London Prep: Book Three, page 38
And Helen won’t be happy if we’re late to school.
Give me a choice.
Statistics
When Noah and I sit down in our first class, my stomach still has butterflies in it.
I haven’t been able to think straight all morning. And believe me, I’ve tried. I keep trying to push the thought of shirtless Noah out of my mind.
But apparently, my mind has other ideas because each time I glance at him, I don’t see Noah like he is now in his uniform shirt. I see shirtless, barely-towel-covered Noah.
And now that I’m not confronted with his nearly naked body, my mind’s had time to process what happened.
Which really just means I’ve—I mean, my mind has had time to reconstruct Noah’s body in my head. It’s like now that I can breathe again, the air to my brain has focused all of its attention on the sharp lines of Noah’s muscles and exactly how and where they cut across his stomach.
Productive, I know.
Or how, when he was pressing against me, I could feel parts of Noah that I’d never felt before. And I felt them in places they shouldn’t have been near.
Or how Noah actually does have an eight-pack. I would usually say six, but today, my eyes landed on two that were hidden really low on his belly.
“You want to stop at the bookstore after school still, yeah?” Noah asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
About him. And his body.
“I do,” I reply, looking over at him. I blink a few times, clearing my head.
“Get lost in there?” Noah chuckles as he notices my flushed cheeks.
Because fantasizing over Noah continues to hit me at weird times.
“A bit,” I answer truthfully, taking in his light expression. “But I think that’s pretty understandable after everything.”
Noah looks to the front of the classroom, checking to see what Mr. Johnson is doing before saying, “You liked this morning.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply, not going there.
Noah turns to me, putting his elbows onto his knees. “You don’t have to be with Harry,” he whispers, making sure no one can overhear us.
“I want to be.”
“You actually want to be with someone who isn’t there for you?” he asks, his thick brows dipping in.
“Harry is special to me,” I reply quietly.
“And what about you? You need to feel special too,” Noah insists.
“Right, like this morning?” I shake my head. “That wasn’t special, Noah. That was hormones.”
“I thought it wasn’t anything?” he replies, a small smile forming on his lips.
“It wasn’t.”
“I know; you said. Answer me honestly, Mal. Does Harry actually put you at the center of his world?”
“The center of his world? Noah, he shouldn’t. Hasn’t it ever struck you that those types of relationships aren’t healthy?”
Noah’s forehead creases, and he leans away from me as someone walks past him to get to their seat.
I turn back toward the front of the classroom, thinking our conversation is over, but then Noah starts speaking again, “I’d rather be consumed than forgotten.”
I turn and glare at him, my mouth slipping open. “Wow. You think that’s what he thinks of me?” I ask, hurt.
Noah lets out a hard breath, his hands fidgeting with his tie. “No. But, Mallory, you said no to Harry before. Why?”
“Because I needed to get to know him.”
“And have you?”
“Of course I have. He’s had a hard time recently. But, Noah, he’s there for me.”
“And I’m not?” Noah says a little louder.
My eyes flare at him, and as I glance around us, I want to shake him. I don’t understand why he can’t see that he’s doing this to us. That he’s the one who has given Harry and me every chance to grow.
He’s pushed us together.
And it’s worked.
And Harry, despite his absence this week, is there for me.
Well, at least he says he wants to be.
“No, Noah, you aren’t. You tell me you are. But you really aren’t. Because you’re either there with every fiber of your perfect fucking being or you are absent,” I force out with a whisper. “You’re either zero or one hundred.”
Noah sucks in his cheeks, his nostrils flaring.
“So, there it is,” he states.
“So, there it is.”
“Well, if that’s what you want—”
“You think it’s what I want? I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t like feeling like I’m being pulled in different directions.”
Noah scoots closer to my desk with frustration. “You cannot care about two people in the same way, Mallory. You cannot,” he says, looking at me sternly.
“I didn’t say the same way, Noah.” I shake my head, knowing we can’t talk about this here.
“Then, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if you didn’t walk away from me every chance you got, things might be different. But you did. Over and over, you walked away from me. You made that choice. And now, I have to make mine.”
“All right, everyone,” Mr. Johnson says, interrupting Noah’s imminent tantrum.
Because he looks like he’s a volcano about to blow, and I’m secretly grateful for our professor’s interruption.
“Let’s go ahead and partner up. I want you to work your way through this quick review for the first half of class. Then, we’ll go over the answers in preparation for our test tomorrow.”
I silently scream at Mr. Johnson for letting us pair up in partners.
Why can’t he just teach us?
Is it too much to ask for him to force us to sit in silence for an hour?
I take the review from the person in front of me, turning around to hand it to the girl in the desk behind me. And then everyone gets up, moving into pairs throughout the room. I look at Mr. Johnson, waiting for him to assign pairs.
But he doesn’t.
