The Kissing Booth: Unavoidable

Chapter 4 - The Break-Up - Part 2

Noah's POV

I thought we had things all figured out after Elle's first year of college.  We made it through a year of dating long-distance.  It wasn't easy and we had plenty of arguments, but we survived it.  By the time we spent the summer after she graduated together and then a whole school year, I thought we had it made.  We would cruise through another couple years of school until I graduated, and I would find a job in Boston for another year until Elle graduated.  Then, we would both head back to LA to be close to our families and shortly after we would get married.  I know guys aren't supposed to think about their weddings the way girls do, and believe me, I never planned out what I would wear or what our colors would be, but I did imagine us getting married.

Then, the summer before my Junior year, Elle gave me the news that she was going to move to be closer to her Dad and Brad.  I knew how much her family meant to her, especially after her mom died and I understood that her brother was going through some issues with the move, but he was a 10 years old kid.  Kids are resilient, right?  I couldn't understand why she was making such a big deal about this.  Unless there was another reason that she wanted to move.  Did she want a break from me?  Had she met someone over the summer while she'd been in Chicago?  I didn't really believe those reasons but I was confused.  We decided that a few months apart would be fine, a piece of cake compared to my Freshman year at Harvard.

Except it was so much harder.  When I went to Harvard and Elle was still in high school, things had been difficult.  But at least I knew the people she was hanging out with and knew what she was doing a lot of the time.  When she told me a story about something she did with her friends, I could picture her with Lee at school or her buddies at the beach because I knew those people and places.  Plus, Lee was with her almost all the time, I knew I didn't need to worry about her. 

Elle being at a different college in a faraway city was a completely different situation than our first long distance experience.  She would start telling me about something that happened in the Student Center or in one of her classes and it made me feel so far away from her because I didn't know the people or places she was talking about.  I knew how out of control college parties could get, especially for girls without close friends to watch out for them and I hated knowing that Elle was on her own at a new school.  I was out of my mind with worry about Elle half the time.  For years I had been trying to protect Elle from anyone that could hurt her, even before I realized why I was doing it, and I couldn't handle that I wasn't able to protect her anymore.  For some reason, Lee didn't seem to even know what she was up to most of the time.  I thought he was just being a jerk to me by not telling me but found out later that they were hardly talking.  My classes were getting harder the closer I moved towards graduation and I couldn't concentrate on my work with all my worrying about Elle.  My grades started to slip, and I wasn't focused on the football field.  I was worried I was going to lose my spot on the team. 

I know it wasn't her fault that I worried about her, but I started to take out some of my frustrations on her.  I know she had her own problems, with her new school and issues with Brad.  And apparently, she was having issues with Lee also, although I didn't know about that until later.  We started fighting every time we talked.  I knew that we needed to do something to fix things.  I tried to plan a weekend to visit her, but she talked me out of it and said that she was too busy trying to keep up with her workload.  I didn't know what else we could do, so I thought we needed to talk about something more drastic.  Maybe if we just gave each other space for a while, we would stop stressing each other out and getting so angry.  It wouldn't be long before we saw each other for the holidays and then Elle would be back in Boston for second semester and I was sure everything would be like before. 

But none of that ever happened.  As soon as I even mentioned taking a break, Elle freaked out on me and our fight escalated quickly.  We both said things I knew we immediately regretted and before I knew it, she hung up on me and wouldn't answer any of my calls or texts.  I gave her a couple days, thinking maybe she needed a little time to process, but that didn't change anything.  When Saturday night came, I let my roommate drag me out to a party and drank myself into oblivion.  That had been one of the worst weeks of my life and I was tired of thinking of how to repair my relationship with Elle.  I wanted to be able to forget everything for a little while.   I honestly don't remember much about the night but judging by the pictures I saw I saw of myself later, I danced with a lot of girls at the party.  I do know that I didn't do more than dance with any of them.  Even if I was wasted and even with everything Elle and I were going through right now, I wouldn't cheat on her.  My roommate helped me back to the dorm, but also brought a girl home with him.  I passed out as soon as we made it to the room. 

When I was checking my phone the next afternoon, after spending the morning puking my guts out, I noticed a recent call from Elle that didn't show up as a missed call.  I asked my roommate about it and he said the girl he brought home had answered my phone while I was passed out.  Shit, I knew what Elle would think of that, especially paired with the pictures I saw I had been tagged in.  I tried to call her, but she never answered, I was pretty sure she had blocked my number.  I left messages and sent her texts, but never got any responses.  She had blocked me from all her social media accounts too.  I reached out to Lee and even my Mom, to see if one of them could help me get ahold of her.  I hated to get them involved in our problems, but I didn't know what else to do.

"Hi, Mom."  I hadn't been great at keeping in touch with my parents the last few months.  I had been preoccupied with my relationship with Elle.  I always felt like my Mom could fix anything when I was young.  I was hoping that was still the case.

"Noah, honey, how are you?"

"Not great, to tell you the truth."  I took a deep breath to try to get some of the emotion out of my voice.  I hadn't talked to anyone about my last call with Elle yet.  "Elle and I have been having trouble and I was hoping you could help me out.  She won't take any of my calls and I really need to explain myself to her."  By this time it had been a couple weeks since my last conversation with Elle but I was still telling myself we were only having trouble and not that we had actually broken-up.

"Oh, Noah!  I'm so sorry to hear that.  I thought everything had been going so well for you two.  What happened?"

"The distance.  We started fighting all the time and things escalated from there.  Now she won't take my calls or anything, I just need a way to get her to talk to me."

"I'm so sorry but I don't think I'm going to be much help.  I have hardly talked to Elle in months.  I didn't want to worry you boys but your Dad and Mike haven't been getting along lately.  There were issues with an investment they made together last year and things blew up between them.  I tried to keep up with Elle once she went to Chicago but I think she's been keeping me at a distance."

Shit, there went any way to get Elle to listen to me.  I couldn't ask Mom to go to bat for me with Elle if their relationship is already shaky.  I also found out from Lee that he and Elle had also been barely talking because of his new girlfriend.  Suddenly, I realized that we probably wouldn't be getting together for the holidays and there would be no chance for reconciliation then.

I threw myself into my classes.  I needed something to focus on to keep my mind off Elle and my classes needed my attention.  By the time I went home for Christmas break, Elle and I had gone a couple months without having any contact.  My grades had gotten back up to where I needed them to be, but I still was spending all my time studying or working-out to relieve my stress and spending little time with my friends or any other outside activities.  I didn't want to be around any of my friends who knew Elle because I couldn't handle them asking me about her or giving me shit for how different I was acting after the break-up.  I also wasn't spending any time with Lee anymore.  Part of that was because of his new girlfriend, who for some crazy reason didn't want to share him with anyone.  But once I started to realize that our break was really a break-up, I just couldn't handle being around him.  All I could think about when I saw Lee was Shelly, it was too depressing.

College life wasn't the same for me once Elle was gone.  I still loved her and wasn't ready to move on but I had no idea how to get her back when she obviously didn't want to talk to me.

A/N – Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, voting, and leaving comments!  I have never written anything before but have been absolutely obsessed with these characters since watching the movie for the first time a few months ago. I've been trying to stick with once a week updates but I added an extra this week. I'm excited to get past their break-up and to the later chapters!