The Morning After || ✔

Chapter 9

Bailey|Noah

We sat there for the longest time. Just listening to music. He didn't speak and I figured he would talk when he felt like it. I understood losing a parent, my grandma's death killed me. The best thing I could do for him was just be there. Even if my lower half felt like it was being stabbed with a million needles at once.

"I miss her," He murmurs in a broken voice that makes my heart hurt. "She was my best friend, my biggest fan and the best mom I could ever ask for." He turns to me, burying his face I'm my neck.

I wrap my arms around him, rubbing small circles on his back in the pitch black of his room. He continues in a weak voice, "She's been sick for so long, it's selfish to wish she were still here. But I do."

"How long?" The words slip past my lips before I can stop them as my temper flares.

"We found out her cancer had returned middle of sophomore year." He responds, sitting up to look at me in the dark. His voice is now stronger and inquisitive.

I bite my lip. So he's had all this time to tell me about his mom, but he didn't. Noah has kept this all to himself for years. As if we weren't close enough to share things like this. I was always upfront about my issues, and what was going going on in my life. Minus my cheating ex-boyfriend, because I was ashamed of it. But this is something he could have told me, he knew I would've understood. Why wouldn't he let me be there for him?

And he wanted to talk about me being a closed book with trust issues. Yet he couldn't tell me the woman who raised him was dying? He couldnt let me be there for him? And now? He didn't even tell me she died. He disappeared for a week. It leads me to question if he ever was going to tell me. So much for trust, I think as I refrain from starting an argument.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Noah sighs from somewhere beside me, as I feel him stand up.

A vague outline of his hand appears by my head, offering me a hand up. I silently debate in my head whether or not to be petty. He has to have had his reasons for all this. Now wasn't the time to hold it agaisnt him. Not in the wake of his mother's death. So I grab him hand and let him pull me into his chest, as we fall back on the bed.

He kisses me. With desperation and need. Right now, he needed a release, something to take his mind off of the demons in his head. And his usual coping method usually involved us, naked. We all have our own ways of coping. Mine was to wall off all my emotions, his seemed to always be sex. They made a good combination because it meant almost nothing to me and he got a release.

This time around, though, it means everything to me. And I need him just as much as he needs me. I tug my fingers through his hair roughly, causing him to groan in pleasure. His warm lips trail themselves along my skin, sucking and biting, leaving love bites. With every second that goes by, we get rougher with our kisses and our actions. Because I guess that's what we both need. Rough, emotional sex in the heaviness of his house.

￦

"We don't have to do this, Noah." My voice is filled with concern as I watch him, carefully. "You, don't have to do this."

Noah looks up briefly from the box he's packing. It's his things, from his room. Most of it isn't going with him, instead staying here with his dad. Who is falling apart right in front of our eyes. But won't even let Noah near him. Noah says it's better this away anyway, he thinks he reminds his dad too much of his mom. He tells me that his dad never left his mother's side as she was dying.

I had yet to bring up the hurt I felt over the fact that he didn't tell me. But after that night, we've spent most of our time in his room. Sometimes listening to music and just sitting in silence, other times having sex. In between we rotated between holding each other and surviving. But now it's July, and Noah leaves the second of August. I leave two weeks later.

"It's-it's just that if I don't do it now; I'll never do it." His voice wobbles, causing me to sigh. It's hurting him, to do this. To leave his mother's memory, but it'll hurt him worse if he doesn't go.

"Hey, look at this," I wave him over, holding a picture of us at homecoming Sophomore year.

Noah took me out of pity, but it ended up being one of the best nights of my life. He showed up at my aunt's house, dressed up in a gray suit one size too big for him. He gave me a desert rose corsage, it went perfectly with my ombre white to fuchsia dress that cacaded down to my knees and flowed when I walked. Noah's jaw dropped when he saw it, and he didn't take his eyes off me the rest of the night. It was one of the only times I ever felt like he only had eyes for me.

Noah smiles as he sits on his bed next to me, "You were stunning that night," He pauses, "You're always stunning, but that's the first time I noticed."

My heart melts and I feel a cheesy grin spread across my face. "Aw."

Noah chuckles, "I knew I was a goner, Bailey. I'm so sorry that I was an idiot." He grabs my chin, gently turning my face to face his. "I should not have ran away from my feelings for you the way I did."

My heart pounds in my ears as he continues, "I was just so scared of you, because you're so independent and strong and everything I'm not. It's no excuse because I know I hurt you. It kills me. And now that I have you, it's too late. I'll have to let you go and that scares me too."

"We still have time, Noah." I kiss his lips softly. "And when the time comes, we'll just part ways. If we're meant to be, we'll find our ways back to each other. Like we always do."

More people are following me and reading this book :') I'm happy and insecure all at the same time. But it's wonderful.

I am currently working on a new book, and I don't think you guys are ready for it. I'm actually quite proud of it, so far. But I'm going to wait to punish until I finish because if I publish now; it'll never get done.

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(You might not like anything this is a very rough draft)

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