Page 39 of Catching My Dreams

“I understand,” he said, surprising her enough that her eyes shot back to him. “I just wanted to say thank you. It meant a lot to my mom.” He paused, and his eyes briefly lowered before meeting hers with a seriousness that made Ella want to fidget. “And it meant a lot to me.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

A sad smile tipped up the corners of his lips. “I know, but I’m grateful all the same.”

Ella didn’t know how to deal with his gratitude. It was disarming, and she needed to be fully armed and battle-ready when it came to Noah. So, she cleared her throat and nodded. “Right, well, I need to get going.”

She walked around him, and this time, Noah let her. But before she made it three steps away from him and his non-aggressive weirdness, she turned around.

“Oh, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep what happened on Sunday night between us. I don’t want people to know I slept with you.” Especially not if he got back with Madison. She didn’t need people pitying her.

“Right,” he said, his lips pressing together. “Wouldn’t want people to know you slept with someone so beneath you.”

Ella’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “You’re the one who keeps reminding me how little you think of me. You’re the one who keeps using me and tossing me aside once you’ve gotten what you want.”

“That’s not…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the image of someone striving for patience. “Why do you always insist on believing the worst of me? Why can’t you believe that I might actually like you?”

Ella actually laughed at the irony. He was unbelievable. “I don’t know, Noah, maybe because you’ve only ever thought the worst of me. And what, now, I’m just supposed to accept that you like me without questioning your motives? I’m supposed to just believe that after years of insults and disdain, you actually have feelings for me? I’m not stupid or naïve enough to believe that.”

“And what about you?” he snapped.

“What about me?”

“You’re the one who decided I wasn’t good enough when we were kids,” he practically shouted, gaining a few startled looks from passing students. “You were the one who started ignoring me out of the blue. I tried for weeks to get you to talk to me, but you wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”

He scoffed and shook his head angrily, but Ella was more focused on the words he’d said.

“I even made you a fucking Valentine’s Day card months after you decided I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with, and you threw it away in front of our entire class. I became the pathetic boy who cried after Ella Montgomery publicly rejected him. You were the one who dropped me like I was trash, and now I’m also meant to believe that you had no ulterior motives when you slept with me?”

Ella could do nothing but stare at him. Her lips parted, but no words formed on her tongue. For once, Noah had left her speechless.

“You love pointing out that I’m the jerk, but you were the one who decided Asher was the only one worthy of you.” Noah’s breathing was ragged, and his body radiated anger and tension. “You were my friend, and I would have done anything for you, but you dropped me like I meant nothing to you.”

“I…” Ella swallowed. She had no words.

“I loved you, Ella.” His voice broke on her name, and the hurt, the ache in his voice was just as surprising as his words. “I thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world. I loved you, and you decided I wasn’t good enough to even be your friend.”

“But…you hated me.”

“I hate what you did, Ella. I hate that you decided I shouldn’t be a part of your life. I hate that you stayed best friends with Asher, and I hate that you went to prom with Owen instead of me. But as much as I tried, I could never hate you.”

He stormed off before she could come up with a response, and Ella watched him walk away, her lips parted in shock and her mind combing over everything he’d revealed.

Noah had just told her he’d loved her. Noah had just told her he’d thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Noah had been jealous of Owen.

She remembered the card he’d mentioned. He’d put about a hundred heart stickers on it. She’d thought it was a joke. She’d thought he was mocking her. She’d never suspected that the boy who’d told his friends she was annoying would have ever given her a Valentine’s Day card. She hadn’t thought it was real. Just like she hadn’t thought his attempts to talk to her were real.

But she also remembered the way he’d started to treat her after she’d thrown his card away. She remembered the way he’d belittled her. She remembered the way he made her feel so small and pathetic and unwanted.

Ella didn’t know what was real. Noah hadn’t been faking his pain, and she remembered the way he’d put himself between her and Brett’s knife. But he’d also meant it when he’d called her a selfish bitch after showing up at her door months earlier.

She didn’t know what to think, what to feel. All Ella knew was that Noah had told her he’d loved her, and it didn’t feel at all the way it was meant to.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of lectures that she paid no attention to and a drive home that she barely remembered. She did the reading she’d been assigned for the next day’s classes, prepped for a quiz, and replied to texts from Asher and Riley, but it was as though she were watching somebody else doing it all.

Noah had destroyed the world as she’d known it, shattered the reality that she’d been living in for years, pulled the rug out from under her, and shouted a truth at her that she was now too afraid to hope for. That night, she fell asleep, as she often did, with Noah on her mind.

She drifted off to the remembered sound of his broken voice telling her he’d loved her, and Ella’s last waking thought was that she wished he’d told her sooner.

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