Page 49 of Forever and Ever

He rakes his hands through his hair and pulls it back, stopping in front of me and tipping his face up to the sky.

“You okay?”

He shakes his head and laughs, but there’s pain buried in the chuckle.

“No.” The word nearly chokes in his throat. “It shouldn’t be so fucking difficult.”

He could be talking about resisting the drugs, or he could be talking about a whole mess of other things, but I don’t ask him to clarify, because I can feel the energy radiating off him like the start of a nuclear explosion.

And all I can say is, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry this is hard.

I’m sorry I’m not a better friend.

I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.

I’m sorry you’re being swallowed whole, and I don’t have it in me to save you.

Noah dips his chin and looks down at me, the darkness in his gaze replaced with something emptier, and much more terrifying.

“I know,” he says, reaching out and taking my hand in his own.

If only my heart didn’t skip when he did it.

15

Merry

IexpectedNoah’sconstanttapping to annoy me after a while. His fingers and hands make a drumbeat on every surface, every minute of the day. It’s like muscle memory from him playing the drums for so many years that his hands just can’t help it.

Somehow, it’s strangely calming.

His tapping fills the silence of the house, and I almost forget that we’re in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but trees.

Almost.

Noah sits on the couch opposite me playing a video game, tapping the back of the controller with his pinkies as he focuses. When he dies for what feels like the hundredth time in the last hour, he tips his head back and lets out an annoyed grunt.

“I don’t get it,” I say, setting my notebook in my lap.

Noah turns his head to face me wearing that blinding smile on his face. “Don’t get what?”

“If the game makes you so frustrated, why do you play it?” I wave my hand at the television screen he’s spent the last hour yelling at.

“Because.” He shrugs. “I like it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“That’s because I’m losing.” Noah lifts an eyebrow at me.

I level my gaze at him. “Yet you keep playing.”

Noah sits up and swings his legs off the couch to sit facing me. “Like I’ve told you before, beautiful, the hardest-fought things are usually worth the wait.”

Then he winks. He fucking winks. Of course, he has to go and make this about us.

I roll my eyes and hope it masks the cracks I feel in my armor every time he says something like that. I might be immune to Noah’s rock star charms, but that doesn’t make me entirely impenetrable by him, the man.

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