Bittersweet // Complete

43.

Chapter 43

When I was thirteen, I found myself staying back in the school library so I could read the new Twilight books they had bought. Since I didn't hold a library card, I could never take any book home. So I would stay back while the librarian arranged the shelves and such, for an hour or so I'd read all the books I would have wanted. Old and frail as she was, she never questioned what I was reading and if it was age appropriate but I still would often hide the books inside large volumes of social studies books.

Point that I was trying to make was, I used to think of Bella as an utter weakling, a fool to have spent four fucking months walking around like a zombie after Edward left. How stupid of a woman to let her emotions take control over her daily life? I think I understand her better now.

Life without Noah felt like it was in black and white. Days would come and days would go. I would wake up, I would go to classes, I'd come home. River and Nathan were going home for Thanksgiving, and I hadn't thought of a plan yet. I'd probably spend the weekend cleaning the house again and eating cold pizza. Instant ramen, if I was feeling a little fancy.

Daniel invited me to come along with him to visit Finn's parents all the way in the south, but I declined his offer. I was definitely not a good company to be around. I was quiet. Like my whole body was numb and my heart had refused to process emotions.

Noah's declaration had twisted the knife in my gut, and bleeding out had been a slow, painful process. I could not believe that he would say that and yet never do anything that proved it. Could you love someone and sleep with someone else? My heart couldn't let me even be interested in other people. How could he kiss someone else, hold them close? How did he allow them to trace his lips, to kiss his jaw? I couldn't think further or I would die. Ugh.

The images flashing in my head made me sick, and I rolled over in bed, back to staring at the ceiling again. Most days that I was not in class, I would spend my time lying in bed. I did not remember the last time I had made the bed. There was no point. I'd be lying in it again and ruining it anyway. The kitchen however, was cleaned inside out. River's room was now free from the chaos on the ground. Two out of three shelves were cleaned. She said she'd cleaned one section of her wardrobe and was gradually working her way through it. Good. By the time new year rolled around, we would have a new, transformed River. I was glad.

Noah's sleek coffee machine lay uncleaned and hidden poorly by Nathan's old tee shirt, a painful reminder of the confused and royally fucked up boy. How could he remember a coffee machine and not the obvious heartbreak on my face when he left me?

As I mechanically went through the motions of making soup, the doorbell rang, breaking me out of my thoughts. I wiped my hands off on the apron, haphazardly taking it off as I rushed to answer the bell. Those pesky delivery people wouldn't wait a minute before sending your orders away because 'no one answered the bell'. I wondered if I had any orders left to collect, or if Nathan and River had already started Christmas shopping.

My confusion was quickly masked by surprise when I opened the door for Finn and Sophie holding large arrangements of flowers in their hands. "We're just delivering them to you," Sophie explained as she put them down on the coffee table, "You know where they came from."

I knew.

The moment I had seen the lovely peach roses, I fucking knew it was Noah. Never make eye contact with a horny man while watching Call me by your Name. Bad idea. Peach became the color of everything remotely sexual and I was weirded out by the fact that he would send me a fucking peach colored bouquet now. Noah was so confusing that I would spend the rest of my life in a permanent concussion if I ever figured him out.