Noah

As soon as I’m back at the dorms, I’m pacing my kitchen with my phone in my hand. Trying to decide what to do for the best. I should leave this. I should. So what if Jamie told me she likes me, even after finding out about my past? That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. I still don’t want a girlfriend. I don’t want anything from any girl, Jamie included.

After talking to her out on the balcony, I left Jay’s mansion immediately and walked home. I was shocked. I wasn’t in the best of moods, I’m still not. And I didn’t wanna be there in the first place. I checked outside by the pool before I left, and saw Zach sitting on an outdoor sofa next to a fire pit with Kim, looking pretty cosy. I decided not to bother him, and I just left.

But now? What now? What am I doing? What am I even considering right now? I have no fucking idea. I hate how tight my chest felt when Jamie was talking to me earlier. And I hate how shitty I felt when I told her she was wasting her time with me. Before I can stop myself, I’m dialling Sarah’s number.

First ring. Second ring. She’s busy, she won’t answer. Third ring. She’s gotta be out partying or something. Fourth ring. No, I’m gonna hang up.

“Hello?” Shit, she answered the call. Why am I even calling her?

“Hi, Sarah.” I say, followed by a short cough. My tone came across so deep and cold just then, I didn’t mean it to.

“Hi, Noah. What can I do for you?” She asks. There’s a little background noise, likes she’s stepped outside from somewhere.

“Can you talk? What are you doing?” I ask her.

“I’m at a party, I’m out on the balcony now though. I can talk. Everything okay?”

Of course she’s out on the balcony. Perfect. I take a deep breath. I can do this.

“Sarah, you and me… We would never have worked out, right?” I ask the question quickly, hoping maybe she didn’t quite hear. Because I am not gonna ask twice.

“Are you kidding me?” She asks, not unkindly. “You know we wouldn’t have worked out romantically, Noah. That was never on the cards for us. We were just young friends who decided to do something together for the first time… But never again.”

“Never again.” I agree. Sex with Sarah was awful. I guess no one really has a good time the first time they do it, but God, it was just weird and awkward. Sleeping with a friend is never a good idea. Sarah and I are lucky it didn’t ruin our friendship to be honest.

“Why are you asking me this, Noah?” She asks into the phone. “Particularly, at 10:30pm on a Saturday night? Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not.” I answer honestly. Then I hesitate. But she waits for me to say more. “I was at a party, over at Jamie’s friend’s house…”

“Oh, I see.” She says.

“What?” I snap. She’s making her own conclusion about whatever I was calling to tell her.

“Something happened with Jamie tonight.” Sarah states.

“Not exactly.” I murmur, while rubbing my temple with my free hand. I really hate this. “Well, I saw her make out with some guy, then I talked to her and, I don’t know. It didn’t exactly go well.”

“Okay.” Sarah says, followed by a pause. “And why are you calling me up to tell me this?”

I sigh. She’s got me. “Because… I can’t stop thinking about her, okay? I need help. Advice. Support. Anything! I don’t know what to do for the best. I don’t wanna treat her bad, but I don’t wanna date her or anything like that either. I don’t know what to do about her anymore. What do I do, Sarah?”

“Oh, Noah. The fact that you’re even saying this to me proves that you like her. It’s okay. You are allowed to actually have feelings for this girl. Stop overthinking. Just do what feels right.”

Do what feels right? And what feels right, exactly? Fuck if I know.

“She told me she likes me the other night. And I just…” I sigh, because talking about it just reminds me how much of an ass I was. “I walked out on her.”

“Noah, I know this is difficult for you.” Sarah says kindly. “But I don’t know how I can help, other than advising you to do the one thing you’ve never done with a girl before…”

I sigh. If she says ‘ask her out’ I’m gonna throw my phone against the wall.

“Follow your heart.”

Jesus, that’s worse. I immediately hang up on her and resume pacing around my dorm. That was totally counterproductive. Calling Sarah achieved nothing. I need to think.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m heading out again. And before I know where I’m going, I’m back at Jay Montgomery’s house. I feel bad about how I left things with Jamie up on the balcony earlier. I feel bad about how I’ve left pretty much everything between Jamie and me. Why do I feel bad? I haven’t done anything wrong. I shake my head as I walk up to the house from the front gates. There are red cups everywhere, and some kids stumbling around smoking, making out, laughing, and generally just having fun. I don’t care about any of these people. I just wanna talk to Jamie. No one else. I enter the house and immediately I’m faced by John and Aubrey. They look like they’re about to leave.

“Hey, Noah. We’re gonna head back to the dorms. Everyone’s pretty drunk now, and the music’s so loud, we can’t hear each other talk.” John informs me with a smile. I don’t care.

“Have you seen Jamie?” I ask them both, cutting straight to the point. Aubrey looks startled by my question, before sharing a confused look with John.

“No, I haven’t really seen her all night.” Aubrey says curiously. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, I just wanna talk to her.” I say, moving past Aubrey and John to begin searching this fucking mansion for her. They follow me.

“Anything particular on your mind?” John asks me, as he and Aubrey follow me through to the main kitchen. No sign of Jamie.

“Nothing that concerns you.” I say coldly, exiting the kitchen through the back patio doors. John and Aubrey continue to follow me.

“Okay, well, have you tried calling her?” Aubrey suggests. “She could have left already.”

I look around outside, and there’s no sign of Jamie. Maybe the pool house. I highly doubt she’s in there, but I head over towards the pool house anyway, just to check.

“Why would she leave a party at her best friend’s house early?” I say as I open the door to the pool house. Jamie isn’t in here, but Patrick is. He’s sitting on one of the couches, with a pretty little blonde girl sitting next to him holding one of his hands in both of hers. He looks pretty drunk. His eyes meet mine, and the girl turns her head to look at me, Aubrey and John. They both frown at us, because we’ve interrupted whatever they were about to do in here. Oh well.

