| photo by Azzedine Rouichi from Unsplash |
Summerfield High School is smaller than I pictured. Or maybe it's just shorter? Mom turns into the parking lot and I understand the misconception. The photo in the yearbook is a tightly cropped shot of the school's main entrance. But the two stories of shiny new metal and glass have been tacked onto the front of a squat and boxy, tannish-brick building.
"I'm going to wait in the car," Lindsay announces.
Mom pulls into a parking space reserved for visitors. Her eyes shift to the rear-view mirror with a sigh. It's a longer, wearier version of the one she let out as we were leaving the fifties-themed restaurant at the mall—which was followed by the words, "Lindsay. You are chipping. Away. At my patience."
"I'm not going to leave the car running," she says now.
Meaning Lindsay is free to stay out here and bake in the hot car? Nice, Mom.
I'm the first one out, speed walking across the parking lot, because I've lost patience with both of them. I hoist one of the heavy glass doors open, and I'm greeted by a waft of chilled air. I stay there, holding onto the door—partly because of the heavenly breeze. But mostly because the entrance hallway is bigger than it looks from outside. More intimidating. The ceiling is vaulted and there's a massive glass wall separating it from an office space with a reception counter and a row of waiting room chairs that remind me of a hospital.
Lindsay huffs past me and heads for the single door to our immediate right. She reaches for the handle but then, like me, she stalls out in the open doorway. But I don't understand her hesitation. The sign beside the door says Administration Office—which is where we're headed—and it's not like...
Oh, wait. There's a guy with longish blond hair talking to the lady behind the counter. Noah is early.
Mom exhales a protest and circumvents Lindsay, jerking the door out of her hand and waving us both through like an irate crossing guard. The flurry of motion and attitude draws the reception lady's attention. Noah turns toward us, and Mom calls out his name like she's greeting an old friend, which is embarrassing. But then she takes an extremely obvious moment to brand Lindsay with a warning glare before she crosses the room to shake his hand. And that's just...wrong.
"Thank you so much for meeting us here," Mom says.
Noah's eyes flick over for a quick read of my face and there's a hint of...something.
"No problem, Mrs. Clark." He turns to Lindsay and adds, "How's it going?"
My sister keeps her eyes down. She says, "Good-thanks," and scurries away like a scolded puppy. She parks herself, unnaturally rigid, in the closest chair, her face a little pale. Kind of like my first day at the new house, when Noah called my phone and Mom gave Lindsay a lengthier, angrier silent reprimand than the one I—and possibly Noah—just witnessed.
"We'd love for you to join us for dinner next Sunday," Mom tells him. "Three o'clock?"
"Thanks for the invitation, but there's a golf tournament at the club this weekend. I have to work all day."
"I'll settle for a rain check," she says, but her manic enthusiasm is starting to fade. "I'll ask again when everyone gets settled back in school."
They exchange a genuine smile. Then Mom gives me a suffocating hug and says, "Text me when you're on your way home."
"Yeah, okay." I use my elbows to push against her grip. She takes the hint and I break away, focused on the exit. I push through the glass door without glancing back to make sure Noah is behind me, because I can't risk it. I don't want to know if my prickly tone hurt Mom's feelings, or if Lindsay is offended that I didn't say goodbye.
I rush down the hallway, intent on escape. Or at least, to find something to distract me from the enormous weight in my chest—anger I don't completely understand.
Except...yeah, I do. Because it's simple. Nothing in my life—not one freaking thing—is the way it's supposed to be. And I'm tired of it.
The glass wall turns to painted concrete, plastered with photographs of students in matching uniforms: sports teams, marching band, cheer squad. And my generalized anxiety turns to specified panic. If I decide to come back here, to attend this school—in just two weeks—this space will be packed full of people who know things about me that I don't know. Things I don't want to know.
"Ally?"
Noah's voice seems extra loud. And my eyes... I close them because of the light. Because it feels like it's...
Crap. I know exactly what this is. I'm starting to get one of my headaches.
As soon as I acknowledge it, my stomach takes a turn. Like it's chewing on the idea of rejecting the bacon cheeseburger I had for lunch. I breathe in, shuddery and weird, as pain pulses my temples. My purse drops to the floor, because I need the heel of both palms to counter the pressure, need my fingers to cover my eyes.
