"Best friends forever" is such bullshit because I had a best friend, but he sure as hell isn't forever. Then why is the universe making him my project partner now? And why is he so hot and beautiful... just why?
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If someone had told me a few months back that I would be here at a skateboard tournament with these three idiots cheering for Noa the loudest, I would have laughed to death. But here I am, doing the exact thing, and I've never been so... proud.
Because Noa is amazing. She's doing her twirls and stunts, pulling off things I don't even know the names of, and she looks as beautiful and graceful as she did at homecoming, maybe even more so. She's got this all-black, oversized vibe going on, which makes her look so Noa. She has her ridiculous helmet on, it looks like a black helmet with scribbles of blue, pink, purple, red, and orange—I don't even know how many colors. And she has her lucky skateboard with her, as she claims.
The last round of the tournament is sliding down a slope, doing some flip or something, and then skating towards a railing and back up again with a swift dive, according to the announcers here. It looks so dangerous; I'm almost scared for her.
"COME ON, NOA, YOU CAN DO IT!" Beau shouts.
"IT'S NOW OR NEVER, DUMBASS!" Silas chimes in, as expected.
"NOA! NOA! NOA!" We all start to cheer. Then she looks at us, giving her sweet smile with a very cute thumbs up, and then indicates something rolling with her fingers, which I think Beau immediately understands, and I don't like that one bit. He goes towards the speakers and turns up the volume, and the whole arena is filled with The Weekend's "Starboy."
Noa gets bucked up and confident. She gets in position, half on the ground and half in the air. I don't think I'll be able to keep my eyes open the whole time. As soon as the whistle blows, she throws herself down with unnatural speed and flies from the other side. Then she does this spin-flip thing, making her land so gracefully on the ground... Jesus!
"Ohhhh!"
Noa starts to board towards the railing and stops at least 4 feet before the railing, which seems weird as I look at others' expressions, Suddenly she starts with purpose on the railing, and like in slow motion, she lands herself on the land perfectly. Hearing everyone's cheer, I think she did a pretty good job.
Noa was given the first runner-up prize, but if someone had asked me, she would have gotten all the prizes.
I'm sitting at the edge of the empty pool, enjoying Noa's celebration from afar with a small smile on my face. Kaiden comes and sits beside me.
"Yes, we all make fun of her anytime we can, but she is like a sister to us, Hendricks. Don't hurt her," Kaiden warns me.
"You always get straight to the point, don't you?" I ask him, not moving my eyes from her.
"There's no point in making a fuss about things," he retorts.
"What is she doing?"
He sighs, like he's sick of it. "She always does this, like, an after-game ritual, giving 45 minutes of her day to the kids, teaching them, and if she wins some money or shit, she divides it amongst them," he roughly exhales. "That's our Noa."
Yeah... that's my sweet, naive, sexy, and generous Noa.
"You still didn't--" he stops when his phone starts to ring and gets up to answer it.
But the most noticeable fact is that I never acknowledge him about his "do not hurt Noa" warning.
Because I know deep down, I'm going to hurt her and hurt myself more in that process.
