The Kissing Booth - Chasing Noah

Chapter 19

A/N: This is the edited version of Chapter 44, 45 and 46.

...

We walked back to the hotel in silence which gave me some time to think about all the stuff Noah had told me in the past 24 hours. My mind kept wandering back to what he had told me my mom said in the letter she wrote to him. Should I tell him that I gotten a letter from her too? That somehow she knew we would be together someday?

I don't think I really want to. What my mom says to me in those letters is between me and her. Telling him about it would feel like betraying her trust. It's not like I was lying to him or keeping something important from him. I was just keeping the advice that my mom had passed onto me to myself. Knowing that I wasn't keeping anything - or at least anything I shouldn't be - from Noah gave me peace of mind. Which made what we were about to do a lot more enjoyable.

I texted Rachel and told her that Noah was coming back to our room. She didn't text me back, but she obviously got the message because when we got to the room, all of her stuff was gone. When she had showed up to Noah's game she said that they were a couple minutes late because she wanted to get settled in. I felt bad for making her pack up all of her stuff again, but I got over it pretty quick.

~~~

How could I not trust someone who had the ability to make me feel like such a woman? Someone who could trap me with merely a gaze? But I didn't trust him not to break my heart. Why was that? What ever happened to me that made me think the worst of people? I grew up in a loving and healthy relationship with my best friend. So why was it so hard for me to have that with the boy that I was in love with?

Maybe it was because I was scared to give my heart up to someone like I had with my mom, only for them to leave me one day and break it. I couldn't blame my mom for leaving me. God had a different plan for her. Was I just trying to protect myself from feeling that kind of pain again?

"Elle? What's wrong?" Noah murmured. I still loomed over him, straddling his hips, but had been so caught up in my thoughts that I had stopped mid-action. My arm was still slowly inching towards the bed stand for a condom.

"Nothing. Sorry," I mumbled, moving towards the night stand. But he grabbed my hands and pulled me up to his face. We were inches apart, letting me see each wrinkle between his eyebrows as he looked at me worriedly.

"Elle...what are you thinking about. I told you we don't have to do this," he assured. I rested my chin on his chest, looking up at him. I'm sure I looked like a sad puppy, my lower lip in a significant pout. He rolled his eyes at me. There was no escaping this. He knew something was on my mind and there was no way he was going to have sex before he made sure I was okay. I took a deep breath and prepared to tell him everything I should have told him a long time ago. If only I had known it myself.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you. That I thought you were cheating on me with someone here, that I didn't believe you when you said you just wanted what was best for me. I'm sorry I pushed you away when you were trying to make things right again," I explained. I refused to let the tears that were stinging my eyes escape. I needed to say this, and crying would only make things worse. Noah waited patiently, giving me time to regain my composure.

I continued, "I know now that I didn't want to lose you. I just didn't want to get hurt. I thought that if I left now, it wouldn't hurt as much as if we ended things later; that this would be a cleaner break." He squeezed my arms and stared at me so intensely it almost scared me.

"Elle, why did you think that we were going to break up at all?" he asked. His voice was nothing but kind, sympathetic.

"I just think that it was always at the back of my mind that someday you would realize that I wasn't the right person for you. That we were never meant to be together or you would find someone better," I cried. So much for no tears. "When my mom left, I couldn't breath. I thought that there would never be anything worse than the pain that I had to go through after she was gone. Until I fell in love with you. The pain that I go through everyday, doubting myself that you might leave me is unbearable. I can't let myself trust you completely because if we ever broke up and you weren't in my life anymore, I don't think I would survive that. Not again."