Love, Loathing, and Limelight

Chapter Twenty

I wasn't going anywhere this week. Screw my fall break plans. A million thoughts flooded my head. I still wouldn't let myself address it. Everything about this summer that I wouldn't even tell myself has now been exposed to the country. And worse, Noah had been silent on social networks since he was here. He stopped calling me. He doesn't care about me anymore, so I shouldn't care about him. What was he doing at the performance? He didn't even say hi to me. What was the point?

I was in my solitude, alone with my thoughts and my tears. Who was following us around with a camera all week? How is Noah going to publicly respond to this? Is Noah going to publicly respond to this? He had been silent online since May. I'm a doer. I am always doing something. I have to have a project at all times. But when I say I did nothing all day, I mean I did nothing all day.

The next day I painfully watched more news. It killed me. People I had never seen in my life claimed they saw us drinking and other horrible things, but I couldn't stop. I deserved the anxiety it caused, and I deserved the week of social hell. Megan came back from a trip, and I knew I'd have to talk to her. I had told myself I would be firm, but I fell into her arms when she came home and started crying immediately. She didn't say anything. We sat down, and she asked me to explain the real story.

"So there was no hooking up?"

"Does that even sound like me?" I asked rhetorically.

"And no clubbing?"

"No." We sat in silence for a little while.

"Sara," she finally said. "It all comes down to one thing. Are you in love with him?"

"No," I said quickly. "I don't do that."

"So you made out with him?"

"That was an accident, I-"

"So you've been miserable ever since he left? So your grades are dropping, and your talents are suddenly gone because he was a distraction, and you'll get over it?" I was speechless. "What is it really?"

"We're too different," I said in between tears. "Even if I did love him, we live two different lives and-"

"Did that stop him from coming back to see you?" I could feel it coming. I started to pinch my arm again, but Megan stopped me. "Promise me you're going to stop doing that. It's not okay," she said. I nodded my head, whispering the word "ok." The smallest yet strongest part of me couldn't be held back anymore. Tell yourself. "Forget dating, forget the different lives, forget the media. Do you love him? It's not a trick question." Do I? I had been telling myself no. I wanted to get my life back on track, but what if my life had a new path? Was I in love? Could I be in love? Was that possible for a girl who never wanted that? I had been telling myself that I didn't love him, but there was a different answer in the back of my soul. I hadn't let myself know it because the moment I admitted it would be the moment I could never go back to what was comfortable. Was it okay to love him? The smallest part of me had spent months trying to get my attention. I had fought it because of what was comfortable for me. But I realized I had been blatantly ignoring the truth for far too long.

For centuries, poets have used nature, puzzle pieces, or simple completion to describe love. We've used terms like "soul mate," "lover," or "heart's desire" to describe the ones we love. There are a billion different ways to say "I love you," yet I somehow struggled to grasp the concept. I couldn't understand exactly how you come to love a person like that. I've never been able to comprehend what it takes. At what point does one realize they're in love? How do you come to that conclusion? What standards have to be met? What capacity for authentic love does a seventeen-year-old even have? But I realized that love grows and evolves with your relationship, and my standards for what love is cannot be based on someone else's love for their person. I wasn't quite sure I was capable of loving someone like that, but I was sure that whatever kind of love I was capable of, I felt it for him.

I didn't say anything. Tears burst out of my eyes as I looked at Megan, still waiting for an answer. I closed my eyes and nodded my head repeatedly. She pulled me in and hugged me. I spent seventeen years being single and overly proud of it, and here I was confessing my undeniable love for somebody I never thought I would have ever even met.

"You have to call him," she said. I fell off of cloud nine.

"Absolutely not," I said.

"Sara Jane."

"He's over me. I stopped getting calls and texts from him a month ago. He's been silent online. He may have loved me once, but he's over it now." I was vomiting words when I stopped and fully realized my mistakes. "I was too late."

"No, Sara-"

"I should have said something earlier." I stood up and started pacing. "God, I should have told him the night that I made him leave. Or when he called me for the first time or even at the performance. I should have seen him. I broke his heart, and it's too late now-"

"Sara, shut up!" she finally said. "If you don't call him, I'm gonna call him."

"God, Megan, please don't," I said. "This is all my fault, and now I have to deal with it. I don't deserve him because I ruined it."

"You can still call him. At least try," she pleaded.

"He doesn't want to talk to me," I explained. "Because of me, the whole world thinks he's a bad guy. Look, Megan, this is my choice."

"You expect me to sit back and let you choose to be miserable while the guy you are in love with is out there just as miserable as you are?"

"He's over it," I explained. It was evident that she didn't think so. "If he comes back for me, I won't hesitate to tell him that I'm in love with him, but how do I know he still loves me?"

"Call him," she said. "Good night." She hugged me, and then she was gone. For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely happy. I was in love. So I had to answer the question that had been on my mind. Cameron is perfect for you, so why will you never love him? I could answer it fully now; because I'm in love with somebody else. I'm in love with Noah. I'm freaking in love with Noah Lancaster. I was happy to be in love, but something else hit me. He's not. He's over me. And he's not here. I can't be with him. 

Hello, Lovelies! Hope you are doing well. Did you enjoy this chapter? What do you think is going to happen next? Let me know in the comments and don't forget to vote. Or don't. Live your life. Have a good day :)