The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

Acceptance

Noah

I hung around the house for four days after Lee and Elle got back from their trip. Four days when I thought every phone call might be her, when I listened for the sound of tires on the driveway. But she never called and she never came. As far as I was concerned, the ball was in her court. I'd made my feelings known and it was now up to her to fix this. I'd figured it was the distance stopping her from reaching out, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe she just didn't want to. Maybe I had to find a way to be fine with that.

I put on a happy face and went to Jess and Ben's engagement party on the Friday night. It was fun, I got to catch up with people I hadn't seen for ages and meet his brothers and her sister. But engagement parties are funny things. Because someone your age is getting married, it's suddenly appropriate for everyone to talk about the future. And so the questions start flying. Who's next? Do you have a girlfriend? What are your plans?

My plans at the moment consist of getting on a plane back to Boston and finishing my law degree. And, as of now, avoiding a certain tiny brunette who apparently wants nothing to do with me. You'd think I'd have realised that sooner, given it's been over a year since we spoke, but no. It's just finally sinking in.

I'd started not to feel angry about the whole thing, just sort of sad. But now, the anger has been stoked up again. I'm less angry about what she did and more angry about the fact that I've wasted a year of my life waiting for nothing. A year of my life that I could have spent getting on with things, making plans. Meeting someone new.

The worst, most frustrating, part is that it hasn't even just been the last year that I've wasted. It's been the last four. The last year is on her, but the first three were my fault. So now the last thing I want to do is to sit across the table from her at lunch on Sunday. Fuck that. I start checking availability on flights tomorrow while I'm still at the party.

I don't sleep particularly well that night, thoughts just swirling around my head. I can't resolve any of them and once again, I feel stuck. I could only get a flight tomorrow evening, which means I have to endure another day here before I can escape. I make plans to go for a long bike ride to get out of the house and away from my mother's watchful gaze.

The day passes and still no contact from Elle. Mom is suspicious of my flight change, but wisely says nothing. She doesn't really have to, her expression says it all anyway. Lee volunteers to drive me to the airport and I think he's going to say something, surely Elle must have talked to him about what happened by now? But no, he's just being a good brother.

They've called my flight and I'm getting up to go when I hear someone call my name and my blood runs cold. I turn and no, I'm not imagining things, it's her. Her skin is tanned, her hair is a bit sun-streaked, she looks great. But the sight of her just makes me angry. I can see she's flustered, but the fact that after a year all she has to say to me is that she's sorry, I can't handle it.

She could have told me that over the phone or by text. I can't waste any more time on this than I already have. She tells me she doesn't know what else to say and I tell her I don't have time to wait for her to figure it out. I walk away. Away from her and this whole destructive, fucked up situation. Enough already.

I spend the flight thinking over it all, weighing my decision carefully. By the time I land in Boston, I've decided that I have to get on with my life, to move on. I throw myself back into my studies and stop messing around with random hookups. When an envelope arrives a month later, I recognise the handwriting and throw it in a drawer, unopened. I don't have the energy to let her back into my mind or my life.

I ask Chloe to set me up with one of her friends. She questions me at some length about my motivations, but in the end I convince her I truly do want to move on. I go on a date with Amelia and it's nice. There's no gravity to it, it's fun and easy and the conversation just flows. We go on more dates. Another envelope arrives and it gets thrown in the drawer unopened, too. Amelia and I don't become anything serious, and when our relationship has run its course, we end it.

I go home for Thanksgiving, safe in the knowledge that the Evans family won't be there. I don't go home at Christmas. Instead, I go skiing with Chloe. Well, she skis and I snowboard. We spend New Year's Eve with friends in New York. I have a great time.

The spring semester starts and I launch into my search for an internship in Boston for the summer. I don't want to leave if I don't have to. Spring break arrives and I finally drag Chloe to Miami with Steve and Audrey, where we have a blast. Okay, maybe Chloe's right and we're too old for this shit, but I tell her I couldn't let her graduate without having done it.

I ask one of the girls in my class out for coffee and she agrees. Hayley is from Savannah and her observations about our professors have me laughing in a way I haven't for a long time. We really hit it off and just like that, life holds a little bit of promise again. I go home for one week at the start of summer, to spend some time with my family. Lee and Rachel have been officially dating since Christmas, and I'm happy for them.

Hayley has an internship in Boston over summer too, and while we're each at different firms, we catch up most nights to compare notes over dinner. I find her company soothing, like I can fully breathe when I see her. There's a little thrill of excitement too, I have to admit. I take in the way her dark blonde hair frames her heart shaped face, the way her hazel eyes sparkle as she makes fun of some of the associates at her firm, and I wonder. Why hadn't I noticed her earlier?

The fact is, I hadn't really been looking. I'd been so stuck just waiting for something, for someone, and that stopped me from truly seeing anyone else. I'd closed myself off to all other possibilities. Well not anymore. I'm done being stuck in the past. It's been hard, but I've managed to find a sort of grim acceptance that Elle belongs in the past, not in the future.