Finding Never (9 page)

“
A
choice?” Lacey sighs, but I don't think it's at me. I think
she's digging through her own life to give me this advice.

“
You
might love Ty, but you might also love Noah. That's okay. There's
nothing wrong with that, but you can't have them both. They need all
of you, and if you can't give it, you have to give one up. Pick one
and be sure you're making the right decision because once you do,
that's it. There's no going back, especially with Ty.” Lacey
pauses. “And Never?”

“
Yeah?”
I croak, not entirely convinced that calling her was the right idea.

“
Please
don't be an idiot.” And then she hangs up on me. I stare at
the screen and am tempted to crush it between my fingers and flush it
down the toilet. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“
Never?”
Noah is inquiring after me, as any proper gentleman should. Ty
would've busted down the door with his big boots, cigarette in hand,
and said,
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I smile. “Are
you okay?” I stand up and straighten my sweatshirt. Oddly
enough, it's actually Ty's sweatshirt, and it just happens to be the
one he threw over my lap while he fingered me on the bus. Great.
Perfect. Just what I need, reminders of Ty's skillful fingers while
I'm with Noah. As if that isn't going to overcomplicate the already
overcomplicated. I don't answer him, but I do turn around and open
the door.

Noah
smiles at me.

“
Sorry,”
he says unnecessarily. “I just feel like if I take my eyes off
you, that you'll disappear.”

“
What
did you do?” I blurt too loudly in the middle of a freaking
Dairy Queen. “What did you do when you woke up, and I was
gone?” I take strange, shallow breaths as I ask this question,
and watch as Noah's face tumbles like I've just thrown his joy off a
cliff.

“
Come
with me to the lake,” he says suddenly, and I start to protest.
Noah holds up his hands. “I already ordered you a milkshake
and a burger. Let's grab it and go to the lake, just to eat. Give
me an hour, Never Regali, and I will make it worth your while.”

“
God,
Noah, I can't,” I say, but I want to cry when I say it. Noah
turns around and I swear to God, some of that pretty, practiced
perfection slips. I watch his shoulders rise and fall as he
breathes. He's wearing a white and blue striped button up with short
sleeves over a white tee. He's paired it with a pair of blue jeans
and some Converse. Light, unobtrusive. Noah was never one to take
his looks very seriously. Anyway, maybe that was a luxury of being
born pretty because Noah Scott is drop dead gorgeous. Still, he
never minced his words and he was always poetic, even at his
dirtiest. He turns back towards me, and I can see that my leaving
has left this mark on his soul that cannot be erased. For good or
bad, he and I are part of one another and might be forever. I have
to talk this out with him, for both our sakes. And for Ty's. If I
choose Ty because I refuse to see Noah, what good does that do? I
have to choose Ty for Ty and in spite of Noah. I have to.

“
Please,”
Noah begs, but I'm already decided. “I can't move on, Never.
I've been so stuck without you.” I close my eyes against
tears.

“
Okay,”
I say. “Okay, but just for a little while, Noah, and I'm not
promising anything.”

“
Thank
you,” he breathes, and I feel guilty because he sounds so
relieved. “Thank you, Never. You have no idea how much this
means to me.” But I do. I do because it might even mean more
to me than it does to him.

13

I
let Noah drive because I don't know if I can right now. Besides, I
trust him. Even though it's been five years since we've seen each
other, I know that Noah would never do anything to hurt me or make me
uncomfortable. If I ask him, he'll take me back to the Dairy Queen.

“
You
haven't touched your shake?” he says with a smile, finally
breaking a ten minute stretch of moonlit silence. When I don't
answer, Noah focuses his attention back on the road and turns on his
blinker. The lake isn't far from the Dairy Queen which isn't far
from downtown which isn't far from my mother's house. This town is
small, too small in my opinion, but it does have its perks. One of
which is that Noah and I don't have to suffer in awkward silence for
too, too long before we get to the empty parking lot by the lake.
Even in the dead of night, even though nobody friggin' cares, Noah
Scott puts money into the machine that dispenses parking passes and
puts one under his windshield wiper. I look at the car, examine the
sleek black curves, and wonder how much it set his Daddy back. Mr.
Scott is very well to do, so I'm guessing the number is something
astronomical, more than my tuition probably. I hate the world for
that. I hate that Ty had to sell his body to make ends meet while
Mr. Scott plays games with his money like the earth is one big, giant
Monopoly board, sits back and reaps the benefits. I fucking hate
that. But I don't hate Noah. Noah was never the spoiled, little
rich kid archetype. He's always been thoughtful and poetic. I see
that time hasn't changed that.

