Same Time Next Year

Chapter 7 - Year 2

Elle

The moment Lee's car backed out of the driveway, I sunk down on the couch and breathed a sigh of relief. For awhile there, I wasn't sure if he was ever going to leave without me. Lee had so much fun last year at Comic-Con, he seemed ready to move mountains to get me to go along this year. Originally, I used the same excuse as last year - work, but Lee went so far as to talk to my boss to beg her for the weekend off for me. When my very confused boss told Lee that I already had that weekend off, I had to tell Lee that there must have been a miscommunication about the schedule.

Since I couldn't use work as an excuse, I used Kami, my USC roommate. Kami and I lived together in the dorms our freshman year and got along so well that we got an apartment off campus this last year. At the last minute, I made up this whole story about Kami's boyfriend breaking up with her and how she was begging me to visit her for the weekend to help her get over him. Lee knew how much Kami had helped me get over Noah after our breakup so he didn't complain too much that I was skipping out on our weekend to help her. Lee had hung out with Kami on the weekends he had visited me at school but I didn't worry about him finding out the story wasn't true. Kami was the one person I had told about seeing Noah last year and I knew she would back me up. I hated lying to Lee, especially after everything we had gone through when I first started dating Noah. I felt like an awful friend but it had to be done, if I was going to get my weekend with Noah. Like last year, Lee was disappointed that I couldn't go with him but I knew he wouldn't miss me much since he would be there with all his Berkeley buddies.

My relief after Lee left was short lived.  The longer I sat on the couch, the more I worried that Noah wouldn't show up.  It had been a whole year since we made our plans after all. So much could change in that time. He had stayed in Boston for the summer and I hadn't heard from the Flynns that he had plans for a weekend visit.

It's not that I hadn't seen Noah at all in the past year. We had seen each other around all the holidays.  Plus, there were a couple Sunday family lunches we were both at, one in the fall when Noah surprised his folks with a trip home over a long weekend and the other during Noah's Spring Break. But when we saw each other, it hadn't been awkward like it had been in the first year after our break-up. I know we were both thinking about our stolen weekend last year and the weekend we were looking forward to. 

We hadn't exactly stuck to our original plan of no contact outside of family events.  Noah started texting me not long after our weekend last year and after that, we would text or call once a week or so.  We never discussed the terms of our relationship, which I actually think helped.  I never stressed about trying to talk to him but we both made ourselves available anytime the other would call.  We were both crazy busy during school, so I'm glad that it didn't cause us any additional stress.  I thought maybe I would see him a little more once summer came, but he ended up at an internship in Boston this year.  It sounds like he's been working his ass off and putting in a ton of hours, so we've barely talked.  I'm a little worried that even if he does show up here it doesn't mean that everything will be like last year.

I let myself take another minute to worry over whether or not Noah would make it, then made myself get up off the couch and got to work cleaning up the beach house. At least the busywork would take my mind off Noah and it wouldn't hurt to have this place clean for a change. I love Lee but he's never been very good at picking up after himself.  Last year I felt like I needed to do it, since I knew he wouldn't, but I'd given up this year.  Someday he was going to have to learn this part of adulting and I wasn't going to enable him any longer. The downside to my tough love approach was that most of the time the place looked like a pigsty and it drove me crazy. When I finished putting the clean dishes away in the kitchen, I decided to get myself a glass of wine and sit on the beach to let the waves help calm my nerves. Maybe it would take my mind off thinking of Noah. I had just sat down when I swear I could hear the familiar hum of Noah's motorcycle pulling into the driveway. I had to stop myself from running out the front door, telling myself it could just be a motorcycle passing by.