How Our Hearts Break: A Novel, page 16
“One moment?”
“Just one.”
Time ticked slowly while she played with the strands of my hair, goosebumps erupting all over my skin.
“The day we first met.” She smiled. The smallest, saddest smile that held so many emotions that I couldn’t even start to decipher which one was which. “I think it’s one of my favorite days.”
“You wore that purple shirt with a unicorn on it.”
“It was my favorite.” She laughed. “I drove my mom mental, because I didn’t want to take it off, even to sleep.”
“You wore that thing everywhere. Literally, everywhere.”
“I know.” Sophie chuckled. “You had that Star Wars shirt on.”
“Oh yeah, and I never even saw Star Wars.”
“It was so funny when kids started talking to you about R2-D2 and you just stared at them blankly, just nodding at whatever they were saying.”
“I had to seem cool, okay?”
I leaned back right between her legs, and wrapped my hand around her ankle, hating… Fucking hating how cold her skin was. The wind started picking up and when I looked up, I could see the gray clouds pushing away the white ones I saw earlier.
“It’s going to rain, isn’t it?” Sophie asked, looking toward the sky as well. “I wonder if it’ll rain wherever it is that I’m going.”
If she slapped me, it would’ve hurt less.
“That is, if there is anything after, you know?”
“I do,” I answered, my voice wavering along with the wind. “Do you remember those stories about fairies you used to tell me? The elves, their kingdoms and beautiful lands?”
“Oh my God.” She started laughing. “I was so lame.”
“Nah. I wish that land really existed, you know? I wish that we could just jump into the pond and travel somewhere far away from here, where we could live forever.”
“Noah—”
“I wish life turned out differently, Soph. I wish snowflakes truly could be in the colors of the rainbow like you described them once, and that sickness and death never existed over there.”
“Baby,” she whispered and hugged me from behind as she came down onto the grass, sitting right behind me.
“Right now, I would give anything for all of that to be our reality, and not this.”
“But it can’t be, Noah.” She put her chin on my shoulder. “Unfortunately, fairy tales are just stories for little kids, and we are far too old to believe in those things.”
“I know.” I nodded. “I just… I just wish things were different, you know?”
“I do. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to wake up from this terrible nightmare I was going through, but every morning was still the same. That bottle of pills was still on my nightstand, and the headache was still tearing through my brain. Dreams are for people that have a future, Noah. They’re not for me. Not anymore.”
“Sophie.” I turned around and placed her legs over my own, pulling her onto my lap. “That’s not true.”
“But it is.” A sad smile played on her lips. “I have months to live, if I’m lucky.”
“No, don’t say that.” I could feel my eyes tearing up, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. “Please, don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry, Noah. You have no idea how sorry I am that you’re here with me, going through all of this. But we have to face reality. We have to start preparing.”
“Stop it.”
“Noah.” She placed her palms on my cheeks, wiping the stray tear cascading down my cheek. “I need you to be ready, okay? I don’t wanna talk about this any more than you wanna listen about it, but I have to. On my last checkup—”
“Please don’t.” I hugged her. “Don’t say it.”
“You need to know. You deserve to know.”
“I know, and I want to, but I also don’t want to count the days, okay?”
“You won’t be counting the days, but I need you to get ready.” She took a deep breath while my entire body shook, unable to contain the emotions racing through me. “Four months, Noah.”
“No.”
“I have four to five months. If I’m lucky.”
“No, nope.” I started shaking my head. “I refuse to believe that.”
“It might be more, but this is their prognosis.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Noah!”
“I don’t wanna believe in that, Sophie!” I pulled back from her and stood up, then walked toward the edge of the pond, and looked up at the dark sky. “I can’t believe in that.”
“Babe,” she said as she approached.
I turned around and roared. “And how can you be so calm about it?” I couldn’t breathe. God, I couldn’t fucking breathe. “How can you be so calm, telling me that your life has an exact expiration date? Huh? Because I can’t be calm about this. I can’t accept that in a matter of months, I will never be able to see you smile. I will never again hear your voice. I will never be able to hold you close. How can you be so fucking calm when life decided to tear my heart out? When it decided to take you away from us?”
“I’m not calm!” she thundered back. “I am not calm, but I also know that there’s nothing I can do.”
“You could fight!”
“For what, Noah? For months in a hospital bed? For the rest of my life to be spent on IV drips and endless surgeries, and we all know that none of them would do me any good.”
I laced my fingers on the back of my head and closed my eyes, trying to think of anything, something. Just fucking something. I needed a miracle, and miracles weren’t exactly getting handed over on a silver plate.
“I can’t lose you, darling,” I murmured, letting the tears flow freely. “I can’t fucking lose you, and I know I will.”
“Noah—”
“I wanted us to be together forever, you know?” I opened my eyes and looked at her. “I wanted to put a ring on your finger one day. I wanted to see you with our kids, running around the garden. I wanted you to accomplish all your dreams while I held your hand through it all. Good and bad, I wanted it all with you. Only you.”
