Patrick
Noah shakes his head and sniggers at me. “Wow, nothing like getting straight to the point.”
His reaction alone confirms my suspicions, he definitely already knew.
“When did Sarah tell you?” I ask him coldly.
“Sarah knows?” He genuinely sounds startled by this. Which makes me think…
“Wait, Sarah didn’t tell you?”
“No, Jamie did… Does Sarah know about it too? She hasn’t said anything?” He looks so confused, I know he’s telling the truth.
But hold the fucking bus, Jamie fucking told him?! This throws me off.
“Okay, no, Sarah doesn’t know. I got it completely wrong. I just knew you knew, after the way you were acting around me last night. Fuck. Jamie told you? When?”
He blinks at me a few times, realising what’s going on here. That fucking asshole, he looks so smug now, knowing that Jamie hasn’t told me that she told him.
“That’s between Jamie and me, I guess.” He says calmly, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Okay.” I look away from him. I don’t like looking at him at the best of times, but right now. I really wanna punch him. I wanna punch him so bad. But I won’t. “You don’t need to sound so superior about it, I know what you were doing in New York over the holidays.”
This takes him down a peg. He blinks and looks away from me. Yeah, you dick. You’re no angel yourself.
“What do you want, Patrick?” He asks me quietly. I made him feel bad. Good.
“I wanna know what’s really going on between you and Jamie.” Are the words that come out of my mouth. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to confront him about all this shit and to find out if he’s told anyone else. Whatever’s going on between him and Jamie is none of my concern.
“What do you mean? Hasn’t she told you?” He asks me, bemused.
“No.” I reply coldly. Then after a pause, I add, “We aren’t exactly on great terms right now.”
“Yeah, she did say that.” He says, more to himself than to me. Oh, really?
“What exactly has she told you about me?” I ask him, my voice getting lower as my annoyance builds.
He studies me for a minute before speaking. “It’s not my place to say. You should talk to her about this, not me. She’s your best friend, after all.”
Something about the way he said that last part isn’t sitting well with me. If he keeps this up, he is gonna find out how it feels to have my fist connect with his jaw. I need to calm down, so I take a deep breath and compose myself before I speak to him again.
“Noah, you and I have never had a problem. I’ve always been cool with you. So help me out here. Why was Jamie over here the other night? Are the two of you still….?” I gesture at his bed, I can’t say the actual words.
He raises an eyebrow at me, clearly interested in what I’m asking him. “So what if we are?”
It doesn’t bare thinking about. That’s what. I shake my head and look down at the floor. I can’t answer him, so I keep quiet. I can’t think of her with him that way anymore. I can’t think of her with anyone other than me that way now.
“You actually do like her, don’t you?” He asks me in disbelief.
I look up at him. That motherfucker. It’s none of his business. So again, I don’t answer, I just glare at him.
“Fuck, I didn’t really believe it when she told me. But it’s written all over your face, man.” He sits back a little on the bed and raises both his eyebrows at me.
“What’s so fucking hard to believe?” I spit back at him.
“Are you kidding?” He asks, frowning at me, “It’s you and Jamie. It’s fucking weird. The only thing that would be weirder is if it was Jay and Jamie!”
“Don’t.” I warn him.
“You know, when Jamie and I first met, I thought there was something going on between her and Jay.” He goes on, testing my fucking patience. “But it didn’t take me long to see what you guys are to her. She loved all three of you like brothers. Nothing more.”
Okay, that’s it. I stand up, clenching my fists at my sides. He holds his hands up in mock surrender from where he’s sitting on the bed.
“Calm down! I’m just saying I never would have guessed that you actually had feelings for her, that’s all. You’ve done a good job of hiding it, anyway.”
I unclench my fists and sit down on the chair again, never taking my eyes off of him.
“I get it, I do.” He goes on. “We’re not that different, you and me.”
“I’m nothing like you.” I hiss at him. If he’s trying to relate to me right now, he can fuck off.
“No,” he sounds like he’s losing his patience a little. I don’t care. “I mean, we have our… similarities.”
I know exactly what he’s getting at. We both sleep around. Next.
“And obviously we both like Jamie.” He says, running a hand through his hair again.
“You’ve had a funny way of showing it.” I say to my feet. I can’t look at him anymore. How dare he compare his feelings for Jamie to mine? He had her. For fucking months. He was the only guy she cared about, he was the guy she wanted to be with. And he fucked it up. He fucked other girls after he’d been with her. If he felt the same way I do, there’s no way he would have done any of that. And still, he’s the one she wants.
“I know that, but I have been trying.” He says, sounding stressed. “I was ready to try, and I think it would have worked out if she hadn’t…”
He gestures a hand at me with disgust. Right, like I came along and ruined everything for him?