There's a sinking sensation and then my butt touches the floor, and I'm relieved because the feeling was real—actual motion—and not me, losing my mind. I lean back, hoping I'm close to a wall. And I am, but it's wrong. Warm and encompassing. "It's all right, Ally. I'm here."
The wall is Noah.
"You're all right," he says.
No I'm not. There's nothing right about my life now.
"What can I do, Ally? Should I get your mom?"
Normally, I would say yes. If Mom were acting at all normal. But stress is what trigged this. I need to try and relax—and I'll never be able to do that with Mom and Lindsay around. "No. Just..."
Noah shifts behind me and I realized, with a little jolt of mortification, how much of my weight he's supporting. I sit up straight and squint my eyes open.
"Please tell me what you need," he says, quick and quiet. But there's a waver in his voice, concern bordering on panic.
"I'm okay," I say. Which is obviously not true, but I don't want him to worry. "I just need..." Mom put some of my headache medicine the brown purse.
Did I transfer it to the one Samantha gave me?
"Do you see a flowery purse?" I ask, trying to open my eyes a little wider. If I can take my medicine now, it should ward off a full-blown migraine.
"Right here."
He touches the bag against my hands. I fumble with the side-pocket zipper and yes—thank God—the prescription bottle is there. "Can you break one of these in half for me?" I ask, holding it out for him.
"Oh," he says. "I know what this is. My mom gets migraines. You need a dark room. There's a bed in the clinic, but that would mean going back through the front office."
"No. Please."
The pill snaps and Noah shows me his palm, giving me a choice because the break wasn't even. I choose the smaller half, hoping it will be enough, because I don't want a whole-pill's worth of side effects. He helps me get to my feet and guides me to the water fountain. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the clinic?" he asks, as I slurp embarrassingly loud.
"Completely."
"All right. There's another place we could go. It's a bit of a walk, but I've got you."
His arm slides around my waist and the phrase, Dream Hero, pops into my head, making my cheeks go instantly hot. Which doesn't help the headache situation, because feeling embarrassed is feeling stress.
It's hard to keep my eyes open in the florescent-bright hallway. So I don't know where or how far Noah leads me. He announces a left turn. Right before I feel the sensation. Like the earth is tilting too far on its axis.
We stop and a door squeaks open. He guides me into a room that smells like...pine trees? It's cooler in here, also like a forest. So I relax my eyelids, lifting them just enough to test the light. "Is this a closet?" I ask because there are shelves with boxes. There's a mop in a yellow bucket.
"It's a short cut."
He opens another door and I cry out as the glare cuts into my eyeballs. "Shit, Ally, I'm sorry. Stay right there." His hands leave me and his feet scuff the floor. "Okay, the light's off."
All I can see is the glowing ghost of a room, outlines and shapes I can't identify. There's a sweeping kind of swoosh and then something hits the floor. "I put a stack of mats about five steps in front of you," Noah says, his voice moving closer. Then his arm circles my waist. "I put a couple of them on the floor, so you can sit—or would you rather lie down?"
I shake my head. Which is a mistake because now I'm dizzy. The medicine is kicking in. "Just five steps," he says. "Then you can sit."
He counts my steps out loud, lowers me to the spongy mat and sits beside me. Noah leans against the stack of mats and I lean against his arm. "Wait, hold on," he says. He shifts; then the weight of his arm presses me into his side—and I'm a little surprised by how easy it is to get comfortable there.
"This is the equipment room for the gym," he says. "I used to come here a lot after my grandma died."
"Why?"
"To get away from everything. Sleep."
My insides warm at the mental image of Noah sleeping on the tall stack of mats—like The Princess and the Pea.
"My GPA took hit 'cause I was sleeping through classes on a regular basis," he says. "But it's not like I'm prime college material."
College? God. I hadn't even thought about that.
I get a twinge, a throbbing of pain. I need to stop thinking, to breathe. The medicine wants me to sleep, and I should give in, because then I won't feel my head.
But there are questions. I have even more of them now. "I need to know if you..."
I mean. Did I...
Noah wraps his hand around mine. "It's okay if you fall asleep," he whispers. So soft.
I close my eyes because I should. And I can, because Noah's got me.
<> <> <>
A bell rings. It's not inside my head, I know, but it feels that way. Every pulse of sound is like a hammer on my temples. I turn my face into the pillow. It's warm and it smells like...
