The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

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Elle

Thanksgiving had been good, even if it had been spent in unfamiliar circumstances. It was nice to meet Linda's family and see how she interacted with her nieces and nephews. She was really close to all of them, probably because she'd never had her own kids, I guess. Linda's husband had been in the military and died before they could start a family.

She'd told me the whole story one day over coffee at her house. By her own admission, she hadn't dealt well with losing the love of her life and had thrown herself into work afterward. Then before she knew it, years had passed and she couldn't imagine finding anyone to share her life with again. So, she'd built a rich tapestry of friends and family and interests instead.

Linda was an accomplished and interesting person and I regretted the way I'd treated her in the beginning. As I was discovering, everyone had their own past, their own pain, and it all added up to make them who they were in that moment. I was glad she and my dad had found one another. Brad was happy to have a bunch of younger kids to hang out with and I enjoyed not having to worry about what I was going to say to Noah.

I did get a few questions from the assorted older adults about whether I had a boyfriend, but I managed to dodge those with flippant responses about being too busy with school. I did not want to get into the Josh situation with people I had only just met, not to mention that Dad and Linda weren't exactly aware of that either.

I'd driven my car so that I could take off late in the afternoon to see Lee. In what was becoming our own holiday tradition, we met at the arcade. I hugged my best friend hard when he walked through the door. We'd gotten pretty good at being apart, but man, it was good to be back together.

"Jeez Shelly, leave me with some ribs intact, will you?" Lee protested as I squeezed him extra hard.

"Sorry, I just missed your stupid face," I laughed.

"Yeah, well, I missed your stupid face too."

"Thanks. Now which game are you going to lose to me first?"

"Not so fast, missy, we have important business to take care of before I take you down on Fast and the Furious."

I paused. The blank look on my face must have spoken volumes because Lee put me out of my misery.

"How soon you forget, Elle. Rule number 5...."

Rule no. 5 Always do the thanksgiving wishbone with your bestie.

"I can't believe your mom let you bring it!" I said, clapping my hands together in delight.

"Let me?! She had it out and cleaned up ready to go before I could, and I quote, stick my grubby fingers in the turkey to retrieve it." Lee made exaggerated air quotes with his hands and I giggled, able to picture exactly how June would have said that. "She even put it in a little plastic baggie," he said, retrieving it from his pocket.

"Your mother is an absolute gem."

"I know, she's pretty awesome. Helps that you're her favorite though."

"As if. I've probably slipped to second place now that I didn't come over today."

"Nah, you're good. Although, it was a pretty boring day without you there. Nothing exciting happened at all."

I didn't want to ask about Noah and how he'd been today or how long he was back for.

"Well I'm sure your mom was happy not to have the day ruined by another drama."

"Stop it Elle, you know she ,never blamed you for any of that, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. Anyway, how about that wishbone? I need some good fortune right about now."

Lee and I wrapped our fingers around the sides of the bone and pulled.

"Hey, no fair!" I complained when Lee won.

"No whining. You're not the only one wishing for some good fortune."

I looked at Lee suspiciously. "Really, and just what are you wishing for?"

"Well there's this girl at school, Alyssa, and I'm trying to work up the nerve to ask her out.." Lee looked sort of embarrassed, which meant he must really like her. This was kind of big, because he hadn't really been all that interested in dating anyone since Rachel. He'd hooked up with a few girls freshman year, but I sensed this was something more than that.

"Well, she's definitely gonna say yes now, dude, the wishbone doesn't lie."

"I hope you're right." Lee seemed to shake off the seriousness then and said "Right! Time for you to lose! Let's go!"

It was a good night, just like old times. Before everything changed and we had to start growing up.

———————————————————

Back in my dorm room the week after the break, I was filling Steph in on the whole Josh dilemma.

"So now, I'm just kind of waiting to see what happens. Because I'm too chicken to ask him outright about it. And, I don't want to break up with him to be honest."

Steph looked at me sympathetically. "Well that's a tough one, but I'm kind of with Lee in this one. That being said, it is kind of a dick move to break up with someone right before Christmas, so if you're going to do it, do it soon. Like now."

"Ugh! I hate this so much. I've never had to break up with anyone. What do I even say?"

Steph chuckled. "You could go for the classic it's not you, it's me thing."

"Wow. That is not helpful."

"It is true though. You're the one who isn't ready to move on and be in some big relationship yet."

"I know, but...I know how hurtful it is when someone ends something you thought was good. It freaking sucks Steph, and I absolutely hate the idea of doing that to Josh. He doesn't deserve it. He's been nothing but nice and kind and lovely to me and here I am going to break his heart. I don't want to be this person. It's awful."

I'd worked myself up into a bit of a state by then and tears were welling up in my eyes.

"Wow. Noah really did a number on you, didn't he?" Steph said gently, her hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, he did." My voice sounded shaky even to my own ears. I hadn't thought this hard about the breakup with Noah for a long time. I usually went out of my way not to think about that particular moment. I needed a minute to collect myself and not have to talk about this anymore. "I'm just going to go take a shower and calm down," I said to Steph and she let me go, nodding.

I gathered my stuff and went to our shared bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket as a message came through and I hoped it wasn't Josh. I looked at the screen and just about dropped the phone in the basin. The message wasn't from Josh, it was from the person I'd just been trying hard not to think about, the person I hadn't heard from in months now but whose contact I hadn't been able to bring myself to delete from my phone.

Noah: Hi. I know this is out of nowhere, but if I called you, would you answer?

This was too much to contemplate. I closed my phone without answering and got into the shower. After letting the hot spray rain down on me for a minute, I slid down the wall and sat on the floor of the shower.

What on earth could Noah Flynn possibly want to talk about?