Page 54 of My Kind of Trouble
Alex nodded, his eyes locked on Noa’s.
‘But then, she left, too.’
An emotion passed across his face. She couldn’t place it before he blinked it away.
‘I decided that feelings and relationships didn’t have a place in my life after that.’
She left.
Her heart dropped, and she felt all the blood drain from her face. She didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want to say it, but she had to.
‘Who was she, Alex?’
‘You, Trouble. The only girl who has ever made it past the barriers of my cold, dead heart is you.’
Time stopped for a moment. The world spun around her and her ears rang. She didn’t know if she really was becoming sick, or if it was the magnitude of the words he had spoken that threatened to sweep her feet from under her.
She had heard him use that nickname for her throughout every stage in her life and thought nothing of it. It had irritated her for the longest time. Then, recently, it had turned into an endearment that warmed her heart, had started to wrap itself around her like a comfort blanket. But, right now, it weighed on her, so much more significance in that one word. Like, all this time, it hid a thousand meanings that she had ignored, until now when it glared at her in her face.
Noa felt a tear fall from her eyes and trail down her cheek and Alex reached out with his thumb to catch it. But, in that same moment, as if the world couldn’t just let them have this, her stomach started to churn in a way it hadn’t before, and she felt the heat rising up her throat like she was going to be sick.
No, she thought,not now.
She needed to say something. There was so much she needed to say. She needed to hug him, and hold him, and make sure he knew what he was worth to her, make him understand that not everyone set out to leave him. But when she opened her mouth and the bile rose, threatening to bring with it her entire stomach contents, all she could do was rise from the sand and run to the nearest toilet.
Abandoning him, yet again.
Chapter 32
Alex
Alex spent the last hour pacing up and down the beach trying to fight the intrusive thoughts trying to come to the surface. Had she really just left like that? He’d thought they were having a moment. The entire night had felt so perfect. They’d talked for hours. She’d opened up to him in ways she never had before, and it made him want to do the same, to be vulnerable and put it all on the line, too. But now, all he felt was overwhelming regret and unfiltered rage.
How had he so badly misread the situation? Why did he think this time would be any different? Why did he think she was anydifferent?
The questions bounced around Alex’s head on repeat, and there was so many of them that he couldn’t sit still. He scoffed to himself and kicked the sand like it had personally offended him. There were no sounds on the beach but the rhythmic crashing of waves, the distant cries of birds, and the faint staccato chirping of cicadas. Where the quiet had felt soothing earlier, it now felt deafening, allowing his thoughts to run wild. He tried to tell himself that, maybe, it was too much too soon. Maybe she had gotten overwhelmed, maybe he’d scared her. She’d only just come out of a long relationship. God, what was he thinking? He should have just kept his mouth shut.
As his thoughts started to spiral, he realised that maybe hers were doing the same. Noa Drake was many things—beautiful, smart, stubborn, and a serial overthinker. He knew well what being in your own head was like, and it could eat you alive at times if you allowed it to. He didn’t ever want to be the reason she was struggling like that, so he turned and started to march quickly toward their cabins in the hopes that they could talk it out together.
But when Alex arrived at Noa’s cabin, she was nowhere to be seen. Turning and glancing around, he spotted the dim lights coming from the shared bathroom a few huts down, but no noises were coming from inside. He waited on Noa’s porch steps for ten minutes, but when she didn’t arrive back, he felt like invisible creepy crawlies had started to embed themselves under his skin. Something didn’t feel right.
He stood, dusting himself off, and then headed in the direction of the bathroom. Knocking, there was no reply, so he gently eased the door open and almost fell back at the sight before him.
Noa was slouched between the wall and the toilet, a deathly grey colour to her usually rosy cheeks. Her eyes were closed, and for a minute, he wondered whether she was even conscious until a garbled groan escaped her lips and the fear gripping his chest loosened. God, he’d been so busy thinking the worst and she was in here, sick and alone. She was shivering despite the humidity on the island. He pressed his palm to her clammy forehead.
‘Shit, Noa, you’re burning up.’
Her eyes fluttered open, but only for a brief second before she spoke. Her voice was so small it was barely audible.
‘I think I ate something and I…’
Before she could finish her sentence, she was back over the toilet bowl, emptying her stomach, letting out small whimpers as she went. Noa had practically inhaled a vegetable stew at dinner and, trying to run through the evening in his head, he hadn’t seen anyone else so much as touch it.
Damn it.
Between every retch came soft sobs that threatened to rip his chest clean open. He’d never seen her this vulnerable, and the thought of her being sick made a knot form in his stomach. He frantically wracked his brain for what his mum used to do for him when he was sick, then dropped to his knees beside her, gently rubbing circles into her back with one hand and holding the hair from her face with the other.
Once she’d finished, her entire body went limp as she slid back onto the toilet floor. Finding a wash-cloth in her mess of toiletries he dampened it with cold water, running it across the fevered skin of her arms, neck, and face.
