A Known Stranger

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

                One thing that I had kind of hoped for in the beginning of Noah’s arrival was that my friends would find him just as annoying and much of an asshole as I did, but that didn’t happen. In fact, after about a month of Noah’s appearance in town, everybody, and I do mean everybody loved him! All the guys at school were cool with him, the teachers praised him on his ‘intelligence’, the girls would practically faint just because he glanced their way; not only were Zoe and Kim buddy-buddy with him, but so was my boyfriend!

                I never expected my senior year to start off this way. For it to begin with the guy who annoyed me to no end, be a part of the year that was supposed to be the greatest in my entire high school experience. Not only had Noah become best friends with my boyfriend but things seemed as if he had taken an interest in Kimberly. And as he began closer with them, it seemed our friendship grew distant as the days passed.

                In the month that had passed, Noah and his parents had stayed with us for about a week before they moved into their own home… right next door. So not only did I have to put up with him for eight hours at school, and whenever he hung out with my friends and I, but I also had to live next to him! However, not only was he an asshole that liked to make my life miserable, but he was a womanizer. Not a day went by that I didn’t see or hear about one of his one night stands. Either he was letting one out the front door late at night, or his latest conquest was bragging to her friends in one of the restrooms as they reapplied their make-up, about how she got to spend a night with the famous Noah James.

                It was incredible really, how all the girls knew about his ways, yet they were okay with being another name on his list. And for the life of me, I didn’t approve of Kimberly getting involved with him or being on that list- even if nothing had happened yet. She was one of my best friends, and I wouldn’t let her get hurt if I could do anything about it.

                “Why are you so against it?” Zoe asked as she fixed her blonde ponytail in the mirror hanging off the wall adjacent of my bed. We had been sitting around in my bedroom for the past hour talking about random things, and somehow, Noah and Kimberly came to be our next topic.

                Sitting down on my bed with my legs crossed Indian style, I sighed and fidgeted with the ring that Ryder had given me for our six month anniversary. “Because he’s no good for her.”

                “How is he no good for her? He’s a good guy, sure he’s a tad mysterious but that’s the icing on the cake.” She said, grabbing a tube of lipstick of my dresser and applying it to her lips making them a pale pink. “It makes him hotter.”

                “Seriously?” I retorted. “He’s an asshole!”

                “Only to you,” she responded. “I mean c’mon Fae. You two fight like an old married couple, bickering about everything just to piss each other off.”

                I rolled my eyes and fell back onto my bed, groaning into the pillow that I had placed over my face. The bed dipped at my feet and I pushed myself up, resting on my elbows as Zoe looked at me with a curious expression.

                “What?” I snapped.

                “I’m curious,” she replied. “Why do you two bicker so much?”

                “We’ve just never got along.” I told her, half truthfully. She didn’t know that at one point, Noah and I took baths together because that’s how close we were. No one knew about that, and I hoped that it stayed that way.