We Make Mayhem [boyxboy]

Chapter Thirty-One

It felt like the bottom had dropped out of the world. Everything was falling. I was falling.

Chloe put her hand on my arm, steadying me.

"Riley? Are you okay?"

I nodded, even though everything was spinning.

"Please don't be angry at your dad. It's not his fault. He—"

"Don't talk about him," I said. "Please, just... I can't think about this right now. I have class."

She bit her lip as I grabbed my backpack and stuffed a few random papers inside.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I shouldn't have told you. I just couldn't keep it secret anymore. It's been killing me."

I paused, backpack on, about to storm out.

"Do you feel better now?" I asked.

"Not if I've upset you."

Was I upset? Probably. Was I in shock? Definitely. Angry? I didn't know, but I didn't feel anger when I looked at Chloe. Her eyes looked tired, and I suddenly saw the pain she must have been carrying ever since she found out. Trying to hide what she knew was true, dating me while battling back feelings for...

The bell rang and I bolted for the door. I finally understood the true meaning of the phrase "saved by the bell."

*

Chloe's confession was all I could think about. Every class was just white noise while I tried to navigate the maze of my emotions. Chloe, Dad, the foundations of my relationships with them, everything and everyone in my life felt shaky and unreliable.

Except Noah.

Part of the day's worrying was spent wondering whether Chloe's secret would get in the way of Noah's and my plans, but all it took was one look to prove that worry wrong. At the end of the day, I went to my locker to grab a few things and saw Noah coming toward me. We locked eyes and it was like one of those sequences in movies, where the whole hallway faded into insignificance and we were the only people in clear focus.

Relief flooded over me. There was still goodness in the world. I could escape into it.

It was like he had specifically dressed to torture me that day: he wore his jeans with the ripped knees and a grungy plaid flannel with a Beatles shirt underneath and his prized pair of Doc Marten boots. He looked a far cry from the Silicon Valley CEO's kid—he looked like he actually belonged in my shitty car.

"You've never been in here before, have you?" I asked as we climbed in.

"No. I like it, though. It's lo-fi."

I snorted. "That's one word for it."

I had vacuumed the night before, but there was no getting rid of the memory of crumbs and lint and dust that lingered even when the car was clean. Noah settled into the gray corduroy-upholstered passenger seat. Then resettled. No Edison miracle-level comfort here. He snapped on his seat belt and smiled at me. My stomach wobbled.

"Let's go," I said, half to myself.

The enormity of this afternoon was dawning on me.

Noah had seen the outside of my house before, but as I unlocked the door—half lifting it out of its frame so the bolt would slide back into place properly—I started to see it through his eyes. It wasn't gross, but it certainly wasn't nice.

"Almost everything we have was my grandfather's," I told him, by way of explaining why everything was ten thousand years old. "He left us the house when he died. Good thing, too, or else we'd never be able to live in West Van."