. . . an obstacle
He grips my shoulders tightly between his hands, fingers sinking softly into warm flesh. His eyes are so narrow I barely see them, but they stare deeply into mine nonetheless.
‘You ready for this?’ he asks gravely.
I nod.
‘I need you to say it.’
‘I’m ready for this,’ I say softly, voice trembling under pressure.
‘Louder.’
‘I’m ready.’
‘Scream it!’
I try. ‘I’m ready!’
His lips curl instantly into a familiar smile. ‘That’s my girl,’ he says confidently.
I follow his eyes over to our left, where Jake is putting Ally through a series of pre-obstacle-course drills. He catches us staring and sweeps her off her feet to curl her like a weight. She shrieks and giggles in surprise.
‘They’re pretty cute,’ I say.
‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Noah rolls his eyes before sighing in agreement. ‘Jake’s annoying sometimes and too much of a show-off, but he’s always loved Ally with his whole heart.’
And studying Jake in this moment, I can finally see how he and Noah are friends despite the way they butt heads.
The sheer awe painted on Jake’s skin as he looks at his girlfriend could have been pulled straight from Noah’s face.
I have seen that stare before, felt that stare before, from the lens of the man standing right next to me.
I glance back to him and find that he’s already looking my way with a soft, settled smile.
It widens as our eyes meet and I mirror it back.
This is it. This is the bubble that only two people will ever experience.
‘You think we can win this?’ I ask.
Noah shrugs. ‘He lifts more than me, but I run faster. And you’re . . .’
‘Athletically challenged,·’ I say. ‘How’s Ally?’
‘A previous National Track champion,’ he says through gritted teeth.
‘Oh.’ I wince. He notices and grabs my hand.
‘Let’s not worry and just have fun.’
I nod thankfully and place my hands on my hips as we step up to the starting line and Jake runs through the route once again. I memorise it the best I can, but something still sits on my mind and I hope the camaraderie of this moment may help it come to light. So, I turn to Noah.
‘Teammate to teammate, why does he call you Scholly?’ I ask.
His eyes drop. ‘I was a scholarship kid at our prep school. It was a “funny” dig they all had that just stuck.’
There’s a thick, sticky bitterness that coats each of his words, despite how hard he tries to disregard them.
I think about the years he must have spent resenting the name, trying to prove he was more.
How them ragging on his single status probably made him feel even more inferior.
I nod, feeling my new positive perceptions of Jake sour just as quickly as they came on.
‘I’ve changed my mind. This isn’t for fun – we have to crush them,’ I growl.
He glances towards me, surprised but delighted.
‘You sure?’ he asks.
I nod. ‘Let’s do this.’
Then the klaxon sounds, I lock in and let my rage take over.
‘You were amazing today!’ Noah says as we walk down the dark streets of Milan hours later.
‘It was nothing,’ I say, humbly waving it off.
‘Nothing!’ he scoffs. ‘Am, you were a beast! I’ve never seen Jake look so defeated – it was truly a sight to behold! Where did that come from?’
The sun has set entirely, the evening temperature dropped enough to paint goosebumps up and down my arms. I see Noah’s eyes home in on them, before he sighs and shrugs off his jacket, immediately draping it over my shoulders. I wrap it around myself tightly, breathing in his scent.
‘I just wanted you to win,’ I say truthfully.
I always want him to win. I want him to be happy. And if I can do anything to help that, I absolutely will. I cannot even describe what happened today – my adrenaline took over. I blacked out and next thing you know, we made it to the end.
‘We didn’t just win, we thrashed them. Am – you were a woman possessed!’
He turns towards me, his face awash with unbridled awe and wonder.
The power of it lifts me higher. If he keeps going, I could fly across the tops of the cathedrals and buildings all the way to our homestay.
It’s too dangerous. I want to drop my gaze and slow down my heart rate, but my eyes are drawn to his like magnets.
I just can’t look away, and neither can he apparently.
When he steps closer, my heart threatens to leap from my chest.
His voice is hushed as he continues. ‘Would I be breaking a rule if I told you the whole thing was incredibly hot?’
He’s smiling darkly, creeping closer, his hand flinching restlessly as he resists the urge to bring it to my face.
‘You would be, yes,’ I barely manage to say, still staring straight at him.
He doesn’t falter.
‘Would you mind?’ he asks. ‘If I broke some rules?’
My heart’s gone from my chest now, revealing itself deep in the core of my trembling throat. I feel it seize, squeezing the breath out of me as I run through his words. This can’t be happening. We said one time. One time was all I could handle without it feeling heartbreakingly real.
‘We broke so many rules on the train to Rome,’ I remind him.
