Page 132 of The Kissing Booth
He hesitated before replying. ‘Us. College.’ I waited patiently for him to develop that answer. ‘I don’t—’ He broke off with a yawn, and had to repeat himself. ‘I don’t want you to be hanging around for me to come back for holidays and not having a life. I know that sounds weird coming from me, after I tried protecting you all this time, but... I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem – seem fair to you,’ he said, yawning again, ‘to have to wait around on me... I’m tired. I’m no good with this stuff anyway.’
I gave a sleepy laugh, a half-smile on my lips. ‘The “emotional crap”, you mean?’
‘Yeah. I don’t know. We’ll give it our best shot and hope for the best. That’s all we can do, right?’
‘I’m going to miss you,’ I said, shrugging, still thinking. He squeezed my arm.
We sat in silence for a few moments. I knew he wasn’t asleep since he carried on running his fingers through my hair. I heard a jerking snore that broke the silence before it petered out into even breathing again. Lee. He was asleep, then.
Noah moved, jostling me around. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, making a small grumbling noise in protest, but then he was still, lying along the couch beside me and keeping me tucked against him. I smiled. I wanted to roll so I was facing him, but it took a moment to actually do that because I was so sleepy.
‘Elle,’ he said then, in that ominous kind of tone that told me he wanted to actually talk about something serious. I was too tired for talking now...
‘What?’ I whispered back drowsily into the darkness.
‘I love you.’ He kissed my forehead. I snuggled closer, burying my head into the crook of his neck as his arms tightened around me.
I was asleep in seconds.
None of us woke up when Lee’s parents got in. None of us woke up when they pottered around the kitchen, making brunch, or cleaning up the rest of the house.
It was almost two in the afternoon when I eventually opened my eyes.
I’d slept most of the day away, and the afternoon was spent playing video games with Lee. Noah had disappeared to a scrap yard somewhere to get parts for his bike. His text hadn’t been clear since there was no part of me that spoke mechanic; I had to guess what he was doing.
And then it was my birthday.
Just like that I’d turned seventeen.
I’d stayed up until midnight to text Lee, but it only really hit me now that I was really wide awake and staring at my ceiling and the shapes the morning sun played on it.
It felt like I’d suddenly grown up in the last year.
And to be totally honest, I kind of hated it.
Mostly, it was the fact that growing up meant making the big decisions. Like college next year. I’d have to think about college. Hell, I didn’t even have a clue what I wanted to do as a career! I just went with the flow. I didn’t think about things like that much. I justdidn’t know.
Sure, growing up meant all the good things, like having boyfriends and driving and finding out who you were, yadda, yadda, blah-blah-blah.
But was it really so bad that a little part of me wished things could stay the same forever? That I could run home and have my daddy put a Band-Aid on my knee when I tripped, that I could cannonball into Lee’s pool with him and not give a damn about anything else other than making a bigger splash than him.
Then my door burst open.
‘Happy birthday, troll!’
I sat up, throwing a pillow at Brad, but he shut the door on it before it went careering into his face. He opened the door back up and said, ‘Get up already!’
‘Why? It’s, like, eight in the morning!’
‘If I’m up, you’re up!’ I noticed then that he was already dressed, and rolled my eyes. It was kind of true – Brad felt the need to have everybody in the house up once he was up. I imagined he’d already dragged Dad out of bed to reach him a cereal bowl down from the cupboard so he could have breakfast.
‘I’m up, I’m up. Jeez!’
‘I said happy birthday, though, didn’t I?’ he said.
I sighed. ‘Yes. Thank you, Brad.’
‘Just hurry up, all right?’
