Page 44 of Going the Distance
I shrugged. “Sunday, I guess. Maybe after dinner?”
Dad nodded. “All right. Text me tomorrow and let me know. Do you have a key?”
“Yup.”
“Got your pill?”
My cheeks flamed. I should’ve known I wouldn’t get away that easy. I’d been on the pill for over a year—not so much because I’d needed the contraception at that point, but more to balance out my irregular periods—but it looked like my dad was treating the situation like alcohol at parties: he knew it was gonna happen, and he knew he couldn’t stop me, so he just wanted me to be safe about it.
Even so, I hissed, “Yes,Dad.God.I’m a responsible adult.”
“Yesterday you were playing Disney soundtracks. And singing along.”
“Responsible adult.I’m going now.”
• • •
The Flynn house was silent, save for the distant, steady rumble of the washing machine. Noah said his parents had gone to their friends’ twentieth-anniversary party and wouldn’t be back until the next day. Lee was still out with Rachel.
Neither of us was complaining.
Later, we were curled up in his bed, wrapped under the comforter even though it was a warm night, our legs tangled together and my head resting on Noah’s chest. I splayed my fingers out across it slowly.
“You smell different,” I said to him. He still smelled of the citrus body wash and shampoo he used, and of his aftershave, but there was something different about it I couldn’t place.
When I told him as much, he said, “Well, I haven’t smoked a cigarette for a few months, so maybe that’s it.”
I pushed myself away, propping myself up on an elbow to look at his face. “I never understood that habit. It wasn’t even ahabit.You just did it to look cool in front of everyone else, didn’t you?”
His mouth twitched, and he glanced away for a second. “Kind of.”
“Why’s it so important for you to be seen as a bad boy?”
Now I’d asked, I wondered why I hadn’t before. Noah sighed, and trailed his fingers through my hair. His fingers snagged in a knot, so he stroked the top of my hair down to the roots instead. It was the kind of absentminded, soothing gesture that I’d missed so much when he’d been gone.
“What, you don’t think I’m a bad boy?” He was trying to be playful, mock dismay on his face now. “I’m wounded. Maybe I need to go punch a wall and light up a cigarette to prove it to you. Race off on my bike and pick a fight with someone. Go…I don’t know, go kick all the potted plants over outside. My mom would hate that. Seriously badass.”
I rolled my eyes. “Funny.Seriously, though. You’re a big softy around me, and you’re a closet geek, but you put up this front for everyone else, like nobody can touch you. Sometimes you act like you’re just asking for a fight. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed it’s just a front.”
Noah held my gaze for a moment; I thought he was trying to decide if I was bluffing or not. He must’ve realized not. His fingers moved to trace circles on my back, and I pressed a kiss into his shoulder blade.
“You were too little to remember it, you and Lee, but in grade school I used to get bullied. A lot. I wasn’t as big as some of the other kids, and I was this weedy little guy.”
“I’ve seen pictures. I kinda remember.”
“I was smart, too. And you know what some assholes like to do to geeks and nerds—the bigger, not-so-smart kids like to pick on them because it makes them feel better about themselves. Happens all over the world, right? Textbook situation.”
“Right…,” I said slowly, drawing the word out and my eyebrows together. How had I been so close to Noah all these years and never known he used to get bullied? Did Lee know? His parents never mentioned it—had he asked them not to?
“I hated it, because I just wanted to shove them back, but, you know, if you fought back, you got in more trouble…and I wasn’t a snitch. I never tattled on a bigger kid when they pushed me off the swing or stole my cookies at lunch. It just made me so…angry.”
Noah drew in a shaky breath, and I reached over to take his other hand in mine, locking our fingers together. He didn’t return the hold, but he didn’t pull away, either.
“I couldn’t take my frustration out on them, and I didn’t want to tell my parents. You know what they’re like—they’d have called the school and made a lot of fuss and it would’ve made me an even bigger loser.”
“So you took your frustration out on everything else,” I said, thinking about the time he told me he’d gone to anger-management classes a few years back, but they hadn’t helped.
He carried on as if I hadn’t said anything. “Middle school wasn’t so bad. I had my growth spurt that summer, and my parents had signed me up for kickboxing—”
