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If only I could get her to be that way about us.
“I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more, Blue.”
A waitress came and handed us each a menu. I ordered us both a ginger ale, and when Noa opened her menu, her jaw dropped.
“It’s so expensive,” she hissed, looking over each option.
“Don’t worry about that. Just pick whatever you’d like.”
“I wish I could have a taste of that. Being able to buy whatever I want without a second thought.” She stopped and looked up at me. “Sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”
“Don’t apologize. Too many people are afraid to say what they’re thinking. You’re…alarming, but I love every moment of it.” I looked down at my menu, stuck between the steak and the scampi.
“How does it feel?” she asked me, pausing her perusal to glance up at me.
When my gaze locked with hers, I knew I had to try for the truth. Especially if I was going to ask her personal questions tonight. “Weird, I guess. I don’t know anything else. I have this bank account set up by parents I’ll never know. Some of it I have access to. I guess that came on my eighteenth birthday. And the rest, according to Tracey, will be available when I turn twenty-one. I don’t spend much of it because I don’t really need to.”
“And college?” She pressed on with her questions.
This was our transaction; honesty for honesty, blood for blood.
“I have another account set up for college. Tracey has complete control of that and always will. Whatever I don’t spend will go to her.”
She nodded, and when the waitress came back with our drinks, I ended up ordering the steak while Noa ordered the scampi.
“Before you ask me anything, I want you to know that I don’t want you for your money,” she blurted out the moment the waitress walked away.
I tried to stifle my laughter but ended up losing. “Well, you only just found out about it, so it’d be pretty impossible to think you were here with me because you were money hungry.”
She looked at me with laughter in her eyes and stared down at the table. After a few moments, she looked up again, all laughter gone. “We might as well get this over with. What are you curious about, Dexter?”
I smiled. “Well, if I’m being honest, I’m curious about anything that involves you. Your first boyfriend, what makes you laugh, what ticks you off…”
Her gaze dropped back to the table. “See, that’s easy. All those answers are simple:you.” She smiled when she glanced back up at me. “Give me something tough.”
“Tell me everything.”
She took a deep breath.
And Noa’s skeletons revealed themselves.
“I grew up in a shitty little apartment. It was loud, and alcohol was never a big deal. Tim was drinking most weekends by the time he was fifteen. It was soeasywhen my parents didn’t give a shit about us. Their relationship was lethal. It destroyed all parties involved.” She wiped her tears quickly and continued.
“When they left, I cried. Of course I cried.” She rolled her eyes through her tears and I wanted to tell her she was entitled to her feelings. To assure her they were important and held merit. But she went on.
“And when I wasn’t crying, I was trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Could I have been a better daughter? I remember everything so sharply—the pain, feeling like I was thrown aside like garbage. I didn’t know how we’d find our next meal. I remember being hungry. It makes me want to cry,” she said, blinking back more tears.
“Tim had only just graduated, and when he found a job at the factory, it was as if by a miracle. But Tim had dreams. He—he wanted to get out of here, and having to take care of me made him bitter. Before I knew it, he was drunk every night. One night, I found him crying in bed and when I asked him if he was all right, he told me to grab a bottle from the cabinet. When I brought it over, he drank it—no, he gulped it—like it was the answer to his prayers. And when I saw the pleasure, the numbness it gave him, I wanted that. I wanted to stop feeling everything. But drinking, it made me feel like I was dead inside. Sure, I didn’t feel anything, but I knew I was wasting away. And the hangovers, they were terrible. Waking up, not remembering anything, it was terrifying. Still, I couldn’t stop. It was a blessed silence.”
She stopped and I reached out to touch her cheek, letting her know she was still there with me.
She kept fading, into her nightmare. “You and I were in the hospital the same night. I’d been drinking and…I don’t know. I lost consciousness and began choking on my vomit. It’s so disgusting and I’m ashamed. But, I remembered this feeling, like I was living inside my head. I was beginning to forgeteverything,and it was beautiful. It was what I thought I wanted. And then I woke up.”
She wiped her eyes again. “I don’t know why I was given a second chance. While I pretended to hate it that day, I knew it was a miracle. Because in that last moment, before I blacked out, I knew I wanted to live. So, I decided to be different. I started volunteering. Sometimes I talk to a shrink—hardly, though, because Tim can’t afford it.”
I let her absorb the shock of having shared her story with me. And I admired her strength. “I’m in awe of you, Blue.”
“Don’t be. I’m a mess. But when I came back, I felt a little…different. It’s weird. I remembered everything, but I was more…at peace? I wasn’t as angry as I had been at my parents. I felt like someone took my cold bitter heart and gave me an injection of hope. It still hurts and I still want that numbness because it’s all I’ve known, but something about me changed.”
