The Thing About Three

chapter thirty-one | you've got mail

NOAH APPARENTLY NEEDED more time than I was patient enough to give him. He didn't respond to any of my texts or calls the rest of that day.

When nighttime rolled around and I still hadn't heard from him, I was doing everything I could not to hop into my car and track him down. I didn't like this waiting game. It freaked me out.

I called him one more time, finally giving in to my desires and snatching up my purse and keys when I was sent to voicemail.

"Where are you going?" Dad asked as I passed him and Jeremiah in the living room. They were watching some documentary on tv.

"Noah's," I replied.

"At this hour?" Jeremiah questioned. "It's almost 10:00."

"He lives right down the road and I'm legally an adult. I'll be fine," I said back, though I inwardly smiled at him. He sounded like a concerned older brother. I loved having a brother.

"Okay, well, be careful," Jeremiah replied.

"And call one of us if you need help," Dad added, Jeremiah nodding in agreement.

I shot them both a thumbs-up before hopping into my car and driving fifteen miles over the speed limit to Noah's house—because I was impatient and I missed him like crazy.

I was met with disappointment when I arrived. It was dark, and his Mustang wasn't in its usual spot out front.

That's when I remembered the party he had told me about hours earlier. I wasn't necessarily dressed for a party—wearing black leggings and a tank-top with one of Noah's jackets he had loaned me, but it'd have to do.

It took me a while to dig through the archives of my mind to remember where 'Josiah from my old lunch table's' house was. The closest answer I could get was a faded, foggy memory of him mentioning that his neighborhood had a communal pool.

With that little nugget of information, I drove to the only neighborhood I could think of that fit the description, and then drove down ten different streets before I found a two-story house with cars all around it at a dead-end street.

As I parked at the very end of the long line of cars along the sidewalk, I realized just how insane I was being.

Because I had just driven around a neighborhood I found from a memory for thirty minutes all because of Noah.

Love really made a person do stupid things, didn't it?

I got out of the car before I could dwell on my insanity any longer, entering through the front door of the house that had bass-heavy music practically seeping out of its bricks.

I didn't spot Noah right away when I entered, mainly because the whole house was dark and hazy with a thin veil of smoke covering everything.

There were people everywhere, their collective body heat making the house stifling. I pushed through the less-than desirable conditions, searching for Noah as I joined the crowd of young adults.

Five minutes of breathing in the stale air and and sweating up a storm, I had to take a pit stop in the kitchen, parking myself next to the cooler atop the counter.

I was debating on opening it to look for a water when a guy I vaguely recognized from my math class at school opened it, reaching in and grabbing a beer can.

He caught my eyes as he shut the cooler and popped the tab to his beer. "Heyyyyy, you're Claire, right?"

He was under the influence of something, that much I could tell from the droopy eyes and and slightly slurred words.