A Known Stranger

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

                After Noah had explained everything to me about what happened, we laid out for awhile longer star gazing until Noah reminded me about how I owed him ice cream for going with the flow of things. Although I had reminded him of complaining half of the trip, I gave in and drove us back into town and parked at a twenty-four hour convenient store where I knew they sold ice cream. We sat in the car and talked about everything that had been going on.

                I told him about Zoe and I building back our friendship, I told him about the talk Kimberly and I had, and I told him about what had happened with Ryder. He listened while I ranted about everything that I had kept to myself for the past few days, and when I was finished I felt as if a hundred pounds had been lifted off of my chest.

                I felt better after telling Noah everything and it felt good to be able to speak to someone and be able to trust them completely. I wasn’t afraid of what Noah would possibly think of me, like I had been when I used to talk with Ryder, and it felt good to know that I had someone I could trust with everything.

                It felt right, like Noah was my best friend but more at the same time. I just wished that I knew what he and I were instead of constantly wondering if we were something or nothing at all. Sure we had shared a few kisses, but how many other girls hadn’t he shared kisses with? So instead of keeping my mouth shut like I had been doing, I decided it was time to bring up the topic of dreaded conversation. Asking Noah what he and I were could end in two possible ways, either he actually felt something for me or he didn’t.

                “We need to talk,” I said, twisting my body in my seat so I was facing him as he sat in the passenger seat of my car.

                “About?” he asked, scrolling through the music on his phone that was plugged into the AUX outlet on my stereo.

                “Us,”

                “Us?” he questioned, still scrolling through the music.

                “Yeah,”

                “Okay,” he said finally picking a song. Can You Feel My Heart by Bring Me the Horizon began to fill the car, instead of the original mix it was the acoustic version, so the melody was a lot softer and fit more to the moment. “What about us?”

                “Well,” I began pushing hair behind my ear. As the lyrics filled the car, I couldn’t help but find it funny, the lyrics to this song had always been my favorite since I was able to connect to them on every level. A lot of the time, I longed to not feel anything at all, but now, after experiencing the feelings I felt when I was with Noah, I couldn’t help but want to feel that all the time. “What are we?” I asked him.

                “Humans,” Noah replied, face straight as if he were answering a simple math question like what was two plus two.

                I rolled my eyes and ran a hand through my hair, a habit of mine whenever I didn’t know what else to do. “Noah,” I sighed. “I’m being serious.”

                “So am I,”

                I gave him a pointed look, one to which he laughed off.

                “Well,” he said. “Honestly, I thought we were together.”

                Together. One word, eight letters, and many different ways it can be used, yet right now the way it was being used was making my heart hammer against my chest. He thought we were together.