“Have you seen Jamie lately?” I ask, because we have effectively ruined their moment anyway.

Patrick doesn’t answer, he just continues frowning at me and shakes his head. I can take a hint, so I back out of the pool house and close the door.

“What were they doing in there?” John asks. He’s so naïve.

“Nothing. Yet.” Aubrey answers, as she and John follow me back towards the house. I’m determined, I need to find her.

“Noah, stop!” John calls out suddenly, stopping me in my tracks. “This house is huge, she could be anywhere. Call her.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at it for a few seconds. I’m reluctant to call her. But, why? Because that way, I’d be seeking her out. This way, I could just be bumping into her at the party again. But, John and Aubrey and Patrick all know I’m looking for her now anyway. Fuck. I sigh and run a hand through my hair.

“Why are you so desperate to see her anyway?” Aubrey asks me tentatively.

Did she actually just call me desperate?

“I’m not desperate to do anything, Aubrey.” I spit back at her, earning a stern glare from John.

“Yeah, well you are acting weird. And we already know why you’re so eager to talk to Jamie.” John raises an eyebrow at me. “Don’t make me say it.”

I shake my head in defeat. “Whatever, John. I’ll see you guys later.”

I head for the patio doors, and this time, John and Aubrey don’t follow me. I hear Aubrey whisper something to John. She sounds excited. I’m not an idiot. I know she thinks I’m desperate to see Jamie right now because I’m about to drop down to my knees in front of her and admit that I’m madly in love with her and beg her to be my girlfriend. Wrong. Completely fucking wrong.

Once inside, I make my way through the drunken crowd of party goers towards the main entrance to the house. John is right, I could spend the whole night chasing my tail around this place and still not find her. So, I’m going to her house.

***

I approach Jamie’s front door, and hesitate before ringing the doorbell. There’s a black Range Rover parked behind Jamie’s car in the driveway. I have no idea whose car it is, but I assume it’s probably one of the guys’ and they left it over here earlier when they started drinking or something. I don’t fixate on this. I wait, and there's no sign of movement inside. I ring the bell again, purely because I find it odd that Benji hasn’t even came to the door, and this time, I can hear him barking. Great. So now, I’ve either stressed out her dog for no good reason, or I have successfully managed to get Benji to alert Jamie to the fact that there’s someone at her door. Hopefully the latter.

Benji stops barking, and I turn and take a step down the porch steps because I’m convinced she’s not at home; she must still be over at Jay’s, unless she left with that guy she was making out with or something. I can’t even consider that. Just as my foot hits the second step, I hear the door open at last. I turn to see Jamie standing inside the half-open door, looking extremely confused. Benji rushes past her feet to greet me, so I climb the couple of steps back up to the porch.

“Hi, Benji.” I say as I crouch down to pet him.

“What are you doing here?” Jamie asks, she sounds startled and confused. I swallow before I stand up straight to face her.

“I wanted to apologise.” I pause, thinking she may jump down my throat and tell me to leave. But she doesn’t, so I continue. “I don’t like how I left our conversation earlier. Or how I left our conversation the last time I was here…”
She rolls her eyes as I run a hand through my hair on reflex.

“You run your damn hand through your hair far too much, Noah, you know that?” She points out with absolutely no hint of humour. I pull my hand out of my hair and look at it stupidly.

“Um, I don’t even realise I’m doing it half the time.” I say.

“I know.” She sighs. I don’t know why it bothers her. “You really need to try to stop doing that so much around me though. It drives me fucking crazy.”

“Why?” I ask automatically. Okay, so maybe it’s a little annoying, but I can’t see why it would drive her crazy. She raises her eyebrows at me and shakes her head like come on, dude and the realisation dawns on me finally. It doesn’t drive her crazy because she finds it annoying. It drives her crazy for another reason all together. I feel so stupid.

“Sorry.” I say quietly, looking down at my feet to avoid looking into her eyes any longer.

But no. I can’t be avoidant. I came here for a reason. I need to see this through. I clear my throat and look up at her again, preparing to say what I came here to say. But she speaks first.

“You don’t need to do this, Noah.” There’s zero emotion in her eyes as she talks. “You’ve apologised, we’re cool. I should never have told you that I like you in the first place. I know how you feel about this stuff, honestly I don’t even know what I was expecting from you. I should never have opened my big mouth about it. We’re cool, okay?”

She looks at me expectantly, and I blink. I’m confused. I feel like she’s blowing me off a little, like she’s trying to get rid of me. She likes me though, or she says she does anyway. I came here to apologise, which I’ve done. But I was also gonna try and be real with her. I was gonna try and return the sentiment. It took a lot of guts for her to tell me she likes me. Why can’t I do the same? Because I know deep down that I do like her as more than a friend. That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t give her what she wants, though. A relationship. So why bother telling her that I like her? It’s ridiculous. No. I can just leave things as they are. This is fine.

“Okay, cool then. As long as we’re good.” I say, and she gives me a weak smile. I turn to leave, but she speaks again.

“Noah?” I turn back to look at her. “Why did you feel the need to come over here to apologise to me again? You could have called, or text. It could have waited until class on Monday?”

“I just wanted to make sure you knew I was taking this seriously, that’s all. Good night, Jamie.”

I turn and walk down the porch steps. She doesn’t say good night back to me, and I hear the door close. I feel weird. That didn’t go at all how I had expected it to.

I frown as I walk past the big black Rover parked in the driveway on my way towards the street. I wonder if Jamie does have company right now after all. She sure took her time answering the door, anyway. Maybe it is the guy she was making out with earlier.

It’s really none of my concern, though. Right?