Through the next week, Noen and I hung out during school, when we could, and after school since I had no practice and my dad was always working. We would find new ways to entertain ourselves and we made tons of tiktoks. Through only 5 days I had gained almost 100k followers just from making about 30 tiktoks a day and mentions from Noen. My comments section, as I had noticed, had 2 different kinds of fans, naggers, who commented nasty things and extremists, who commented ships and everyday love for me and Noen. All of his fans were surreal, with their comments and support for Noen, and now me.
"Are you almost ready?" I zone back in and see Noen dressed in a black and white shirt, and his normal jeans, accompanied by his everyday chain. He was smirking at me in the mirror. I had put on a blue crop top, a pair of black jean shorts, and my black vans before I told Noen I was going into the bathroom to put on some makeup and put my hair up in a loose ponytail.
"Yeah, lets go." I purse my lips, grabbing my purse before we leave for BeachFest. I had told Noen about the festival and he insisted we go to both today, and tomorrow, while most people would be at church.
As Noen drove us to the park, only a few miles from my house, where BeachFest was taking place, I couldn't help myself from thinking about everything we have done and connected on in the past week, and how, what I thought was a simple connection of friendship, was shifting, quickly and uncontrollably In my head, and maybe even in my heart.
"What were you thinkin 'bout?" Noen questioned, opening my door and helping me out, I raise an eyebrow and look around. "You were really quiet on the ride down here, which means you were thinking." Noen explains.
"Oh, well-" I start.
"Rose!" I hear a familiar voice and look over Noens shoulder. In the festival lights, in the dark evening, I made out TJ's face. "You totally blew me off!" TJ approached us and stepped forward, instantly I smelt the alcohol and pot on his person.
"Hey, TJ." Noen stepped lightly in between me and TJ, obviously smelling the odors as well. I was confused at TJ behavior until I saw the rest of the baseball team behind him, trying to be slick and hide. TJ was a very holy lifestyle person, and he never has been in this state before, but most likely was peer pressured into this
"Don't 'Heyyy' me, you're trying to steal my girlll." TJ put his finger on Noens chest as he slurred his words. Noen remained completely calm.
"TJ, you're drunk." I compile. coming out from behind Noen, holding onto his shoulder lightly. "and high."
"You could be too, sexyyy. We could mess around." TJ reached for my waist but stumbled and Noen caught him instead, shoving him back. "Do you wanna go, gayfuck?" TJ said, throwing his fists up.
The next few minutes went really fast. All of a sudden tons of people were around us, Dylan at my side, pulling me from Noen as TJ took a swing, missing. Noen took a shot back, hitting him square in the eye. Dylan took me away at that point, and my anxiety caused me to crash and black out in Dylans arms.
"Rose..." I flutter my eyes open, slowly making out Joshs face. My head was in his lap and he had his hand trailing through my hair. I take a deep breath, instantly remembering the incident. I try to sit up quickly but he pressed me down lightly. "Don't, you need to relax."
"What- where- Noen?" I manage to spit out. He smiles lightly and swallows, taking a deep breath.
"Dylan came to me and Tyler, asking to take you to the other side of the park to watch you and keep you calm. Me and Tyler were in the middle of fixing things and I instantly said I would help, but Tyler, being himself, left me with a few rotten words, its irrelevant. Anyways, Dylan went to go break up the fight, TJ was bruised and had a broken nose, his boys rushed him out after Dylan pushed him away." I raise my eyebrow, as if to urge him on and he purses his lips. "Noen is fine, he barely got touched, in fact he should be on his way over, but Rose-" He muttered and looked as if he had more to say, bit didn't know how to word it.
"Rose!" I shoot up from Joshs lap, standing and seeing Noen jogging over to me and I start to run over. As we approached he wrapped his arms around me tightly and picked me up, my arms around his neck, squeezing and feeling his heartbeat on my chest. As he put my down, he looked me in the eyes and around my face, finishing his gaze on my body to check for anything wrong. I do the same, running my hand through his hair, trailing them down to his shirt lifting it to see a small bruise forming on his left side.
"Noen-" I try, tears swelling, as my fingers move over the spot lightly.
"I'm fine, I was more afraid for you." He takes my hand, placing it on his cheek tenderly. He lets out his first deep breath since he saw me and keep his hands on my waist, as if protecting me. "We should go." He looks around, seeing where we are. I nod and take his hand to steady mine from shaking.
"Wait-" Josh stepped in front of us, looking behind him. "You shouldn't go, why waste a great night of fun because of an incident?" He rubs the back of his neck, swallowing hard. I purse my lips, thinking about it. "Or..." Josh smiles mildly, looking at me. "Come back tomorrow, and we can let this whole thing blow over tonight. At least then we can all hang out, Noen, Dylan, You, and I. I think you shouldn't just let TJ and the team kill your vibe." I look at my feet, thinking of all my feelings I had towards TJ, almost felling in love with him and wanting so desperately to be with him. I felt so stupid for it all.
"What do you think about it?" Noen questioned, looking me over, making sure I was still sane. I let out a shaky breath, looking between him and Josh, smiling. I nod and Josh lets out a celebratory sound and Noen squeezed my hand.
"So ill see you both tomorrow." Josh nodded, smiling at me. "You might want to FaceTime Dylan tonight and talk to him, I know he was really stressing about you and how you were doing." I nod and Noen starts to lead me to his car, still holding my hand to keep me calm.
It was reassuring to know I had 3 boys that really truly knew me. Josh, Dylan, and Noen. But the fact of the matter was I had been the cause of a fight between Josh and my his bestfriend, who was in fact my ex, and Noen was the boy I was crushing on, I think. It was also in a fact of matter that I knew Josh was in love with me. I didn't need someone to tell me that.
