Allyson In Between ✔︎

Chapter Seventeen

I don't recognize my street until Noah stops the car in front of his grandparents' house. There's a green real estate sign that I didn't notice before planted on the front lawn. And that seems odd because I read about the day the moving trucks came—a year and a half ago. I messaged Samantha from my front porch, crying, because they were taking the Dodges' furniture away.

She checked in with me the following day to see if I'd seen or heard from Noah—in the hope that he might've acknowledged my sixteenth birthday. He hadn't. Because it came after the phone call, after he cursed at me in the lunchroom.

The heartbreak I shared with Samantha in that conversation seemed genuine. And acute. I felt "abandoned" and "lost without him." That's why I don't understand—I can't imagine what motive I might possibly have had for wanting Noah to believe I was interested in another boy. 

He turns off the ignition. The engine coughs a few times before it concedes.

"What made you decide to start talking to me again?" I ask. "After the um, bad phone call."

Noah squints. Like he's trying to read my eyes through the dark sunglasses.

And maybe my question seems a little abrupt, because this is the first time I've spoken since my nervous breakdown in the school parking lot. I don't remember exactly what all I said to him then. Just that I was a ranting, sobbing mess. I guess I didn't realize how much I wanted Lindsay to be wrong about our parents' marital dysfunction. I needed to believe she was exaggerating—or flat out lying to me. Because that was easier to live with than the reality that not only are my parents considering a divorce, but they are working hard to hide it from me.

We're an entire family of liars now.

"I'm sorry," I say, taking off the glasses. My eyes are still a little sensitive but there are a ton of trees on this street, filtering the sunlight. "I didn't mean to be so dramatic."

"It was my fault," he says. "I shouldn't have been so blunt."

"How long have you known? I mean, I'm trying to ask when..." I shake my head. What am I trying to ask?

I take a breath. Exhale.

Okay. "After you got upset with me in the lunchroom, I told Samantha—in an IM conversation—the reason I asked you to come to my house. I wanted to talk about what was going on with my parents. I probably wanted your advice, right? Because your parents are divorced?"

Noah nods, but his face is kind of blank. Not in a zombie way, but like...maybe he's a little stunned by something I said?

"We started talking after you joined the swim team," he says, and his gaze shifts to something behind me. "Not right away, though. You were trying to act like everything was okay. Like it wasn't a huge deal that you quit running track. It didn't feel right not asking you what was going on. But you know, it didn't feel right to ask, either. So I ignored your fake smiles and just tried to..."

Noah's eyes touch briefly on mine and then drop to his hands, which are hovering, palms out. Like he's holding an imaginary ball. He shakes his head—meaning he can't explain, I guess, because he presses lips together and exhales a long sigh as his hands fall to his lap.

"It happened one day after swim practice," he says. "We ended up walking out to the parking lot at the same time and I could tell you'd been crying. That wasn't something I could ignore—I had to ask if you were all right. I was shocked as hell when you unloaded all that stuff about your parents arguing. I had no idea, Ally. When you invited me to your house that day..." His hands clench into fists. "I was a dumbass." 

"You're leaving something out," I say. "I don't understand why you reacted the way you did. Wasn't it like, a regular thing for you to come to my house?"