Page 15 of Til Divorce Do Us Start

Chapter 9 - Noelle

What am I doing? I pull back and blink a few times, embarrassed that I just got sucked into his gorgeous blue eyes. I’m touching his chest, leaning in like a swooning girl all over again. I clear my throat and realize exactly how close I was to kissing him.

Our lips were all but touching!

Clearing my throat and standing up fully, I see he’s tenting his pants. I clear my throat and turn around. “I um ... I can make dinner.”

“Can you?” He asks.

“Yeah. It’ll just take me thirty minutes ... maybe an hour,” I say.

Why can’t I take my hands off him?He feels so good. The light hairs across his chest, the muscle sturdy and sure under my palms, how warm he is. I can evenfeelhis voice vibrating under my palm.

“Noelle?” He asks again.

“Right. I’m ... Upgraded ramen,” I say, forcing my hands off him.

It shouldn’t be this hard. But anytime I look at his lips, I’m tempted to lean in and take the kiss I want. Looking at his hard on reminds me of him in the shower, stroking himself and how I’ve been masturbating to that memory repeatedly. I shudder and try to focus on the stove. It’s just ramen with extras. I can manage it.

Since I clearly can’t manage being close to Colin.

I can’t pin the exact moment we went from fights that had neighbors complaining to actually talking to each other, let alone kissing, but ... but it feels dangerous. I won’t fall for him again. Ican’t. It will just hurt me all over again. I’ve rebuilt my pride, my ego, adjusted so much so I never wake up alone and used again.

But do I actually hate him anymore?

My brow furrows. I don’t know. I’ve hated him for so long I’m not sure I have it in me to stop. How can I hate him and want him? How can I hate Colin and know that if I have a problem, he will be the first one to fix it, to protect me, even from myself (considering how many times he’s pushed headache meds at me, pushed oven mitts at me, and installed a slip mat within the shower after I slipped just once.

Three weeks of living together and I can’t seem to find the same hatred I once had.

***

It takes aweekfor me to be willing to do anything about my confusion. A week for me to find the words to put together what our almost kiss and second civil conversation meant.

And even after a week, I can’t let go of the thought, I take a slow breath and walk out for dinner. I sit down at the kitchen table that I have never used and watch Colin. I think I hear him humming, but that’s ridiculous.

That’s whatIdo to piss him off. I can even make out the song. It’s what I was singing all day yesterday. The song I just couldn’t get out of my head. The longer I watch him the more confused I am. Because I don’twantto hate him, but I want him to know why I do.

I want him to know why every nice thing he does twists me up more, why I’ve been almost hiding from him this last week because fighting with him feels wrong, but being nice feels worse. Hearing him sing that song makes it clear I have to saysomething. Now or never.

Once he starts plating things, he turns, looks at me, then pauses as I kick my foot at the table. He brings the plates over and pauses, obviously confused.

“Do you have wine?” I ask. I know I’m going to need it.

I’m sure he doesn’t approve since it’s a weeknight, but Colin brings some back to the table and pours it for both of us. I take a long drink and look at Colin as he takes a bite of his food, his eyes flicking to me.

“You hurt me, Colin,” I say softly. “You ruined one very good night and the ten years since by disappearing.”

He sets his fork down.

“And even the simple nice things you’ve done for me feel like rubbing salt into that old wound,” I admit. “I gave you my phone number and woke up with it still there. You didn’t even pretend to take it, but now you know my favorite show and when I need it and put it on without thinking about it. You’re humming the song that’s stuck in my head! You do all this while we hate each other, but you didn’t even take my number,” I whisper.

He slowly chews and looks down. “It wasn’t about you, Noelle.”

“If it wasn’t, you could have texted me and said you weren’t interested in a relationship. You could have said it was a fun night, but you weren’t up for more,” I argue.

He rubs his jaw.

“Do you know how hard it still is for me to trust anyone? Do you know how hard it is for me to open up to people because I’m afraid they’ll disappear? I spent months going over what I did wrong. If I shared too much between rounds, if I did something wrong, how I could fix it,” I admit. “I hated it. Every second of it. I felt so unlovable and undesirable.”

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