I spent the next day washing my car. Nicholas stayed inside doing God knows what, and we barely crossed paths. My Beetle had been on the sales lot for a long time, so no one had taken care of it, and it was covered in dirt and grime. It was funny to me that all my new neighbors with their Chanel clothes and their stuck-up attitudes were gawking at me as I washed my own car in shorts and a T-shirt with some company’s logo on it and with my hair pulled back in a bun. I looked like hell, but why should I care what my bleach-blond neighbor and her husband who ran some TV network or another thought of me?
As I blew a strand of hair out of my face and leaned over the hood with a sponge, trying to get out a particularly stubborn spot, I heard the last voice I would have expected to hear at that moment.
“I see you still hate the drive-through car wash.” I froze. It couldn’t be true.
I turned around and looked at him. He was standing next to Nicholas’s car looking no different from when we’d said our goodbyes three weeks ago. His blond hair was disheveled, his chocolate eyes projected a self-assurance I’d always admired, and he had the build of a hockey player. I had to catch my breath.
Dan, who’d cheated on me with my best friend, was now standing in front of me.
I stopped what I was doing, holding on to the dripping sponge and letting my other hand flop to my side. I couldn’t move. Just having him in front of me hurt, and all the memories I’d shared with him flooded into my mind like a slideshow: when we’d met; after I’d gone to one of his games and he’d won and he’d come over to tell me he couldn’t concentrate once he’d seen me in the stands; our first date, when he’d taken me to an Indian restaurant where the food was so spicy we had been sick for three days; our first kiss, so soft and special that until recently, it had been on the list of my most treasured memories; the first time he’d ever called me his girlfriend…
Then I remembered the image of him and Beth hooking up, and everything else vanished.
I struggled to find a voice that wouldn’t let him know how much his being there affected me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, dropping the sponge in the bucket. Water droplets splashed my bare feet.
“I miss you,” he said.
I laughed mirthlessly.
“You don’t miss me. You’ve had company, haven’t you?” I replied, turning around.
“Noah…I’m sorry,” he told me in that same velvety voice that had told me so many times he loved me above all else.
I shook my head, wishing this wasn’t happening. I wasn’t ready to confront Dan. There was a part of me that still wished everything was as it had been before, that wanted to turn around and let him hug me, kiss me, tell me how much he loved and missed me. I desperately wanted to be with someone from my previous life. Even for just a few seconds, I wanted to be the Noah Morgan I had been before getting into a car and heading off to a new city to live a life I didn’t want.
“Noah…I love you,” he said, coming up behind me.
My heart had already broken into a million pieces. Was he going to stomp on them now, crush them into dust?
“Don’t tell me that,” I said. But then I turned, and I saw him there, so close…saw those spots of gold in his brown eyes, the scar on his cheek where he’d been hit with a hockey stick—I was there when he’d gotten the stitches, I had been hysterical because I couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Everything about Dan brought back so many memories—memories that now stung unbearably.
He looked nervous. I knew him well enough to know this was harder for him than it was for me.
“I’m saying it because it’s the truth, Noah.” He took my face in his hands and stroked my cheeks with his fingers. “Please forgive me. When you left, my whole world fell apart. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. You have to forgive me. Noah, please, say you forgive me.”
His hands slid down to my shoulders. There was desperation in his voice. I closed my eyes. This shouldn’t be happening. Why? And why was his presence making me so sad? I should have gotten over him already. He shouldn’t have come here, asking forgiveness, but still…seeing him again, having that piece of my old life back, was comforting somehow.
Just then, I felt his lips on mine. It was unexpected but at the same time felt normal. That had been something I was used to, something pleasant, even necessary, something I’d wanted from the moment I got into that car to leave and never come back.
He cupped the back of my neck and pulled me toward him. I was so shocked, so overwhelmed by the thousands of contradictory feelings I was having that all I could do was hold still.
“Noah, kiss me, please, don’t be like that.” He tried to press himself into me and managed to get me to open my mouth, looking for my tongue with his just as he had the first time we’d done it. There was a kind of warmth there but also something different. Something had changed. My body seemed to be expecting something more powerful. I didn’t want warmth; I wanted fire.
I heard someone make a noise, trying to get our attention. I stepped back, and Dan looked at me with joy on his face. Then we turned to see who had interrupted us.
My mother and William had just appeared. I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts and feelings that I hadn’t even heard them pull up in their car. She looked at us with a big smile on her lips and turned to William, who had a bright-eyed, satisfied expression on his face.
“You like our present?” he asked.
I didn’t understand.
“Your mother sent me a ticket to surprise you,” Dan said with a shrug, but I could see a look of guilt on his face, too. Now I got it. My mother thought she was giving me the best gift ever, bringing my boyfriend for a visit. She’d just missed one tiny detail: he was no longer my boyfriend.
“You were just so sad, Noah,” Mom said, coming over and giving me a hug. “I knew Dan was the one person who could make you smile, so what was the harm in inviting him to spend a few days with us?”
Oh, Mom. You’ve screwed up now.
I forced myself to smile, hard as it was, while William shook Dan’s hand firmly. My mother gave him a hug in turn, and they both stood back to look at us.
“We’ll give you all a little privacy. You must want some time alone,” Mom said. “Dan, I’m having them prepare the guest room. Anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Dan nodded politely, and my mother and William vanished through the front door.
When they were gone, I looked at Dan, enraged.
“I can’t believe you had the balls to come here,” I shouted, picking up the bucket and soap I’d brought out for my car. I wouldn’t be able to finish now. I had much more important things to do.
This was wrong. Dan couldn’t stay in my home. I didn’t want him there, and I sure as hell didn’t want him kissing me again.
“It was the perfect opportunity to say I’m sorry in person.”
“You can’t stay here, Dan.”
“I know you’re still mad, and I know you’ll need lots of time before you can forgive me, but just let me be with you these days, Noah. Whatever the problem is, we’ll solve it together, please. You’re mine and I’m yours, remember?”
That phrase struck home.