Page 96 of Going the Distance
Chapter 23
By some miracle, I managed to avoid Noah the whole next day—and Lee. I messaged Levi a little, neither of us mentioning the kiss; I was relieved things were (relatively) normal between us. After a while, I turned off my cell phone and spent a few hours online surfing through the Black Friday sales, and then watched a movie with my dad and brother before helping Brad with some homework because I was so desperate for any kind of distraction.
When I turned my phone on before dinner, I had a couple of texts. One was from Levi; another three were from Lee asking me to reply already or was I actually mad at him for something; one from Rachel, asking me to please get back to Lee because he was worrying about me but didn’t want to come over in case I was pissed at him for some reason; and another from Noah, asking if I could please reply to him, that he just wanted to talk to me before he went back to college.
I replied to Lee first.
I kept it vague, just apologizing for not getting back sooner, saying that I hadn’t spoken to Noah yesterday after dinner and that I’d just needed space today.
Then I texted Rachel to let her know I’d replied to Lee and to ask how her Thanksgiving had been. I replied to Levi, too—his had only been something about a quiz he found called “Which classic Thanksgiving dish are you?”
I hesitated, looking at Noah’s previous texts.
And I ignored them.
So what if all he wanted was to apologize for his behavior yesterday and for bringing Amanda home with him when that was totally insensitive? So what if he wanted to apologize for how things ended between us and for keeping things from me? I didn’t want to hear from him. Not even that. I needed him out of my life for a while to get over him, and if that meant pushing him away when he was just trying to be nice, then so be it.
After dinner (leftover yams, carrots, and bean sprouts that June had sent my dad home with, and meat loaf), we were back in the living room channel surfing, none of us able to agree on what to watch, when the doorbell rang.
My dad glanced at me before saying, “I’ll get it.”
Like he thought it’d be Noah.
And, to be totally honest, I thought it was, too. If he was so desperate to talk to me, there was nothing stopping him from coming over here to talk face to face when I ignored his texts. But then I told myself maybe it was Lee—because why wouldn’t it be Lee?
I could tell it wasn’t either of them, though, from the look my dad gave me as he put his head around the door. “Elle, you’ve, er, got a visitor,” he said, looking as confused as I felt.
I stood up and walked into the hallway. Was it Levi, maybe? Or—
Or not.
“Oh. Um…uh, hi,” I stammered, facing a smiling, rosy-cheeked Amanda. Her hair was braided, but the wind had blown a few strands free around her face.
I wanted to be mad at her just for looking so damn pretty, even windswept.
“Hey. I was, um, hoping we could talk, if that’s okay? I don’t mean to intrude or anything, but I thought it’d be a bit weird to just call.”
“No, that’s, um, that’s fine.” I gave my dad a look, and he ducked back into the living room, closing the door.
What was she doing here?
And what could she possibly want to talk about?
I composed myself. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Some water would be great, please.”
She saidwaterso weird.
“Sure.”
She followed me into the kitchen, and I handed her a glass of water. We stood facing each other, and I flexed out my fingers nervously. My heart thundered, and I swallowed the lump in my throat, uneasy.
“I know this is probably very strange for you, but I wanted to talk about Noah.”
Well, there wasn’t much else that she could want to talk to me about, but still—what the hell?
I just looked at her, waiting, not knowing what to say.
