A Love as Hard as This

Chapter 12

Noah's Perspective:

I really wanted to kiss her. Like really wanted to. But she was right when she said that we shouldn't miss the first day. I wasn't happy about it, though.

When we get to the studio and walk into the locker room, and Jacquie was in there. Great. Note the sarcasm.

Jacquie didn't really seem like a bad person, but I got the feeling that she liked me. Not that she wasn't an okay person, but I liked Richelle. A lot. And that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

I also got the feeling that Richelle hated her, probably because she's jealous. But if she still keeps refusing to date me, I don't understand why she needs to be jealous of Jacquie.

"Hi guys!" She said in a friendly way. "What did you guys do last night?"

"We had a movie night." Richelle said with an attitude from beside me. "What's it to you?"

"I—uh, nothing. I was just trying to be nice.." Jacquie stutters.

"Well you don't need to be." Richelle said harshly.

I put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down a little—I didn't want things to get heated—but she shrugged it off. I gave her a sideways glance, but she shot me down with a glare.

"Is everything okay with you guys?" asked Jacquie.

"It's great." Richelle snapped, walking with a jolt out of the room.

"Are you sure, Noah?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just going to go talk to her. See you in rehearsals, okay?" I didn't wait for a response before rushing out of the room.

I found Richelle in the rehearsal room, marking through a solo. "Richelle? You okay? You seemed pretty upset back there."

"I'm fine, Noah. Don't worry about me. It's her you need to worry about, not me."

"I'm not going to say you aren't right on that second point, but as for the first one, of course I'm going to worry about you."

"Noah, I—" she started, but I cut her off.

"And, we still haven't talked about what happened. You know, in the car."

"Noah, can we please just not talk about this?" she asked, looking hopeful. I wanted to make her happy, but I also knew that we needed to discuss this. If we didn't now, we never would, and I needed to.

"No, Richelle. We're going to talk about it. We almost kissed for the second time, and you just want to ignore it?"

"Yes. I want to ignore it." she whispered. I knew that she was lying.

"No, you don't. Tell me the truth." I said, trying to get her to open up. But it backfired.

"The truth?! Fine, Noah, this is the truth!" she yelled. "The truth is that I don't want to ignore it! I don't want to pretend that it never happened! I want to finish that kiss!" Her voice broke and she started whispering. "I want to more than anything, Noah. But we just can't."

She left me there, considering. I didn't know how to feel. And then the alarm on my phone rang again. Shoot! If I wasn't in Studio 1 in 2 minutes, I would be late.

I sprinted out of the hall and into Studio one, stopping behind Jacquie. Thankfully, I arrived with one minute to spare.

I could feel Richelle's stare at the back of my head. I knew she was less than impressed that I had stood beside Jacquie, but I didn't really care at this moment. I was mad at her.

I was sick of hearing, 'I can't, we can't,' and I didn't want to hear it anymore.