Deserve [H.S.]

Chapter 34

DESPERATE

Noah was going crazy.

Everyone around her knew that something wasn't right with her. She was still a shell of a human, simply getting through the days with little to no emotions shown in front of anyone else until she was alone at night.

The last time Noah remembered crying was about 2 weeks ago.

After that, her eyes dried up and she simply spent her nights staring at the wall blankly. Noah couldn't even describe what was going on in her mind because her emotions were all over the place. She felt everything and nothing all at once.

Noah wasn't exactly keeping track of time, but she thought it had been about a month since Harry left. One full month without Harry. One full month of not hearing a single word from him. One full month of not knowing where he was. One full month of not knowing if he was okay. One full month of not even knowing if he was alive.

It was well known that Noah was far from pessimistic, but, at that point, she couldn't stop the worst case scenarios and bleak thoughts from being the forefront of her mind. She had no idea how Harry was doing and that made her mind wander more than she wanted it to.

One of the worst moments within that month was when Noah had to speak to the leaders of the farmer's market about Harry's booth. When Noah first secured the booth for Harry, she was informed that it wouldn't be available until late February. The market was quite busy and didn't have room for an extra booth until then, especially because there were other people also on a waiting list to get a booth before Harry.

Having to explain to the market organizers that the booth wouldn't be utilized by Harry anymore was difficult for Noah to do. They weren't very understanding to hear that Harry was suddenly now unavailable to sell his products due to unforeseen circumstances. They were quite nosy as to exactly why Harry wasn't available anymore, but Noah obviously didn't want to go into any detail, so she just told them that he had to leave town for a family emergency.

Though the organizers seemed quite inconvenienced by this, there wasn't much else for them to do, so they simply moved along and Noah couldn't help but feel guilty. She felt so guilty telling them that the booth wouldn't be used by Harry after she chased them for one only a few months ago.

Noah was also concerned at the thought that Harry's chances of getting a booth in the future could have been ruined, whenever he may have come back. If he ever came back.

When Noah was particularly struggling one weekend, she went to visit her family for a night. That led to another tough part of the past month: having to tell her family that Harry wasn't around anymore. Noah didn't exactly know how to word it, because she didn't know whether to say they were broken up or not. Her mother asked quite a few questions regarding the circumstances around Harry being gone, but Noah couldn't give many answers.

The thing that sent Noah over the edge was when her younger brother, Holden, asked her a simple yet poignant question not long after she arrived at her mom's house.

"Where's uncle Harry?"

Noah nearly cried the moment that those words left Holden's lips. She could hardly formulate a response and that was apparent to her mom, so Elise answered the question for her daughter, simply saying that Harry wasn't around at that moment.

The rest of the day followed with Noah trying to keep herself distracted with her family. She was happy to be around them, because they were truly comforting people, but she couldn't help noticing that someone very important was missing.

That was why, when Noah went to bed in the spare bedroom at her mom and stepdad's house, she felt her emotions bubbling up even more. She had little self control and was feeling extra upset after Holden's question, so she couldn't exactly stop herself from dialing Harry's number that night when everyone else was asleep.