Birthday Flowers | The Kissing Booth

17. After

(Noah)

The happy haze of having held Elle all evening carries me through the walk to my hotel, and after that I'm thrown back into the distracting chaos of the students. The other teachers ask why I'm so late, but don't ask for details when I say a family emergency came up. Which is accurate, just not family members they're aware of.

I spend the next few hours as the fun police, patrolling the hotel hallway for students intent on sneaking out, confiscating the alcohol they've not-so-cleverly concealed in their bags, and heckling them about how much better my friends and I were at getting away with this shit when we were in high school. One kid sarcastically replies "Yes, dad" the third time I tell him to turn his music down, and suddenly I am laughing too hard to breathe. I decide that's my signal to throw in the towel on this long and strange day, and I retreat to my room after handing off supervisory duties to another teacher.

I'm too tired to overthink today's news once I'm finally alone. There are still a thousand unanswered questions, but I focus on the few things I did learn tonight. That Elle and I are four months away from parenthood, that I have once again failed to get over her, and that whatever her reasons for staying silent since October might have been, indifference to me likely wasn't one of them. That will have to be enough for tonight. I debate whether to send Elle a message, and if so what, until I finally just send a long string of z's, Zzzzzzzzz, and hope that she remembers it's what I used to send freshman year, when we had the time difference to deal with, to tell her I was shutting my phone off for the night.

Reality hits harder when I wake up. As it turns out, I don't need that picture on my phone to convince me it wasn't all a dream, as I wake up in a very real panic and need no reminding why. Mickey's arrival and my need to return to work cut short our conversation just as it approached the hard topics. So many questions need answering, but most of them boil down to the same thing: What does Elle want?

She'd bolted in October at the prospect of me rearranging my life for her, at the idea of making long-term plans. Now we're looking at having both our lives completely rearranged by the most long-term of connections. I'm terrified she's going to run away again. Or worse, stay, but only because she feels trapped. I need to know that Elle's finally willing to trust herself and trust that we can work this out. And I need to know that she's not just forcing herself to do this, to reach out to me, because of the pregnancy. I laid my heart bare that weekend, and she'd just left. And never called. I hate to even entertain the thought, but it's there anyway, bitterly asking whether Elle ever would have reappeared if not for this unexpected consequence.

I try not to read anything into her lack of reply to my message, reminding myself that 6 am on a Sunday is way too early for the Elle I know to be awake. And even if she doesn't reply, I've learned my lesson on waiting for Elle to make the first move. I'm showing up next weekend regardless.

~~~~

(Elle)

I don't know what to expect from Noah after he leaves, or when I might hear from him again. For once I'm grateful for the crushing exhaustion I've been feeling all pregnancy, because even my racing thoughts can't keep me from falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I wake ten hours later to the sound of Mickey clattering around in the kitchen. Dino must be ready for breakfast, because the kicking starts up immediately, and I massage at the spot he or she is targeting. This has become our morning ritual lately, but today, for the first time, it's not accompanied by creeping dread about still not having told Noah.

The dread is gone because Noah knows. I may not get credit for having actually told him so much as picked the right time for a swim, but it's done. Noah knows, and none of my nightmare scenarios played out. Instead, we're talking, and he's coming back next weekend. There's so much left to be worked out - such as where exactly we go from here - but it's something.