Page 11 of My Kind of Trouble
Tes had been Noa’s sounding board on more occasions than she could count over the last year or so as she talked through her and Lucas’s troubles. Even if she saw now that maybe it was Lucas she should have really been having those conversations with, Tes always gave the best advice, approaching all their conversations with a supportive, yet brutal, honesty that she wasgrateful for.
‘So let me get this right…’ Tes slurred as she stood from the sofa with her hands on her hips. ‘After everything you did for that boy…’ she shoved one finger in the air. ‘I’m sorry, I cannot in good faith bring myself to call him a man because that would simply be a lie. But, after all you did, the sacrifices you made, the time you gave him… he just let you go.’
‘He did more than that that. He as good as asked me to. I know we hadn’t been seeing eye to eye as of late, and maybe we have been wanting different things, but it feels like the moment he realised that and realised he might have to make some sacrifices himself, he chucked in the towel instead of putting in the work when times got tough, you know?’
Tes nodded.
‘And, don’t get me wrong, I know we shouldn’t have to sacrifice ourselves or our happiness for the sake of a relationship,’ Noa continued, ‘but the way he made it out was like this had been coming for a while. So, if he never had any intention of putting our relationship first or giving it the care it deserved, then why did he waste so much of my time by keeping me around for so long if it was so “inevitable”, as he put it?’
Her shoulders sagged, and she huffed out in exasperation, ‘I just can’t believe he felt like that, you know?’ Tes just stared at Noa like she had something to say, but didn’t know if she should.
‘What?’ Noa pressed.
‘Well… did you not see it coming?’ Tes said. ‘You told me months ago you felt like he rarely put your needs before his, and that you hadn’t been on a date in almost a year. Did you question him or bring it up before now? You know I love you, but you do have a tendency of burying your head in the sand and ignoring your problems instead of dealing with them head-on. You always said communication never came naturally between you two. Are you sure you didn’t just miss the signs? Did he really never try to voice his side of things and his issues, or did you just choose to ignore it because it was easier? You also told me you’d started bickering about little things all the time, so I don’t think it’s an altogether shocking turn of events.’
Wow, Tes really was a no holds barred kind of friend, but sometimes it really did take Noa by surprise just how honest she could be. She felt grateful for her all over again, even if a little wounded.
‘Okay, so maybe I was comfortable and too scared to do anything about it, but I still think we missed a step in the breakup, you know? Like, we never even tried to make it work, we didn’t talk about our issues and how we could resolve them at all.’
‘There’s that lack of communication rearing its head again, but maybe it went both ways. And then, one day, it just felt too late,’ Tes reasoned. ‘I agree, and am equally appalled that he didn’t voice his concerns way sooner and given things a chance, but you were far too patient with him. But… and this is a big fat but… I know my best friend and I know you avoid conflict like the plague and will have equally allowed him to do that.’
Tes could interpret the situation so well and, as much as she hated to admit it, deep down Noa knew she was right. However, in that moment, had Noa been a dog, she would have put her tail between her legs, cowering at her friend’s brutal honesty. This was why she needed her best friend at a time like this, to tell her straight what sometimes she just refused to acknowledge.
With that wake-up call probably being displayed all over Noa’s sombre facial expression, Tes expertly attempted to lighten the mood by shouting a little too loudly, ‘Oh, and did you not tell me he refused to use your vibrator on you when you told him you’d like that?’
She let her palm fall to her chest, feigning a look of horror.
‘I’m sorry, girl, but that right there should have been your final straw! A man who finds his masculinity so threatened by a rubber toy that he will deny his girlfriend a killer orgasm should immediately be put in the bin, whether you loved him or not,’ she added, holding her hands up like she was under arrest.
Noa laughed, a huge belly laugh that felt really good, as she threw a pillow at her drama queen of a friend. She was absolutely right. Lucas had often shut down her ideas to spice things up in the bedroom. And, although she knew he hadn’t ever tried to deliberately make her feel bad or kink shamed, she had been embarrassed all the same. It was safe to say she had put her guard up after that and not been honest about her desires again. This girl’s afternoon was everything she had needed and more, and she felt so much lighter for it.
‘Oh, oh, oh! I know what you need,’ Tes squealed again, jumping off the sofa and doing an excited dance like she’d just discovered the world’s best-kept secret.
‘Do tell…’ Noa pressed.
‘Well, a good dicking,obviously,’ Tes stated so matter-of-factly. ‘And from someone who knows what they’re doing. A real man. You have been deprived for far too long and looking likethat…’ she emphasised the last word, waving her arms in Noa’s direction. ‘Well, it is simply a crime that must be rectified. My best friend is hot and deserves a man who makes her feel that way.’
Noa rolled her eyes and decided to brush her friend off.
‘No, Tes, what I need is a plan. I did not just call you here to get prosecco drunk on a Friday afternoon and join Tinder. I need your help.’
Noa updated Tes on her less-than-successful job search, and then digressed into the fact that she was now twenty-eight and couldn’t shake the feeling like she had just taken too many steps to count backwards in her life. She felt like, without even knowing it, she had been making sacrifices for her relationship that she was clearly just ‘comfortable’ in for the past few years and now, with thirty fast approaching, she just felt lost and lacking any sense of direction.
She’d done a lot of thinking over the last forty-eight hours, and Noa couldn’t remember the last time her heart had felt like it beat just for Lucas, a time where she felt head over heels in love with him.
She knew she had once, but had she just been trying to make the pieces fit? Content in a life that was easy and predictable? Had she been scared of starting over and let that fear hold her back?
Yes! The exasperated voice in her head huffed.
After that epiphany, the realisation that she definitely wasn’t getting any younger, and that she wasn’t where she thought she would be at her age, had hit her like a truck over the past few days. It seemed any time she picked up her phone, her social media was concentrated with people she once knew who were now either settling down, getting married, having babies, or making big career moves, and she just didn’t know where she fit into it all.
She wasn’t moving forward at all. Since finishing university, she had been in the same editing role in the samecity. She wasn’t sure how she wanted her life to look without that.
Was she supposed to have it all together now? Because that’s what her eighteen-year-old self had sat in her bedroom and imagined.
When she thought back to how she had viewed the world back then, she remembered staring at the ‘grown-ups’ around her and wanting to be them. Feeling in awe of how together their lives were. Being a teenager and having your life dictated by people around her, she remembered wanting the freedom they had.
But was that an illusion? Because Noa didn’t feel very much like the adult she thought she’d be. She’d neglected and abandoned her childhood dream of writing in favour of security and what she thought was a guaranteed future, only to end up back at her parent’s, single and fumbling through her twenties.
