Crashing Souls (16 page)

“Well, I for one—” Tracey started.

“I’d like you to be my girlfriend,” I blurted out. Because despite whatever battles Noa was fighting, I didn’t want her to feel like she was fighting them alone.

“Are you asking me?” she asked, tipping her head to the side. She was herself again, the girl who created beauty from paint and wanted to punch me when I bumped into her.

“I don’t know that you have any say in the matter anymore, Blue.” I tucked the loose strands of her blue hair behind her ear. I noticed there was more brown peeking out from her roots these days.

“Are you sure?” she whispered. I leaned over and kissed her cheek, lingering to tell her that I was completely sure.

When I looked up, Tracey had left the room. A plate of bacon and eggs was set on the counter.

After we’d eaten, Noa claiming I should help her because there was no way she’d finish the food on her own, she came upstairs with me and waited while I got dressed.

“What were you doing this morning?” she asked from my bed. I turned, tugging my shirt down the rest of the way.

I didn’t miss the way she’d looked at my bare skin.

“I was doing programming homework,” I said, pulling a hoodie on.

“
What’s it like?”

“What’s painting like?”

“Hm. It’s like taking all of my passion, my hurt, my
thoughts
and putting it onto a canvas and leaving all of that energy there for the world to see.” She scratched at the skin on her neck. “Sometimes I just…feel so much. And I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a curse.”

“I don’t think it’s a curse.” I sat down beside her. “And programming is like…okay, so we have our language, and a computer has its own language. Programming is me speaking to a computer, telling it what to do. And different languages make the machine do different things. Machine language, assembly language, smart lan…your eyes are glazing. I’ll stop now,” I told her with a chuckle.

She smiled. It was honest, and with the sun behind her, she looked so happy.

“What?” she asked after I’d stared at her for a little while. Still, she didn’t hide her face or move away. She just closed her eyes and leaned back a little. I loved that about her. In some ways she was terrified, afraid of everything I wanted. But in other ways, in ways it seemed most other girls were afraid, she was unashamed, ready to see and be seen. She hadn’t needed to tell me she felt too much. I knew she did.

“Ready to go?” I grabbed her hand and pulled her against me.

“Just because you’re my boyfriend, doesn’t mean you get to manhandle me,” she said through a giggle.

“That’s exactly what that means.” I kissed her quickly. We got in my car and headed to her place. When we stopped in front of her house, I looked over at her.

“Would you like to go to dinner tonight?”

“You aren’t sick of me yet?” Thankfully her voice was light, carrying the joke.

“Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.” I tugged on a loose strand of blue hair. “So? Will you?”

She
nodded and kissed my lips. “Pick me up at seven?”

“Sure thing.” I watched her make her way to the front door of her building. I waited a few moments, hoping to see her standing in her window. When she didn’t show, I put the car in drive and headed home.

Tracey was waiting for me on the front steps.

“Seems like she feels better,” she called out as I walked up.

“Yeah. Thanks for taking care of her.”

“I’ve been young and stupid before,” she said with a flick of her wrist. She patted the ground next to her and I sat. “But, I’m thinking that this isn’t just a wild night for Noa. I’m thinking she’s handled hangovers aplenty, which worries me. She’s only seventeen, Dex.”

I clasped my hands together, listening to everything she said.

“I’m taking her out to dinner tonight. I hope she can open up a little more to me.”

“Good luck, Dex. That girl had me talking about something else completely before I even knew she’d switched the subject. She’s a champion evader. I know you like her, and she seems to like you. And that makes me like her. But you stay out of trouble, now.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I can’t have anything happening to you.”

“Nothing will happen,” I assured her, running my hand down her back. “I went to the hospital to talk to Sessie while you were with Noa. Apparently the night I almost died, Noa did too. Well, I can’t confirm that. But Sessie told me to be careful too. Other than that, she wasn’t able to tell me anything, really.”

“You were wrong to ask someone else, Dex, and if Noa found out, she’d be upset. Rightly so. If you want answers, ask the person who owes you some. Not a person who could lose her job for telling you the little bit she did.”

