Page 103 of Going the Distance
“You’re…not dating him.”
“No,” I said, more softly, some of the tension in my shoulders easing. “I’m not.”
“Well, what was I supposed to think when I saw you two all over each other, Elle?”
“Well, what was I supposed to think when I saw all those pictures of you and Amanda, and then you bring her home for Thanksgiving? You could’ve told me. You could’ve at least told me you two weren’t dating.”
“I did! And you didn’t want to hear it!”
“Did you really expect me to believe you when you brought her home for Thanksgiving?”
“She’s British! She was going to be all alone for the holidays. It had nothing to do with you!” he shouted, and I was shocked into silence. “I didn’t realize that me having a good female friend was such a big deal, so when you broke up with me out of the blue like that, I thought there had to be someone else. Especially when you and Lee are so close. Honestly? I thought you’d be the last person to get jealous of me being friends with another girl.”
I was suddenly breathless.
And had never felt like more of an idiot.
“What did you expect me to think, after you broke up with me? I thought you were just looking for an excuse. I thought there was someone else. I knew you and Levi were getting close, and when I saw the photos from Sadie Hawkins, and when I saw you two last night—” Noah broke off with a sigh, dragging a hand through his hair and making it stick up on end. His forehead was lined, his eyes shining and sad and desperate, and it made my heart ache. We’d both been such idiots.
“I can’t believe you thought I’d broken up with you to be with Levi.”
“You kissed him.”
“Because I was trying to get over you! And it didn’t work! It was stupid and I regretted it as soon as it happened. I thought maybe there was something, but…” I shook my head. “There was never anybody else, Noah. There still isn’t. We broke up because we couldn’t trust each other.”
“I trust you!” He reached out as if to grab my shoulders, then my hands, then dropped his hands to his sides, before shoving them in the pockets of his hoodie instead, where the Skittles packet crinkled. “I’ve never not trusted you. But I was never good enough for you. I was never the right guy, and I was terrified the whole time that we were together that the right guy would come along, and I felt like I was just waiting for you to realize that, and to see that the right guy for you isn’t me. And…”
“And what?”
“And I loved you too much to let you go,” he said quietly, looking up at me from under his eyelashes. His eyes looked unnaturally bright blue in the shadows. “I still do.”
I sucked in my lower lip, biting it hard. Why, why did I feel like crying? Why were my eyes prickling and my throat itching like I was about to sob? Just because he’d said he loved me.
He still loved me.
But I had questions. The fact that he loved me—and that I still loved him—didn’t change anything right now.
“You let me think something was going on with you and Amanda.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I was jealous. I was mad. It hurt me, Elle, when you broke up with me. You flipped out so much over her, I thought…I didn’t think you’d get it. That we were just friends.”
“I flipped out because you were keeping secrets from me. That phone call I overheard—if it wasn’t about you being with Amanda, what the hellwasit about?”
Noah blushed, looking distressed. He shifted from foot to foot and ran a hand through his hair again. Now he looked like the one on the verge of crying.
As angry as I was, and had been, it fell away in an instant.
“Noah?” I said softly, reaching out to touch his arm impulsively. He jumped when I did, and we sprang apart like we’d been electrocuted.
“I was failing some of my classes,” he said finally. “I was going to get kicked off the football team. I was stressed. I wasn’t getting good grades as easily as I did in high school, which stressed me out so much it affected my work. Amanda was helping me a lot. She knew, because she’d see the grades I got in class or in our lab. I was too embarrassed to tell you. I didn’t want you to think I was…stupid. I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
And suddenly everything made sense.
It made so much sense, especially given that he’d told me all about how he’d put so much pressure on himself at school before he’d built up his bad-boy persona. I couldn’t understand how I hadn’t even considered it before.
“You shouldn’t have been embarrassed to tell me,” I said quietly. “I wouldn’t have thought you were stupid. I don’t. I just wish you’dtoldme.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
