Page 9 of Caleb
“Yes, he’s fine. He offered me a job in Paris,” I say bluntly. “And I accepted the offer.” I’m trying to maintain eye contact to show her that this conversation is meaningful and, hopefully, for her to see it in my eyes that this is not easy for me, even if my tone is steady.
But I lost her. Her attention wanders around the four walls of my room, at my packed bags, at me, just not my face. She’s unwilling to meet my gaze as much as I try to capture it back.
Long seconds pass as we sit on the bed in silence until Noa finally speaks again. “What kind of job? Wh-when are you coming back?” Her voice cracks, and that does it for me. I know it was stupid of me to think she wouldn’t get emotional, but I hoped she would realize that me leaving is actually a good thing. For her. For both of us.
“Diplomatic security.” I clear my throat to break down the emotions clogging it. “At the United States Embassy in France.”
Okay, this is harder than I thought it was going to be. Noa finally meets my gaze, and her round eyes pool with tears that start streaming down her face.
“Noa—”
“Please, I—you can’t go,” she says, taking a jagged breath through her mouth. I stare at her, unsure of what to say. “I love you, Caleb. I—I need you here.”
Fuck. I lower my head but tighten my grip on her hands. I’m an idiot. The biggest fucking idiot on the planet to think that our previous conversations about us being nothing more than friends who like to fuck wouldn’t eventually come back to bite me in the ass.
“You know how much I care about you, Noa.” I know that’s not what she wants to hear. She wants me to say I love her back and how much I need her too, but I can’t say any of those things. And I’m sure she doesn’t want to listen to me telling her how caring about her does not include needing her because I don’t. And I hate myself for it. It pains me to know there’s nothing she can say to make me stay.
I’ve made up my mind.
“I will miss you,” I offer instead. And I will, but that’s not enough. I can’t.
“Then stay,” she says almost urgently as if trying to hold on to the four words I just said. “I’m here. You’re here. No need to miss me.”
Noa kneels on the bed, the comforter falling and revealing her beautiful body, which I don’t feel I deserve to look at anymore. Her hands cup my face, and her lips meet mine. She’s kissing me with desperation as if trying to change my mind. I can taste her tears as they keep pouring down her cheeks and into our mouths. I pull back.
“Noa, I’m so sorry,” I say under my breath, brushing a strand of hair off her face and tucking it behind her ear. “Me leaving hasnothingto do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me not being enough to make you want to stay.”
She’s so wrong. “This isn’t about you and me or about you not being enough because that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You know I’ve been struggling, and I feel like I need this. I don’t know if I can go back to the military. Not after what happened.”
“It’s not you, it’s me, right?”
“Noa, I know that you, feeling this way right now, is on me. But I’ve been honest with you this entire time,” I remind her. I don’t want her mind to fabricate a scenario where I promised her something I never did because that would only make it harder for her to understand what’s happening andwhy. And it is my fault because I could tell her feelings were only growing stronger with time, and I chose to ignore the signs and rely on her verbal confirmation that “we’re cool” when we weren’t.
“I know we talked about”—she waves her hand back and forth between us—“whatever this is—was, but I kept telling myself how all you needed was time. And I tried to make it better, to talk about what happened to make you feel better, but you never opened up to me about anything. Whenever you weren’t with me or around me, you made me feel like I didn’t exist. But those unique moments when you gave me your attention, I felt like you really saw me. Like I waseverythingyou needed to make things right. And I chose to believe that and stupidly held on to that false hope because I love you, Caleb. I knew right away that you are the kind of man that …fuck.” Noa’s hands cover her face as she shakes her head.
Sobs escape her throat, making mine tighten. She pulls the comforter against her chest and closes her eyes as she weeps. I swallow hard as my body and mind struggle to digest the things Noa’s revealing to me. It breaks me to know I’m hurting her more than I thought. But I know how I acted, and now she’s the one paying for the unresolved pain I carry since the day of the attack.
“I’m sorry I can’t be the man you need me to be,” I mutter, my voice cracked and heavy with emotion. “And that’s exactly why I should leave. Staying here is making it so hard for me to be who I need to be. You deserve better than this—thanme.”
“I don’t care about what I deserve!” she shouts back, pulling another ragged breath through her mouth.
I look over my shoulder at the door. I’m afraid someone might come knocking to see if everything’s okay. But nothing’s okay—Noa’s naked in my bed, crying and screaming at me. Levi would tear my heart out of my chest for much less than that, but that’s not what worries me. I just want to protect Noa from being exposed, to have someone outside these four walls see her in this vulnerable state.
Noa seems to understand that it’s best if she keeps her voice down. So she calms down and says in a modulated tone, “Last night after you hit that guy for touching me and then with how gentle you were in bed last night, I almost felt like you were making love to me.” She laughs a sad laugh. “And you didn’t say it—you—you didn’t say it was the last time. So I thought that you were finally starting to—” Her lips tremble, her head shakes, and she says, “You were just saying goodbye.”
I rake my lower lip with my teeth and say, “Please forgive me.”
“Caleb, just … go.”
Anticipation
March 24, 2005
CRYING, I BANG MY STEERING WHEELintermittently on the drive back to Tel Aviv from Ein Gev. Noa’s reaction affected me more than I expected. All I could see was the devastation on her face and the sadness behind her eyes, all mixed up with flashbacks of the day of the attack. Seeing my parents stabilized me. Aaron wasn’t lying when he said they were on board with the plan. They erased almost every doubt and the guilt I was feeling about leaving for France.
Of course, Levi wasn’t thrilled about me leaving so suddenly, but he understood my reasons, and it’s not like he could force me to stay, nor would he have. Saying goodbye to the community at Ein Gev proved to be more emotional than I thought it would be. I kept looking for Noa, but I didn’t see her again. Not after I hugged her and left my room.
