Chapter 10 Noah
Noah
The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
You want to hide with me?
It’s the kind of question you only ask someone when you’re desperate enough to want them near but not brave enough to say it out loud.
It wasn’t even a real invitation. It just…
slipped out—an echo of how things used to be.
Back when we’d sneak out of mom’s functions or my dad’s endless corporate parties and curl up in the garage under an old blanket, earbuds split between us, pretending the world didn’t exist beyond the four dusty walls and the crickets outside.
Back then, Damien always said yes. But now everything is too fractured and too raw. Now, we’re not fifteen. We’re no longer stupid kids leaning too close on a twin mattress. Now, I’ve cried in front of him, yelled at him, accused him of breaking me—and he didn’t deny it.
He’s still looking at me, though. Having him this close again feels like waking up in a place you forgot you used to live, only to find all the furniture rearranged. It’s still familiar. It just hurts more now.
I wonder if I imagined the last ten minutes. Perhaps I imagined him cupping my face and apologizing. Maybe this is all some drawn-out daydream where I finally get to ask all the things I’ve held in for four years, and he finally looks at me again.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, and it startles me.
I blink up at him. “What?”
His mouth curves a little, not quite a smile, not quite neutral. “I want to hide with you, Blue.”
He doesn’t give me time to back out. His hand wraps around mine, and I freeze. His fingers are rougher than I remember, calloused from years of ball handling and gym hours and god knows what else, but his grip is steady.
“You okay with this?” he asks, his thumb brushing lightly across my knuckles, and it kills me.
I nod once, and he starts walking, tugging me gently toward the back of the yard, past the string lights and the bonfire pit. I count the steps in my head to keep grounded. Sixteen past the deck. Thirty-three around the curve of the lawn. Forty-five before we hit the tree line.
There’s a narrow path I’ve never noticed before, hidden between thick hedges and a crooked row of trees. Damien parts the leaves as he walks, glancing back once before he pulls me through.
Eventually, the trees thin out, and I notice a small lake tucked behind the property.
It isn’t much—more pond than anything—but the surface glimmers in the moonlight, surrounded by wild grass and stubborn wildflowers that haven’t yet given in to fall.
The air smells like wet leaves and faint smoke, the kind that clings to hoodies and skin.
“This is where I come when it gets too loud,” Damien says, sinking into the grass. He glances up at me and tugs on my hand with just enough pressure to make me follow. “Nobody really comes out here. Or they forget it exists. Either way, it’s mine.”
I sit beside him, cross-legged, hoodie sleeves shoved up over my palms. My wrist still feels warm where his fingers were. I try not to think about that.
“You don’t have to talk,” he adds after a moment, reclining on his elbows and tipping his face to the stars. “We can just be here.”
The quiet hums between us, soft and unpressured. Somewhere in the distance, an owl calls out, and I think I can hear the faint flick of insects skimming across water. The night is thick with that early autumn scent—wet earth and faint smoke from someone’s backyard fire pit.
I glance sideways at him. He’s lying on his back now, hands folded behind his head, eyes on the sky. His chest rises and falls in a steady, hypnotic rhythm, and for a moment, I just watch him. Not the way I used to when we were younger—sneaky and guilty, afraid he’d catch me staring—but openly now.
I lie back too, arms crossed over my stomach, trying to ignore the way my heart won’t settle.
“My dad tried to make me a swimmer before I could even spell the word.” I don’t know why I start talking. I don’t plan to. The words just sort of leak out the way they always do when I’m too tired to keep them inside.
Damien doesn’t move, but I can feel the shift in his attention. His body goes still in that way it used to when he’s listening hard, like he doesn’t want to miss a single word.
“I think I was four the first time he threw me into the deep end without warning. Said it was the best way to teach me not to fear the water. I remember choking, screaming, and trying to crawl out of the pool. But he just stood there, arms crossed, telling me that champions don’t flail.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Damien turning his head slightly toward me but he still doesn’t speak.
“My mom’s worse, in a different way. Everything was about how I looked.
Always pulling at my clothes, fixing my hair, making sure my posture was perfect while saying no one would look at me twice if I didn’t get serious about appearances.
She used to pinch the skin under my arms and call it puppy fat.
” A bitter laugh escapes me, sharp and sudden. “I was only ten years old.”
I watch as Damien’s jaw tightens, and I know he’s getting pissed off for me. I never really told him about what my mother used to do to me, or what my father always expected of me.
“I didn’t even know what restricting was,” I say after a beat.
“I just knew if I didn’t eat lunch, she wouldn’t comment on how bloated I looked when I got home.
So, I started counting everything. Calories.
Steps. Hours between meals. And I thought…
if I could control that one thing, just that, then maybe the rest wouldn’t feel so heavy. ”
I can feel the full weight of his gaze now, and I try not to look at him because that would absolutely crush my confidence.
“Blue…” Damien’s voice breaks on my nickname, soft and rough all at once.
“I’m better now,” I say quickly. Too quickly. “Not great, but I try to eat more. That’s something, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice a low murmur. “That’s something.”
