortable. Instead, they bring me a sense of peace, a quiet moment for just the two of us, where I can forget this entire thing is meant to be fake.
“Does that one have a name?” I ask her, pointing to a faint cluster of stars.
“That’s Ursa Major,” she says, and I feel silly for not remembering it when she already told me before.
“Is there a constellation you want to see that you can’t from here?”
Izzy keeps her eyes focused on the sky, but I want to see them when she answers. I turn my head slightly to take in the profile of her face.
“Not a constellation, but I really want to see the northern lights,” she says wistfully. “All the pictures are so beautiful, I can’t imagine how pretty it is in real life.”
“You’ll get there one day. I’m sure of it,” I tell her. I really hope she does. I hope that in the future, Izzy can see every star and sight she wants without any worries.
She moves her attention away from the stars and onto me, catching me looking at her. There’s a sadness in her eyes that seems to match my own.
It hits me again. I want to tell her how I feel because I know it’s more than just a small crush. I like her a lot. I want this thing between us to become real. I want us to stop pretending we can’t see what’s right in front of us. And I think she wants that, too.
But something stops me, some tiny voice in the back of my head that reminds me we made a deal to end this before exams. We’re both going our separate ways once school ends. There’s nothing substantial tying us together. If we do decide to give this a real shot, what’s the point? What’s the end game? I’ll just leave this place more broken than I arrived, and I can’t do that to myself. I can’t do that to her either, so I shove those feelings down, pack them away in a locked vault.
“I should get back to my room,” I say, even though the delusional part of my brain wants to stay. I want all the time I can get with her before this year ends.
“Yeah, it’s getting late,” she says as if she’s only just realised, even though we’ve been sitting watching the stars for nearly an hour now.
I stand up, take my hand away from hers, and miss the weight of it immediately. I look at her one last time, the moonlight making her look like she’s something from a dream, and then I walk toward her door.
“Goodnight, Izzy.”
“Night, Noah.”
I don’t look back at her as I open the door and leave, another crack forming in my heart.