39. Noah
39
NOAH
Josh
Sorry again for ruining the surprise
But today is going to be great!
Noah
I hope so
What if she hates me for being gone for so long?
Josh
She definitely doesn’t
But you won’t know until you go in there
I tap the notification at the top of my screen.
Ravi
Keep me updated
Go get your girl
I lock my phone and stare at the outside of the cafe where she works. The windows are slightly fogged up, so I can only make out the blurred outlines of the people in there. My heart is beating a thousand times a minute, and my fingers tighten around my phone as I try to collect myself.
No matter how many times I spoke to my therapist about this, it didn’t prepare me for what actually standing here would be like. But I know there’s no need to put it off any longer.
I’ve spent the past year working to unpack everything I felt since the incident that made me leave my old school and set off the chain of events that led me to being on those calls with my therapist every other week.
I can’t change anything about the past, and I can’t undo any of those actions, but I wouldn’t want to anyway. If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, about to see the girl who feels like the part of me that’s been missing for over a year.
I put my phone into my pocket, shaking out my hands as I take a few deep breaths and start walking toward the cafe. When I enter, she’s the first thing that catches my eye, and my heart almost stops.
My Izzy.
She’s chatting with a coworker, laughing as she pours someone’s coffee into a mug before coming out from behind the counter. She carries it over to a table in the corner, smiling at the girl sitting there before asking her a question that has the girl tugging at Izzy’s arm to sit down with her.
She hasn’t noticed me yet, so I take the chance to sit at an empty table that gives me a perfect view of her. I take her in.
Her hair is still blonde, tied up with a few loose strands escaping that I want to tuck behind her ear. Her smile is the same one I’ve dreamed of for the past year and a half. I’m glad my memory served me well, but it doesn’t compare at all to the real thing.
Izzy is so beautiful that it physically hurts.
I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest, the lump in my throat threatening to stop my breathing. I will myself to keep it together at least until I can get a single word out to her.
She’s so engrossed in conversation that I’m not expecting her to lift her head. I don’t have time to hide my face like I planned to do. I wanted more time to just watch her, to see how she’s doing. I still don’t know what I’m going to say to her.
There’s no more time to think about it, though, because she’s out of her seat, knocking the table in front of her as she moves it to the side. I barely have a chance to stand up before she’s barrelling into me, her arms around my neck as I fall back down.
I wrap my arms around her, hold her close to me as if I’m still trying to convince myself that she’s real. I breathe her in, dig my fingers into where I’m touching her.
She’s here. She’s real.
“You came back,” she sobs, her voice muffled from where her face is pressed into my neck.
“I promised you,” I tell her.
She pulls back, cradling my cheeks in her hands as her gaze tracks across my face. She touches my ears, my nose, my forehead, my jaw, my lips.
“You’re really here?” she whispers, her eyes wide and the hint of a smile on her lips.
“I’m here. I told you I’d come back for you.”
She buries her face in my neck again, and I lift one of my hands to hold the back of her head.
“I’m not going anywhere this time. I’m with you, Izzy, if you’ll have me.”
Izzy pulls back again, her thumbs running over the dampness on my cheeks.
“I only want you, Noah. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too. Can we go somewhere to talk?” I ask her, realising that we probably have an audience. I don’t know for sure, though. I haven’t looked away from her for a single second to check.
“My car’s outside,” she says.
“You can drive?” I ask her.
I shouldn’t be so surprised, but it’s just more proof that I’ve missed so much. I want to know everything she’s done since I left.
“Barely, but I have a license, so that’s all that matters,” she laughs, and I can’t believe I survived so long without hearing it. “Avery, I’m going on my break!”
“Take the rest of the day off,” the blonde girl behind the counter says, a wide smile on her face.
Izzy doesn’t hesitate before she climbs off me, taking my hand in hers as she drags me out of the cafe and down the street to her car. I get into the passenger seat as she gets behind the steering wheel, and it feels so strange to see her like this.
She turns the engine on but makes no move to go anywhere. Instead, Izzy stares at me as she lets out a heavy breath, shaking her head.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she says, taking my hand in hers again.
“I can’t either,” I tell her, lifting our joined hands so I can place a kiss on the back of hers.
“Do you want to come back to mine? We can talk there.”
“I’d love that,” I say, and she starts the short drive toward her house.
