Noah (5 page)

Hector made a face. “Waste of time. Those two old ladies ain’t coming back.”

Noah
eyed Hector. At sixteen, he
would
think th
os
e women old. But after getting a closer look
,
Noah
realized neither was as old as he first thought. Out of shape
,
yes—but old
—
no. They couldn’t be more than a few years older than h
e
and Gio
.

“Nah, they might,” Gio said. As
usual,
he was
the only one
Noah
could count on
for a little support. “
You didn’t work them out too hard did you
?”

“Nah,”
t
hen remembering how tired they both seemed afterwards got a little worried. “I don’t
think
so, anyway.”

“Then they should.” Gio shrugged. “They’ll probably quit eventually, but I doubt they’d quit after only one workout. By then Jack’ll know you’re good to go.”

Noah
wouldn’t mention to them how much he was counting on that, but he’d already started applying for jobs using the computers down at the library, he was getting
that
desperate.

Gio, who had been leaning on his own
bike,
got on it. “Stop by my house before you go home. I got something for you.”

“I’ll just follow you then,”
Noah
said, pulling on his helmet. “I gotta long day tomorrow. I was
n’t
planning on hanging out here too long anyway.”

U
nlike girls, neither of them ever said it,
but
Gio had been his best friend since he’d moved from his last foster house to the Fuentes’ home over fours years ago. He lived up the street but that’s not how he met him. They met in auto shop,
in high school,
sophomore year. When Gio found out
about
Noah
’s love for bikes and that he
was working on getting his Ninja
running,
he invited him over to check out the bike he was working on. A
n
old
GXXR his uncle had given him.

Gio introduced him to everyone else on
First Street
including the
Fifth Street
gym where they all hung out and Noah discovered his passion for boxing,
and the rest
wa
s history. He’d been part of the gang ever since but his bond with Gio was the tightest.

They pulled into Gio’s backyard, and parked their bikes just in front of the detached garage. “Whatta ya got for me?”

“Mom’s spaghetti—she made me promise I’d bring you over to have some.”

Noah
laughed. Gio’s mom knew her spaghetti was his favorite. He’d told her so ever since he first had some. She called it spaghetti but it was more like a lasagna because she used whatever pasta she had available
. Then she
mixed everything together
with
extra
cheese
and
baked
it
. But it was always awesome and she made the best garlic bread to go with it.
Noah
’s stomach growled just thinking about it.

“Damn, that’ll hit the spot. I’m starving.”

Not wanting to be too much of a burden on
his
former
foster parents
, who he knew weren’t doing so great financially, he’d started eating less and less at their place
.
For months now he’d been
telling them he’d already eaten at least four times out of the week. Tonight was going to be one of those nights, settling for whatever he could put together
from
the small fridge in the garage.
U
sual
ly a bologna or just
cheese sandwich
, if he was out of bologna
.

Tonight would’ve been cheese sandwich but thanks to Mrs.
Bravo
he’d be feasting. He smiled, hoping tomorrow would be as good a day as this one
had been
. 
              
           
  

The waiting room was quiet now but just hours earlier it had been pure chaos.
Veronica
called Courtney to notify her of her sister’s asthma attack. Courtney notified the rest of the family and they were all there within minutes. They were already upset about Nellie’s attack but it was when Rick arrived that things got
ugly
.

Courtney had to be held back, she refused to let Rick in to see Nellie. She blamed him for Nellie’s
being in the hospital
in the first place
.
T
hen
Nellie’s brother, Raymond,
arrived
and
when he
realized why Courtney was so upset he went on the attack
himself
. Eventually
,
Rick left and things began to calm. During the hours that
passed,
Courtney filled
Veronica
in on what Nellie had suspected for months.
Months
. And not once had she mentioned it to
Veronica
. She couldn’t be sure why but
Veronica
had a feeling.

Since her
mother’s
death, Nellie had been doing everything she could to try to cheer
Veronica
up.
Veronica
was
too
caught up in her own depression to even notice Nellie might be having mar
ital
issues. Nellie had never even let on.
The guilt was more than
Veronica
could bear.

