Page 32 of Going the Distance
Chapter 9
After patching things up with Lee, I tried calling Noah again when I got home from dinner with the Flynns. We’d texted a little during the day—the usualHey/How are you/What’re you up to today/Miss you—but Ireallywanted totalkto him. Hell, I texted Levi more than I texted Noah these days.
It sucked that Noah had to go to college on the other side of the country. Why did Harvard have to be so damn far away?
I hated not being able to walk to his house to be with him.
I hated not being able to take a nap wrapped up in his arms next to him on the couch.
I hated not being able to argue with him about what to watch on TV, even though we’d end up not paying that much attention to it anyway.
I hated that he wasn’t here to make me laugh and kiss my nose and look at me like I was the only thing that mattered in that moment.
I hated that I missed him so bad and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Sure, I’d had plenty of things to take my mind off how badly I missed Noah, but times like this, it felt like there was a chunk of me missing—specifically, a Noah-sized-and-shaped chunk. It was like an ache in my chest, or something heavy pressing down on my lungs, and a kind of sadness that not even cute pictures of kittens or funny memes could alleviate.
Alleviatewas one of the SAT words on my list to learn this week.
The longer the phone rang, the closer I got to the edge of my bed, and I started biting my thumbnail.
Why wasn’t he answering? He hardly ever answered me lately when I called.
Was he studying? He was probably studying and had his cell on silent, or maybe even turned off so he wasn’t disturbed.
Was he out with friends?
Why wasn’t he picking up?
Was he ignoring me?
Finally, Noah answered. The video of his face filled the screen. His beaming smile, his crooked nose, the dimple in his cheek, his bright blue eyes. His hair was short and…Was that a beard? Was he actually growing a beard?
Damn, if it didn’t suit him. He looked so much older. There were trees in the background, a low sun, blue skies. He was sitting somewhere with his headphones in and the breeze stirred his hair.
“Hey, you.”
And he sounded so happy to talk to me that I stopped biting my nail, flopped onto my stomach on my bed, propped up on my elbows, and smiled back at him. “Hey. How are you?”
“I’m good. Yeah, everything’s good. What about you? You look stressed. Did you get wasted last night and grounded?” He chuckled, giving me a look of mock disappointment.
“No, I’m good. The party was okay. I’ve just come back from dinner with Lee and your parents.”
Noah knew Lee had been blowing me off for Rachel a lot lately, and we’d argued for, like, twenty minutes a couple of weeks ago, until he swore not to talk to Lee about it on my behalf. I got the feeling telling himeverythingabout the party last night would only cause a fight between them.
“Elle, c’mon. What’s up?”
I sighed, biting the inside of my cheek. I shouldn’t have video-called him. “Lee was kind of a jerk last night, at the party. To everyone, not just me. That’s why I went over to your place, actually, to talk to him.”
“And?”
“We’re good. He’s gonna try not to ditch me for Rachel so much.” And then, before I could stop myself, I frowned and blurted, “Did you know he wants to apply to Brown?”
“What, like Dad did?”
“Like with Rachel,” I clarified.
I watched it dawn on Noah. His eyes drifted away from the screen and I watched his eyebrows draw together and his lips press into a line. I waited for him to start on some kind of rant about how Lee was out of order, how that was too far, and what about me, and Berkeley?