“
Noa won’t tell me anything,” I said, feeling like I was on the losing side of a battle. “I can’t help that I’m curious. She needs help, but I can’t help her if she doesn’t want me to.”

“Dex, everyone needs help sometimes. But it isn’t your job to take the task on yourself without letting the other person know. It’s her life.”

Her soothing tone eased my annoyance.

“I can’t just go to her demanding answers.” I threw my hands up in defeat.

She laughed.

“No, but you can ask. And I don’t mean ask and let it go, the way I know you do. Ask and then explain why you want to know. Explain your fears and concern. She might be embarrassed and ashamed, but it’s better than being dead.”

I stilled.

“You don’t think it could come to that, right?” I looked over at her, trying to read her expression. It was sad but when she answered me, her voice was light.

“It could. If she doesn’t let someone help her.”

Chapter
18

I
was running a few minutes late, having fallen asleep while watching a movie. The clock moved so slowly that afternoon.

When I neared Noa’s building, I saw her standing outside, staring up. Her breath came out in puffs that whispered up into the night sky. She wore fingerless gloves on the hands that smoothed her hair back. She looked over as my car stopped in front of her.

“Have you figured it out yet?” I asked when she got in and buckled her seat.

She shook her head. “I likely never will. Doesn’t mean I can’t have theories. I have theories about tonight.”

She didn’t touch the radio. She looked out of the window, content to let the time pass quietly.

“What are your theories regarding tonight?” I couldn’t take her being silent any longer. It was strange.

“You have questions. And I have answers.” She shrugged. “It’s unfair to ask you to commit to someone when you have no idea what you’re getting into. I think my only worry is leaving here without you tonight.”

As we stopped at a red light, I looked over incredulously.

“Can you give me some credit already? It’s frustrating how you think so little of me.” I hadn’t wanted to argue. I wanted tonight to be peaceful. But, as much as Noa brought out the best in me, she drove me out of my mind over her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her hand reached for mine, and I was fine with being silent the rest of the drive.

The restaurant I’d chosen was a little fancier than anywhere I’d taken Noa before. But it was New Year’s Day. I wanted today to be special—a new start for Noa.

“
I won’t know anything on this menu,” she whispered to me. Her smile was nervous, her teeth behind her closed lips as we entered the restaurant.

“I figured we could be rebellious today.”

I removed her coat and mine and checked them. Her hand grabbed at my fingers when I returned, and I led her to the hostess stand. I cleared my throat, fighting my own nervousness. A lot rode on tonight.

“Reservation for two under Dexter Andrews,” I told the man, attempting to sound grown up.

Noa chuckled, and the maître d’ raised his brow at her.

“Yes, right this way.” He led us to a table and turned to leave after I’d pushed in Noa’s seat. When I sat across from her, I noticed her eyes taking in everything as she settled in her seat.

“This may be the nicest place I’ve ever been, Dexter Andrews.” Her hand found mine again across the table.

It didn’t escape my attention that she always said my name completely. She didn’t shorten the first name, and sometimes she said the last name. And I loved it. Because Noa, for all of her oddities, wasn’t lazy about anything. When she went, she went full speed ahead without a second thought. If only I could get her to be that way about us.

“I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more, Blue.”

A waitress came and handed us menus. I ordered us both ginger ale, and when Noa opened her menu, her jaw dropped.

“It’s so expensive.”

“Don’t worry about that. Just pick whatever you’d like,” I whispered back.

“I wish I could have a taste of that. Being able to buy whatever I want without a second thought.” She stopped and looked up at me. “Sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“
Don’t apologize. Too many people are afraid to say what they’re thinking. You’re alarming, but I’m loving every moment of it.” I looked down at my menu, stuck between the steak and the scampi.

“How does it feel?” she asked. When my gaze locked with hers, I knew I had to try for the truth. Especially if I was going to ask her personal questions tonight.

“Weird. I don’t know anything else. I have this bank account set up by parents I’ll never know. Some of it I have access to. I guess that came on my eighteenth birthday. The rest, Tracey explained, will be available on my twenty-first. I don’t spend much of it. I don’t really need to.”

