Page 101 of Remember Us This Way

“What?” she breathes, searching my gaze for some kind of understanding.

“There’s the pained whimper when you’ve hurt yourself, like last weekend when you fucked up your hip,” I start, my fingers brushing over the bruise I know still lingers beneath her jeans. “There’s the trembling lip cry that you get when you’re watching The Notebook. They’re the two I always hope for when I hear you crying, but sometimes . . . it’s different. Sometimes it comes right from the soul, and that’s when I know you’re heartbroken or when I’ve done something to hurt you so deeply you can’t possibly hold it in any longer. And fuck, Zo, I’m the only one who’s ever made you cry like that.”

“That’s only three,” she murmurs, those silent tears tracking down her cheeks as her fingers knot into the front of my shirt—her nervous habit.

“The fourth,” I tell her, wiping the tears off her rosy cheeks. “I’ve only ever heard it once, and it fucking killed me.”

She nods, already knowing what I’m referring to. “The day Linc died.”

I nod right back. “That cry . . . That one gutted me. That’s the cry of someone who’s hurting beyond measure, a cry that not even I could have helped.”

Her gaze drops away, her bottom lip trembling. “I . . . I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

There’s a nervousness to her tone, and I’d kill to be inside her mind right now, to know what she’s thinking, to know what quick assumptions she’s making of this conversation, but I also know her well enough to know that whatever’s going through her mind, it’s as bad as it gets.

My thumb brushes across her trembling lip, trying to soothe her as I feel myself starting to fall to pieces. “Because I’ve spoken to you every day this week,” I explain, barely in a whisper as I hold her saddened stare, “And while you’ve pretended to be interested in whatever mindless bullshit I was talking about, you sat on the other end, silently crying. Every damn time.”

Her eyes widen, and my lips pull into a soft smile, trying to let her know that I’m not mad. “You thought that you were being discreet,” I murmur, my hands falling to her waist, desperately needing to hold her, “but I can tell just by the change in your breath that you were crying.”

A deep shame flashes in her eyes before her gaze falls away, and I hate every second of it. She should never have to feel shame for something like that, all I want is for her to let me in. “This cry, Zo . . . This one is different,” I tell her, gripping her waist a little tighter as though she might just disappear. “It makes me uneasy because it means I either don’t know you as well as I thought, or that you’re hurting so fucking bad that you can’t even find the strength to share it with me.”

“Noah,” she cries, gripping my shirt tighter and falling into me, plastering herself against my body.

I reach up, my hand gently stroking the back of her hair because even in my own pain, I can’t stand the thought of hers. “You’re my whole world, Zo. If I didn’t have you, I don’t know what I would do,” I tell her. “I can’t stand the thought that there’s a part of you that you’re not able to open up to me about. Did something happen? Did I do something wrong that makes you feel you can’t confide in me anymore?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her lips moving against my neck. “I never intended to make you feel like that. You’ve always been everything to me, Noah. The only person I’ve ever truly needed. You know how much I love you.”

“So why the hell does it feel like you’re pulling away from me?”

She shakes her head. “It’s just been a really hard week, and hearing your voice just made everything feel so much easier. I didn’t realize you could hear me. It’s just . . . You’re my peace, Noah. Talking to you, even on my worst days . . . You make me feel as though nothing else matters, that no matter what, I’m always going to be okay.”

My lips press against her temple, and I breathe her in, my chest aching in a different way. She still needs me, more than ever, but she’s holding back, not able to open up and share whatever it is that’s been plaguing her all week. “Zo, please. What’s going on?” I beg. “If something is hurting you or bringing you down, I want to know. I want to help you. I can’t stand that I don’t know what’s going on with you right now.”

She pulls back, her hand still knotting into my shirt. Her eyes are wary, as though she’s deep in thought, warring with herself about something. “It’s . . .” she says hesitantly, pausing as her lips press into a tight line, and then I see the exact moment she decides that she’s not ready to let me in, and it fucking destroys me more than the thought of her possibly being done with me. “I just . . . It’s been a shitty week. I haven’t been sleeping well, and on top of missing you, school’s been . . . hard.”

There’s a level of truth in her tone, and I don’t doubt anything that she’s saying. It’s clear from the exhaustion in her eyes that she hasn’t been sleeping, but whatever this is, it’s so much bigger than whatever is happening at school, but I’m not about to push her on that. All I can do is hope that when she’s ready, she’ll be able to let me in. “What’s happening at school?” I ask. “Is it Shannan?”

She nods, glancing down at her fingers in my shirt. “Yeah, she’s been . . . it’s bad.”

“What do you mean bad? I thought she was leaving you alone.” Zoey winces as though my comment physically pains her, and I realize that for the past few weeks, she’s been sugarcoating everything that’s been going down at school to avoid worrying me. “Fuck, Zo. What’s she doing?”

She glances away again, that same shame seeping into her gaze. “I think the better question is what isn’t she doing?”

I curse under my breath, my jaw clenching as my arms tighten around her. “Zo,” I prompt, my patience quickly wearing thin.

She lets out a heavy breath before reaching across the center console and grabbing her phone from her bag. She unlocks the screen before pulling up a picture and turning it around to show me. My blood instantly turns cold at the photoshopped image of Zoey taking up the screen. She’s on her hands and knees, ass high in the sky as she looks back over her shoulder while touching herself. “This is only the beginning of it,” she tells me. “It gets worse from there.”

“Worse?” I grunt. “How the fuck does it get worse than this?”

“She had someone hack my phone, or I don’t know, maybe they stole it from my locker and put it back before I realized. But they took screenshots of our messages—the ones that are . . . you know, more than just flirting.”

“Fucking hell, Zoey. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Because you’re in college now. You have so much more to be focusing on,” she argues. “You shouldn’t be spending every minute of the day trying to figure out how to save me when you should be focused on training and classes. Besides, what does that say about me? That I can’t handle this on my own and need my scary boyfriend to come and protect me every time someone even looks at me wrong?”

“Look at yourself, Zo. You’re fucking miserable,” I growl. “I don’t want you to live like this. If something happens, you need to tell me. You need to let me fix it.”

“Noah—”

---