Page 45 of Going the Distance
“Oh, yeah, I remember that.”
“Because they thought I just needed an outlet, so I wasn’t a weedy little guy anymore.”
“But you were still a geek,” I said, trying to fill in some of the gaps. This conversation was like a jigsaw puzzle—and I was trying to fill in the middle without having the edges to work from first. I couldn’t believe we’d never talked about this until now. “You’re smart. You’ve always been smart. Hell, you got into an Ivy League college, Noah. Not just anybody can do that.”
“I remember,” he said, a wry smile on his face, “this one time in eighth-grade Spanish class. We had a test, and I got a C in it. I’d never had anything below a B-plus, even on a bad day in my worst subject. I was smart, I knew that, but I didn’t slack. My parents weren’t mad about the C—they said it was just one little test, no big deal. But they were disappointed in me. Even if they didn’t say it, I could see it in their faces. And I was harder on myself for it than they ever could’ve been.”
“So…” I sat up a little more, snuggling farther into the crook of Noah’s arm, which tightened around me in response. He hadn’t been looking at me during the conversation, fixing his gaze on the wall in front of him instead. I pulled my hand out of his and titled his chin toward me so he’d have to look at me.
“So,” he said, “I decided that I’d had enough.”
“Of what?”
“Hating everything and not doing anything about it. I started pushing back. I got into fights sometimes; I cut class once in a while. My parents and teachers thought it was just a phase. Give it a year, and I’d stop rebelling and take school seriously again, right?”
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “I was already taking school seriously. I just made people think that I wasn’t. At high school, to stay on the football team, you have to get a straight-A average, right? Or, you’re supposed to. Coach cut some slack for a couple of kids. But I did that, and because the other jocks did, too, I wasn’t called out on it. And, to be honest, I liked being called the bad boy. It was fun to cut class and know my teachers would just roll their eyes if I sauntered into class late and without my homework, because they’d come to expect that of me. They expected to fail me by the end of the year.”
“And you, what, you liked to surprise them by doing really well and finishing with the third-best grades in your class?” I guessed.
“I did well at school formyself,not for anybody else. I didn’t want to be valedictorian or whatever. I didn’t need that, didn’t want it, or the attention that came with it. I kept up the bad-boy reputation not just because I didn’t want to be pushed around anymore, or because it was kind of fun, or because sometimes I’m kind of an asshole, but because if people never expected anything of me, they’d never be disappointed.”
We were both quiet for a long time. At first, Noah’s breathing was shallow and ragged, but it calmed down after a while. He’d always been kind of closed off to some degree, making comments about how he didn’t deal well with emotional stuff. This was the most vulnerable I’d ever known him.
I realized that I didn’t actually know who Noah was anymore: not because of what he’d just told me, but because he seemed like a different person coming home from college. He was quicker to smile, more relaxed. Even when we’d argued about the photo—he’d been rational, way calmer than I was used to.
“And now? Now you got into Harvard and high school’s over, you’ve dropped the whole rebellious act?”
“Who says I’ve dropped it? Here I thought that was the reason why you fell for me.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to keep a smile from my face. “Yeah, because you’re a badass who says he’s gonna go kick over his mom’s potted plants.”
“I could eat some ice, too,” he deadpanned. “Whole cubes. Tell me that’s not badass.”
I swatted at his chest gently, and he caught my fingers in his hand, kissing each fingertip. I giggled, happy he was being playful again instead of sullen and withdrawn. Noah had never really dealt with his emotions well, for as long as I’d known him, so it didn’t surprise me that after being bullied he’d wanted to lash out instead of cry. That was just who he was.
“I just mean—” I started, but he cut me off with a light kiss.
“I know what you mean. I just don’t really know how else to be, is all. But I’m trying not to put up so much of a front now. Not argue with people so much. It’s easier because everybody’s new, and I can…reinvent myself—and everyone at Harvard is pretty smart, so it’s okay to be a geek.” He smirked. “But it’s still hard to be anything else, because I’ve spent so long being like this.”
“I’ll love you either way,” I told him sincerely. I think I loved him more in this moment than I ever had.
“Even if I start wearing pink polo shirts and tying sweaters around my neck and trade my motorbike in for a golf buggy?”
“Okay,nowyou’re just being totally ridiculous.”
“You started it.” But he was grinning at me.
“No, you did.”
“You definitely started this.” Then he pulled me on top of him, his fingers poking at my ribs and waist and neck, and I shrieked, trying to squirm away from him, but giggling too much to put up a fight. Noah chuckled in my ear. “But I’m startingthis.”