I bump my knee against his. “You’re scowling.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Your murder face is on.”
Damien huffs, then turns to look at me. “It just pisses me off what they did to you. Like you were some project to break down and build back up the way they wanted. I hate that you ever thought you had to shrink yourself just to be enough.”
We’re quiet again, but this time it’s harder to sit with. I pick at a blade of grass near my hand, twisting it between my fingers.
“Sometimes I still hear their voices in my head when I eat or look in the mirror. Even when I try to be happy. I can… I can feel them sitting on my shoulder, reminding me of everything I’m not.”
His eyes search mine for a long moment, the anger there obvious.
I recognize it for what it is—a protective fury, the kind he’s always kept hidden for my sake.
His jaw flexes, and he makes a soft sound—almost a growl.
I know that sound. I heard it when we were kids, and someone shoved me in the hallway.
He got suspended for throwing the guy into a locker.
“I’m sorry,” I say, suddenly embarrassed. “You didn’t ask to hear all that. I just—”
“I want to know the things you think you have to hide, Blue,” he says, and the words knock something loose in me. “I missed you and… fuck, I want to know everything I missed and missed out on.”
He says it so plainly that it shreds whatever paper-thin armor I’ve got left.
I don’t answer right away. My throat is too tight, my heart too full, my pulse too loud.
I lie there beside him in the grass, staring at the same stars he is, wondering how the hell we ended up here.
Not here, as in this patch of grass or this pocket of time, but here in this state of almost—this unbearable middle ground between past and present.
I didn’t expect this to happen tonight. I didn’t expect to say anything, and now it’s all out there. The mess of it. My parents. The damage. The disordered eating I can’t always keep at bay. The ache of being too much and never enough in the same breath.
It’s not like I’ve never said the words aloud before. I’ve been in enough therapy circles and doctors’ offices to know how to list my issues clinically. But this is different. This is him. Now he knows I’m all cracks underneath.
“Blue,” Damien says after a while, voice rough as if he’s holding back, “do you remember that summer when you got sick and couldn’t train, and you thought you were gonna fall behind?”
I blink. “Yeah?”
“You didn’t,” he says simply. “You came back and beat half the team’s lap records. You’ve always pushed through, even when you shouldn’t have had to. Even when no one made it safe for you to stop.”
My throat burns again, but it’s worse this time because I don’t want his praise. I want his arms. I want a fucking time machine so I can go back. I want to grab my own shoulders and shake myself and say he comes back. He still sees you. You’re still here.
I stare at the stars until my eyes sting.
“I used to think if I could just be perfect, they’d finally see me. That if I won enough medals or got thin enough or acted “normal” enough, they’d stop looking at me as if I were some broken ornament in their otherwise curated life.”
Damien doesn’t say anything, but I still feel his gaze. With an exhale, I turn my head to look at him again, finally giving in to the pull.
He’s already looking at me. Those brown eyes bore into mine, and I force myself to keep looking.
“You ever feel like no matter how loudly you scream, the people who are supposed to love you the most just…” I trail off, swallowing around the lump in my throat, “They just don’t hear you?”
His jaw clenches, and he exhales slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he says. “I know that feeling.”
Of course he does. We’ve both got mothers who cared more about appearances than anything else. His mom traded affection for status. Mine bartered love for control. It’s always been this unspoken thing between us—mutual damage passed down as if they were heirlooms.
“Sometimes I think the only time I ever really felt heard was when I was with you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Damien doesn’t move, but his expression changes—his eyes darken, soften, and narrow just slightly.
I shouldn’t have said that.
I look away fast, cheeks burning, the air around me suddenly too tight. My hands are shaking again. I curl them into the grass and pretend I’m just cold.
He sits up a little, leaning on one elbow. “Noah…”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to—” I pause, then shake my head. “I don’t know what I meant.”
“I heard you,” he says quietly. “I always did.”
We fall silent again. The lake ripples with a soft breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. The world keeps spinning, indifferent to what is happening between us right now. I stare at the space between us, wondering if he feels it too.
The ache.
The gravity.
The constant pull of almost.
“I’m not good at… this,” I admit, waving vaguely between us. “People. Connection. I mean, I can mask. I do it all the time. But it’s exhausting.”
His brow furrows slightly. “You don’t have to do that with me.”
“I know,” I whisper. “But I still do. I can’t help it. It’s… automatic.”
He sits up slowly, resting his elbows on his knees, and turns to face me. The moonlight softens the harsh lines of his face, making him look younger. Almost vulnerable. “I’m glad you asked me to hide with you.”
My throat tightens, and I swallow hard. “Even after everything?”
He nods, then lies back again, eyes back on the stars. “Especially after everything.”
We don’t say anything else for a long time. And when I close my eyes, it’s not the house or the music or the crowd that lingers. It’s the familiar scent of cinnamon gum and feeling of Damien’s pinky brushing mine in the grass.
We don’t say anything more, and still, I don’t move my hand.
Neither does he.