A Neighbouring Romance

32 - walk

Hello my loves, I hope you're having a wonderful new year so far <3 

Enjoy!

It's late at night and I'm sipping on what might be my third, or fourth cup of hot chocolate. In my defence, the mugs in this household are so tiny, they're practically British teacups. None of them look the same, different shapes and patterns to each of them, mismatched and unperfect. Yet still so perfect all the same.

There's a room with my name technically assigned to it. I couldn't bring myself to actually unpack the case of clothes mom packed for me. All l I hear is the echo of my childhood in the walls, they speak to me – angry at the choices I've made since I was last here. They chastise me for my naivety, make me question myself again and again.

You have no excuse for stupidity at nearly-eighteen, Hope.

Mom seems so much happier since we got here though. I find peace in the fact that she's okay, but my fear and anxiety always makes its way into the my heart, hollowing out my chest as I struggle to breathe.

She's okay, Hope.

Mom might be fine, but there's so much more on my mind.

What if the cancer comes back? What if the doctor got it wrong...?

Why won't Noah just be..?

I feel like a child lost in the water with nobody to help me swim through this entangled web I've woven for myself. Every time I find myself closer to shore, I'm back in the ocean again, being carried by a tidal wave of my own behaviour.

Does Noah feel the same way?

I need to read, anything to distract myself. The alternative is sitting here with my own thoughts and that's more terrifying than anything.

I pass by his door, pausing, and then walking back to the wood. I want to see him, talk to him.

The door opens and I wince back, blinking stupidly as Noah takes a step back in surprise.

"I was just-"

"Hi." His eyes flicker with a touch of amusement.

"Hello." I mutter, eyes glued to an old poster on the wall behind him.

He asks me why I'm not asleep and I shrug.

"Why aren't you asleep?" I mock back.

"Thinking." He nods curtly to the living room. "Do you want company?"

Yes.

I don't respond and he understands immediately. Of course he does.

"C'mon." He swerves around me and then pauses. "I have Mario Kart."

He returns to his bedroom, the faint glow of yellow the only indication of his existence here.

It's bold, and my body tenses before I make the step, but I'm suddenly standing inside what is the polar opposite of Noah's bedroom back at home.

The walls are brown, but you wouldn't know unless you looked hard between the spaces of the posters all over the empty space.

A window in the ceiling shows the dark night sky outside, littered with the white specks of stars far away. I watch bemused for a minute, unable to pull my gaze away.

"Do you still-"

"Map the constellations?" Noah finishes my sentence for me.

He sighs. "No, I haven't in a long time."