Page 39 of Darien
The man let out a clearly relieved smile and then put a business card down on the table.
“If you need anything, you can call me. I have to go to work,” the guy said, and then he was gone, leaving nothing behind but his non-apology and his business card.
If Noah could have, he would have asked him to stay. For once in his life, he didn’t want to be alone. More than anything, he wanted to have someone with him. Only the stranger who had hit him, if he let himself be completely honest with himself, wasn’t who he wanted with him.
He wanted Darien. He missed Darien, and if his phone hadn’t been shattered, he probably would have texted him. Asked him to come, though, of course, Darien wouldn’t be able to. He had that concert to prepare for.
The concert. With a groan, Noah looked down at his foot, which was firmly ensconced in a plastic cast. That concert. The impact of the car had blown it right out of his mind, but the concert was still happening, and Darien had still made sure that Noah had tickets to it.
Something about that one act touched Noah more deeply than he ever could have imagined. Yes, Darien was thoughtless, careless, but maybe Noah had expected too much of him. Maybe he’d been too critical.
All he knew was that he wanted his boyfriend back. Well, that and he also knew that it was his own fault that he didn’t have him. His own fault. He had so easily condemned Darien for walking away a year ago, and all Darien had been doing back then was walking away from a friend.
Noah had done much worse. He had said that he was in love, and at the first sign of trouble, he had taken off. He had just been so ready for Darien to mess everything up, and he’d ended up pretty much looking for it in everything that the man did.
Which shouldn’t imply that everything was perfect, Noah knew that they had work to do,both of them. Noah just as much as Darien. After all …
Something hit him, not suddenly, with a sharp impact, but more like the slow, gradual rising of the sun. He closed his eyes with the sheer enormity of it, letting it warm him from within.
How could he expect Darien, or anyone, to give themselves to Noah when he wouldn’t give himself to them? When he wouldn’t trust? When the first sign of anything going wrong had him practically breaking his legs to get away? Or, in his case, he had ended up quite literally breaking his ankle. Or so the cast would have him believe.
Sure, Darien was an idiot, but Noah was not blameless in this, either. The breakup was Noah’s idea. Noah was the one who had walked this time, and he took a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly. Inside of him, there was a change—an opening of his heart.
He had to tell Darien how he felt. It was too late, maybe. Even probably. It had been a big deal for Darien to allow himself to be Noah’s boyfriend, and Noah had betrayed him, in a way.
Still, he had to try.
As soon as the doctor got in, he was going to pester them to release him. He needed to get out of there. His ankle hurt, but that was nothing to what was going on inside his heart.
He had a concert to go to. And if he couldn’t find Darien there, he would find some other way. He would hold him down and sit on his lap to talk this out if he had to. Maybe Noah would have to give up on this. Maybe it was hopeless, and Darien would tell him that he’d decided there was just no way in hell
It was terrifying, but Noah had to give Darien that chance to reject him. He had to open himself up, knowing that it might not go well, because the potential payoff was worth it. Because he loved Darien, and he had betrayed Darien’s trust, and because that was the very least that Noah owed to him.
The second he could get out of this hospital bed, he was out of there. There were still a few hours until he absolutely had to leave for the concert, but if it came down to it, he was completely willing to walk out of there without a doctor’s consent.
He had a concert to attend.