It only takes us about ten minutes to get there, and she only lets go of my hand once we have to get out of the car. As soon as I’m at her side, she takes it again as we walk up to her apartment.
“I don’t know if Isaac and Violet are home, but we can go in my room if they are,” she explains.
I hide my smile, knowing that the two of them are expecting my arrival anyway. They’re ready to leave as soon as we get there, but Violet wanted to see me first.
When I got back to England a few days ago after visiting Halmeoni, the first thing I did was text Violet. It was a shot in the dark, and I wasn’t too hopeful about getting a reply, but it only took a few minutes for us to start up a conversation.
I asked her if it would be okay for me to see Izzy. I didn’t want to show up without knowing if she still felt anything toward me. Violet told me that Izzy hadn’t spoken much about me, but that there was no harm in seeing an old friend. After that, she told me the best place to find her and now we’re finally here. Her hand is in mine again.
Izzy fumbles with the keys as she unlocks the door, mumbling under her breath adorably as she fights to put it in the lock. She doesn’t get a chance to try again before the door swings open, and her brother is staring at us.
“Noah, it’s great to finally meet you,” Isaac says, as he stretches out his hand toward me.
I don’t want to let go of Izzy’s, though, so I do some weird backward grip on his hand as I shake it. I hope this doesn’t ruin his first impression of me. Even though I’ve heard a lot about him and saw him from afar at the airport, I’ve never spoken to him before.
“Likewise,” I say, and the crack in my voice betrays any hopes I had of not showing how nervous I am.
“What’s going on?” Izzy says, looking back and forth between us.
I open my mouth to explain, but then Violet joins Isaac in the doorway. She pulls me into a hug, her hands squeezing my shoulders comfortingly.
“It’s great to see you again, Noah.”
I smile at her, regretting not bringing some sort of gift for her. The reason I’m standing here right now is all thanks to her.
“Again?” Izzy asks, directing her question at Violet. “You’ve met before?”
“Briefly,” Violet says, giving me a knowing smile. “We were just on our way out. Right, Isaac?”
She moves closer to him, wrapping an arm around his waist as she tucks herself into his side. His hand comes up around her shoulders, and the movements feel so instinctive for both of them. Neither of them even has to think about what they’re doing, they just fit each other easily.
“We were,” he confirms. “My wife wants to go and see a movie.”
“I’m not your wife yet.”
“Technicalities.” He shrugs.
She swats at his chest, but the smile on both of their faces is contagious. It’s hard to stop myself from imagining being like that with Izzy.
“Izzy, I’ll text you when we’re on the way back,” Violet says.
The two of them make way for us to enter their home before they step past us to leave, waving goodbye as they walk down the corridor.
“What just happened?” Izzy asks as she closes the door and guides me further into the apartment to sit on the sofa. I do a double-take when I catch sight of something familiar. My hoodie still hangs from a peg on her wall.
She brings both of her legs up, folding her knees to her chest and leaning her side against the back of the sofa so she’s facing me.
“I saw you at the airport,” I confess. “I was with my family going back to Korea, and then I heard your laugh. I thought I was dreaming for a second, but then I saw you. You were barely fifty feet away from me.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowed.
“I still wasn’t okay. I told you I wanted to come back as the best version of myself, and I wasn’t there yet.”
Izzy’s hand tightens around mine as she shuffles closer to me. I turn in my seat, tucking one leg under the other to lessen the gap between us.
“Violet came over to speak to me. She gave me her number and said I could text her whenever I wanted to. I kept hold of it until I was ready to come back to you.”
“And now you’re here,” Izzy says, her free hand coming up to cradle my jaw.
“Now I’m here.”
I turn my head to the side slightly, pressing my lips against her palm.
“God, I missed you so much,” she says.
Her thumb strokes across my cheek and I sink into the feeling of it, savouring the comfort of being touched by her again.
“I missed you too,” I tell her. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”
She lets out a huff of air, her long hair lifting slightly before it falls back down. A loose strand drops in front of her eye, and I don’t stop myself from reaching out to tuck it behind her ear. I trace my fingers across her cheek, seeing how she shivers right before I caress her jaw.
“It feels like it’s been a whole lifetime since I last saw you. There’s so much to say.” She glances at the clock on the wall above the TV. “How long can you stay?”
“For as long as you’ll have me.”