“Fuck off.” I snap, my eyes meeting his again, “There is absolutely fucking nothing stopping you from making her yours.”
I sit back in the chair and look up at the ceiling. Why the hell am I even here? I came here to find out what he knows, and who he’s told. But now that I know Sarah had nothing to do with it, I don’t really care. Jamie told him about us herself, and that’s her right. I should go.
“Yes there is, and you know it!” He sounds pissed, but I’m not in the mood for this anymore. I continue staring up at his bedroom roof, twirling my lip ring with my tongue. Maybe Jay will be up for drinking tonight. I can’t get drunk around Jay though, in case I say the wrong thing. I could sit and drink and listen to him go on about Erin though, that’s always fun. But he’s picking Jamie up at the airport later, so he won’t drink. Dumb idea.
“She fucking loves you, dude. I can’t compete with that!”
Wait, what? I lift my head up from the back of the chair so that I can look at him. He’s frowning at me, and he’s talking with his hands now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him act so animated when he talks. He’s usually so expressionless. Is this what a Noah Rant looks like? I don’t give a fuck about that though. What did he just say?
“All I can do now is try to be her friend. And that’s what I’m doing. That’s why she was over here the other night.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. I don’t say anything, waiting to see what else he’ll say.
“When I got back from New York, she told me she’d slept with some other guy but she didn’t tell me who.” He pauses and throws me a dirty look here, fair enough. “But what I didn’t know was, it wasn’t just sex. For her, anyway.”
He sighs again and looks at the ceiling. “When she told me she didn’t wanna be my girlfriend, she said it was because she’d fallen for this other guy.” He laughs to himself. “I couldn’t believe it. It had been like, what, less than a week? But I knew she was being honest, she was so upset about the whole thing. She was saying so much stuff, about going back and changing things and about friendships. As soon as she said the word friendship, I thought it was Jay. But it was you.”
He glares at me, and I don’t move. How the hell do I respond to this? I can’t believe she told him all this stuff, but she never said anything to me about it. Why didn’t she talk to me about this? I don’t understand.
“Me and Jamie, we’re a lost cause romantically, I know that now. But we can be friends, and I want her in my life. I want to be her friend. So that’s what we’ve been doing these past couple of weeks. But what I don’t understand, is why you’ve been fucking around with Amanda? Or why you would tell Jamie that you like her, sleep with her, then blow her off? Do you realise what you’ve put her through since the start of the year? Don’t you care about her at all?”
I don’t like his tone. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Of course I fucking care about her. It’s none of your god damned business!” I shout at him.
“So what are you doing here, then? If it’s none of my business, why are you over here talking to me about it right now, huh!?” He shouts at me in his annoying New York accent, leaning forward on the bed, but not getting to his feet.
“Because I thought she was still seeing you!” I shout back at him, not getting to my feet either. This is a delicate situation, I’m not gonna be the aggressor.
“You were with her at Marley’s, she was over here a couple of nights ago. Seems a little weird that you’d be spending so much time together if your romance is a lost cause.”
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” He asks in disbelief. “We weren’t together at Marley’s. Well, we were, but everyone else was there too. Jamie and I hung back when they left to talk about things. And she came over here a couple of nights ago because she knew I’d figured out who it was she’s fallen for.”
“Stop saying that!” I shout at him, looking away from him.
“Why!? You’re not happy that she’s fucking in love with you?” He accuses me harshly.
Of course I am. I just don’t like hearing it from him. I shouldn’t be hearing this from him, I should be hearing it from her. It isn’t real otherwise. I close my eyes and rub my forehead, because suddenly my head is spinning. I need to get out of here, I can’t listen to anything else he has to say.
“Wait.” He says quietly. “You didn’t know?”
I don’t answer him, I’m too busy trying to get the fucking pounding in my head under control.
“Oh my god, she never told you.”
I look over at him, and his mouth is hanging open in shock.
“This makes so much sense now.” He says quietly to himself, looking at anything other than me. “She never told you how she felt because she was worried about me. But by the time she talked to me, it was too late. You’ve been dating Amanda, so she’s convinced herself that you don’t actually like her. Which, let’s face it, makes sense. Your reputation is worse than mine.”
“Noah, stop talking!” I interrupt his train of thought. “Jamie knows how I fucking feel about her, okay? She’s had no reason to doubt it since I told her about it, so just shut the fuck up!”
“Are you sure, though?” He asks me. “I mean, you’ve been seeing Amanda? Why would you do that if you like Jamie?”
“Amanda and I aren’t fucking dating!” I shout at him. “Amanda knows everything, we’ve just been talking about stuff. She’s been cool.”
“So there’s nothing going on between you and Amanda?” He asks me doubtfully.
