I don’t understand why he is so emotional.
“I just…” I try to tell him but my own thought process is fogged. Even if I tried explaining, I would have to tell him about Kane which isn’t happening. He already knows of the voices and my mother. That is where the crazy starts and stops.
His shoulders lower and he rolls to the other side of the bed. He puts his hands over his face. He is overwhelmingly upset about this ordeal. The intuition in me senses that there is more to this sadness than just my uncertainty of sleeping with him.
“It’s me,” he says, “isn’t it.”
He turns and looks at me. His eyes are pleading for me to give him an answer.
Go back to Kane.
He won’t keep hurting you.
Noah isn’t hurting me. He is worrying about me. I don’t understand. When I don’t understand I get frustrated and when I get frustrated, the only emotion I can feel is anger.
“No,” I snap. My words come off harsher than intended. But I am annoyed. He is pushing to know more about me. Whether he means to or not, he is pushing.
“Oh,” he gets more upset.
“Look,” I say, “you are fine, I’m just too fucked up for a happy relationship.”
I look him back in the eyes.
“Okay?” I demand a response back.
He nods. Tears collect in his eyes. Why does that make him upset? I was with him for one night.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. The roles have been switched.
“I just acted like a shit head the other day and I feel bad about. I knew you’d be totally off-put from me after that.”
He looks straight into my eyes. I can physically feel his honesty.
“Ana, you are amazing. I can’t imagine what you go through every day and you still come out as a strong woman. I appreciate you so much. I know it’s dumb to be infatuated after just two weeks but love works in mysterious ways. I just want you to know that I am sorry.”
He keeps eye contact through his speech. My heart leaps. I can’t tell if my brain is ready to let him in. The reason I needed to leave after his reaction was because my brain wasn’t ready to let him in. My brain pulses. I can feel the blood streaming through my conscience. I don’t know how to feel.
He leans over to me and kisses me firmly. His lips are so soft. Only good feelings come off of his aura. Yellow. Green. White. He is true. He is honest. When his kiss hits my lips, I am throw through a wave. My body grows shaky and I feel as though my body is being thrown into a whirlpool of emotion. But at the bottom of Charybdis lies a calm place filled with warmth. As Noah reaches out his arms and pulls me into a hug, I feel the warmth come towards me.
The journey is long and winding. Skylla does not care for my woes. My arms slowly get hotter and hotter. The hottness fills my brain, my heart, my lungs and my limbs. I have become a flame in the endless world of sea. He is my lighter and my savior.
More tears run down my face but they are tears of joy. I feel my salvation appearing on the horizon. The dove is on its journey back with the olive branch.
I press my lips firmly down on his. He rolls me onto my back as our kisses grow more and more intense. Our spirits start to swarm. They grow entangled with each other. Nothing after this day will untangle them. I breathe. It is an easy breath.
He enters me with ease. I don’t notice until it hits my stomach and my body is filled with shivers. I feel nauseous but it is a desired nausea. I embrace it as I embrace him. My arms curl around him. We are becoming one.
His breath is heavy on my lips. It grows more and more intense until it all drops like the last drop of water to fall from a broken dam. He groans in my ear. That last noise satisfies my soul. He kisses me one last time. He falls to the other side of the bed.
“I think I love you,” he whispers.
“It’s only been two weeks.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
CHAPTER TEN: THE ARK
“Because love has no rules,” he says softly.
“What is love?” I ask.
This is the universal question that everyone begs to know the answer to. He looks up at his ceiling. The questions perplexes him. He purses his lips and turns back to me.
“Love is caring and appreciating someone else.”
I look at him. If that is so than I have loved one too many people in my life.
“I disagree,” I say.
I have always known that I have an idealistic and frankly, unrealistic definition of love. That doesn’t stop me from sticking to what I assume. Stubbornness runs in my blood.
“Love is attention. If someone constantly looks at you and spends time with you, even if the reason is superficiaclass="underline" it is love.”
He looks at me confused. We both have very different definitions of love.
“Do you trust that I do love you?” He is worried.
I think. Have I ever trusted anybodies proclamations of love for me? My brain is even more conflicted about this case because 90% of my conscience is still addicted to Kane’s soft touch and daring eyes.
“I’m not sure.” I am as honest as possible with Noah. Maybe if I tell him the truth of what I am feeling he won’t ask me why I feel that way.
He looks hurt at my response. At first sadness is written on his face but it slowly turns to frustration. He sits up in bed and looks at me.
“Why not?” He demands.
I want to love, and I do in some ways but my brain isn’t entirely all his yet. I can’t tell him this. He can’t know about Kane. I feel everything slipping out from under me. I will lose him if I tell him and I will lose him if I don’t tell him.
“I just—” I breathe in and close my eyes, “I can’t.”
I open my eyes. He looks like I have just slapped him on the face. His eyes beg me to love him but his body language is telling me to leave. I grow uncomfortable. We sit for a beat. Silence.
“I should leave.”
He stays silent. I get off of his bed, put on my underclothes. I grab my jeans off of the floor and slip them over my sweaty legs. I look around the floor and spot my shirt. I throw it over my thin frame. I start to walk out.
I hear him get up from the bed. His silence frustrates me to no end. Whenever I am conflicted he just stays quiet. He never expresses how he is feeling unless what he is feeling is love, then he expresses it ten-fold. I don’t know if I want that kind of relationship.
Kane is so much better.
Kane did the same thing to me. I make every relationship fail. I can’t figure out love. Maybe it is my skewed ideals or maybe it is simply the fact that I am looking in all of the wrong places. I walk towards the threshold of the bedroom. This is all too much.
“Wait.” His voice rings through the small apartment.
I turn towards him. He stands defenseless in his boxer shorts. I can barely see his face in the dim lighting. Night begins to echo through his window and reflect onto his grimace.
“Please don’t leave.”
He whimpers like a lost dog. It frustrates me. Why is he so infatuated by me? It makes no sense. We have only known each other's existence for two weeks. How does that constitute the deep feelings he presents to me.
“Why do you want to be with me so badly?” I yell. I hardly ever get this frustrated but two battles at once is too much for me.
He lowers his head. He looks at the floor like it will give him the answer. I roll my eyes and begin to walk out of his room.
“Shepherd's High School.”
I stop in my track. How does he know that name? He must have been stalking me in the time after our drunken hook up. Fears begins to creep its way up my spine yet again. Happiness is soon disintegrated. I can feel my body start to shake. Could he be part of Kane’s sick plans? Is this all a rouse to make me come back? My breath grows rapid. I look at him with fright in my eyes.