Patchwork Romance

Chapter 3

As we pulled up at sixth form i couldn't help but wonder how often days like this would come. The sun was up and so were the clouds it was like someone had tiedyed the sky with blue and lilac, the sun shone through the cracks. Despite the cloudy weather the breeze was warm and the leaves in the car park circled round following crisp packets and juice cartons. My fingers were entwined with Noah's and he was smiling broadly. It was our last year of sixth form and this after the summer we would be heading off to university i could only hope that we would both be accepted to the one we were going for.

There is a very fine line between loving someone and being in love with someone. You can love your pet fish, but your not in love with your pet fish. It was always interesting to see the couples at college who said they loved each other and stood around awkwardly not knowing what to say. To them there boyfriend or girlfriend might as well be there pet fish. I was in love with Noah.

Kylie bounced towards us, blonde hair flying in all directions.

"You really need a hair cut." Noah smirked.

"Ah please Hazels hair is longer then mine!" She stuck her tongue out at him.

"I love her hair."

"And you love everything about her because she's perfect in every way. I know! You don't have to remind me every second." She grumbled still sour over her recent break up with Marcus, a boy from my Art class. He was lazy and occasionally rude but he had the flicky hair that most girls swoon at.

"I'm sorry that you and Marcus didn't work out." Noah sighed and rested his chin on my head.

"Yeah well so am I, but that's the way life goes."

"Do you mind if I say I'm glad your broke up?" I asked tentatively.

"What?"

"Its just that every time you said something when he was around he would talk over you. I mean did he ever listen to you when you were alone or did he just talk about what he liked?"

"I loved him Hazel!" She snapped and stormed off.

"But were you in love with him?" I whispered after her already regretting having spoken my mind. I needed to learn when to keep my mouth shut.

"I doubt that she was, they were going out for what? two weeks?" Noah mused not yet having caught on to my dampened mood.

I worried at my lip. "Am I a horrible person for telling her that?"

"No, you were just watching out for her. You said what you thought. Just one thing, you could have waited a bit longer to say it."

I slumped into his shoulder but smiled up at him anyway. He was always there to tell me when I'm wrong. "See this is why I love you, your honest with me." My mood brightened as I looked up into his face, he was looking forward at the school doors and I could just see the profile of his nose mouth and strong cheek and jaw bones.

"If I wasn't I don't think anyone else would be their all too afraid of your wrath."

"Oh I have wrath now?" I raised one eyebrow.

"Yes all the village people will run." He laughed.

"Yeah and they will all run from your girlish manor." I smirked up at him through my lashes.

"We can chase them together."He smiled.

"Sounds like a date."

As we walked inside he wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed the very top of my head where my hair parted.

My first lesson was Biology while Noah's was French and we had to go our separate ways. And didn't come back together again until I sat beside him at lunch and he halved his pizza with me.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier Hazel. Your right Marcus is totally self obsessed." Kylie sighed as she took a seat next to Kayleigh. Noah squeezed my hand in an "I told you so" kind of way

"Its okay I was stupid to say that to you so soon after you broke up." I shook my head I reached my free hand across the table to squeeze hers before taking another bite of Noah's pizza.

Kayleigh surfaced from making out with Joshua, her boyfriend enough to ask what was going on but both me and Kylie shook our heads at the same time. She shrugged and want back to eating Joshua's face.

I rolled my eyes. It was one thing to be open to people about your relationship but it was another to be making out at the lunch table. That was Kayleigh in a nutshell though.

"Oh my god I am so tired of being called short everywhere I go!" Kate whined sitting down in the only empty seat at the table.

The usual barrage of comforts began as we all attempted to tell her how great she was, how size didn't matter and how being small had its advantages.

And so the day rolled on in its average routine fashion. Nothing was different it was all the same and that was just the way I liked it. Everything worked it clicked together like a finely oiled machine. Every week Kayleigh would have a new boyfriend, Kylie would snap at someone and then apologise, Kate would complain about her height, Joshua would drift along droopy eyed and half smiling and Me and Noah would exist in harmony watching it all play out from our own little bubble.

Walking home under the cool October sun I felt utterly blissful. My hand was in Noah's, the sun had battled the clouds into submission, there were leaves on the floor to wade through and my free hand was taken up by a mint ice cream courtesy of Noah's friend Augustus who owned an ice cream van that spent its days parked in front of college.

"I want this moment to go one forever. I just want to stay like this, with your hand in mine in the middle of autumn for the rest of my life. But we can't."

It amazed me how he could see everything that I did and sum it up in a few short words. But what worried at my mind were the last three words of his confession. "Why can't we?"

"Your ice cream will melt, seasons roll on, time passes, soon we will be at Uni, together of course. But it won't be the same."

"It might be better." I added hoping to bring him around to the brighter times. "I mean you had this meltdown about College too remember?"

"Yeah, your right Uni will be even better. And do you know why Haze?"

"No, tell me."

"Because you and I can get a flat. And we will be all on our own living the beginning of the rest of our lives!" He finished euphorically and picked up the pace until we were skipping in the falling leaves. "It's going to be amazing!"

I laughed at how he had swung around so quickly and turned him to face me.

"You have ice cream on your nose." He wiped it off with the edge of his sleeve but he couldn't wipe away the flush of embarrassment that coloured my cheeks. "I love you Haze. I want to be with you forever."

"Ok." I grinned.