I let out a breath, knowing what that means. I glance around, trying to find someone besides Noah who isn’t partnered up. I smile to a guy, and he smiles back.
Bingo.
But as I walk toward him, I can feel Noah at my shoulder, and the guy diverts his eyes and then turns toward someone else.
“I cannot believe you,” Noah says at my side before moving to the far corner of the classroom.
He slides into a desk, hunching himself over in it. I sit down in the seat in front of him with annoyance.
“Well, I cannot believe you,” I reply.
“So, you’re going to leave this weekend and …” Noah says, wanting me to finish the sentence.
“I’ll leave this weekend with a broken heart,” I reply.
“Because?”
“Because I’m leaving my two best friends. And … my boyfriend,” I say hesitantly. I’m not sure what else to call Harry. And calling him just a friend feels wrong since we haven’t exactly figured things out.
“I hope you’re happy with that decision,” Noah replies, starting on the review.
“Noah, it’s a decision you made for me.”
“Me?” he says, looking up at me, confused.
“Yes, you.”
I look down at our review, deciding to just start on the first problem. Because if not, Noah and I will just keep going in an unproductive circle.
“Are you saying that I’m the only one who can change things?” Noah asks a few minutes later after I finally accepted the silence between us.
“I’m saying that, even after this morning, there’s nothing to show for it. It meant nothing. It’s a stupid game that’s going to end with me gone.”
“I’m not playing around with you,” he says seriously, shaking his head.
“Sometimes, I think all you are doing is playing around with me,” I reply, keeping my eyes on our review.
“Do you actually think that?” Noah asks, sounding hurt.
I look up and take in his pained expression.
“I don’t know what to think. But, yeah, it can feel like that,” I admit.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t give me a choice. You push and push, trying to get me to crack. And then the second I’m about to, you stop. You say, Never mind. I can’t.”
“I’m giving you one now,” he says, his eyes meeting mine.
“You’re what?” I ask, feeling my heart in my throat.
Because I’m pretty sure I know what that means.
“I’m giving you one. Now,” Noah repeats, setting down his pencil. “You said before that I chose for you. I’m not messing around with you. I’m trying to make it less complicated. But my strategy is … failing miserably. So, it’s your choice. You can do whatever you want. With whomever you want.”
“You’re not telling me what to do anymore?” I ask, feeling like every boundary just somehow disappeared between us.
“Not anymore,” he says, looking down at his desk. “Things are so fucked right now anyway.”
“Okay,” I stutter, wondering what this means.
“I thought you’d be relieved,” he says, squinting one eye at me.
“Relieved?”
“Yes, relieved. Now, you can do what you want. I’m not telling you what to do. Or what not to do. Now, the pressure or conditions, whatever, they’re gone. So … it’s up to you.”
“It’s up to me,” I repeat, trying to wrap my head around what he just said.
I glance to Noah, realizing that I leave in two days.
And that he basically just told me that he is no longer off limits.
I don’t have anything else to say after Noah’s little confession. At least, that’s what I’m calling it.
Because a confession is better than a transference of power.
And it’s definitely better to think he told me a secret rather than he, in essence, handed me a key to him.
Maybe it is just a key to his bed.
Or maybe a key to his heart.
Or maybe it is a key to get myself out of the cycle we’ve been in. The one where I feel something, he feels something, and then it stops because of these other reasons, one of which is always him removing himself from the equation.
Luckily for me, I don’t have to ask what key the confession was meant for because Mr. Johnson quickly breaks up our groups and then spends the second half of class going over our reviews.
By the time the bell goes off, I’ve all but lost myself in the boring, if not informative, review session.
“I thought class would never end,” Noah says at my side.
“Did you want it to?” I ask, turning to face him in the hallway.
But then he glances over my shoulder, someone apparently catching his eye.
I turn around to see Harry looking at us.
I watch as Harry and Noah stare at one another, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen. Yesterday, Noah was pissed. But when I look back, I see he isn’t tense, and Harry cracks a smile before striding up to us. He gives me a grin before pulling Noah into a warm hug.
For a brief moment, I wonder if Noah will accept it. I haven’t heard if they’ve talked or made up. I’m not sure they even need to.
Maybe guys just ignore one another and then hug it out the next day like they’re fine.
And apparently, they do.
I watch Noah visibly relax in Harry’s arms, hugging him back.
“All right, mate?” Harry asks him.
“Yeah,” Noah replies, glancing down to me.
And just like that, their fight is over.
“Stats was dull,” Noah continues. “Spent the morning reviewing for the exam tomorrow.” Noah raises his eyebrows at Harry.
Dull?
Dull?
Did he actually just say class was dull?
I look at Noah, confused, but he just nods his head at me before looking back at Harry, who is wearing a sour expression, seemingly as a result of hearing we have an exam tomorrow.
“See you at lunch,” Harry calls out with a dramatic wave as Noah walks off.
