“I play the guitar, love dogs, and hate Florida.”
And then Noah finally met my eyes. I was expecting a trademark half-smile, but when he looked at me his eyes were empty. My heart cracked.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Noah. Would you feel comfortable telling us why you’re here?”
He grinned, but there was no warmth in it. “I’ve been told that I have an anger management problem.”
Everyone shared their fake feelings for an hour, and then we broke for lunch. Noah caught up with me in the hallway. He looked down at me.
He looked broken.
“You’re a hard girl to get a hold of,” he said quietly.
I barked out a laugh, but Noah covered my mouth with a gentle hand.
My lids dropped at his touch. I could feel him. He was real.
All I wanted in the world was to hold him and be held. But when I lifted my hands to his waist he said, “Don’t.”
I blinked, and then I thought I might cry, and Noah must have seen it because he rushed to speak. “They don’t know we’re together. If they find out, they’ll take care to separate us and I won’t be able to bear that.”
I nodded beneath his hand and he lifted it, looking over his shoulder. The hallway was clear, but who knew for how long?
“How did you get in?” I asked.
The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “It’s a long story that involves copious quantities of alcohol and Lolita.”
My brows knitted in confusion. “The book?”
“The whale.”
He made me smile, despite everything. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not,” he said tonelessly. He avoided my eyes.
Something was wrong. I wanted to ask what it was, but I was nervous so I asked where his necklace was instead.
Noah sighed. “I had to take it off during that delightful near-strip search they offer here. Hermencia quite enjoyed it, I think. I’ll be sending her a bill.”
I smiled again, but Noah didn’t. I didn’t know what had changed or why, but I needed to. Even if I might not like the answer. “What happened?” I asked him.
He lifted my hand, my wrist, and held it out in answer.
“They think I tried to kill myself,” I said.
Noah closed his eyes. For the first time ever, he looked like he was in pain.
“Do you?” I asked him.
The muscles in his throat worked. “No,” he said. “I saw—I saw everything. I saw Jude.”
When he opened his eyes, his expression was vacant again. A smooth, unreadable mask. I was reminded of a different conversation we shared under very different circumstances:
“And what if something happens and you’re not there?” I had asked him, miserable and guilty and horrified after we returned from the zoo.
“I’ll be there,” Noah had said, his voice clear and sure.
“But what if you’re not?”
“Then it would be my fault.”
Was that what this was? I looked up at him now and shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
“Actually,” he said with unparalleled bitterness, “it is.”
But before Noah could say anything else, a counselor interrupted us, and we were ushered away.
57
WE HAD NO TIME ALONE THE rest of the day. Noah was shuttled from pointless thing to pointless thing with Adam, Stella, Megan and the other temporaries as I was left to endure more talk therapy and generally languish in solitude. I met a few permanents, who didn’t seem obviously disturbed. Not as bad as Phoebe, anyway, by a long shot.
When we finally sat down for dinner, I dropped down into a seat across from Noah. A few boys I didn’t know well shared the table, but they weren’t too close.
I was desperate to talk to him. I had so much I wanted to say.
He was so close, but too far away to touch. My fingertips ached with the need to feel him, solid and warm and real under my hands.
I said his name, but Noah gave a single shake of his head. I bit my lip. I could scream from frustration and I wanted to. I felt like I was drifting and needed him to tether me to the earth.
But then he scribbled something on a napkin with a crayon—he must have stolen it from the art studio they had here—and handed it to me.
I glanced up, then around, then down at the message as discreetly as I could.
Music studio. 1 a.m.
“But—” I whispered.
Trust me, Noah mouthed.
I did.
I wished the sunlight away as I finished dinner that evening across from a silent, unusually sullen Stella. She picked at her food and every now and then, her eyes would sweep the room. When I asked her what was wrong she excused herself, leaving me alone.
I couldn’t wait for night to fall and I gazed out the thick, distorted windows at every opportunity. The darkness nipped at the heels of the sunset, waiting to swallow it.