Page 48 of Going the Distance
I could hear Noah’s voice drifting out into the hallway, low and tense.
His door was cracked open, and I paused just outside, listening. He was sitting on the edge of the bed facing the window, his back to me and the door, his cell phone pressed to his ear and his head bowed. I could see his hand knotted in his hair. His shoulders were tense.
Something was wrong. And I…stopped to listen.
Okay, so I probably shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, and I knew that, but the urgency of his hushed voice intrigued me enough to stop and listen in.
“Yeah, I’m with her. She’s downstairs….What? No, of course I haven’t told her!…No, not yet. It’s not the right time….No…Look, I’ll tell her at some point, but not today. She doesn’t need to know. Well…No, fine, okay, maybe she does, but…” He sighed, and I watched him run a hand through his hair again. “What, you gonna ring her and tell her yourself if I don’t?” he scoffed. “Right.Listen, Amanda, it doesn’tmeananything. Elle doesn’t need to know.”
Amanda.
He was talking toher.
Aboutme.
The blood stopped rushing in my ears, and I was surprised I didn’t drop the coffee when my heart plummeted. I felt cold all over. I’d known, hadn’t I? That something was wrong? That things were weird between us? It wasn’t just the distance. It was…
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not the right time. She doesn’t need to know. It doesn’t mean anything.
I pushed the door open, knowing the creak of the hinges would let Noah know I was back from making myself a cup of coffee. He twisted on the bed to look at me, a stiff smile on his face—but it dropped away in dismay when he saw my expression.
“Oh shit,” he muttered into the cell phone, his voice clipped and brusque. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, or something.”
He hung up, tossing the phone onto his pillow. He stood up to face me. I walked over to the nightstand, my limbs stiff but not paralyzed, at least, and set down the coffee before I either dropped it or threw it in his face.
“That washer,wasn’t it?” I asked, my voice void of emotion but shaking ever so slightly.
Noah bit his lip, looking more nervous than I’d ever seen him. “Elle, how much of that did you hear?”
Wrong thing to say, buddy.
“Was that her? The girl from the photo?” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. I hated her too much right now.
“Yes, that was Amanda, but it’s not what you think—”
“Oh? You sure about that?”
“Yes,” he said, almost snapping, but his voice was earnest and his hands were palm-up, held out toward me—begging with me, pleading me to listen, hear him out. My heart was pounding furiously and my hands shook. “I know what you’re thinking, and I already told you: nothing happened with Amanda, I swear. Nothingishappening.”
“How do you expect me to believe that?” I stumbled back a step, as though his words physically repulsed me, and my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t cry, not right now. I blinked, so hard that I saw stars against my eyelids, to clear the tears away. “After what I just heard? I knew you were hiding something from me. You’re on the other side of the country, Noah! For all I know, you’ve forgotten all about me and this visit is some…some last-ditch effort—”
“You’re overreacting.”
“Am I? With the history you’ve got?”
It was a low blow, and not even fair—he’d had a reputation as a player that was mostly all talk, and as far as I knew, he’d never cheated on anyone. But I couldn’t control the words coming out of my mouth.
His words kept punching me in the gut:It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t need to know….
What else could that even mean?
I put a hand on my stomach, even though I wasn’t sure where I hurt—my head was spinning, my legs were probably going to give out any second, and it was like a mountain had been dropped over my chest. I needed to scream, or cry, or…I didn’t know what.
The imploring expression on his face dropped away in an instant as my words hit home, and those blue eyes were suddenly ice and narrowed at me.
“You don’t trust me.”
I felt awful, in every way possible, but my voice was biting and I couldn’t seem to stop talking. I was destroying everything and some voice in the back of my mind begged me to stop, but weeks of nervousness and strain bubbled to the surface, taking over.
