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~Saturday February 5th~

Noah is interesting because - among many, many other things - not only does he always know when I'm lying, but he also never lies himself. He kept to his word. Five minutes later, he's knocking lightly on my front door. If I hadn't already been here I wouldn't have heard him knock, but I'm guessing he knew I'd be waiting here for him.

I didn't bother to change out of my pajamas. I'm not really in the mental state to care what I look like right now. When I open the door, the first thing I notice is that Noah didn't change out of his pajamas either. But the second thing I notice is Melody sitting on his hip, her head on his shoulder as she sleeps - also still in her pajamas.

"Why is she here, she should be sleeping?" I whisper with complete confusion as I open the door wider to let them in, then closing it behind them.

"I couldn't get a sitter or drop her off at a friend's house this late at night, so I just took her with me," Noah whispers back.

"Why couldn't you just leave her with your parents?" Noah sighs.

"That's what we're gonna talk about," he says, looking down at her to check that she's still sleeping. "Where can I put her?"

"Uhm, you can put her on my bed," I suggest. "This way," I say before walking up the stairs. He follows me into my room, and I watch from the doorway as he places her down onto my bed, pulling the covers over her and then turning off the light. The darkness has come back, and I wasn't ready for that. I walk backwards into the hallway where there is a light on, my arms crossed over my chest as I glance around my dark bedroom. I feel my heartbeat and breathing quicken slightly, and tears beginning to prick my eyes again. I blink furiously, the last thing I want to do is start crying again.

Then Noah is there. He closes the door behind him softly, shutting out the darkness without breaking his searching eyes away from mine. I know he can see right through me. I know he can see how scared and hurt I am. I don't try to hide it from him anymore. Before he even moves, my arms have uncrossed to accept the hug which I know is coming. He wraps his arms around my waist, pressing me completely against him. I rest both of my hands on his chest and bury my face into his sweatshirt. It smells like chocolate and mint, and like him.

I can't help but think about how comfortable Riley and Emma's hugs were, since I'm significantly taller than both of them. But now I'm the short one, and I realize just how badly I needed this. I can't always cling onto myself. Sometimes I need a different shoulder to cry on.

I don't realize that I'm crying again until Noah reacts. He shushes me gently, rubbing my back slowly with one hand and smoothing down my hair with the other. He pulls back slightly and I get scared that he's letting go already, when I'm not ready yet. I grip his sweatshirt in both of my fists to try to keep him here with me, but he doesn't pull completely away - only a little. Only just enough to be able to place a long, soft kiss on the top of my head. Immediately warmth floods across my body, starting at the top of my head where his lips are still pressed and rippling downward until my bare toes no longer feel cold on the hard floor. I realize that he's not leaving me and release his sweatshirt, feeling a little bad for overreacting. He stays, and only moves enough to place more long pecks across the top of my head.

When I finally stop shaking and each breath I take fills my lungs, he slowly lets me go. I look up into his eyes and am met with the deepest, most beautiful blue I have ever seen.

"Let's go downstairs. Where we can talk without waking her up," Noah whispers, his voice so quiet that I can barely hear it. I nod my head, reluctant to look away from him and feeling so much colder as soon as I take the first step forward. He follows me back down the stairs and into the living room. I turned on a lot of the lights when I first came down, so the room is already filled with a comforting orange glow. I sit on the couch, pressing back into the pillow and pulling my knees into my chest. Noah sits too, about a foot away from me. Here, but not too close.

"So, I'm telling you my life story?" I guess.

"Only if you want to. And of course, I'll tell you mine." I nod.

"Where do I start," I say with a humorless laugh.

"I heard the beginning's a pretty good place," he says, giving me a comforting smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. I sigh. Here we go, I think.