Nellie’s parents finally came out of
her hospital
room, allowing
Veronica
to enter. Nellie was doing better from what the doctors had told them but she’d be in the hospital for at least a few days. They wanted to run a few more tests and have a specialist see her before
s
he
was
released.

When
Veronica
walked in Nellie smiled. The oxygen mask on her face and the tubes in her arm made her look so incredibly helpless.
Veronica
felt the lump begin to form in her throat again. She walked over to the side of the
bed and
took Nellie’s hand in hers. “How are you feeling?” she whispered.

Nellie nodded and smiled. “I should know better than to let myself get so low on my
A
lbuterol
.”

Veronica
had to wonder if maybe Nellie had been using it more than usual lately because of Rick.
She squeezed her hand. “Why didn’t tell you tell me, Nel?”

Nellie squeezed back. “Oh, honey how could I? You were going through enough.”

Veronica
felt
a
tear slip down her cheek. “But I should’ve been there for you.”

“I had Courtney. She was the only one that knew of my suspicions.” Nellie attempted a weak smile. “And she’s quite the sleuth
,
that girl.” Then she chuckled. “I heard she almost kicked his ass in the waiting room.”

Veronica
laughed softly, wiping her tears away. “Yeah, she had to be held back.”

One thing about Nellie and Courtney’s relationship
was that
it had always been strained. Growing up, Courtney was Nellie’s pretty
,
outgoing
,
popular
,
younger sister while Nellie had always been the bookish
,
less than exciting sister on the outside.
Even though Nellie
never
admitted
it because her heart was too big,
being the popular pretty one wasn’t enough for
Courtney
. She was still jealous of Nellie’s close relationship with their father. Nellie was obviously the favorite.

Of
course,
their father never
declared
it, but Nellie never got into trouble
.
She
had great grades
all through grade school and high school
, and was never promiscuous. Courtney
,
on the other hand
,
was the opposite but it was more than that. Just
as
Nellie
fawned over
Veronica
—
going out of her way for her and genuinely worr
ying
about her, Nellie had always been the same for anyone she loved in her life. Her father saw this. Courtney was never like that,
which
is why i
t
surprised
V
er
onica
that
s
he’d reacted the way she had to Rick’s betrayal of Nellie.

Still
,
Veronica
knew she should’ve been there for Nellie. “Well, I know now.” She squeezed Nellie’s hand. “So I expect you to come to me no matter what happens. I owe you, Nel. It’s not fair that I wasn’t there for you.”

Nellie nodded
,
agreeing and began telling her about Rick
’
s affair. She suspected things
had been
changing between
the two of them
for
over a year
now. When she confided in Courtney, her sister had taken it upon herself to investigate. At
first,
there were nothing more
than
dead ends but there were a lot of things that didn’t add up. She admitted to not telling Courtney every detail because deep inside she was hoping she was wrong.

There were his late nights
at
work happening far more often. And she’d caught him in a few lies that eventually seemed to
check
out, but in hindsight, she knew now that Rick was just very good about covering up his tracks. That and the fact that she didn’t
want
to see things for what they
really
were.

“Now that you know
,
w
hat are you gonna do?”

The tears had come halfway through their conversation and
Veronica
wept with her friend
,
holding her hand the entire time. “I still love him.”

Veronica
nodded
fully unde
rstanding. She thought of
t
he only
serious relationship
she’d ever had
—
with Derek. They had even
begun to
sp
eak
of her moving in with him. Then her mom got the news of her cancer.
In the beginning
,
he
’d
been
patient but as her
mom’s
illness got worse and she began
to have
less
and less time o
r
energy for him or their relationship
, they began to drift apart. Unlike Rick, he at least had the decency to tell her he’d met someone else.
He even suggested they take a break and maybe try again later when she had the time—in other words when her mother died. S
he was
so
hurt and angry and at the time told him she wanted nothing to do with him
.

Even though she thought what Rick had done to Nellie was despicable
;
she understood completely what Nellie was feeling
.
T
here had been times since her mother had died
that
she’d been tempted to call
Derek
.
And her relationship with
him
didn’t even compare to Nellie’s marriage. Nellie and Rick had been married for four years
and
he’d been her first
real
love.