Page 80 of Noah

I'd need to tell him I was going to be late.

Ricky snapped my phone out of my hand and stepped away from me. His eyebrows rose as he scrolled through the thread. "Who's this Noah? Your latest victim?"

"Fuck off!" I surged at him, grappling with Ricky's hold on my phone. "Give me my damned phone back ... you fucking asshole." It wasn't like me to swear but Ricky brought out the worst in me. Not sure why we stayed together for the entirety of those seven months.

I had trusted Ricky and he had torn me to pieces.

Now I was trusting Noah.

And his words.

My chest ached and my pulse escalated, sounding like machinegun fire in my head. I started to tingle all over. Either I was headed for a panic attack, or I was about to have a meltdown.

"Does he know how cold you can be?"

"I'm not." I wasn't. Not with Noah.

I controlled my breathing, deescalating.

"How you get so wrapped up in your own thoughts, you don't have time for anything anyone else is feeling? Does he know that about you? Are you going to put him through that?"

Ricky handed me my phone.

"Are you going to promise to love him and then close yourself off to him?" He stared at me. "Are you going to do that, Brody? Are you going to ruin someone else's life?"

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. What Ricky was saying … his words were colliding with what I remembered like an army of freight trains that weren't designed to couple.

Was I really that monster?

Had I hurt Ricky?

"No," I shouted. "You cheated on me. You never loved me."

"I told you why I cheated on you." Ricky wandered toward me and placed his hand on my chest. "I loved you, but you weren't capable of truly loving me back. I felt so alone."

"You said you only stayed with me for the sex and because I had a nice apartment."

"I was hurting. You hurt me … I wanted to hurt you back."

I pinched my eyes closed against the tears forming. I gave my head another shake. No. No, it hadn't been my fault. I snapped my eyes open. "Why are you here?"

Ricky sighed. "As usual, you don't want to talk about it." He patted my chest and moved away. "I just wanted to see you. Make sure you're doing all right."

He pointed at my phone. "This guy … this Noah. Don't hurt him like you hurt me."

"I would never hurt Noah."

"You say that. And then you'll lock yourself behind that shield of yours."

It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.

My phone dinged.

Noah: Missing you.

I swallowed hard. If Ricky was telling the truth about his feelings and the way I had treated him, I didn't deserve someone as special as Noah. I deserved to be alone. I loved Noah on a level I had never loved Ricky. I would never want to do anything to hurt him.

I ignored the text and stuffed my phone in my pocket.

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