CHAPTER 04 - Noah Black
Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time's
supposed to heal ya
But I ain't done much healing
Hello – Adele
Bryan is in front of me.
In flesh, bone, and pure desperation.
An infinity of questions surrounds me, yet I can't voice a single one.
The words are here, scratching at my throat, begging to be said, but I can't.
Not after so much time in silence.
Not after everything I lived through believing he was dead.
Not when I died along with him.
I feel my legs losing strength, my knees threatening to give way, such is the emotion of having him near.
My heart races so fast it seems to be running back to the past trying to recover the lost years.
His lips ask for forgiveness once more, call my name, and I feel as if my world is collapsing.
For a second, I forget everything around me and focus only on his voice, the same one I believed I would never hear again.
On the firm tone, yet at the same time delicate.
On the way the words come out heavy, but extremely sincere.
It's too surreal, so I close my eyes, and when I breathe deeply, his scent impregnates my nostrils.
The same addictive smell.
The aroma I was always in love with.
I reopen my eyes and, even trembling, I bring my hands to his chest, needing to touch him.
Needing more certainty that he's really here.
That I'm not hallucinating.
That this isn't a trick due to the medications.
I swallow a sob when my fingers touch the hard pectoral and he moves a little closer.
Every part of me screams with the proximity, with the heat that radiates from his body and joins with mine.
I shudder and stare at him.
Our eyes connect and through his iris I enter a spiral of present, past, and future when I notice them red and swollen like mine.
I see what we were.
The shards we became.
And what we never managed to be.
My chest burns with the realization that we're no longer the young dreamers we used to be.
That today we've become just fragments.
Unequal pieces of stories that didn't fit into any happy ending.
I stare at him and try to see the boy I fell in love with, but it's almost impossible, because just as happened with me, there are so many changes in his features.
Only his were for the better.
His face is even more handsome, even though it now bears a discreet scar at the corner of his temple.
His jaw is well-defined.
His beard is low and well-trimmed and his lips are much fuller than I remembered.
His hair is shaved on the sides and longer in the middle.
This part specifically is a complete mess and something tells me it's because he probably ran his hand through it repeatedly, perhaps to contain his nervousness when he was coming here.
I keep staring at him, trying to understand at what point he became so handsome, so big, so strong.
I let my eyes wander over his body.
God, how he's changed!
In the trailer Bryan was covered with an overcoat, but now, wearing only a thin and slightly wet t-shirt, I can notice every muscle that didn't exist before, as well as the infinity of tattoos that cover his entire neck, arms, hands, and by the shape of the designs, there are also all over his chiseled chest and abdomen.
It's a mixture of various designs and they seem to leave not a single piece of skin uncovered. The lines follow down his waist, disappearing where my eyes can't reach, and I wonder, almost guiltily, if his entire body is marked.
The body I once worshipped is completely different.
But at the same time familiar.
Cruelly familiar.
Bryan is huge, and that should scare me, but the only thing I can think is that he managed to become even more striking than when we met.
I think about pulling away to try to find out what he came here to do, but as if understanding what I'm about to do, he pulls me and presses our bodies together, intensifying even more the flood of sensations inside me as I feel his body against mine.
I swallow a sob when the old feeling of safety fills me along with his embrace, the same one that died the exact moment I believed he was dead.
I allow myself to be embraced and bury my face in his chest as if that could take me back in time.
As if being in his arms were enough to fix the damage caused to our souls.
He squeezes me tightly, and then we tremble together.
Our heartbeats align, and I feel like they're telling us they still know how to dance to the same rhythm.
As if they're screaming that we never stopped being us.
I let the tears come as we hold each other, and the emptiness I've felt for years seems to start filling with just this touch.
It feels like we were never apart.
And for a brief moment, I feel like we still belong to each other.
I feel his chin rest on my head the way he used to when we first met, and my chest aches as I think about everything we could have had if we'd managed to escape that damned night.
We melt into each other more than I ever thought possible, and I let myself feel the joy of him being alive—because even knowing we don't have a future together and never will, what matters to me right now is that he survived.
He survived what my father did to him.
Time passes and we keep holding each other.
It's comforting to feel relief after living in anguish for so long.
I broke the day I lost him. The night that bastard Gavin—my father—said he'd killed him. The moment he showed me the photos of Bryan unconscious and hurt.
I've been dying in silence for years since that moment.
I blamed myself every second I breathed for staying alive when he'd died because of me.
And even knowing there's no fixing me, somehow a piece of my heart clicked back into place and started beating again when I found him in the trailer.
Bryan squeezes me tighter, as if he needs to convince himself too that we're in the same space, the same moment, that we're holding each other despite everything that happened.
I'm so lost in the feeling of being in his arms that I only hear the noise when my bedroom door is already swinging open.
The creak sends terror down my spine and I pull away quickly, already bracing myself to watch everything get destroyed and ripped away from me again. But relief washes over me when I see Sadie coming in with her curious little eyes, messy curls, and her bear clutched in her arm.