"Noah," I say, remembering Mom glowering at Lindsay. And photographs mounted to a concrete wall.
But right now I'm in the equipment room for the gym. He brought me here because of my headache.
"Sorry," he says. "They must be testing the fire alarm."
"How long did I..."
"You slept about an hour. The staff will be leaving soon. Should I take you home?"
"No." I straighten, pushing myself away from him, so I can get up. But I only make it to my knees. Then Noah's hands grip my waist and he lifts me to my feet. "I'm sorry," I say, mortified. "I didn't mean for you...I can..." I lean away from him to test my balance.
The earth tilts too far on its axis.
"It's not a problem, Ally. Let's get you to my car and we'll figure out where to go from there."
I let myself fall back into him and Noah's arms cocoon around me.
The transition from dark to florescent is uncomfortable. My eyes start to adjust after a few moments and I'm able to keep them open. Mostly. But my head is still a little wonky from the medicine. So walking is a challenge. I really do need Noah's help. I'm not just letting him hold onto me because it feels good to be this close.
"Is this something that happens a lot?" he asks.
My cheeks burst into flames. Because The Something that just happened was a cataclysmic stomach shift.
"I know they're new because you didn't have them before the accident," he says. "Are they always this bad?"
"Oh." He's talking about my headache. "This one wasn't. I mean. It could've been worse. The medicine helps if I take it soon enough. But it makes me feel a little...um. Not that I know what it feels like to be drunk." I'm not like my sister. "Did you happen to notice..."
We turn a corner and I tense, because I recognize the two-story glass entryway I came through with Mom and Lindsay. But the office must be closed, because the front-desk lady is gone and most of the lights have been turned off.
"Did I notice what?" Noah asks.
"Just...did my family seem weird to you? Like. Did you see the way Lindsay kind of froze when she saw you? And then Mom's reaction. It was weird, right?"
"Yeah."
"It's been like that all weekend. And my sister keeps insisting that I talk to Samantha, but I'm not convinced that's going to help. Especially now that I've finished reading the instant messages. Samantha doesn't know you called me from Georgia."
"How do you know that?" he asks. Instantly defensive. And all of a sudden the arm around my waist seems a lot less hospitable.
"I can't know for sure, obviously. But everything else is there, written in black and white: you went to visit your mom, you came back, sad and—"
We cross into the glass entryway, into a beam of direct sunlight, and it's not enough to close my eyes. I have to shield them with my arm. "You were sad and distant when you got back from Georgia," I continue. "I asked you to come to my house and you yelled at me—and I had no idea why."
There's a metallic crunch. Like Noah punched the door open. "My car's parked in the shade," he says. "Just keep walking." His tone is stiff and his hold on me is minimal—and I want to peek at his face to see if he looks mad, but the sun is hot on my skin. So I don't dare lift my arm-shield.
Noah steers me across the parking lot without another word. When the temperature drops, I lower my arm and test the light, but it still hurts to open my eyes. The car door creaks open and I smell chocolate. There's a shuffling noise and then something rigid touches the back of my hand. "Sunglasses," he says. "Put them on."
"Are you mad?" I ask.
"No."
"What then? Annoyed?"
Oh god. That's exactly what this is. He's tired of babysitting me. "You can go ahead and take me home," I say, and Noah sighs.
"Please put the sunglasses on," he says.
I do and it helps. I can squint again. "You look mad," I tell him.
"What do you want me to say, Ally? I can't prove it."
"Prove what?"
"You just said you don't think Samantha knows I called you from Georgia."
"Right, because there wasn't anything—no mention of a phone call from you in those IM transcripts."
"I'm saying I can't prove it happened."
"Oh. That's not what I meant—I don't think you're lying, Noah. It was me, my lie to Samantha. That's what I realized after I read your text yesterday. That's what I was trying to tell my sister."
"What does Lindsay have to do with it?" he asks.
"I don't know. Something, I think. Because she keeps saying things, over-exaggerating and lying and—I was going to ask you about my parents. Did I talk to you about them? Like about my dad not coming home on the weekends and my mom crying and stuff? Because if that's true, then I didn't say much about it to Samantha. But if it's not true, then Lindsay is..."
Noah holds up a hand to stop me from talking. "It's true, Ally. We talked about it a lot. You were afraid your parents might be getting a divorce."