Page 99 of Catching My Dreams

“I’ll leave you to it,” Edith said, making her escape as well.

Noah was grateful for her exit because lying to his dad would be hard enough without his stepmom hovering.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Noah murmured when it was just the two of them standing in front of the sizzling steaks. “I just had to end things even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.”

His dad nodded, but the line between his eyebrows indicated he didn’t fully understand. “I can’t say I respect your reasons for ending things, but you need to do what feels right to you.”

“Right.”

“And did ending things with Ella feel like the right thing to do?”

Fuck no, Noah thought. “Yes,” he said, making the falsehood more convincing by thinking about what the consequences would have been had he not done it.

His dad nodded. “Staying with someone you don’t want to be with is crueler than ending things,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been fair to either of you, especially her.”

“Exactly,” Noah replied, nearly choking on the bitter taste of the lie.

“Your friends will come around,” his dad said.

“Yeah.”

But Noah knew they wouldn’t, especially Asher. He’d promised he wouldn’t hurt Ella, and he’d done precisely that. And without Ella, he found he couldn’t care much about the thought of the others giving up on him. Without her, everything felt meaningless.

28

“Why don’t we go out?” Riley suggested.

Ella would rather tear all of her fingernails out. She’d been sobbing in the shower and crying herself to sleep every night since Noah had decided he didn’t want her. She’d dissolved into a weeping mess after trying and failing more than once to tear up his sketch of Archie. She was most certainly not up for going out.

“That would require me getting changed into pants that are significantly less comfortable,” she replied. She was perfectly happy lounging around in her sweatpants, and she didn’t care if she was being pathetic. She was moping, but she had every right to do so.

“What if I invite Asher and Chris over?” the lavender-haired thorn in her side added.

Ella shook her head, flinching when the movement pulled on her sore muscles and had the ache behind her eyes flaring. “So they can both stare at me like I’m a charity case? No thanks. I don’t need their pity.”

“They’re just worried about you,” Riley said, but she was only making Ella’s point for her. “And so am I.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Ella argued, her spoon gliding through her tub of softened chocolate brownie ice cream. She’d been eating it long enough that it had melted just enough to be the perfect spooning consistency.

“Is that why you’re eating ice cream at eleven in the morning and wearing the same sweatpants and shirt you had on yesterday?”

Ella rolled her eyes. “I woke up with a migraine, so I’m having a pajama day. Sue me.”

It was true she’d woken up with a migraine, and a bad one at that. Noah leaving her had resulted in the added physical consequence of her muscle tension returning to exorbitant levels and her headaches worsening to unbearable extremes again.

She was surprised she’d even gotten out of bed that morning to answer Riley’s incessant knocking on her front door. It had taken several painkillers before she’d been able to open her eyes without squinting in the daylight. She felt like a vampire. Pale. Allergic to the sun. Dead inside.

“Plus, if it escaped your memory, I’ll remind you that I didn’t miss a single class this week,” she continued. “If I wasn’t okay, would I have managed that?”

Riley didn’t need to know that she’d only been going to her lectures because she couldn’t face the thought of being at home alone with the ghost of Brett’s presence still haunting the place.

She’d been so afraid of him returning that she’d even put Archie in boarding while she’d been in class, too afraid that Brett might come back and hurt him while she was gone.

But now she didn’t have classes, and Archie was back at home, and she wasn’t going to leave him. She also couldn’t bear to socialize when her chest was still bruised and aching from the beating Noah had given her heart. Having Riley there was plenty enough. She didn’t think she could handle more than that.

“I was surprised you showed up,” Riley acknowledged. “But I still think we should go out. You could use some fun.”

Ella pressed her lips together. “It’s my birthday next Saturday. We can go out then.”

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