“And college?”

“I have another account set up for college. Tracey has complete control of that and always will. Whatever I don’t spend will go to her.”

She nodded, and when the waitress came back with our drinks, I ended up ordering the steak while she ordered the scampi.

“Before you ask me anything, I want you to know that I don’t want you for your money,” she blurted out.

I tried to stifle my laughter but ended up losing.

“Well, you only just found out about it so…it’d be pretty impossible to think you were here with me because you were money hungry.”

She looked at me with laughter in her eyes and looked down at the table. After a few moments, she looked up again, all laughter gone.

“We might as well get this over with. What are you curious about, Dexter?”

I smiled. “Well, if I’m being honest, I’m curious about anything that involves you. Your first boyfriend, what makes you laugh, what ticks you off…?” I trailed off when her gaze went back to the tabletop.

“See, that’s easy. All of those answers are simple: you.” She smiled when she looked back up at me. “Give me something tough.”

“
Tell me everything.”

Knowing exactly what I meant, she took a deep breath. And so Noa’s skeletons revealed themselves.

“I grew up in a shitty little apartment. It was loud and alcohol was never a big deal. Tim was drinking most weekends by the time he was fifteen. It was so
easy
when my parents didn’t give a shit about us. Their relationship was lethal, it destroyed all parties involved. Including us.” She wiped her tears quickly and continued.

“When they left, I cried. Of course I cried. And when I wasn’t crying, I was trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Could I have been a better daughter? I remember everything so sharply: the pain, feeling like I was thrown aside like garbage. And I didn’t know how we’d find our next meal. I remember being hungry. It makes me want to cry,” she said, blinking back tears. “Tim had only just graduated, and when he found a job at the factory, it was as if by a miracle. But Tim had dreams. He’d wanted to get out of here, and having to take care of me made him bitter. Before I knew it, he was drunk every night.

“One night, I found him crying in bed. When I asked him if he was all right, he told me to grab a bottle from the cabinet. When I brought it over, he drank it. No, he gulped it like it was the answer to his prayers. And when I saw the pleasure, the numbness it gave him…I wanted that, Dexter. I wanted to stop feeling everything. But drinking, it made me feel like I was dead inside. Sure, I didn’t feel anything. But I knew I was wasting away. And the hangovers, they were terrible. Waking up, not remembering anything was terrifying. But I couldn’t stop. It was a blessed silence.”

She stopped and I reached out to touch her cheek, letting her know she was still there with me. She was fading into her nightmare.

“You and I were in the hospital the same night. I’d been drinking and…I don’t know. I lost consciousness and began choking on my vomit. It’s so disgusting and I’m ashamed. But, I remembered this feeling, like I
was
living inside my head. I was beginning to forget
everything
and it was beautiful. It was what I thought I’d wanted. And then I woke up.” She wiped her eyes again. “I don’t know why I was given a second chance. While I pretended to hate it that day, I knew it was a miracle. Because that last moment before I blacked out, I knew I wanted to live. So I decided to be different. I started volunteering and sometimes I talk to a shrink. Hardly though, because Tim can’t afford it.”

I let her absorb the shock of having shared her story with me. And I admired her strength.

“I’m in awe of you, Blue.”

“Don’t be. I’m a mess. But when I came back, I felt a little different. It’s weird, I remembered everything but I was more…at peace. I’m not as angry at my parents anymore. I feel like someone took my cold, bitter heart and gave me a brand new shiny one. It still hurts and I still want that numbness because it’s all I’ve known. But something about me has changed.”

The waitress came back and placed our plates in front of us.

“Maybe someone did give you a new heart,” I said.

“Lucky for us. The old me, while dazzled by you, would’ve given you a hard time.” She twirled the pasta onto her fork, using her spoon to keep it all on.

“Trust me, Blue. You fought this hard enough.”

She grinned at me and I let her eat, not asking her anything too tough. I wasn’t through yet, but I figured she’d need a break. Half-way through our meal, she set her utensils down.