"Finding the boy beneath the armor."
Seven
Air escaped me, rushing past my lips but never returning. An invisible weight pressed hard against my chest, ceasing my heart from beating and promising to crush my bones as if they were tiny twigs beneath the soles of combat boots. And instead of hearing Novah in front of me, static filled my ears, growing heavier as each second painfully ticked by.
My lungs wouldn't function.
Nothing made sense.
I gripped her wrists-probably harder than I should've by the ghostly shape of her eyes-and held her arms between us.
"I don't want you to see beneath my armor. I only wanted you to show me what beauty means to you. This was a mistake." I released my hold on her and backed away. My feet carried me inside at a reckless pace. I needed to get away from her-the intensity of the moment threatened to bring me to my knees.
My entire body burned from the inside out as if she had somehow branded my soul with her ocean-colored eyes and hypnotic voice. I didn't bother to glance over my shoulder or stop inside to observe the destruction of my kitchen. Seeing the physical evidence of her ability to get to me was more than I could handle.
I rushed around the mess until I found myself alone in my bedroom, and then slammed the door behind me. The booming sound it made as the walls shook broke through the static in my head.
Novah wasn't supposed to be like this.
She wasn't supposed to be this person, and she certainly wasn't supposed to possess the ability to get inside my head the way she did.
After torturing myself for years, I felt compelled to look her up, to see what had become of her after the hell we went through. Imagine my surprise when I learned of her profession-the things she did to make money. And even more so, the way she presented herself. I had to reach out. I had to point out how hypocritical she'd been after exiling me, but then something happened.
I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, propped my elbow above my knee, and dug into the tender muscle until pain radiated through my thigh. My head fell forward and I rested my forehead against the palm of my hand. I closed my eyes tightly as I tried to gather my thoughts about everything. I needed to calm down and sort through my feelings regarding Novah-both then and now.
Earlier, she'd described herself as a loner in school, assumed she was invisible. But she wasn't. Sure, she didn't have as many friends as I did back then … but I'd never considered the group of people who'd hung around me as friends. They were users, leeches who had attached themselves to my name, my persona, the character I portrayed for everyone to see.
Whereas, Novah may have only had a few friends, but they were real. They were honest. And they were good. I bet none of her friends would've gone into her room and taken a private moment with the sole purpose of destroying someone else.
She'd been a few years behind me in school, but it didn't stop me from noticing her. Every day, I wanted to talk to her, stop her in the hallway and say something to her.
I wanted to make her smile and hear her laugh.
But I knew what the repercussions would've been. The idiots who surrounded me would've sank their teeth into the freshman, and not relented until they'd drawn blood. Because even though I had never viewed her as a loner. I knew in high school, the ones who sat alone at lunch were considered losers. They didn't dress in style and they didn't paint their faces with so much makeup you couldn't see the person hiding beneath it.
They were ostracized and would never fit in. They'd never be accepted. And I never wanted her to fit in or be accepted by the people who hung around me. I wanted her to be her … to be true to herself and never change.
After months of watching her, wanting her, I had finally been given a chance. I knew ahead of time Mr. Connelly would be dividing the class into pairs for an assignment. I had overheard some kids talking about it the day before, so prior to our class starting, I went to our teacher and made a simple request for a partner. I told him how I loved photography and didn't want a partner looking for an easy A. I knew that'd get to him. He mentioned someone I'd worked with in the past, but I told him I would rather have someone I wasn't familiar with.
My argument was valid, and he saw my point when I said I wanted a partner to challenge me, oppose my views, and allow me to create something unlike anything I'd ever done before. A satisfied grin took over his face as he glanced to the door, catching Novah walking in, and it set me at ease. I never even had to use her name, but I'd been prepared in case I needed to.
What happened the day she came over for our project wasn't at all what I'd planned. I honestly never anticipated any of it. All I wanted to do was get to know her better. While waiting for her to show up at my house, I'd been unable to sit still as different scenarios ran through my head. I wanted her number, a chance to contact her after our time together had ended. But as she packed her camera away, something came over me.
Her eyes.
Her lips.
Her body.
The way she nervously fidgeted in place.
It was as if I'd been placed under a spell, and rational thought never came to me. Even with all the planning I'd done prior to her visit, all the things I'd wanted to talk about and say, nothing came to me. Her gentility had stricken me silent, in awe, in wonderment of the person who stood right in front of me.
Thinking back on it-which I'd done for years-I could never recall the actual words I'd used. But I do remember telling her how beautiful she was.
And it had been the truth. Was still the truth.
I couldn't recall making the move to kiss her, but the memory of her lips on mine had been seared into my mind, into my dreams, and had become the one thought I always went back to when I'd find myself surrounded by fear. Remembering the way she felt against me, the way her small breaths filled me … those memories had saved me countless times when all I wanted to do was turn my service pistol on myself.
The sound of my front door slamming closed freed me from the compounds of my reminiscing. I picked my head up. My arm weightlessly fell to my side as I held my breath and waited for another sound to break through the silence. But there was nothing. Only distressed stillness filling my entire condo.
She left me.
It was what I had wanted when I walked away from her. Yet the thought of her not being here now formed a crater inside my chest.
The time on my watch confused me, because there was no way I'd been locked inside my head for half an hour. It couldn't have been so long. It only seemed like a few minutes. And then I began to wonder what Novah had done while I'd hidden away.
I slowly stood. Fear of the unknown consumed me until every muscle in my body had coiled so tightly I worried I wouldn't be able to move. It caused my left thigh to ache uncontrollably. Still, I blocked out the pain like I had to do every day, and made my way to the bedroom door.
Silence met me. The lights from the kitchen shone down the hallway, and if I strained enough, I could hear the rain pitter-pattering on the terrace through the open doors in the living room. But other than that, the place seemed empty.
And cold.
Always cold.
My heart hammered away as I cautiously made my way down the hall to the kitchen, unsure of what I'd find. My wary steps halted abruptly as I glanced around the vacant space, noticing the absence of my mess. I moved farther into the room, glancing around at the bare countertops and freshly mopped tile. The only evidence of my earlier tantrum was the slight discoloration in a section of grout where there'd once been a pool of wine. She'd cleaned everything-including the pots and pans I'd used to make the dinner we never ate.
On the end of the counter, close to the trashcan, I found a paper towel. It'd been neatly placed there, unused. But once I picked it up, I noticed the neat letters written in black ink: When you're ready, I'm here. I balled it up in my fist, prepared to throw it away. Then something stopped me. I wanted it gone, yet a small voice in my head prevented me from getting rid of it. Instead of tossing it-or preserving it-I left it in a ball on the granite counter and walked away, back to the solace of my bedroom.
I needed her out of my head, gone from my thoughts and my life. But it was so hard to do when she'd been engrained in me for so long. She had owned my guilt for a while after I'd walked away from her, and then she had become my relief for a few years, unknowingly helping me through my darkest days. Then the explosion had changed everything. It had changed me … and my desires. After that, in my head, she'd been the cause of it all, the reason for my disfigurement.
The very first time I'd ever laid eyes on her, I believed her to be something special, someone so different from anyone I'd ever met before. The day she came over to my house, even before I grew lost in her kiss, I assumed her a staple in my life. The one-of-a-kind person I'd always heard my parents talk about when speaking of each other. And because of that, when my actions had caused her pain and humiliation, I vowed I'd make it right. I'd do anything to prove to her how wrong she'd been in her accusations of me. I only needed to get through my punishment, and then I'd find her again-if only to make everything right.