“Who is he?” she asks quietly, her wide eyes staring at me with suspicion, and I move closer.
I close the door quickly and lock it, my heart still racing—but this time from the scare. Relief came, but with it the reminder that it's insane for Bryan to be in here—because if my father finds him, I have no doubt he'll actually kill him this time.
I kneel in front of her, my hands already starting to sign calmly.
He's my friend. A good friend, so you don't need to be afraid of him!
I tell her, emphasizing that he's a good person so she won't be scared. Sadie blinks, her gaze shifting between me and Bryan, and I wait for her reaction.
I glance to the side and see he's still standing, but now turned toward us, frozen like a statue with his eyes locked on her.
On my girl.
On the only light in the darkness that my life has become.
“He's really big,” she says, her voice drawn out like someone who just woke up. “Bigger than the closet where I keep my little bears.”
I try to hold back a smile but fail, and I see the shadow of one appear on his face too.
“We don't have any good friends except the ones from our imagination,” she says with distrust, and a knot forms in my throat.
He's a good friend, you can trust me.
“Then the monster can't know, because he only likes the bad friends,” she states, too firmly for such a young child.
We won't tell him or Sarah. It's our secret.
I sign, and her smile grows.
“Do you know how to fight monsters?” she asks, her voice a bit nasal, the word still clumsy in her small mouth. “Because there's one that lives here and he yells really scary.”
I freeze, the air leaving my lungs as I stare at Bryan when her words land.
He stays motionless and tries to hide it, but I see pain mixing with hatred in his expression.
“Oh, there's also the witch,” she continues. “She does magic that hurts.”
My eyes burn and Bryan takes a step toward us, as if his legs finally remember how to move. He crouches down to her level and I wait for his reaction when he sees the scar on her face, but instead of repulsion or disgust, I see only raw emotion in his expression.
It's so surreal to see the two of them meeting that I wonder if this is really happening.
Tell him your name, my love.
I sign, and she moves close to him, touching his cheek with her small hand.
“I'm Sadie, the best sister in the whole wide world,” she says excitedly, and Bryan smiles.
God, how I've missed that smile!
How I've missed him!
“It's a pleasure to meet you, little one.” He tucks a curl behind her ear. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asks, and her eyes shine with excitement.
“You can!! Noah and I love telling secrets!” she says excitedly.
“I love hunting monsters and witches.” I bite my lip when I hear his words, holding back a torrent of tears. “Maybe I can catch the ones roaming around this house?”
“Really?” she asks curiously, and he nods. “Then I’m going to call you Hunter,” she exclaims, and my heart races.
“Very serious!” he confirms. “And I’m going to call you little one.”
My heart skips not just one, but about five beats seeing how well they hit it off right away.
“But I’m going to gwow up,” she says, confused.
“If you take after your sister, you might not grow that much,” he teases, and I stare at him open-mouthed.
“I’m going to be really big to get us out of hewe,” she says seriously, and the knot in my throat threatens to choke me.
“You seem really nice,” she continues, changing the subject as if she hadn’t just added to my guilt for not being enough to get her out of here.
“You just need to fix your face. It’s too sad! ”
Sadie is small, but she feels everything with an almost frightening intensity. She’s the kind of child who senses when something’s wrong even without anyone saying a word.
She doesn’t know anything about my story, doesn’t know why I stopped talking, but she understood from a young age how much I love her. And somehow, she always notices when I’m not okay, even when I try to hide it with fake smiles.
She seems to see right into our souls!
“It must be because I didn’t catch any monsters tonight,” he jokes, and I wipe away a sneaky tear. “But I’m already happy because now I’ve met you and made a little friend.”
“Can he come every night? Can we play in secret?” She almost shouts as she looks at me, but quickly covers her mouth, startled when she realizes she spoke too loudly.
We don’t know if he can come again.
I respond and notice Bryan watching curiously as her smile fades.
Even though it hurts, I can’t get her hopes up.
And now we need to sleep before someone wakes up and sees us.
Can you tell Bryan he needs to go home? He doesn’t know sign language.
She nods, her face sad.
“She said you need to go because daddy might show up,” Sadie says sadly.
“I understand, but I promise I’ll come back, okay?” Her eyes light up again. “Noah, do you have a phone?” I shake my head. “I’ll get you one.” My eyes widen.
Bryan stands up and plants a kiss on top of Sadie’s head, then on mine. I watch almost in slow motion as he goes to the window and climbs through as if he weren’t too big for such a feat.
Once he’s outside, he looks at us.
“I’m going to save you both and prove that there are lots more good friends out there.” Sadie gives an excited little hop, while I just force a smile, watching him disappear from view.
I want to promise her that yes, he’ll save us, but all I can do is pull her close and hug her tight, because I know it’s not easy to defeat some monsters, especially when they’re your own parents.
“I love you too, and even though he’s nice, you’ll always be my favowite,” she says dramatically, perhaps imagining my hug as jealousy.
I smile through my tears.
He’s alive, and for today, that’s enough.