. . . an admission
I imagined what it would be like to see Noah again in the depths of my late-night dreams. He’d pull me into his arms, I’d grab his face and we’d start the rest of our lives the way that we meant to go on.
But here we are, in Park Guell, together once again, and that dream scenario feels a lot more like a slap in the face. His smile fades as he makes out my features, scrunched tightly into a ball of rage.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
His eyes dip. ‘Your sisters got me a ticket. I came to find you.’
I can’t fathom the words. I’m already too busy trying to process the fact that he’s standing in front of me in the flesh.
He throws his arms around me in a desperate, pleading embrace, squeezing me closer as he sways from side to side. My brain dizzies as he holds me, the all too familiar hit of his cologne flying straight to my stomach and making it upturn.
‘You’re supposed to be in Madrid, celebrating your birthday with your girlfriend,’ I say, flummoxed.
He pulls back from the hug, holding my arms still as he looks me over gravely.
‘I was. But I couldn’t be. Not without you.
’ His eyes dip again as he thinks back to it.
‘El threw me this big surprise party with a bunch of my friends from home, and loads of people we’d travelled with, and I looked around the room, and I searched for your face, and I realised pretty quickly that you weren’t there. Why weren’t you there?’
His face melts into anguish as his sombre eyes meet mine. My breath hitches at the content.
‘I was busy,’ I say.
He reads right through me. ‘Bullshit. Friends make the time.’
‘Well, maybe we’re not friends,’ I say.
If I’m completely honest with myself, I don’t think it was ever friendly for me. I felt drawn to him from the very moment we met; I just wasn’t ready to come to terms with why that was.
My voice is shaking, but it’s about time I put an end to all this, once and for all. ‘I can’t do it, Noah, this – us – it’s all too much. I can’t be friends with you.’
I snatch my arms from out of his, the tears filling my eyes threatening to jump.
‘I messed up and caught feelings, and I thought I could get past it, but every time I’m around you I realise that I can’t.
So go back to Eléa and enjoy the life that you were meant to have, and don’t follow me to Barcelona and act like that’s just a thing that friends do.
’ I pause, blinking back my tears. ‘Why are you here?’
He jumps a tad, taken aback. ‘Because I missed you, Am.’
It hits me straight in the heart, but I can’t let it scar. I know how this goes. I lived it for three months.
I roll my dampening eyes. ‘Jumping across the country “because you miss me” isn’t a friendly act, Noah. And it’s really . . . cruel to do that to me. I’m sure your girlfriend would agree.’
I go to walk – I can’t face him. Not right now and probably not ever again.
He knows the truth and while it’s better that it’s out in the open, I can’t stick around and watch him pity me now that it is.
I hear the thud of his trainers, so I walk quicker, hitching up my skirt and breaking into a full-blown jog.
He calls my name as I speed up, my breath starting to give way, but I dare not slow down or glance behind me.
‘Am, please!’ he calls.
I reach the iconic mosaic steps, but I can’t stop to gawk.
I trot down them as fast as I can, multiplying the Cheetah Girls’ cue by ten and, instead, running like I mean it.
I curse Noah for ruining this moment for me as I watch each step in the hopes that I don’t tumble down them.
But then his voice cuts through the crowd, down the steps and stops me dead in my tracks.
‘I broke up with El.’
I turn around. He stares down at me from the top.
‘What did you say?’ I ask, panting.
He comes towards me, one step at a time, as I slowly make my way back up towards him.
‘I said I broke up with El. I looked around at that party and my heart sank when I didn’t see your face.
El stood next to me and squeezed my hand in support, and in that moment I knew.
’ He pauses to swallow, his voice quietening as he continues.
‘I knew that I was celebrating with the wrong person. I tried to shake it off, but I still felt the same two days later.’
He stands a step above me as we look into each other’s eyes, terrified.
‘You’re right, Am – we’re not friends. We’ve never been friends. It’s always been more, if we’re being honest.’
I feel a chill run through me and watch as Noah’s eyes flit right to my goosebump-ridden arms. It breaks the ice ever so slightly, brings us back to the old us. We smile. Both soft, both timid, both scared to death.
‘It’s one of a kind, what we’ve got.’ His voice is croaky. ‘I’ve missed it – craved it, ever since you left me.’
‘I’ve missed it too.’ The words are frail as they leave my mouth, and the truth is unleashed right here, out in the open.
I missed Noah in ways I was afraid to admit, even to myself in my own head.
I wrote every article, posted each picture in the hope that he’d see it.
That he’d secretly yearn for me the way that I did him.
He haunted me in the two months that we were apart, even when I tried to pretend that he did not.
I can’t do that again. I can’t feel that way.
‘But I don’t want to be hurt by you. My heart can’t take it.’
My voice trembles so much with each of the words that Noah reaches out to almost hold them in place. He takes my arm and steps down to my level, our shoes brushing against each other as he does. But I don’t look down. I can only look directly into his equally timid eyes.
‘I don’t want to hurt you. I won’t hurt you,’ he says.
I gulp nervously. ‘But how will you . . . ?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. We don’t know where any of this will take us. But that shouldn’t stop us from giving it a go.’ He gulps down a nervous swallow. ‘I love you, Amorie. I have for so long.’
It’s everything I’ve wanted to hear – everything I’ve yearned for. But it’s not enough. It can’t be any more.
‘Then why date El?’ I ask. My voice breaks at the mention of her name. At the thought of him leaving me high and dry in Milan. His face breaks with me.
‘I didn’t know I had a chance with you. You had your whole mission with your dates and I didn’t want to derail it.
’ His eyes darken. ‘I tried – I really tried to be the best friend that sat by your side and watched you happily fall for other people, but it was agony. My heart shattered every time I waved you away on your dates and I spent my time alone trying to rebuild it. It tore me to pieces and I woke up every day wishing I was the one who made you that excited. But having one piece of you, that friendly piece of you, was worth all the pain. Until . . .’
‘Until it got to be too much.’ I nod. ‘I tried the same tactic in Nice. I booked the first ticket out of there after one day with you and El.’
He laughs sadistically, shaking his head back and forth. ‘Trust us to even suffer the same way. Does that make us twin flames?’
His question brings back the glint in his eyes, and I feel my heart spark to light at the resurgence of it. My mouth goes dry, but I nod. ‘Yeah, I think that it does.’
His lip curls and I feel all the blood in my body rush to my head. He shuffles as close as he can, gripping my face between his two, large hands. I’ve missed those hands.
‘We should do something about that,’ he says, his voice raspy.
He’s back at his most comfortable, his most Noah, my Noah, as it appears.
As he looks into my eyes, I look into our future, as the next year cycles through my mind.
My stomach fizzes at the thought of family dinners, meeting his parents, showing him Groundlings.
I wrap my hands around his waist and lean in for the first kiss of the rest of my life.