Page 71 of Intermission
I can’t date Noah.
Spikes dig into the soft tissues of my throat, weakening my knees as I close my bedroom door. I barely make it to my bed before the rest of my hope and strength is siphoned away.
Clutching a pillow to my chest, I turn toward the window and stare, unseeing, at the rainy Easter sky. Tears march a steady but silent cadence down my face.
In a matter of a few months, Noah Spencer has melted into my soul. I know by the way he treats me—from the words he texts to the looks we share across a table or a room—the essence of me has taken residence just as deeply inside him.
A cry rises within my chest, daring me to let it move beyond the mass of pain blocking its release. I lift my fist to my lips and bite my index finger to keep from letting the sound escape. I stay like that.
I stay.
I wait, my heart chanting his name.
When the choking suffocation finally subsides, I pull my fist away. My finger throbs where I had been biting it. I look down.
There is something resolute, somethinghearteningabout those indentations on my skin.
I examine the slight curve of the red line, a curve perfected by professional orthodontia.
Four years ago, there would have been a different, more irregular shape, made by teeth that jutted this way and that. My teeth didn’t align overnight. It took time, the application of due force, and, if Mom’s exclamation over the bills was any indication, great cost.
Great cost.
I sit up straighter. Outside my window, the trees come into focus, backlit by the slow descent of the sun, mostly hidden by rainclouds.
Maybe my path to Noah won’t align overnight. That doesn’t mean it won’t ever align. I can be patient—I don’t have to ask myself if it’sworth it. Noah’s soul reflects mine, and mine his. He is the mirror of my heart.
Our time together is limited. Winning the right to be with him for the next few months is worth anything I will suffer along the way, or after.
Yes, when Noah leaves for London, I’ll have to figure out how to navigate life without him near, but now, while he’s still close...
I will not—cannot—give him up. It would be like cutting out my heart. Somehow,somehow, I will make my parents see the beautiful soul inside Noah Spencer. Because if they see him for who he truly is, maybe they’ll finally see... me.
But how?
I reach for my phone.
Noah will know what to do.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Noah’s quiet proclamation strikes my heart with a dull, helpless thud that matches the bleak temperature of this early spring afternoon.
Regardless of the cold, however, track season is in full swing, and I’m here to watch Jenna run.
The fact that I can see Noah here without raising suspicion is, of course, a bonus.
As runners from several high schools shiver in shorts and nylon track suits, Noah and I view the races from the lonely top row of the metal bleachers. A caveat to the privacy offered by our choice of seating is that we also catch a fair bit of wind. Wrapped about our shoulders, a tartan wool blanket, pulled from the trunk of my car, offers a little warmth. My gaze lifts, as if I might find the answer to our dilemma above. Clouds rush over the gray April sky, driven by a brisk wind. If the answer’s there, I sure don’t see it. It’s been two weeks since Mom made her “no Noah” ruling, and nothing has budged her resolve.
“They won’t talk to me on the phone,” Noah says. “I tried writing a letter, but—”
“I saw it in the trash. Unopened.” I sigh. “You probably should have left off the return address.”
“Oh. Right. I didn’t think of that.”
“I opened it and tried to make her read it, but she ripped it in half and took it right back to the trashcan.”
A loud pop signifies the start of the next race. I jump. So does he.
