his mouth away and rested his forehead against mine. We were both out of breath, but Noah was panting like he had run ten miles with his heavy rucksack.
His hand tightened in my hair and then let go. He ran his fingers over the strands, smoothing them down. I stared at him, trying to read his intentions, his thoughts, to divine the meaning of it all.
“I didn’t bring you here today for this,” he said finally. His thumbs were tracing patterns on my face, and it was hard to think or form coherent responses. I just wanted to lie down and draw him next to me. Do my own exploration.
But the separation of his lips from mine brought me a moment of clarity. Taking this path with Noah would make me far more vulnerable than I’d ever been. And suddenly the memory of the ache I had felt upon his rejection was piercing. The warm glow that had been fostered through out the day and the tender night was snuffed out by the chill of that memory.
“Don’t close up on me now, Grace,” Noah said. He held my face and leaned down to kiss me again, but I drew back.
“Maybe this is a mistake.”
“No, it’s not.” He sounded firm and convinced.
I took a deep breath. I was going to roll over and show my soft underbelly, but it shouldn’t be any surprise to him. He had to know he could hurt me. I hadn’t ever had a real relationship before, and I didn’t know all the rules and moves to make. I’d never been good at games, and I hated uncertainty even more.
“I thought I did know you, Noah, but I don’t. You show up here at Central without a word. You ignore me for two years and then you’re everywhere.” I waved a hand between us. “You even decide when we start kissing and when we stop.”
He began to open his mouth, but I interrupted, “If you really want something to work out between us, I’m going to need the whole story.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. “I think I was less nervous the first time I was deployed.” He waited for me to smile at this confession, but it was too serious to me for jokes. “There are thousands of colleges I could’ve gone to, Grace, but I came here because it had you.”
“What about two years ago?” I asked, my voice breaking slightly, and I turned away as I could feel my throat close up and the tears begin to form behind my eyes.
Noah sat up and leaned his forearms again his knees. His body was angled away from me, and I couldn’t see his face, only his profile. The skin seemed drawn tighter than usual against his jaw. “I went into the Marines when I was seventeen. I hadn’t ever lived a normal civilian life on my own. When I got out, I found out I had to apply for school, find an apartment, get a job. All the skills I had been taught as a Marine didn’t help in the civilian world.” He took a deep breath, and I wanted to hug him then and tell him he didn’t need to say another word. But he looked so tense I was afraid one touch would shatter him. I remained quiet and motionless, and he continued.
“I flew to Chicago and rented a car. I was going to surprise you, but when I drove up the North Shore to your home…” His voice trailed off. “Grace, you live behind a gate and the drive was so fucking long I couldn’t even see your house.”
I didn’t understand what my Uncle’s house had to do with anything so I stayed silent. This obviously frustrated Noah because he drew one hand through his hair, hair that I now knew was soft as my aunt’s mink coat.
“What?” I protested.
“You don’t even see how different that is. I grew up very poor. Maybe you got that from my letters and maybe you didn’t. But I was some grunt from the Marines and while I had saved money, it wasn’t anything like that. I couldn’t afford to buy you a house like that.”
“I don’t want a house like that.” The house itself wasn’t so bad, but the constant tension of watching your mother move around like a ghost and your aunt run down your best friend until she was afraid to eat was intolerable. I didn’t want to live in a house