A Cheers to the Life You Don't Get to Choose //Noah Sebastian

XIX

"There's my girls!" Noah whispers as he enters Sloane's small hospital room to see she is asleep. He kisses her forehead, and then kisses mine. He sits down in the recliner and sits in silence, watching our sweet girl sleep.

"How did she do today?" He asks not taking his eyes off of her.

"She did really well. One more test and then she will be done, but they want to keep her overnight so I am going to stay with her."

"Are you sure? I can stay with her tonight if you want to go home, it's been a long day for both of you." He offers but I immediately shake my head no.

"I'd really rather stay here tonight, Noah." I say quickly and he gives me a quizzical look.

"Can we talk before I leave?" He now makes eye contact with me, looking physically upset.

"I'm getting really tired actually, can we just talk tomorrow? We will be getting test results in the morning." I shut him down.

He nods and stands up. "Will you tell her I stopped by? I will be back first thing in the morning for results." I nod in response and he leaves it at that.

-

The next morning Noah keeps his word. I wake up to him lightly shaking my shoulder. "Good morning, love. I brought you coffee." I rub my eyes and adjust myself in the recliner so I am sitting back up to see Sloane playing with toys in her hospital bed.

"Thank you." I smile reluctantly.

"Good morning Noah and Avery. How is my favorite patient this morning?" Dr. Cohen smiles at Sloane and she waves.

"Morning Dr. Cohen, how are you today?" Noah inquires.

"Very good thank you. Especially because we have very good news. Sloane's tests look great and chemo is also looking wonderful. Hopefully soon we will be able to shrink it as much as possible very soon."

I am at a loss for words, and so is Noah. "Wow..thank you. That is amazing news." Noah stammers.

"Of course. She can go home today as long as her symptoms from chemo are stable. If you two need anything, I will be around."

"Thank you." I choke out and Noah and I smile at each other, my lip quivering due to happy tears about to spill out.

"Did you hear that baby girl? You are doing so good!" I meet Sloane by her bedside and give her a hug.

An hour later we are on our way home listening to Bluey songs for the millionth time. We have listened to them so many times that I sing along to it and Noah slides his hand on my thigh, smiling at me.

By the time we get home it is time for Sloane's nap, leaving Noah and I alone. There's silence between us when we walk downstairs and we sit down. I curl up in the recliner and Noah sprawls out on the couch. He looks like he's thinking hard, and then sits up. "Can we talk?"

"Sure."

"I know why you're mad." He states.

"Do you now?" I raise an eyebrow.

"You read my texts."

"What texts?" I play dumb, knowing he is not going to buy it.

"Avery." He sternly groans.

"Noah." I mock him.

He rolls his eyes clearly annoyed with me at this point.

"Damnit Avery. The texts from Justine." He's stern and frustrated looking down at his hands.

"Just an ear to listen, huh? I raise my eyebrow and cross my arms.

"I never told you this before..I haven't told anyone this. Only Folio knows and I wanted to keep it that way." His jaw ticks and I am taken back.

"Oh another secret?" My blood is starting to boil waiting for him to tell me the worst. My defensive side has definitely kicked in.

"Avery. I need you to just listen. Please." He begins. "Avery is my ex." My eyes grow wide. I fucking knew it. "We dated for years, I was going to propose. She..she got pregnant. I was 21 at the time, she was 20. We were just babies. Anyways, everything was amazing and I supported her through everything. She had the baby and I hid her from the world, truly only Folio knew. No one else could know. Well.. One day I came home and her and Kayla's stuff was gone. She left a note stating that she basically played me. The baby was never mine. I was going to propose to her that night because I thought it was the right thing to do."

I think my jaw was on the floor by the time he finished his story. "Noah..I..that's terrible." I shook my head in disbelief. "But what I don't understand is why you talked to that monster at the party?"

He sighed. "I ran into her at the party..she has mutual acquaintances because we were together so long and she has worked her way into the scene for some rock magazine. So unfortunately, I will probably run into her again."

I feel really bad for Noah, but I still don't understand completely. "Okay so why the talk in the spare room?" I was growing impatient. Why would Noah talk to that bitch after the hell she put him through.

"I was sitting in the spare room and she found me. She was drunk as hell. I didn't have the energy to fight her off, I was too busy thinking about you being angry at me. She asked what was wrong and I don't know what overcame me, but I needed to get it off my chest right then and there and then she tried to come onto me and then I got pissed and stormed out."

"You didn't have to talk to her, Noah." I huffed.

"Avery, I am so sorry. I didn't do anything but talk to her, I swear. She texted me that night and I deleted and blocked her that morning. I'm so sorry you had to hear all of this because of some text messages. I should have shared this with you a long time ago. When I met you I felt..different, like a big weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I could leave it all in the past and never speak of it again. You healed me, baby."

I don't say anything, I just hug him. "I'm so sorry that happened to you Noah. I don't want to open old wounds."

"You deserve an explanation and you should know. I love you so fucking much, Avery."

I am happy to clear the air, but I can't help but to think about if Noah hides anymore secrets. I do not need every single small detail of his life, but the secrets that he has hidden from me have been large. I just hope everything has been said, for the sake of both of us.

Author's note

Hi friends, I am back!! Thanks for all the love on this story once again and White Noise as we are inching close to 6k reads on it. I have been going through some life altering changes lately and happy to get back to writing x