She looked surprised at my sudden outburst, and then her face softened. She smiled sadly and nodded her head.
“Yeah, I really don’t blame you. He is a real piece of shit sometimes.”
I sighed, exasperated. I felt better after having blown up, and I knew none of that was her fault. It said a lot about me, that I was willing to yell at a stranger.
“Look, what do you want?” I asked.
“Just, hear me out for a second, okay?”
“Fine, but talk fast. I’m supposed to be working.”
She nodded. “What Noah did to you is fucked up. Really fucked up. I mean, I honestly didn’t think he was capable of cutting someone out like that. It’s some pretty ruthless shit.”
I rolled my eyes. She didn’t know the half of it.
“I know. But listen,” she said, continuing. “After he stopped talking to you, he changed. I’ve known Noah for a while now, ever since we first came to college, and he’s always been there for me. He was there for me when I was pretty messed up on drugs and dealing with my own issues. He was the only person I would listen to, the only person who really understood, because he had gone through it all himself. When he came to school, he forced himself to get clean and to stay clean, and he has been ever since.
“And I’m still dealing with that stuff, and he’s still trying to help, but he’s different. I mean, really different. He’s back into partying, going out almost every night, and I think he’s doing drugs again. And it all started when he cut you out of his life. Look, Linda, I don’t know what happened between you guys, but he’s still in love with you. There’s no other reason why he would have done what he did.
“He needs help, and I can’t do it. He won’t listen to me. So I’m here to beg you to get in contact with him and to talk to him. I don’t care if it’s just to say hi, or whatever, but he really needs you. I know this is really weird and you don’t know me, but I’m begging, you please, give it a try.”
She finished speaking and stared at me, her expression pleading, her look earnest, and all I wanted to do was to run away. I wanted to get out of there, pretend like she had never found me, pretend like I hadn’t heard anything she said. I wanted to pretend like she never said he loved me, pretend like he wasn’t suffering. I wanted to shut out the world and forget about Noah Carterson.
But I couldn’t.
The memory of him smiling at me in the car, and answering my questions with a pained expression, came rushing back. I remembered our first kiss in the theater, the way he called me ‘dots’ and how furious that made me at first, and how excited it made me later. I remembered the night we spent together sweating, making our bodies come again and again, and I couldn’t let it go. If there was any chance that I could do something for him, when he had clearly had helped so many people on his own, then I had to take it.
Because Noah may have been a shitty person, but he was still a person. If he was in pain, it was the human thing to help him.
I let out a long breath, biting back tears. I wasn’t about to let myself cry in front of her. I nodded my head.
Her face brightened. “Seriously, you’ll talk to him?”
“I can’t promise anything. I’ll try though.”
She threw her arms around me and crushed me into a tight hug. I was pretty taken aback, but I returned her hug tentatively.
“Oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” she said, pulling away.
“What should I do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Call him I guess, ask how he’s doing.”
“What if he doesn’t talk to me?”
“He will. He’s hurting over you, and I’ve never seen Noah hurt over a girl before.”
I shook my head, still slightly in shock. “This is so weird.”
She laughed. “I know it is, but trust me. He’ll listen to you.”
I nodded and looked away as I felt the tears bite into me again. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Ellie reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, her face smiling kindly.
“It’s going to be okay. I know you don’t know me, but trust that I care about Noah and know him better than anyone. That guy is madly in love with you, no matter what he says.”
I smiled back at her, feeling steadied and calmer. I suddenly felt bad for calling her Stripper Barbie. I was surprised at how kind she was being, and how much she seemed to care about Noah. She wanted to help him enough to come beg some strange girl she’d never met to talk to him. I had never done something like that for someone. I made a mental note to make it up to her in the future, which made two people I had to be kinder to.