Page 76 of Never Too Late

“I’m glad you can finally relax, if anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

And we spend the next two hours talking. About nothing. About everything. We talk about those we’ve lost, those we’ve met on the way. Memories of being on tour, being in the barracks. He tells me about our goddaughter and how beautiful she smiles.

We order takeout, demolish it like old times, and then curse about the work out we’re going to have to do to burn it off. I explain how I haven’t been working out, but I have been in the garden, to which he’s made several jokes about me now becoming a gardener and how it wasn’t on his 2024 bucket list.

“I was scared you wouldn’t be happy again, I prayed you would be. But after how that dipshit left things, I’m glad you’ve managed to be happy without him.”

Great.

“He didn’t deserve you, anyway.”

“What did you say?”

“I said he –”

“I heard what you said, Noah.”

I can’t look at him right now. I feel anger. I feel hurt.

“I’m sorry for bringing him up, I know he hurt you.” His voice becomes lower towards the end of the sentence. I can hear the sadness in his tone, but not in his choice of words.

Without a second thought, I go into protection mode. The two of them have never really gotten on with one another, I never questioned it. I respected it because he respected me. But now, I need to know why.

“Why doesn’t he deserve me, Noah?”

“Are you really asking me that question? I thought you’d move out here to move on from him. He hurt you, remember. I was the one that was there. I’m the one that’s here now. He didn’t think twice about ending things with a letter. I would never do that to you.” I can hear the sighing beneath his breath. “He’s cut off, he’s emotionless, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t love you, not like I –”

I cut him off.

I don’t want to hear another word. I can’t.

“He didn’t understand what he was doing when he sent that letter. He thought he was saving me. He wanted to protect me. That’s what he thought he was doing. He didn’t want to hurt me.”

I move my attention to the large windows, watching the flowers outside, feeling calm when the sunflowers come into view. Dax’s face instantly comes to my mind. He’s always been fascinated with flowers, but in more ways than one, him and them are very similar. Some ignore them, some don’t see how precious they really are. Not everyone sees the beauty within them. But I do.

“Dax doesn’t think the same way as we do, Noah. His brain works differently. He’s no less of a person than either me or you, he just thinks and does things in an opposite way to what we do. He notices the things around us that we don’t, and he appreciates the things we don’t understand.”

“But he hurt you. He doesn’t care… What-What if he hurts you again?”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, but I’ll still be here either way. When Dax feels, he feels with his whole heart. Being loved by him is the most magical feeling I have ever felt. Just looking at his face makes my heart want to burst. I get he comes across differently to you. But believe me, no one is his worst enemy more than he is his own. If the question you want to ask so much is, did I come back here for him? Yes. Yes, I did. And I’d do it a million times over if I had to.”

I slowly lift my head to look at Noah. The red rings around his brown eyes tell me all I need to know. He’s crying.

I don’t want to hurt him. Especially after I owe him so much. But it also makes me question everything.

Is this what Isaac knew about when he told me I needed to tell Noah about Dax myself? Have I been leading Noah on all along?

The sound of his pained cries the moment I was shot haunt my mind. Everything he did to save my life; it was so much more than losing a brother to him, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for the pain I’ve caused.

He’s my brother. I’ve never seen him as anything more.

“I’m sorry, Noah, if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I can’t sit and lie to you. I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you the impression I feel anything towards –”

He cuts me off.

“Please don’t say it. I, I don’t know how I feel. I’m confused. I don’t know. I just thought. I don’t know what I thought.”

His body starts to shake, and his breaths come in hard and heavy.

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