The Kissing Booth - Chasing Noah

Chapter 27

A/N: This is the edited version of Chapter 60 and 62.

...

When Brad turned 6, my family took a road trip down to San Diego and went to a whale show. Brad had an unexpected obsession with the species and my mom was bouncing on her toes when we surprised him. Mom loved surprises. She said that they made a person happy in a way that they could never expect. But she also never gave us a chance to surprise her. She would always find out about it, but she would pretend anyway because she also said that the surprise was just as important for the people doing the surprising. She wanted to make us happy.

My mom spent a lot of her life doing that; trying to make other people happy. Even when she was dying, every breath she took was trying to make sure that we were going to be okay when she was gone.

If I got to have one trait from my mom, I would without a doubt pick that one. I would do anything to be selfless and humble and kind. But it seems like whatever I do, there is never going to be a part of me that resembles my mom. And that's almost as scary as losing her.

~~~

"Elle, can you just breathe? I trust you. You can tell me anything," Noah assured me. Air filled my lungs and I smiled at him gratefully. I didn't know why I was freaking out so much about telling him about Jordan. We were never more than friends, and this whole thing was just a stupid mistake. A selfish, idiotic mistake that I would take back if I could.

You're making this a bigger deal than it is. This is just going to make him angrier in the end, I told myself.

"Okay," I started, crossing my legs in front of him on the bed, "Remember when we stopped talking for a while after I told you I was leaning towards Trinity?"

His eyes dropped and I could see his face racked with guilt. I took his hands in mine as he nodded.

"Well I was hurt...and I wanted to hurt you back. So when Jordan came to drop something off at my school and I ran into him, he asked me out...and I said yes," I told him. He chewed on his bottom lip, thinking.

"But then I went to Boston and we kind of sorted things out and I didn't even think about him again until..." I stopped, not sure if I should tell him about my dream. "That's why I blew you off for him today...to see if it was actually a date, or if he just wanted to be there for me as a friend."

Noah nodded and his chest rose and fell four times before he said anything.

"So do you have feelings for him, or were you doing it just to hurt me?" he asked. I don't think he asked to make me feel guilty, but to actually see if I did it for any reason other than to hurt him.

"I don't have feelings for him," I insisted. But was that really true? I did have that dream about almost kissing him. Noah and I were finally in a good place again. This would destroy that.

"So why did you have to see him again?" he asked. His face was soft, open.

"I just felt awful. For leaving him out to dry. I wanted to make sure that he didn't have feelings for me," I explained. Noah nodded and stared out the window. His eyes stretched wide and he jumped to rip the drapes closed. The room was bathed in darkness and I could barely see my own hand.

"What are you doing? What's wrong?" I asked. I could hear him breathing, but he didn't say a word. I had no idea where he was.

"Nothing. I just don't want to look outside right now. I want to be here with you, completely," he lied. He would never say some bullshit like that. I lower my feet off the bed and shuffled over to his voice. I tried to reach for the drapes, but he grabbed my hands.