Page 3 of My Kind of Trouble
Unlike Noa, Ryan hadn’t wandered too far from home when he’d moved out. Still sitting in the car outside herparents’, she glanced to the bottom of the street. There, she could see his small inconspicuous cottage, tucked behind overgrown green shrubbery, a huge opposition to her brother’s exuberant energy. She’d made fun of him endlessly at first, teasing him for being too chicken to fly too far from their parents’ nest. But who was laughing now?
The slamming of a car door, followed by loud greetings between neighbours, halted her trip down memory lane.
Noa turned to her cat, eagerly meowing to be let out of her cage where she sat on the back seat.
‘We’re back where we started, Tinks,’ Noa whispered to her feline companion with a deflated sigh.
Tinks had always been Noa’s emotional support animal and had moved out with her when she was twenty and it seemed the two of them had come full circle together. It was hard not to feel that heavy sense of failure and somehow, despite her grounding techniques, her mind still wandered to forty-eight hours before.
Lucas’s ‘we can still be friends’ still rang on repeat in her head, along with him calling her ‘irrational’ as she packed her bags to immediately flee the scene of their breakup.
They didn’t call it fight-or-flight for nothing. And irrational or not, she’d chosen flight as she hightailed it out of there.
Noa shook her head to rid herself of the hazy memories. In less than twenty-four hours, she had called her mum, quit her job, and driven halfway across the country back to her parents’ house where she now sat paralysed by the gravity of what she had done. Again, maybe that was a dramatic reaction, but if after six years her relationship truly was over, then why delay the inevitable, right?
Whilst for some people a move like this might be as insignificant as changing a pair of socks, to Noa it felt like she was free-falling with no one waiting to catch her. It was like being on a fairground ride when the carriage suddenly drops, taking her stomach with it, except the ride doesn’t end, and neither does the sensation that comes along with it. She had never been an impulsive person. It simply wasn’t in her makeup. Maintaining control and acting according to a well-established plan had always kept her anxiety at bay. The closest she had ever come to an impulsive decision was when she’d decided to use a semi-permanent box dye to turn her hair Rhianna red at eighteen.
So, maybe this rash decision should be concerning; the personality transplant was what they would probably reflect on later as the beginning of her mental breakdown. When she left for university and her career eight years ago, relocating hadn’t felt like a big deal. But now, retreating back to her old life with no master plan, did. There was no goal she was chasing. And that made her feel dizzy.
But when Lucas ended things, there was a voice inside her head telling her that she had to get out of there—it hurt too much not to. She couldn’t breathe in that flat they shared so many memories in, a constant reminder of the future she had lost. And she couldn’t process her emotions with him there either. So, here she was, in a place she had always imagined herself returning to, yet the circumstances couldn’t be further from the plan she had envisioned. It made it impossible to know whether she should be grateful for the push that brought her back here or wallow in fear and heartbreak.
It was a battle in her brain, a dichotomy of emotions, and it was exhausting.
Whilst she too, knew her and Lucas had grown apart as of late, she really thought the conversation was coming where they’d talk about how they could work through it. But, it seems, they truly had been on different wavelengths. Or maybe denial really was her go-to coping mechanism.
She’d talk to her therapist about that later.
With that thought in mind, Noa took one more deep, soothing breath, opened the car door, and let her feet hit the pavement to make her way to the old terrace house. For the first time in her life, Noa’s family home, did not fill her with comfort. The sudden realisation that this was not just a vivid dream, but real life, sunk in. Had she made the right decision?
She didn’t get a chance to dwell on that too long as the door flew open and she was enveloped into her mum’s arms, her floral scent making Noa feel at home. She was then clumsily tackled to the floor by her not-so-gracious older brother. With a playful huff, she shoved him off and got to her feet.
The smell of her mum’s home cooking coated her nostrils and pulled her through the house and into the family kitchen. The room was dimly lit by candle and firelight. It had historically been a cardinal sin to turn on the ‘Big Light’ in their house. Her mum had always thought it gave their home a friendly and cosy feel compared to harsh artificial light, and right now Noa couldn’t agree more. Wood crackled and popped in the log burner, a comforting soundtrack that made her want to curl up with a book and get lost in a fictional world for a while. But, no matter how much she tried to ignore it, she knew that this was not just another story. This was real life, and she certainly was not getting her happily ever after.
Chapter 3
Noa
After what felt like hours of countless trips traipsing all of her worldly belongings from her car up the two flights of stairs to her single box room, Noa stood there, looked around her, and took it all in.
‘Well, this is cosy,’ she muttered to Tinks who had quickly settled under the radiator on a pile of old blankets. The purring bundle of fluff was a true constant in Noa’s life, which was something she valued now more than ever. She’d also become a good listener over the years. God only knows Lucas had rarely listened to her ramblings the wayTinks always had. In fact, there was only one other person who had listened to her, truly listened and saw her, the way her furry companion did. But she ruined that relationship years ago. With a heavy sigh, Noa picked up her cat and snuggled into the fur at her neck, letting the soft rumbles of her purrs ease all her worries.
‘We only need each other, don’t we Tinks. Us against the world,’ she rambled, ‘And definitely no men allowed.’
Tinkerbell purred louder at that, and Noa decided she had already started to go mad. Although, some might say that boat set sail years ago.
Surveying the hoard of boxes and bags, Noa knew what she needed to do next.Home sweet home, she thought as she pulled out her various photo frames from the boxes on her floor and hung them in a random pattern on her wall using the self-adhesive strips her brother had brought up for her. He had always known her so well, and he knew Noa never quite felt at home until she had her photographs hanging and her books and trinkets on the shelves. As if she had conjured him, the broad-shouldered man that her once gangly and always goofy older brother had turned into appeared in her doorframe. He looked so different since the last time she saw him. Sure, they had talked on FaceTime, but seeing him in the flesh she was reminded again of the passing of time. And of how much she had neglected her family over recent years.
She wanted that time back.
But, knowing that wasn’t a miracle she could just manifest, she knew she could only move forward and nurture the relationships that had always been there. And always would.
She had clearly put too much energy into the wrong place, and she wouldn’t do that again.
‘Why do you look so constipated? If that is your thinking face, then stop—we don’t want the wind to change and for your face to stay like that,’ Ryan remarked, laughing at his own crappy joke.
‘Jesus, I don’t come home for a few months and you turn into Dad. Has anyone ever told you how much you sound like him? Be careful Ry, you’ll have the receding hairline next!’ she threw back, knowing just the thing to say to rile up her big brother.
‘Take that back or I’ll remind you that you have just become a spinster overnight.’