But then he turns to me, and all that lightness is gone.
I swallow, not sure what to say.
Or even what to do.
“So, yesterday,” Harry says, not allowing for an awkward silence, “after school, we sort of left things open ended.”
I chew on my lip as his eyes come to meet mine. And I can see the hesitation in them.
“We did.”
“I realize I’m a mess and that I put you through absolute shit. You have every right to just slag me off, but, Mallory, I really don’t want you to. I’ve never felt this way for someone before.”
Harry’s words take me by surprise. Normally, he isn’t one to talk about his feelings so openly.
Or so publicly.
I look around, realizing that anyone walking past could easily hear him. I glance back to Harry, taking in his sullen blue eyes.
“Felt what?” I ask, wanting him to explain further.
Harry lowers his voice, dipping his head down toward me. “You know me. You see that I eat shit food. You’ve seen me hungover. You were at my house when I was at one of my lowest points. You know I don’t give two fucks about school, that I love to party and hang out with the lads. You’ve been to my two favorite spots—The Arrington and Marco’s.”
“We’ve been through a lot,” I agree, thinking about all the places we’ve been. The conversations we’ve had. The good times and the not so good ones. “I’ve seen a lot of different sides of you.”
“I know you have.” Harry smiles. “And yet, you still care for me. You know all of me. The good and the bad. Everyone who has loved me before, well, they’ve sort of left me. Besides the boys, I’ve never trusted anyone with my heart.”
“You trusted Olivia,” I state the obvious. I don’t want to ask the question or hear his answer, but I have to. “You loved her, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what else to say… it was mostly about sex with her,” Harry says, his mouth forming a frown.
“I know it was more than that,” I reply, shaking my head.
Because I can see the hurt in his eyes. I can hear the coldness in his voice. He doesn’t look or talk about her like she was just some girl he was sleeping with.
And she doesn’t talk about him that way either.
“Harry, she still cares about you. And trust me, I, of all people, wish that it weren’t true. But you need to know that she hasn’t abandoned you.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince me to get back together with her.”
“I’m trying to tell you that she loves you. Or loved you—whatever,” I reply.
“She’s just territorial sometimes. And it really has nothing to do with you and me,” Harry clarifies.
“It does,” I disagree. “Because you keep telling me that I’m different. That you trust me with your heart. But you’re only saying that because you’ve been hurt in the past. And you think that everyone’s left you. But they haven’t …”
“You think that I still want to be with Olivia?”
“I think that what she did hurts you more than you’ll admit.”
“Things are different with you, Mallory.”
Harry looks upset, and my insides roll with his discomfort.
“I know they are,” I agree, taking Harry’s hand in mine.
“I don’t want to be with her. I don’t even want to be talking about her,” he says, shaking his head.
“Then, let’s forget about it, okay?” I say, looking up at him. Because deep down, I don’t want to upset him. And I don’t want to tell him what to do either. But I do want him to make his choices, his decisions, with rationality behind them even if they’re emotional. “Walk me to Latin?”
Harry nods, wrapping his arm over my shoulders. He glances over to me, a flush coming onto his cheeks.
“Sorry, shit,” he mutters, unwrapping himself from me, pushing his hand through his blond hair. “I don’t even know if this is all right. Fuck, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I smile at Harry, his flush calming my own uneasiness.
I grab his hand, wrapping his arm back around my shoulders.
“Harry, I said we needed time to think about things, not that you couldn’t touch me.”
“I just … I’m not sure how to handle this,” he says, his eyes pulling away from mine.
He bites down on his lip, and suddenly, all I can see is the Harry I’ve always cared for. The boy who wants to be with me. His brows are pulled in, and his eye is still black and blue from his fight.
“There’s nothing to handle,” I say, grabbing his hand. “I just want you to take time and think about things with a clear head.”
“I feel like we’re broken up,” he says.
And he looks like he’s about to cry. It sends pain through my stomach, seeing him look like this. I shake my head, wanting him not to freak out. Because I see it in his eyes.
He is.
I grab his arm, dragging him around the corner. And then I press my palms into his cheeks, bringing him to my lips.
Harry kisses me desperately.
And I kiss him back with the same amount of force.
With the same need.
Harry pulls away, glancing around to make sure we’re still alone.
“I needed that,” he says, his eyes scanning my face.
“You put on a good show for Noah,” I comment, finally seeing him look better.
“It wasn’t a show. It’s almost impossible to be sour when you’re around him.”
“But around me?” I laugh for what feels like the first time today, and it’s a good feeling.
“Around you, it’s just as easy. But things have been off.”
“We need to go to class,” I say, knowing if I don’t move, we’re going to be late. “You’ll still think about what I said?”
“I will,” Harry agrees, squeezing my hand before we turn the corner and I walk into Latin.
Last hurrah.
Latin
“I think I just fucked up.”
