Page 10 of Remember Us This Way

I knew he was troubled. I knew he was spiraling out of control, but the stranger who stood before me in the student office was nothing but a monster with a fractured soul. Those dark eyes I used to adore were cold and lifeless, not even close to the ones I used to know.

Noah always had a mean streak, but he’d go out of his way to reel it in when he was with me. The other kids on the playground were terrified to even look at me wrong because Noah was my protector, but not anymore. The hateful, cruel words that so easily fell from his lips . . . shit. They chilled me to the bone.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I ran as fast as my feet could take me, thankful it was too early for students to be crowding the halls, and the second I could, I barged through the door of the girls’ bathroom and threw up every single bite of my breakfast. And since then, I’ve been hiding out in here, too scared to take a single step outside that door, fearing what I might find.

I sat up all night, my heart racing as I tried to imagine what I was going to find this morning, but never in my wildest dreams did I picture that. I thought maybe he’d give me a sad smile, maybe he’d subtly push me away, or maybe he might have even wrapped me in his arms and told me how much he missed me.

God, I wanted him to do that so badly. I needed him to welcome me back into his arms, tell me that everything was going to be okay, and take away all the hurt from the past three years. I needed to breathe him in, needed to feel the warmth of his strong arms holding me to his chest, promising me that he would always be right by my side.

But what I got turned my heart to ash.

Don’t even get me started on the stench of cigarettes that wafted off him and made my stomach turn. He always swore to me that he’d never smoke, not after his grandfather died of lung cancer. He hated it and would turn up his nose at people smoking in the street. It made me realize that I can’t even pretend to know him anymore.

And yet, every piece of me was calling out to him, desperately needing him to make this right.

I hate how much I wanted him, and I hate that after three long years, he still owns every part of me, but what I hate most of all? Despite the words I threw back at him, he could see right through me as though not a single day had passed. He knew the effect his cruelty was having on me, and all he could do was slam the knife further into my chest and revel in my pain as he twisted it right to the hilt.

So why the hell do I still miss him so much?

He was beautiful. Breathtaking even. I’ve gone out of my way over the past few years not to look him up, not to delve into his world, but as his popularity grew, it’s almost been impossible not to know him from afar. Aunt Maya had told me how tall he’d gotten, how he’d filled out, those once boyish muscles now prominent and toned, but nothing could prepare me for seeing him in the flesh.

He was everything I always thought he’d become . . . physically at least. His dark hair was messy and too long, falling into his eyes, but it was always that way. Noah hated getting it cut; he always said it was a waste of time, but really he just hated how everyone would fawn over him and tell him how handsome he was.

I could see the defined ridges of his muscled pecs beneath his black shirt, and while I’ve never been that girl to go boy crazy and want what I can’t have, I wanted so desperately to reach out and touch him.

I can only imagine how that would have gone down.

This chisel-jawed version of Noah is a complete stranger to me. I don’t know him, and honestly, I’m too scared to try. All I know is that there’s a little boy buried deep inside of him—a little boy I once loved with all of my heart—screaming to get out.

Noah Ryan is stuck living in a hell he created for himself, pushing away anything that could possibly force him to feel, and for the first time in three years, I find myself questioning if I have it in me to save him.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I hear the rush of students outside the bathroom door and realize it’s probably time to pull myself together and get on with it. Tarni, Abby, and Cora should be here any minute, so if I don’t go and stop by my locker now, there’s a good chance I’ll be late for homeroom, and I’m not starting my junior year with detention.

Wiping my eyes, I check my reflection in the mirror, hating how red and puffy my face looks after spending the last twenty minutes bawling like some kind of pathetic loser. On the plus side, I need to make a shrine for my waterproof mascara. It held up beautifully.

Hoping to the Hemsworth gods that I can somehow get out of here unscathed, I raise my chin and push out into the packed halls. But the moment I settle into the crowd and head toward my locker, I realize just how foolish I was to hope for a miracle like that.

The halls are buzzing with the news of Noah’s transfer, and a heavy sense of dread sinks to the pit of my stomach. My gaze shifts through the corridor, constantly on guard, terrified of seeing him walk around the corner and pretending I don’t exist.

Reaching my locker unscathed, I let out a breath of relief, and my hands shake as I program my code. 0228. My birthday. It’s barely even eight-thirty in the morning, and I feel as though I’ve lived a whole lifetime in the past half hour.

Diving into the empty locker, I toss in my things before finding my class schedule and double-checking where I need to be for homeroom, unable to escape the constant chatter about the amazing Noah Ryan coming from behind me. Getting what I need for my morning classes, I close my locker just in time to hear my best friend’s voice rising over the hum of the crowd. “Well heyyyyy biiiiitch,” she hollers, Abby and Cora at her back, gossiping animatedly and barely sparing a second to glance up.

I plaster a smile across my face when Tarni flies into me, and as her arms wrap around me, her momentum pushes us both against my locker. “Where the hell have you been all morning? I’ve texted you like four hundred times. I was gonna grab you a coffee, but then it was like you fell off the face of the earth, so I didn’t bother.”

“Ah, shit, sorry,” I say with a cringe, slipping my phone out of my pocket to find an array of texts, most of them are from Tarni, but two are from Mom telling me she loves me, and one is from Aunt Maya checking in to make sure I made it through my morning alive. “Thanks anyway. I’ve been a little caught up this morning. I haven’t had a chance to check my phone until now.”

Tarni scoffs and settles against the lockers, her gaze shifting over the crowd as Abby and Cora creep in to say hello, hovering in front of us. “What were you doing anyway?” Tarni questions. “And don’t even think about telling me you were studying because classes haven’t even started yet, and I know that’s not true.”

A small grin pulls at my lips at her mention of our ongoing punchline where I tell her I’m busy with schoolwork just to get out of attending ridiculous parties. “No, I had to drop by the student office,” I tell her, hesitating to tell her about my run-in with Noah. “There umm . . . There was an issue with my class schedule that I needed to get fixed up.”

She narrows her gaze on me, and I shift my stare to the students passing, hoping she doesn’t try to delve deeper into this. Just like Noah, Tarni has always been able to see right through me, knowing exactly when I’m being untruthful. Or perhaps I’m just a really bad liar.

“So,” Abby says, glancing down the hallway. “Have you seen him yet?”

“Seen who?” I ask, my stomach doing flips.

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