"When I was ten, I was best friends with another girl who was in my class at dance, named Emma. She had blonde hair, silvery blue eyes, and a love and passion for dancing like nobody else. It was already her life, she was only ten years old and she knew that that was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. We got along so well - we rarely fought - and I loved her like a sister. As an only child, that was precious. When I started calling her Em, she jokingly started calling me Tert, and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

"A month before we were all supposed to be going on pointe for the first time, she started feeling sick. It wasn't much at first, just a cough that wouldn't go away, and no one thought much of it. Then the coughing got worse and she started coughing up blood. She was in a lot of pain. So her mom took her to a doctor, and - at ten years old, so perfect and healthy and full of potential and passion, her entire life right in front of her - she was diagnosed with lung cancer."

I bite my lip to try to conceal its trembling, and wipe a stray tear off of my cheek with the heel of my hand. I knew it was inevitable that I would start crying again while telling Emma's story, I was just nevertheless hoping that I wouldn't. "Sorry," I say softly, wanting to continue the story but not really trusting my voice.

Noah wraps one arm around my back and the other underneath my knees, easily picking me up and placing me on his lap. The arm around my back pulls me into his chest while the arm that was under my knees untangles itself from my legs and moves to my hair, combing through it.

"You don't have to apologize, Teresina. Take your time," he says softly and I nod my head. I focus on taking deep breaths and find that it doesn't take as long as I expected to calm down. I continue talking, but don't change my position on his lap.

"Her father was a heavy smoker, who never realized that he wasn't the only one at risk. For almost two years her doctors tried everything they could, chemotherapy, surgery, everything, but the tumor kept growing and spread to other parts of her body. By this point she wasn't dancing anymore because she couldn't breathe well enough to exercise. I think the day she came into the studio in her street clothes to tell everyone she wouldn't be taking classes for a while was a wakeup call for most of us.

"Not being able to dance crushed her, even more than the actual cancer. The doctors kept trying but the treatment was just making her weaker and more miserable. One day that sweet little girl looked up into her mother's eyes and told her that she was done with treatment. She knew it was almost her time and she was too tired to fight it anymore.

"She sat in that hospital bed for a month and half, slowly slipping away. Then her birthday came up, so myself, two other girls from dance, and part of her extended family came to visit her. She couldn't even breathe on her own anymore without having a coughing fit that put her in extreme pain.

"Something just came over her. Minutes after she turned 12, myself holding one hand and her mom holding the other, she died. But she was so peaceful. She wasn't in pain, she was never scared. I sure was, but she was ready.

"She loved dancing so much. We put up a few pictures of her in the studios, and whenever we feel like giving up, we remember her. We dance for Emma. February sixth was her birthday, so of course the nightmares that used to haunt me every night returned for the special occasion. This time Riley, my best friend at dance, was in them too though. About a month ago we realized she had an eating disorder. They're not uncommon in the dance world, but I just never expected it."

I pull away from Noah's chest just enough to see his face, and he looks down at me. "That was what happened that night you called me and I was crying. She's okay now, she's going through counseling, but it was all just too similar to Emma. I was so mad that I never even noticed until it could've been too late. After Emma died, I told myself that I was going to look out for my friends and make sure that I cherish every moment I had with them. But I failed Riley. I didn't want to lose my best friend again." Noah wipes away the stray tears on my cheek with his thumb, the rest of his hand cradling my jaw.

"You are so strong Teresina. I never would have expected you to have gone through something like this. You are always so kind and happy, and you do always look out for your friends. None of that is your fault, and you didn't fail Riley. You saved her. Promise me you'll try not to blame yourself for stuff that's out of your control like that." I nod my head, completely entranced by his compassionate gaze. His eyes hypnotize me to the point that anything he told me to do, I would. He pulls me back into his chest, rubbing his warm palm up and down my arm and giving me a chance to calm back down. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, filling my lungs with his scent and melting into him.

"I think I owe you a story," he says after a few minutes.

"You don't have to," I say, perfectly content with leaving the conversation there and sitting here forever.

"I need to. I never talk about it."

"Okay," I respond, bracing myself for a life story that I know almost nothing about.


~~~~~

Written 8/13/18, Published 9/9/18

Here it is, Theresa's past! But yes, you do have to wait a whole week for Noah's story now. Hopefully though you see that even though their stories are really sad, them comforting each other makes it worth it to read... I hope.
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