‘Exactly.’ He steps closer. We’re chest to chest. ‘So, what’s a few more?’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Why?’ He blinks back, confused, but I power on, letting my heart lead me.
‘Why break the rules? Because of lust? Or because . . .’ I trail off, eyes dropping.
I’m not brave enough to continue. I can’t bear to think of how he’d even respond if I did.
I want to run and hide – forget I even brought this up.
I know the rules. I know why Noah’s here.
It’s not fair to ask him to wait over forty dates for me.
It’s all too much. I go to turn – continue walking and end this conversation once and for all, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back in.
‘Because of what?’ he asks, still and sombre.
His grip tightens. We stay frozen in place, two lost souls under the flickering streetlight, searching for the answers in each other’s eyes.
‘I don’t know, you tell me.’ My voice trembles.
He shakes his head and laughs softly at my obvious deflection. ‘Amorie . . .’ His breath quickens. ‘You must know how I feel about you at this point, we’ve . . .’ He trails off and looks down. ‘Okay, yeah, this is hard.’
I giggle. I can’t help it and neither can he as he joins in, the pair of us sharing this defeat.
‘What is wrong with us?’ I ask.
He smiles back at me and shrugs, recovering from our little shared moment of stress.
‘Whatever it is, I love it,’ he says.
I nod. ‘I love us.’
‘I love you.’
‘Yeah, as a friend,’ I say, nodding.
But as I look back at him, something has changed. There’s a pallor across his face, all traces of humour gone.
‘Do you think you’ll only ever see me as a friend?’ he asks.
I rush to answer. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But you haven’t denied it.’ His eyes remain cloudy and he glances around at the streetlights, the buildings – anything that’s not me.
He rarely gets this serious and each time he has, it has turned my stomach in the exact same way.
The more we’ve travelled together, the more I’ve found myself emoting through him.
He smiles, I feel joy; he frowns and my chest dips too.
That’s not just friendship. That’s something deeper.
I think I’ve known that for a while. But I’ve also seen how easily I ruin good things in my life.
I shudder at the thought of us growing apart and being nothing but internet mutuals who silently view each other’s stories, all because I let my heart get the better of what could have been a lifelong friendship.
As my chest starts to grow tight, I wrestle with the knowledge that’s lingered in the back of my mind for months.
I can’t go back to a life without Noah.
‘I really do care about you.’ I stare at the ground as I mumble.
The words skate just above a whisper, the lightest tread I can take.
‘That’s what girls say whenever they’re about to let someone down easy,’ he says jokingly.
I study how his face doesn’t move in time with his foray into humour, in stark contrast to the way that it usually does. I pause for a moment, stopping both of us in our tracks, and swivel around so we’re face to face.
‘I’m not letting you down; I would never,’ I say firmly. ‘I like you too much to ever dare.’
I’ve been open around Noah. He knows more about me than most and he’s certainly seen me in every light.
He knows my weaknesses and my fears, he knows I love him to some degree, but he doesn’t know me like this.
He doesn’t know how much I care. This kind of openness is terrifying.
It grips at my skin, stretching and pulling and begging me to retreat once again.
I need him to react – to move – to grab my face and kiss me, and tell me to give up on the dates once and for all.
I want to clutch his hand in mine and race back to our apartment, spend the whole night declaring our love and making up for lost time.
I want to waste tomorrow in bed as we laugh about how silly we’ve been, dating other people when we were right here in front of each other.
I want to love him the way I’ve known I do for a while now.
And I want him to love me back. But right now, all he does is stare.
‘I like you too.’ His voice is deep. ‘Too much, for sure. I think about this, about us and I . . . well, I think we should—’
A loud, piercing ring fills the air, forcing us to jump apart. He grapples for his pocket, whipping out his phone quickly, his eyes widening as he stares at the screen.
‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ He looks up at me. ‘Shit timing, I know. Stay right there, please? Don’t move.’
He scurries off a few feet away as I stand there with my thoughts, my heart pitter-pattering until he returns.
It stops the second he comes back. In the mere minutes he was on the phone, his whole demeanour has changed.
That heart-fluttering nervousness has been superseded by something paler, something graver, something .
. . apologetic. I try to stare into his eyes but they look straight through me, caught in a daze as his mind dwells on whatever he just came from.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask, my pulse racing at the speed of light.
I hold my breath as my words bring him back to life. He blinks once, twice, a third time, before straightening up and slapping on the smile I’ve come to love him for. But as I look into it, I notice the way it droops at the sides and the way his lip quivers as it tries to keep up the sham.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, I think.’
He shoves his hands in his pockets, eyes dropping from mine straight to the floor.
‘That was Eléa. She broke up with her boyfriend and she wants me to come to Nice.’