Birthday Flowers | The Kissing Booth

4. ... A Disaster Unexpected

A week after the accident, Dad graduated from the ICU to a regular ward. The thrill of having avoided the worst gave way to the realization of just how long the road ahead would stretch. There would be months of in-patient rehabilitation, and the uncertainty of which injuries would turn out to be permanent. I was needed at home—college would have to wait. I cried through most of a call with my dean, who helped me start the withdrawal process and assured me my scholarship would be waiting when I felt ready to return. As I finished the call, I was relieved to find Noah booking plane tickets—he'd already missed so much class to be with me.

"Lee offered to pack my room up." I sprawled next to Noah on the couch, emotionally and physically drained by this endless week.

"Great - I can swing by and ship it with my stuff."

"Your stuff?"

"My stuff." Noah repeated slowly. "My clothes. My books."

"Why—why are you shipping those?"

"To move back here."

"What?" I sat straight up and stared at Noah in confusion. "No. You're not staying here. You're going back. To Harvard. Which is not here."

"Elle, I'm staying here with you." He said this like the most obvious thing in the world. Like we had at any point discussed this possibility.

"Are you out of your mind? You have a year to go. Fellowships to apply to. Jobs to interview for."

"And all of that can wait. When you go back, I'll go back."

"No. No. No no no no no. You've done enough. You've been amazing, and I can never thank you enough, but you are not putting your whole life on hold for me." I could see White Knight Noah pulling on his armor and saddling his steed, and I was not having it.

"I want to. I said I'd be here. With you. As long as it takes. I'll go back once you do." I could hear the stubborn edge building in his tone.

"Noah, I'm going to be shuttling Dad to doctor's appointments and making sure Brad does his homework. That doesn't take two people. I can handle it. I don't need you to drop out too."

"Jesus, Shelly, has it occurred to you that maybe I just want to be here with you? I'm not putting my life on hold. This is my life. Right now you need to be here. So I'll be here too."

I've played this conversation back a thousand times, searching for the tipping point. It's coming now. You'll remember that Noah and I once broke up because he made my decision not to go to Stanford all about him. Noble, noble, Noah, always ready to sacrifice himself for what he decided was best for me. That tendency didn't magically disappear when we got back together, nor did my frustration with it. We just hadn't had to confront them at this scale in two years. In the span of a week my life had turned upside down and now here was Noah throwing Harvard away. I couldn't let him do it. I couldn't let this drag him down too.

"The son in law thing was funny at the hospital, but you know we're not actually married, right?" I finally exploded, frustrated.

I saw Noah's eyes go wide with anger. He jerked up from the couch and went to the window, turning his back to me.

"You say that like it's unthinkable," he finally bit out.

"Because it is!" I knew from Noah's flinch that I'd said the wrong thing, but it was the truth. "Noah, I'm twenty! Are you seriously telling me you think it's—thinkable?"

"Not today, no! But forgive me if I thought it might be—someday. It's—the best case scenario. The end zone. I know we might not make it there, but I'm still going to throw the ball in that direction."

A football metaphor? I'm trying to figure out how to keep my family functioning and Noah's using a mothereffing football metaphor to justify throwing his life away to ride to my rescue? I knew he just wanted to help. I knew that. But it wasn't helping.

I walked over to Noah, who was still glaring resolutely out the window, and I wrapped my arms around him.

"I'm tired, Noah, and I don't know what we're even fighting about or why. I love you. I need to be here with my family right now. You need to go back to Harvard and finish. The end zone is far away. You can't rearrange your entire life based on a hypothetical future end zone."

"So marry me." 

Just like that, the stubborn jackass went there. I told Noah he was insane for behaving like we were married, Noah proposed—or whatever you'd call that bitter retort. He wasn't even looking at me, still staring blankly out the window, and I couldn't tell if he realized he'd just spite-proposed to win an argument or if he thought he was being sincere. Either way, I couldn't handle it. Not now, not like this.

"Noah, I am going to bed. We are both exhausted, and we're being ridiculous. We're going to pretend this conversation never happened, and in the morning we're going to talk like rational people about why I need to stay here and why you don't."

Except in the morning we didn't talk like rational people, because Noah was on his way to the airport before I woke up. The story doesn't quite end there. There were painful phone conversations before the final explosion. Noah insisting he should come back, me shutting him down. Noah needing to help, me needing to stand on my own. We never mentioned his insane proposal. Lee did his best to mediate, even though he's still not clear on what exactly happened. I am still not clear on what exactly happened. I guess you'll have to ask Noah.

I stayed in LA. I packed Brad's lunches, drove him to school, washed his clothes, made his dinner, and tried to keep him from worrying about dad. Brad humored my attempts to teach him to dance. I visited Dad daily, rearranged the house to accommodate his walker once he finally came home, drove him to a thousand appointments, and dodged his questions about what happened with Noah. Dad slowly got better. Lee and I spent long hours on the phone while mentioning Noah as little as possible. Every day I tried not to think about Noah, and every day I failed, but I never called. Neither did he.

By summer it was clear Dad and Brad still needed me at home. UCLA accepted my transfer application. I restarted my junior year, made new friends, and tried not to miss Boston too much. Lee badgered me to date. Sometimes I did. A year later Dad told me I'd spent enough time as a nursemaid and surrogate mom, and made me go live on campus for my senior year. It was nice being a carefree college student again, responsible only for myself. Dad and Brad and I celebrated the two year anniversary of his survival with an epic family movie night. I marked the two year anniversary of the breakup by drunk dialing Lee and ranting about stubborn jackasses. I don't know how Noah marked the anniversary. Lee told me he'd taken a job at a fancy prep school outside San Francisco, teaching and coaching. Noah's plan to relive his glory days, Lee derisively called it. I couldn't help hearing about Noah's rare visits home, but I never went to see him. Neither did he. I told myself the missing him would fade eventually. Sometimes I even believed myself.

~~~~

And so here I am, pretending to arrange my flowers and pull weeds from around Mom's headstone, while covertly sneaking looks at Noah, wondering why he's here. I know he's seen me, and I know he knows I've seen him. He's pretending to be engrossed in his book, but I catch him rubbing his neck as he always has, thrumming with nervous energy. I idly wonder what he'd do if I headed back to my car without acknowledging him. I don't want to find out. It's been a long two years, a painful two years, and now Noah's made the first step. I can do this, and I need to. For closure, at least. I start walking to the bench.