“
In
darkness they were born and in darkness they bled, one for the other,
two souls lost in a sea of black until finally, they found a beam of
light and that they followed until they hit the sun and were reborn.
”
Noah pauses and looks over his shoulder at me. “Sorry,”
he says, but I've finally got a smile on my face. “Might be a
little much if I start quoting poetry at you from minute one.”

“
That's
okay,” I say as we both step over the small, wooden fence that
separates the parking lot from the grassy area surrounding Shadow
Lake. It's still just as beautiful as I remember, but not as
beautiful as the sea. I hate that I can see the other side, although
distant. The ocean offers up so many more possibilities. It might
be more dangerous, but I like it better than the lake, even if it's
the safer choice. “I missed your poems.” I pause as I
think about how to tell Noah that I kind of stalked him. “Well,
I missed hearing you recite them. I read all the ones you posted,”
I say as we move over to a picnic table and sit on the top with our
feet on the bench, backs towards the parking lot and eyes focused on
the still, quiet waters of the lake.

“
I
looked everywhere for you, Never,” he whispers and his voice
carries across the surface of the lake like a dragonfly. “You
didn't post anything online, nothing to let me know you were there,
that you were listening.” Noah pauses. “Did you read my
Butterfly Series?” he asks referring to a set of poems that I
printed out and read until the paper fell apart, until my eyes were
blurry. I know all about the Butterfly Series.

“
Alas!
I've discovered the crisis of humanity; a dirty truth is no better
than a pretty lie yet one is substantially more harsh than the other.
How can I, a man without a heart, be expected to tell either without
crippling his soul beyond repair?
” I quote Noah's words
without a hitch, without a single stumble, and finally give in to the
smell of the food, stuffing a cold fry into my mouth and sucking at
the straw to my milkshake. Noah looks at me for a long moment, and
then he reaches out and brushes some hair from my face. I feel
paralyzed, so I don't move. I just sit there and watch him watching
me and don't know what to do.

“
To
answer your question,” he says finally as he turns his head
away from me and leans back on his palms. “When I woke up and
found you had left, I … ” Noah freezes, and I take the
chance to examine the smooth, straight line of his nose, his perfect,
pink lips and the way he runs his tongue across them unconsciously.
He's not as muscular as Ty, but he's strong. I can see it in his
arms, the way his shirt falls neatly down the smooth plane of his
belly. I remember touching it, running my fingers down it, licking
my way to his cock. My first and last blow job. I didn't do blow
jobs with my guy friends. What was the point? Get them off while I
sit there and watch, wallowing in my pain? No, thank you. I needed
to fill that hole inside of me. I look away, suddenly ashamed.
Noah
doesn't know. Noah doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't know
I'm a fucking whore, but what if he did? How do I tell him? Do I
have to tell him?
I swing my gaze back to Noah and my chip
earring hits me again. I want to rip it out and throw it in the
lake, but I know that's stupid, that I'd regret that, so I just touch
it, still its movement before Noah sees and asks about it. “I
panicked Never,” Noah finally admits. “I panicked
because I loved you so much I thought my heart was going to explode
every time you walked into a room. I wanted to marry you, have a
family with you, keep you forever.”

“
I'm
not a dog,” I snap, and feel instantly guilty. Obviously Noah
is aware of that fact. His face falls, and I find myself reaching
out to apologize. I touch the back of his hand gently and have to
swallow three times before I can speak. “I'm sor-”

“
I
still love you, Never.”

Shit.

