It was just words. Words were nothing. If she tried to make something of this, I’d just shrug it off and say I’d made it up. Only sticks and stones could break me, right? I’d make her meaningless response to my words slide right off my back.
Except an innate fear had already soaked in. I spun away before I could embarrass myself further.
But holy shit, this was probably going to break me. Not only had I given her the power to crush my spirit on a personal level, but I’d also handed her a very valid reason to get me kicked out of her university permanently.
***
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
***
ASPEN
I messed up. I opened Noel Gamble’s essay at work and read it in my office.
I just couldn’t help myself. The way he’d confronted me to get it back, to keep me from seeing what he’d written, had gotten me curious and left me a little too shaken. For the briefest moment, I had thought he was going to wrestle me down in order to retrieve it. He’d looked desperate enough.
Then his face had cleared, and he’d seemed so shocked and appalled by his actions, I’d been worried he was going to burst into tears. What was worse, if he had, I would’ve done something equally horrifying, like hug him. Or give him his paper back.
Thank God I’d done neither.
Because once I started reading his essay, I couldn’t stop. It was like witnessing a fatal car accident, watching his awful life unfold, one tear-jerking sentence at a time.
My chest ached as I finished the last line of the essay. Damn it. Noel Gamble wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to have such a tough childhood, or possess redeemable qualities, or make me feel any kind of compassion for him. He wasn’t supposed to reach into my soul and get a handhold of my heart or squeeze these feelings out of me, exactly as he’d just done. No one should be able to do that in eight double-spaced pages. But he had.
My cheeks were still wet from the tears that had fallen. From reading his stupid, amazing, well-written paper.
It’s possible he could’ve lied. He could’ve made everything up just to get the work done. But from the way he’d reacted after class earlier, I knew he hadn’t. These were his true thoughts. His true feelings. His true actions.
He’d broken rules, done things I normally would’ve been appalled about, but he’d done it for the noblest, sweetest, most amazing reason. His desperate love for his siblings had given him the determination to get where he was today.
I shivered, hugging his essay to my chest as the last of my tears dried on my face. If only someone had loved me the way he loved his brothers and sister.
Well, one thing was certain. Noel Gamble had achieved the impossible; he’d managed to completely revise my point of view of him.
Oh, hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” - Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
NOEL
“So, what do you think I should do?”
Groaning, I closed my eyes and let the back of my head clunk against the weight lifting bench underneath me. Above me, the bar I’d just bench-pressed rested solidly in the chrome uprights.
“I don’t know, Caroline.” It was too early for this. I’d worked late last night, and I had ladies’ night to look forward to again this evening with still only four of us to man the entire bar. “How bad’s the bruise?”
“What do you mean, how bad is it?” My sister’s voice screeched through the phone. “It’s a freaking bruise...around his eye. You know that little thug gang of bullies gave it to him.”
I blew out an exhausted breath. We really needed a fifth bartender at Forbidden. Immediately. I loved the money working overtime brought, but this was going to kill me. “Yeah, probably,” I said halfheartedly, only to yawn.
“Oh, my God,” Caroline chastised. “Don’t pretend to care about us or anything. Our middle brother’s getting jumped by a gang. But poor Noel is tired so—”
“Christ!” I sat up, scowling across the training room as I cut my sister off. “I’m sorry if I’m not completely with it. I’ve been working my ass off to help support you, you know. Which reminds me, did you get the last check I sent on Monday?” Or had our mother intercepted it again and bought more drugs?
“Yeah, it arrived yesterday, but that doesn’t help—”
“What do you expect me to do? Drive twelve hours to come home to kick the little punks’ asses? I don’t even own a car.”
“I wanted you to talk to him.”
“Fine.” I rubbed my aching temples. “Put him on the phone.”
“He’s sleeping right now.”