Beautiful Boy(17)

"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.