If I'm There - A Noah Sebastian Story

Chapter Nine - Best Of Times, Worst Of Times

KAT'S POV
I stood in front of the mirror of the bathroom, trying to cover my dark circles with makeup. After calling Chris last night I couldn't seem to catch my breath, so I didn't go back to bed. Instead, I sat in the backyard with a glass of wine, alone with my thoughts. I hated that Chris was right, that I was going to have to have to tell him before it ate me alive. Things were going so well, though, I didn't want to ruin it by warping his seemingly perfect vision of me. I took a deep breath, and splashed my face with some cold water. I'll tell him, but maybe not today. When I looked up Noah was leaning against the door frame of the bathroom. I forced a smiled and dried my face off, and he came behind me. Noah placed his hand on my hips and kissed my neck.

"What's on your mind, beautiful?" I wish he wouldn't ask that. I stayed silent, worried my mouth would expose me before my brain could stop it. "How about we go get some coffee and some breakfast? My treat!" He accepted that I didn't want to discuss what was heavy on my mind, and opted for the distraction route. I smiled nodded in agreement, then started my makeup over. Noah grabbed the concealer from my hands and placed it back on the counter. "You don't need that," he turned me to face him, "you're so beautiful you don't even know it." He then brushed a few stray hairs out of my face, and in that moment I realized maybe he didn't have to know. Maybe we could stay perfect, just like this. The Chris ordeal happened a year ago, and it was in the past. If something were out there it would have showed it's ugly head by now.

Noah sat back down at the table with our coffee and hot breakfast at the local coffee shop down the street from my house, and smiled at me.

"What? What's that about?" I asked him, taking a bite of my bagel. He shook his head and looked down.

"I'm just so glad Chris told me about you. He spoke like he knew you." His words made my stomach churn, and I was sure I was going to vomit right there on the table. "When I asked he said he just keeps up with your social media, though." Oh, he did far more than that, babe. I took a long sip of my latte, as if that would help my pounding heart rate. "Kat, baby, what's going on? You didn't come back to bed last night, you seem kind of off about something. Is something bugging you? Are we moving too fast? We can slow down-"

"No!" I nearly yelled it. "I mean, no, we're fine. Sometimes I just can't sleep. I've got a mind that never slows down." Noah smirked and grabbed my hand from across the table.

"Anytime you can't sleep just wake me up. I'll be right there for you, I promise. Even when I go back home, just call me. You can't keep grieving on your own, Kat. You can't keep going through this alone." Though grieving my deceased husband is an easy excuse for my odd behavior, it felt almost wrong. Yes, I was grieving, yes I did miss him, but what's worse is I regret all the actions that I made, the things that happened before his violent passing. I can never go back, I can never tell him what happened, I can never make it right. The time for righting wrongs had passed, vanishing like a vapor.
We heard a crack of thunder intense enough to rattle the windows of the coffee shop, and turned our attention to the darkening sky outside.
"We should get back to the house, we can watch a movie or something while the storm is going," Noah suggested. It actually was a nice thought. We got up and took our coffee to go, then headed back to the house. In the short time it took us to get back home the storm started. I got the car in the garage in just enough time to miss the hail that was starting to come down, probably sparing me a few hundred dollars in damage. When we got in Noah looked over my vast variety of movies that were stored on black coffin shaped book shelves on either side of my TV.

"You know, DVDs and Blu-Ray is so early 2000's," he said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes and looked at the other shelf, and grabbed my forever go to: Halloween. Right as I went to ask Noah his thoughts on throwing it on, the lights flickered and we listened to the distinct sound of everything shutting off all at once. "So... candles and deep conversation?" I smiled at Noah and put the movie back on the shelf, then got busy searching my house for candles. I found a few, then sat them on the coffee table and lit them. We sat on the floor leaning against the perfectly fine couch, but the floor seemed more intimate given the candle light in the darkness of the living room. He stared at me in the glow of the candle light, a smile on his face. The flame of the candle danced, lighting different parts of his face. "What did you actually dream of being when you grew up?" That's an odd question. I thought my current occupation was pretty fitting for me. A mysterious widowed tattoo artist, who runs her own shop and sets her own schedule. But he wasn't talking about what I grew up to do, he was talking about the wildest dream occupation I ever had.