Someday The Waves ✔ *Wattys15 Winner*

Chapter Sixteen

And its warm like a soft kiss

Well you're someone that I'm gonna miss,

Cause reckless is fun when your not the one that gets hurt

Reckless - San Cisco

. . .

At dinner the silence had washed over me like a stormy tide. It was the only way to get through the evening and the only way I could hold all my raging feelings together.

Loose lips sink ships, and mine was barely surviving the wave of emotions, ones that felt like a whirlpool in my mind, pulling every thought and feeling deeper down.

So I drowned myself in zucchini's and bean sprouts, rosemary potatoes and other foods I couldn't stand but forced into my mouth anyway.

Anything to restrain me from shouting but we're just friends! at Noah when he nudged against my knee or gazed at me with charming eyes. So far the zucchini lasagne had done the job but I knew the longer I stayed, and the longer I was made to sit opposite him, my friend, the more likely I was to say something I'd regret.

Silence kept me anchored.

Thankfully no one seemed to notice all that much, as Noah told astounding facts about space and time much to his audience's delight, mostly Grace who fawned over his every word. Mrs Allen was too preoccupied with cleaning up the mess of mashed vegetables around Jacob's mouth and Lily was busy questioning why her father couldn't make it for dinner, again for the second night running.

"He's away for a conference darling but he will be back next week." Mrs Allen had explained, before turning to me to tell me that Gabe had been helping out an old school friend promote a line of self-help books and how proud of him she was.

I replied with a polite smile and a gentle nod of my head, still silent, still pretending to be too enamoured with my plate of greens to speak.

The silence I'd maintained was flawless, until she excitedly asked Noah if he'd sent his college application forms off yet.

Then it crashed and sunk faster than I could have ever been ready for.

"What college?" I all but shouted, tiny splodges of lasagne spraying out from my mouth. "What do you mean applications, for what, for where?"

I tried to mop the food away from my face but I needed to say more, I had to let them all spill free.

"You're going to college? When? Why?"

Mrs Allen slowly lowered her fork back to her plate, and rested an elbow on the table and sighed at Noah. "I thought you had told her?"

I felt another nudge against my leg but this time it wasn't from Noah being sweet or affectionate, it was because he was flustered and squirming in his seat.

I already knew what he was going to say, and so I answered for him.

"No, he hasn't. Obviously."

"I was going to." Noah said, so quiet I could barely hear. Nervously he pushed back his hair, as beads of sweat trickled down his cheeks.

Sensing just how awkward and slightly confrontational it had become between us, Mrs Allen smiled and told me that Gabe thought it would be a great idea for Noah to scope out teaching courses and that college would be good for him, seeing as he'd never been before. Apparently there was a really great 'Applied Sciences' teaching program in Boston they'd encouraged him to apply for that started in the fall.