TKB - The Time Apart

Chapter 17 - After the Wedding

Noah POV

As bad as I feel about ditching Mike's wedding, I still feel like it was the right thing to do.  The last thing I wanted to do was be in that situation with Elle and her boyfriend.  And, would it really have been fair to Addison to put her in that situation?  Just the thought of Elle having a boyfriend seems to make my blood boil and my hands ball up into fists.

I must be looking for trouble when I decide to open Lee's Instagram, and am immediately greeted by a picture from Mike's bachelor party.  Its my dad, Mike, Lee and some other guy around our age that I don't recognize.  But, when I swipe to the next photo, its a shot from the wedding of Lee, Rachel, Elle, and that same guy - with his arm around her.  All of Chloe's breathing exercises will not help at this point because my eyes are literally seeing red.  I threw my phone across the room like it had burnt my hand.  

I know I have no right to be mad that Elle is seeing someone.  I do know that I have always said I wanted her to be happy.  But, I spent so many years keeping guys away from her, getting in fights over it, just to protect her.  And now, here's this guy swooping in, and I can't do anything about it.  I shouldn't do anything about it.  But I want to put my fist through a wall right now.  

Great timing though, because Addison is on her way over to see my new place.  This is the last thing I feel like doing right now.  I headed over to my bathroom to splash some cold water in my face, but not before looking at myself in the mirror.  I didn't realize that I had tears in my eyes, and that's why they were burning.  "Pull it together man", I tell myself, trying to get myself in check.  

By the time Addison arrived, I felt like a shell of myself.  (yes, I said a "shell", and no, that word is not lost on me).   I was literally just going through the motions, let her pick a restaurant for takeout, just picked something random off the menu, and basically just stared at the screen during whatever RomCom movie I let her pick.  I was hoping she wouldn't pick up on my lack of presence tonight, but half way through the movie, she pulled my arm off of her, which had just been hanging there, turned to me, and asked point blank what was going on.  I didn't really lie, I didn't need to.  I just told her that I felt bad that I didn't make it to a family member's wedding this weekend, and I felt left out when I looked through my brother's pictures.     I mean, she knew about it in advance, as she was going to come with me, but I told her the same story about having to move in that weekend when I cancelled our flights.   I guess she seemed to buy it enough that she dropped it and went back to watching the movie.

When we went to bed that night, I apologized for being a little off, and said I was just really tired.  I just didn't feel like it would be right to be 'intimate' with Addison when I could not get my mind off of Elle.  I couldn't stop myself either - before I went to bed, I just had to look through the rest of Lee's pictures.  I felt "replaced", like someone else was just standing in for me.  She looked so happy and radiant though in her navy dress - it made her eyes sparkle like diamonds.  I wanted to believe it was the dress and the emotions of being at her dad's wedding that made her smile like that, and not the guy with his arm around her.  I must have finally fallen asleep, but it was certainly not a peaceful or restful night.  

Upon waking up, I decided that I had to move on.  I needed to move on with my life, and work as hard as I can to put Elle Evans behind me.  The first thing I could do to prove that to myself was to skip getting that charm for her.  I had planned on doing it this week, but I just can't do it.  I have to keep reminding myself that she's moved on.

I make it my goal over the next few weeks before Law School to keep myself busy.  I found a gym nearby where I can workout, in addition to the 5-10 miles I've started running every morning.  My old internship is too far from here to continue, but they put in a good word for me at a local firm, and I rocked my interview, so I will be starting there in August.  Until then, I have a trip back up to Boston planned to visit some friends, and Chloe and I are going to spend a week at that house in the Cape that I went to with my family last year.  We both decided that we needed some time to unwind. 

Chloe had decided to move to NYC after graduation, and got a job at a startup fashion label.  While she is quite fashionable, she'll actually be working in their Social Media Department, rather than actually designing clothes.  She's excited to start in a new city, and even though she's a bit nervous about being in a new city all by herself, she's Chloe Winthrop - and I have no doubt that she'll have guys falling at her feet at every turn.  Plus, she's only a 2 hour train ride away, so we've promised to plan visits to see each other.  

---------------

Elle POV

Now that the wedding is over, and Ben and I have broken up, Lee and I had a chance to celebrate our birthday properly.  We had agreed to postpone our celebrations until after the wedding, because (for once) we didn't want the attention to be on us.  Since it was our 21st birthday, Lee, Rachel, and I decided to book ourselves a reservation at one of the fanciest restaurants, and pretend to be celebrities.  We put on the same clothes we wore to the wedding, dolled ourselves up, and rented a limo.  When the limo pulled in front of the restaurant, there were paparazzi there looking to see who was arriving.  Without hesitation, Lee grabbed both of our hands, and started posing for the photographers.  When we finally sat down at our table, the 3 of us could not stop laughing.  It felt like the good old days before they had broken up, and I was so happy to be celebrating with the two of them. 

Noah's absence tonight wasn't lost on me though.  Rachel and I had a long talk this past week about her friendship with him, and how she was nervous that I would have been mad at her for her role in Noah's new relationship.   Obviously, I couldn't be mad at Rachel, in fact, I told her that I was happy that she took that step to build a friendship with him, and I was glad that he had a friendly face on the East Coast.  But, I also wasn't going to lie to her either, I mean, it was impossible to hide that from my face.  I knew Noah would move on at some point, and as painful as it was for me to accept, I was glad that it was someone that Rachel approved of.  She seemed relieved to hear that, and I was glad, because I didn't want there to be any hard feelings between Rachel and I, since I was hoping she and Lee were back together for good.  And, the last thing I wanted to be was a 3rd wheel again, moping around about Noah, getting in the way of their reunion.  I did that enough our senior year of high school, and I knew that both Rachel and Lee would be headed off to their respective colleges again very soon.

We took advantage of the time we all had over the summer.  I was careful not to steal too much of Lee's time from Rachel, and sometimes she and I even ditched him for girls days.  It felt more like the old times than ever before, and I was so happy for my friends.  I was excited that Alex was headed back to school a week before school started, so she got to meet Rachel too.  And I'm even more excited that its finally my senior year!!!