“For god sake, no!” I’ve lost my cool now, “There’s nothing going on between me and anyone! That’s the difference between me and you. I can’t look at another girl now, much less date or sleep with anyone! Not after her!”
He looks at me with interest, but I go on. “You have no idea how fucking lucky you were, and you totally blew it! You had her, you fucking had her, but you went and fucked all those other girls anyway. What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“That’s not fair!” He’s on his feet now, finally. “You don’t know what was going on between me and Jamie. And she was sleeping with Shaun Campbell too!”
“No, I don’t know everything that went on between you two, but I know enough.” I get to my feet too, I’m slightly taller than him, and I’m pretty sure drumming builds more arm muscle than running does. He should remember that. “You fucked it up.”
“And you haven’t?” He growls at me accusingly. “Because it sounds to me like you’ve been too busy worrying about me to even realise that she’s fallen in love with you. Why do you think she’s fucked off to Scotland, huh? She’s fucking heartbroken, and it’s not because of me!”
I don’t say anything, and I don’t move. I just glare at him for a moment longer, before sighing and sitting down again. This is a lot to take in. He keeps saying she’s in love with me. He’s said it like three fucking times now. Why does he keep saying that…? Did she say it?
“She hasn’t said anything to me.” I say quietly, looking down at my feet.
“You know she isn’t good with words.” He says, sitting down on the bed again. We’ve both surrendered our anger now. “And she felt bad about things with me. This has been hard for her. She didn’t expect this. None of us did, I guess.”
“Right.” I say. Because what the hell else do I say now?
“Why did you tell her you like her? After all these years of being friends? Dating other people? Why now?” He asks me, sounding genuinely curious.
“I couldn’t pretend anymore.” I say quietly, not making eye contact with him. That’s all he needs to know. He doesn’t need to know any of the rest of it.
“Well.” He says, before taking a deep, slow breath. “I think you need to tell her again.”
I sigh, in preparation for another argument. But, what is my argument? I don’t wanna tell her how I feel about her again because she doesn’t feel the same way? I wanna try to get over her because she’s in love with you?
Based on everything he’s just told me, I’m not so sure about those arguments anymore.
There’s a knock on the door before it flies open. Will fills the doorframe, and he looks concerned.
“What’s going on?” He asks abruptly. “Because Maddie’s had her ear up against the door for the past 5 minutes, and you were talking pretty loud.”
I look at Noah, like he’s your roommate, you deal with it. He looks over at me, then back at Will, then he says, “I thought you were taking her out for sushi or something?”
“I am, but it’s barely 6 o’ clock. We’re about to take a shower.” Will replies casually.
“Thanks for the visual.” Noah snaps back at him, rolling his eyes.
I try to ignore the memories this stirs up in me. I’ve only taken a shower with a girl once before, and it was the best shower I’ve ever had in my life. Because the girl was Jamie of course. I’m jealous of Will right now, even if it is Madison Hudson he’s with, they obviously like each other and that’s what matters. I want to do things like that with Jamie. I want to shower with her, and take her out for sushi after 6 o’clock on a Sunday night. Except Jamie doesn’t like sushi and neither do I. So I wouldn’t take her out for sushi, fuck no. I’d take her anywhere else though, wherever she wants to go. I’d take her all the way to the zoo just to get one of those lame penguin lattes she likes. I’d take her to New York to visit Erin whenever she wants. I’d take her to fucking Scotland if it meant seeing her smile just once.
Jesus Christ, I am completely fucking whipped.
I already knew that, but who have I been kidding? I can’t get over her. I don’t fucking want to get over here. I’m always gonna feel this way. There’s no one else, and there never will be. She’s my fucking penguin, and I know it. I always have. I can’t just give up on that.
“Patrick?!” I look up and Noah’s staring at me, the bedroom door is closed and Will is gone. How long was I lost in thought just now?
“I need to go.” I say quickly, standing up and walking over to the door before I can talk myself out of this.
“Um, okay?” Noah says, getting to his feet too, confused. “Were we done talking about this?”
“Yes.” I turn to face him. “It’s not you I should be talking to right now.”
I open his bedroom door and rush through to the front door of the dorm. Will and Madison aren’t sitting in the living room anymore, I guess they’re in the shower now, whatever, I’m out of here.
“Patrick!” I’m half way through the front door, but I turn back to look at Noah. He looks alarmed, but, not in a bad way.
“She’s gonna be on a plane soon.” He says to me, his face expressionless again.
"Go to the airport.”
“That’s the plan.” I give him a small smile, which he returns. He’s not so bad, I guess, but I don’t have time to stand around here talking to him about this anymore.
“Not a word to anyone, okay?” I warn him, and he laughs.
“Good luck!” He calls after me as I rush through the hall and down the stairs.