forever you

[six years and five months]

Siobhan knocked. Three times. When no sound answered her, her fist met the door again. More energetically. Still no answer. She seriously pondered calling Noah out, but she didn't want to cause a scene. The concierge had let her in because he'd seen her enough to know she was a friend, not a stalker. She doubted he'd be so gracious next time if she engaged in a screaming match in front of the entire floor – only two other tenants, but still.

Fists tight against the unbudging black metal, she lifted her hand once more.

"Noah, open the damn door. I just want to make sure you're alright." The anger vibrating in her voice didn't plead her cause. But worry gnarled at her stomach, twisting it in so many knots she barely had proper meals the past few days. Yet underneath it all, her anger had been slowly simmering for the past week. Ever since Jared, one of Noah's teammates and his closest friend in the team, had informed her was attending practice, no sign of illness or injury. Just a sour, subdued mood inhabiting his being for the past week.

Seeing as he was not bedridden, nor tied down to his mattress, unable to use his hands, there was no viable reason why he kept pretending his phone didn't exist.

Siobhan simply couldn't understand why has was acting this way. Hence her texts. The dozen of them unanswered, as her calls. She'd learned she wasn't the only one receiving such treatment. Jared had reached out because he'd had no contact with Noah for a few days. His family hadn't heard of him for the past two weeks.

Another bang on the door. "Alvarez, I swear to God –" The threat went unfinished. The metallic panel moved open, revealing the long figure Siobhan's been longing to see for the past week. A sigh of relief went to move through her body. But it never found the way out, stuck somewhere between her lungs and her throat.

She'd never seen him like this. Rumpled tee-shirt, stubble covering his hard-set jaw. Long curls tousled like they hadn't seen a comb for days, purple bruises underneath his dull eyes that paused on her indifferently. Like he tossed and turned endlessly in bed but couldn't get up. Siobhan wondered if he got any sleep at all recently.

Opening her mouth to say something – but what ? Noah didn't stay long enough to hear it. Swiveled to make his way back into the apartment, the soft squeak of his dragging slippers the only sound to break the gloomy silence.

Unsettlement creeped up on her. He'd never acted this way. Not once in the six years they had been in each other's lives. He'd been stressed out. Brokenhearted. Unfocused, unusually quiet. Angry, even. But nothing could compare to the sense of caged frustration and recoiling despair that brushed over her skin when she stepped in. Closing the door, she followed him to his bedroom, quickly taking in the state of the place. Miscellaneous takeout boxes stuffed in a trash bag at the foot of his marbled kitchen counter. A few dirty dishes piling up in the sink. The pulled curtains in his spacious living room, as if he hadn't wanted any ray of light to touch his clean-cut modern furniture, to enter his dark cocoon. His bedroom followed the same rule. Except for his crumbled bedsheets, the room held no trace of the chaos unfurling inside him.

The hurricane was visible in his eyes. Violent winds whirling amidst ominous black clouds, a thunderous storm in the brewing.

"What's going on?" Worry translated to a curt, brisk tone, one she had no control over, despite knowing this was not the best way to start off this overdue conversation. Yet Siobhan kept her arms crossed on her chest, watching Noah pace like an injured wild animal, torn between the want to flee and the need to lick his wounds.

"First, Jared calls to tell me you're not answering your phone. Then, I have a call from Coach Harris," her arms lifting to the sky in a desperate attempt to release the confusion swirling inside her ever since his coach, of all people, had contacted her, "asking if I have news of you since you're ignoring his calls –"