The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

Destruction

Noah

Chloe and I had already planned to leave at lunchtime to catch our flight to Nassau for a 2 week vacation. I persuade her to leave for the airport a little earlier. She doesn't ask any questions, I think the look on my face probably says it all. This trip is supposed to be a total reset after graduation before starting my next internship and law school. It's supposed to be a fun vacation with my best friend, and I'm going to do my best not to ruin that.

We stay on Chloe's dad's boat, which he had relocated here for the summer. He's gone away on business, so we have the whole thing to ourselves, apart from a couple of crew. We spend our days in the sun and our nights drinking cocktails, playing pool and sometimes dancing. Chloe doesn't ask me what happened until the fifth day when we're sitting on the deck, and even then we're several drinks in.

"Alright, I've given up waiting for you to volunteer the story. Tell me what happened, Noah."

I tell her the whole sad tale. From the roulette wheel to the fountain to the knock on the door. Then an extremely abbreviated version of the night. Then the note. The fucking note. And the confrontation afterwards.

I hear Chloe's breath whistle as she blows it out in shock. "Wow. That is brutal."

"Yeah, I thought so. I never expected the note, Clo. If she'd stayed, and then told me that she was leaving, I think I could have wrapped my head around it. But that note. She wasn't even going to acknowledge what happened. She had no intention of talking to me that morning. Or ever."

"That must really hurt."

"Like you wouldn't believe.

We leave it there and I down my drink. I'm scared of what might happen if I start looking too closely at my feelings right now.

The rest of our time away is given over to rest and relaxation. To be honest, I am physically and mentally exhausted and I sleep late consistently for the first time in I don't know how long. I can't remember a time when I wasn't doing some sort of training. Or at the very least pounding the pavement. I wake feeling refreshed, I swim leisurely around the boat when we take it out, we eat and drink and have fun. Chloe doesn't push me to talk further.

Back in Boston, I enjoy the chance to work at the law firm for my internship, to fill my brain with thoughts unrelated to me and my problems. I absorb the information with enthusiasm, not only because it's my job, but because it interests me. I find a certain sense of satisfaction in being able to retain and recall facts and apply them to the matter at hand. I work long days, and come home exhausted. The boxes of books stay stacked in the corner, unopened.

My first semester of law school starts and Chloe of course was right, it's intense. I'm back to running every morning, and most of the time she joins me now, before we head off to our separate classes. We regroup at the end of the day, comparing notes and sharing funny stories. I know I'm avoiding talking about what happened, but what's the point of going over it?

I head home for thanksgiving, thankful that I don't have to worry about seeing Elle or her family. Her because she's halfway around the world and her family because they've continued to spend this holiday with Linda's family. Not that my home is devoid of Elle, though. There are so many photos with her face in them in the hallway, I want to scream. It takes a lot of effort not to rip them off the wall and smash them on the floor. Only the thought of having to talk to my mother about what happened stops me.

It's good to see Lee though. I realise I kind of shut him out after Vegas, mainly because I knew he was spending the summer with her. He catches me up on how he and Rachel are talking often now. I think he's hopeful they might both end up back in LA next year after graduation. It's not until he brings up Elle and that weekend that I realise she hasn't told him anything. He knows something's off, but has no clue what it is.

I'd assumed he was just avoiding the topic or whatever. But no, she hasn't even told him what went down. She really does just want to pretend like nothing ever happened. I realise then that the reason I've been afraid of looking too closely at my feelings is because they've changed. It's not just hurt I'm feeling anymore, it's hate.

I hate that she could use me like that and leave so unaffected.
I hate that the memory of that night will always be tainted by what happened the next day.
I hate that she didn't want me.
I hate her for what she did.
Most of all, I hate that I do.

I get up and walk away from Lee before I can say something I'll really come to regret. My anger isn't aimed at him, not directly, but I know he'll take her side, and that won't end well for either of us right now.

I feel like I've been cast adrift, like a previously unshakeable cornerstone of my life has been removed. I'd always held Elle in the highest esteem. She was always a positive force, even when we were no longer together. But now I can't think of her without seething. All the positive associations my memories held of Elle have been severed by a single horrifying thought. She doesn't want me.

It sounds incredibly arrogant even in my own mind, but once she'd told me that day in the park that it was me, that it had always been me, I'd believed that also meant that somehow it might always be me. Even after our breakup and the years that followed, I'd never given up on the small hope that one day, we'd be together. In fact I'd built my whole life around that premise, never letting myself entertain the possibility that there could be someone else for me.

Now all of that is gone, taken away.

I move through my life on autopilot, keeping up appearances on the outside. Inside, I feel hollow. There's a part of me that's just not there anymore.

I finally get around to unpacking all my boxes of books at the apartment, stacking them in the newly-installed bookshelves. In the last box I find books from freshman year, mostly ones I'd had to read for Lit class. One grabs my eye, a book of American poetry. I sit on my bed and leaf through the pages, not really taking much in. Then I land on one by Robert Frost that sums up the last few months and my feelings about it so perfectly, it knocks the breath out of me.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I've been consumed by desire and I've been frozen by hate. My world has felt the destruction of them both. So now what?