“I wanted it as well. Don’t you think that I did?”
“I know you did, but I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what to feel anymore. For the first time in my life, I’m feeling lost, and no matter what I do, no matter what I say, the outcome will always be the same.”
“But you said it yourself.” She took my hands into her own. “We can still live in the moment, and I want to spend these last few months I have left with you. I don’t want to fight with you over things that can’t be changed. I don’t want to leave this world, knowing that I didn’t do everything in my power to have an amazing time. I made a bucket list, just like I promised.”
“You did?”
“I did. And if you want to, or if you have time, I want you to help me with it.” She pulled a paper out of her back pocket and held it in front of us. “Wanna read it?”
I nodded my head, not trusting my voice anymore. Something heavy was sitting on top of my chest, something else was scraping all over my throat, and holding it down was getting harder and harder.
She placed the paper in my hand. “Read it.” I opened it up, unfolding the piece like it was the most precious thing on the earth, and wiped away the tears still coating my cheeks.
Sophie’s Bucket List
Go skinny dipping
Dance in the rain
See Northern Lights
Visit Grand Canyon
Ride on a motorcycle
Have sex in public
Have breakfast in bed
Get a tattoo
Attend a music festival
See Colosseum
“This is—”
“Is it too much? Do you think we can do it?”
I stood there, staring at the fucking paper. A paper… that’s what we resorted to. A paper with her final wishes.
A paper that I wanted to crumble and throw into the pond, because my brain wasn’t anywhere near rational thoughts.
“Noah?”
I cleared my throat. “We can do this, darling. We will do everything you wanna do.”
“Really?” Her face lit up with the question and I couldn’t stop myself from claiming her lips again.
I closed the distance between us and placed a hand beneath her chin, lifting her head up. “Really.”
My body burned from the need to take her away and hide her from this ugliness, but I could do none of those things. I couldn’t rob her of her time with her parents and her other friends.
So I put my hand on the back of her head and pressed my lips against hers, tasting the saltiness from our tears, from our pain, from the anguish tearing our world apart. But I made a promise, and this was one promise I intended to keep.
Years ago, I vowed that one day, this beautiful girl with the prettiest smile and the brightest eyes would be mine. Now I vowed that if these were the things she wanted to do, we would do them all.
I would do anything to put back the smile on her face.
19
SOPHIE
I woke up with a start, my heart beating erratically in my chest, until I remembered where I was.
Those few seconds after you woke up, where your mind was completely empty and your body free, were the only moments of bliss these days. Those passing seconds felt heavenly, and just for a moment I could pretend that all these things that were happening were just a bad dream.
And I was getting better and better at pretending.
A heavy arm laid freely over my middle, holding me close to a big body that belonged to a person that still made me smile. Even after all these years, after all those reservations, he still held me like a priceless piece of porcelain, and over the past couple of weeks he never let go.
They said that actions were what mattered and not words, and Noah did his best to show me why it was always only him for me. Countless other guys, opportunities missed, yet none of them came close to what I felt for him.
I wiggled my ass against him, feeling his dick twitching against me. I smirked as his hips started moving, his dick rubbing over my ass, while the small puffs of air escaped from his lips, playing with the hair on my neck.
He tightened his grip against me, pulling me closer to him until his chest became plastered to my back.
His honey-laced lips dropped to my shoulder, quick, sloppy kisses going from my shoulder to the sweet spot behind my ear. My eyes closed while his teeth nipped at my skin, and that hand around my waist started going lower and lower, until his fingers reached the hem of my shirt.
Sneakily, almost too carefully, he pushed my shirt up and spread his fingers over my belly, holding himself there as if he too was trying to savor this moment.
“You’re a wicked witch, Soph,” he murmured against my neck. “But I like this kind of morning.” I could feel his smile on my skin rather than see it, and before I could even answer or say anything at all, he flipped us over, with me right beneath him and him above me.
His sleepy eyes held a brightness that wasn’t there two days ago when I told him about my prognosis, and that dark hair fell over his forehead. He grabbed my hands and pulled them above my head, holding me hostage, while his hips held mine locked onto the bed.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he croaked and dropped his head down, pressing his lips against mine. “You’ve been awfully loud last night.”
That smirk—that knowing little smirk. “No, I don’t remember anything.”
“Because you slept like a newborn baby, but the noises.” He dove and bit one of my nipples over my shirt. “My name on your lips.” He bit the other one, pulling out an involuntary moan from me. “I almost woke you up right there and then. You drove me insane.”
“Why didn’t you?” Panting, needy, with lava burning through me, rushing through my veins, I needed him to do a lot more than just press those wicked lips against mine.
I lifted my hips, but as soon as I did, he pressed down on my pelvis with his other hand, his fingers dancing over my belly. “I almost did, but I didn’t want to scar your parents for life. I also didn’t want to have your brother barging in here while I was balls deep inside of you.”
“You’re such a romantic, you know that?” I laughed. “Balls deep? Really?”