“
Noah,”
I begin because I can't stand having these two guys saying things
like this to me. It makes me feel … strange. I went from
empty inside to full all at once, and I don't know how to handle it.
Noah holds up his hands.

“
I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have said that,” he tells me softly and
tries to smile his way through the awkward. It works. I smile back.
“Let's start over.” Noah takes a deep breath and sets
his hands on his knees. “So,” he begins. “How the
hell have you been?” I look at Noah, practically sparkling in
the fucking moonlight, and I know I can't tell him anything real, not
now, not yet. Fuck, maybe not ever. I can't tell him that I've had
sex with more men than I can count on both hands and both feet, that
my family chose a murderer over me, that the
only
friends I've
made in five friggin' years are Lacey Setter and Ty McCabe. Ty
McCabe. I definitely can't tell him about Ty McCabe.

“
I'm
going to school,” I say vaguely because I'm used to being vague
with people. It takes a lot for me to really open up, to give out
pieces of myself. I used to have no problem with that, especially
when Noah was on the receiving end, but now … Things are so
different. “In California.” Noah is waiting patiently,
certain that I'm getting to something more relevant, more personal.
He's too trusting. I wonder if I was ever that trusting and shiver.
Noah thinks it's from the cold and slips his arm around my waist,
just like he used to do when we were in high school. In fact, I get
hit so hard with déjà vu that I can barely breathe. I
don't resist him even though I know I should, even though I know that
I might be giving him the wrong idea.

“
Me,
too,” he says simply. “Here in town, though. I …
” Noah looks away from me and out at the lake. “I
didn't want to leave in case you came back. Somehow, someday, I knew
you would.” Noah pauses. “I guess I was right.”
I don't respond to that. There's this unspoken phrase hanging in the
air.
I knew you'd come back for me.
I don't correct him,
tell him that I'm actually here for myself, to put me back together
and make things right. I go for a cigarette and am not surprised to
see Noah's nose wrinkle. He never liked it when I smoked. Back then
though, I only ever smoked a couple a day. Now, now I think I'd have
to consider myself a chain smoker. I just can't stop. Every
stressful impulse I have makes me crazy. It's either smoke or fuck.
That's all there is to it. Noah watches me light up, but he doesn't
pull his arm away. He sits there and lets smoke taint his expensive
shirt, his pretty blonde hair, his angelic face.

“
I
got a dog,” he says randomly, and I smile. “An
Australian Shepherd that bites.” I laugh and have to snatch at
my cig to keep it from hitting the table. I slip it back between my
lips and talk around it, the way Ty always does.

“
What's
she look like?” I ask wishing I could get a dog. I think a dog
would be good for me. A constant companion, one who doesn't judge,
someone that loves me for me always and forever. Yeah, I think I'll
get a dog. I'll have to move out of the dorms but whatever. I kind
of hate it there anyway. I want my own bathroom. I get this strange
image of Ty and me sharing a place, maybe even having Lacey as a
roommate. There's a fireplace and a bed for two, a bed that's always
full and never empty. Always full of Ty. Ty. Ty. Ty. I shake my
head to clear it.

“
She's
mostly white with orange splotches over her eyes and gray down her
back. I think you'd like her quite a bit. She's almost as ornery as
you.” I chuckle again and don't tell Noah that I like mutts a
thousand times better than purebreds. I want a grungy, nasty alley
dog like the Tramp from that Disney movie. I want a dog that's been
behind bars with a missing leg and a grin that doesn't stop. I want
a dog whose parents were so mixed, they were like rainbows, a bit of
every color. Noah's dog, however nice, is no doubt from some,
spoiled privileged breeder who feeds her pets raw rabbit and lets
them sleep on goose down beds covered in silk. “Want to meet
her?” he asks, and I shrug noncommittally. I don't know where
this is going, so I have to keep my options open. “Maybe
tomorrow I could take you out, bring her along, and we could go for a
hike along the river, like the good ol' days?” His offer is
too good to refuse. I want to walk along the banks without shoes and
listen to the roar of water. Yes, yes, I'll go.