Chapter 8 Noah
Noah
When I finally manage to slip away from the kitchen and the knot of bodies spilling into every room, my skin feels too tight.
My shirt clings to me in places that make me want to crawl out of it, and every brush of someone’s arm or bump of a passing body feels akin to static crawling across my nerves.
I push open the sliding glass door leading out to the back deck, where only people who live here are allowed to be, the music muffling instantly as it closes behind me.
The noise inside dims enough that I can finally exhale without it catching in my throat.
The cold air hits my face, and I brace my hands on the railing, letting the quiet of the night hold me steady.
I’ve been smiling too much, nodding too often, answering too many of the same goddamn questions with the same forced cadence and the same tired script.
Yes, I swim.
Yes, I live here.
No, my eyes aren’t fake.
Yes, I was born this way.
No, I don’t wear colored contacts.
And always the same: “Wow, your eyes are—”
Cool.
Crazy.
Freaky.
Strange.
Beautiful.
Then there’s my favorite: “You must get so much attention.”
Yeah. Sooo much attention. I’d trade every bit of it for five quiet minutes without someone asking if I wear colored contacts.
The backyard is shadowed, stretched under a heavy navy sky littered with soft stars. There’s a line of string lights along the edge of the deck, and the bulbs hum faintly, glowing gold above me. The chill nips at my skin, but I welcome it.
I need this. Space. Stillness. Time to unmask and recalibrate. I’ve been performing for too long tonight—hell, for the past two months. Every day here is some variation of ‘Just Be Normal, Noah.’
I roll my shoulders and rub at the back of my neck, letting myself simply exist without the pressure of holding eye contact or modulating my tone or calculating how many more seconds I can stay in a conversation without visibly unraveling.
Out here, no one’s watching. No one’s asking about my eyes or why I’m so quiet.
No one’s waiting for me to be more than I am.
I close my eyes and let my breath slow.
Then I hear the door slide open behind me.
I don’t turn, but I tense, shoulders pulling tighter, praying it’s not Damien. If it’s him, I’ll break in ways I’m not ready to explain. But the footsteps are too light, too fluid, and when the voice follows, it’s unmistakably someone else.
“Jesus. It’s like being inside a blender full of overconfident testosterone and cheap cologne.”
I glance sideways to see Sage stepping onto the deck with his arms wrapped around himself as he huffs into the chill. He’s now wearing an oversized hoodie that swallows him whole, sleeves covering his hands, and his hair’s pulled up into a loose bun that’s starting to slip free.
“I thought you thrived in chaos,” I say.
He snorts. “I do. Doesn’t mean I don’t also hate it.”
I turn back to the railing, and he steps in beside me without asking. But he doesn’t get too close and doesn’t crowd. We both look out at the dark stretch of the yard, the string lights casting faint shadows on the wood.
“Too many people?” he asks after a beat.
“Too many questions,” I say. “Too much eye contact. Too many smells. Too many things I’m supposed to pretend don’t bother me.”
He hums in understanding. “Someone tell you your eyes are cool again?”
I nod, jaw tightening. “So many times tonight.”
“You should start charging for the privilege.”
I huff out something that might be a laugh. “Or wear sunglasses indoors.”
Sage shrugs. “I used to do that. People thought I was stoned all the time. It helped.”
We lapse into silence again. It’s easier with him than it is with most. Maybe because he doesn’t fill it with needless chatter, or perhaps because he doesn’t shift uncomfortably when I don’t respond right away. He just leans against the rail, his gaze fixed somewhere far off.
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “Do you come out here a lot?”
“When I need to breathe,” he says simply. “Sometimes Luca gets it. Sometimes he thinks I’m avoiding him.”
“Are you?”
“Sometimes,” Sage says with a soft smile. “He’s a lot, and I love him. But that doesn’t mean I want to be around him every second of the day. You can love someone and still need space.”
The words hit me in a way I didn’t expect them to. I look down at my hands, fingers gripping the railing tightly enough to pale my knuckles. I’ve never had someone say it that plainly before.
“I don’t think I know how to do that,” I admit. “I either want someone too much or not at all. There’s never an in-between.”
“That’s not a bad thing. It just means when you care, it’s real,” Sage replies.
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I can.
Sage exhales and leans forward on his elbows, eyes scanning the dark. “Ryan says you’ve been having a rough time,” he says after a minute of silence.
I keep my eyes on the pool, watching the ripples. “He talks too much.”
“He cares a lot,” Sage says, and there’s no judgment in it. “He’s a good one. Annoying, but good.”
I nod once. “He’s the reason I’m here.”
“You mean in the house?”
“I mean, still at Blackthorne.” I say and Sage edges closer, but doesn’t speak. “I almost left about two weeks ago. Packed half my shit and started looking at flights.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I take a long breath and let it out slowly. “Because Ryan walked into my room and said, ‘If you leave now, he wins.’ And I didn’t have to ask who he meant.”
There’s a moment where I think he might ask who “he” is, offer sympathy, a cliché, or something soft to fill the ache.
But he doesn’t. He just looks at me with that steady, too-knowing gaze and says, “You know, this house has a way of chewing people up if they let it. It’s a lot of personalities in one place, and a lot of noise. ”
I glance toward the glass doors, where the lights flicker, and shadows move in rhythmic chaos. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“Don’t lose yourself trying to fit in, Noah,” he murmurs. “It’s easy to forget who you are when everyone else in the room is too loud.”
I exhale, but it’s shaky, and lean forward until my arms rest on the railing and my chin drops between them.
The wood is cool under my skin, and the pressure feels good.
“Do you ever feel as if you’re playing a version of yourself that isn’t quite real?
” I ask, not even sure where the words come from.
“All the time,” Sage says without hesitation. “The trick isn’t killing the version everyone thinks you are. It’s finding the one that feels like home.”
“And if you can’t find him?”
Sage looks at me, his eyes softer. “Then you make him. From the pieces left behind.”
There’s another moment of silence between us, and once again, I wonder why being around Sage makes me feel like I don’t constantly need to perform.
After a while, Sage clears his throat. “So… you and Damien—”
“What about us?” I straighten up and ask too quickly, my pulse spiking instantly.
Sage holds up his hands. “Relax, Bluebird, I’m not prying. Just… I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
I stare at him and slowly shake my head. “He doesn’t look at me at all.”
“Then maybe you’re not paying attention,” he says, his mouth quirking into a half smile.
I swallow hard, feeling the heat crawling up my neck. “We’re not… anything. We used to be stepbrothers, but then he left.”
“Without saying goodbye?” he asks.
I breathe out a sigh and nod. “Yeah. One day we were close, and the next… nothing. He’s been ignoring me ever since.”
Sage studies me for a long moment, then offers me a sad smile. “That kind of silence is its own kind of cruelty. Especially when it comes from someone you trusted.”
The only thing I can do is look away and nod.
“Just don’t let it fester,” he continues. “Trust me, waiting around for someone else to fix the hurt never works. You either say what you need to say, or you let it rot until it eats everything else.”
I look back at him then, and he gives me a small smile—and it’s understanding rather than sympathy. “You’ll figure it out, Noah.”
Then he’s gone, the sliding glass door whispering shut behind him, leaving me with the night and the quiet. I stand there for a long time after he leaves, his words echoing in my head.
The truth is, I don’t know what I’m waiting for anymore. For Damien to talk to me first? For him to be the one to bridge the gap he created? Or to tell me the truth as to why he left? Damien’s silence already ate everything it could, and yet, I can’t seem to stop feeding it.
But I wonder if Sage is right—if maybe the only way to stop hurting is to finally say the things I’ve been too scared to voice.
Even if it breaks me.