“And what would you like me to say? While my member penetrated the hard walls of your tunnel?”
“Eww, no.” I pushed against him, but he wasn’t budging. “Please don’t ever utter those words in my presence again. That sounds like construction work.”
“Does it?” His hand went to my back and dipped inside my panties. He grabbed a fistful of my ass, pushing his dick up and down, slowly building up the tension I craved even without him properly touching me. “Maybe I should tell him that I deflowered his baby sister in the middle of the night in the forest.”
“Oh, no.” I grinned. “Do you wish to end up with a broken arm or something?”
He shook his head. “No, but since you don’t want me to use that word, this is the next best thing.”
“Just don’t talk about the two of us having sex, or kissing, or touching each other… You know what, just don’t talk to Andy at all.” I laughed. “He’s been giving you the stink eye for a couple of days now.”
“He loves me, trust me. We have this real bromance that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Besides, he told me that he always thought you and I are going to end up together one day.”
“No fucking way.” I pulled myself up and moved toward the headboard. “He’s been teasing me so much over the years, even though I never confirmed what I felt for you.”
He sat up and pulled my feet into his lap. “I mean, it was obvious to everybody else but us. To be honest, it was obvious to me as well, but you were just so stubborn and—”
“I was stubborn?”
“Yeah.” Noah nodded. “You never told me how you felt.”
He dug his thumbs into the soles of my feet, eliciting a long moan from me.
“You like this, don’t you?”
“That, right there.” I closed my eyes while he massaged. “But for the record,” I opened my eyes and looked at him, “I was not the stubborn one, Mr. Manwhore.”
“Who? Me? I’m not a manwhore.”
“That’s not what half of our school thinks.”
“What they think and what really is the truth are two separate worlds, Sophie. Yeah, I never had a girlfriend because I didn’t think that it would be fair for them to be with someone whose heart already belonged to another girl.”
I shut up after that.
I knew I should’ve talked to him about how I really felt but telling him everything that sat on my chest never felt right. Even now, even after he told me how he felt, even after everything that has happened in the last month, I still had a hard time expressing all these feelings swirling through me.
I loved him. I loved him since we were kids, but telling him all of it now seemed useless. I had a feeling that telling him how much he meant to me would just cement his decision to stay glued to my side, when that was the opposite of what I wanted for him.
“Noah,” I started, knowing that we had to talk about this. “When are the scouts coming?”
Before, he used to talk about hockey more than about anything else, but these days, hockey seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind. He shrugged and looked down at my legs, spreading his fingers over my muscles, avoiding my eyes.
“Babe.” I moved myself closer, and he had to stop massaging for a minute. Placing my hands on his cheeks, I lifted his head, forcing him to look at me. “When was the last time you went for a practice?”
It’s been days. Maybe even a month since he went to the rink, and this was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
“I don’t know,” he murmured.
“You can’t keep doing this, Noah. You can’t stop living.”
“But what is the point of living and doing all these things when you won’t be there with me? What is the point of fighting for the life I once wanted to have, when the person I love the most in this world is going to be taken away from me?”
“Noah, just because I won’t get the chance to do all these things, it doesn’t mean that you can’t. And I want you to do them. I want you to live life like we once talked about. I want you to fulfill your dreams.”
“But what about your dreams?” He placed his hands over mine, pressing them against his cheeks. “I know we keep talking and talking about these things, but I just can’t comprehend it. I can’t accept it, Soph. And I’m trying to be positive—for you. I’m trying not to let these things overcome me, but it’s fucking hard.”
“I know it’s hard.” I dropped my hands to his shoulders and climbed on his lap. “Trust me, I know. But let me tell you one thing, Noah.”
“What?”
“When the day comes, I will still stay with you. I will always be here,” I murmured and pressed my hand against his heart. “I will be happy knowing that at least one of us gets to do all these beautiful and magnificent things. I will be thrilled to know that my best friend, my favorite person, the love of my life, will get to live and will get to enjoy life.”
“But that’s not how I’m feeling. How can you be so positive about everything? I just…” His chest expanded with the deep breath he took before he buried his face in my neck. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“I can’t tell you what to do.” I rubbed his back. “But I can tell you what I would love to see you doing.”
“Then tell me.”
“I want you to pretend none of this is happening, Noah.”
“But—”
“Wait,” I warned him before he could argue with me. “I know it might not be healthy, and it might not be the best thing to do, but I still wanna feel like me, you know? I don’t want this sickness to define me, because I am so much more than that. And I don’t want it to define your life. It’s a terrible thing, it’s a tragedy, I know, and trust me, I am not okay with it, but I made peace with the fact that I’m dying. I am loved. I lived an amazing life. I fell in love. I did all these things I loved. I was lucky, Noah. Lucky to have this family, to have you, to have my other friends and to have skating. Do you know how many people go through their life trying to find that one thing they’re passionate about, and they never find it? Thousands, Noah. Yet I managed to find mine when I was a small child.”
