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Two days have passed since they found Riley's body on the roof of the police department. Two days have passed since I've seen Noah. Two days have passed since he's made contact with me or Audrey.
After class she and I made a plan to go visit him, even if that wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't okay for him to be MIA for so long. Audrey lost someone she cared about too and didn't completely fall off the map. That mean he couldn't either. Losing someone sucked, going through it all alone sucked even harder.
Audrey called his mom, but she said he told her he'd been staying at her house. After I swallowed down my hysteria, I realized where he was. We borrowed her dad's car and made our way to the video game store where we found Noah lying on the couch.
"Hey, we found you," I said, sitting on one side of him while Audrey sat on the other.
"You know, it usually helps when you tell someone you're staying at their house as a cover story," Audrey said, making Noah look at her with raised brows. "Your mom wants to talk after Gwen and I leave… sorry."
Audrey handed him the coffee we brought and he thanked her but didn't drink it. I remember when the thought of consuming anything made me want to vomit because my stomach was in such tight knots. Losing someone you cared about was really hard, almost impossible to get over by yourself. Yet again, this kid couldn't go through this on his own.
"Have you been sleeping here?" I asked, turning my body to face him and tucking one of my legs under my body.
"If by sleep, you mean stare numbly into space as time passes slowly –then yeah, I slept," he replied, staring at the wall across from us.
Audrey and I looked at each other with raised brows. He was taking this really badly considering they just became friends a couple days ago. Granted, he almost gave her his virginity, but that's not the point right now.
Audrey glanced down at his hands and saw him clutching his phone. "What are you reading?"
"Highlights from my brief text relationship with Riley," he replied, holding up his phone and scrolling through the conversation. "Meet me by the football field."
"Ah, that's a really big one," Audrey agreed, scooting into his side and squeezing his knee affectionately.
I moved closer to him as well and wrapped my arm around his shoulders, scratching at his scalp with my nails. My mom always used to do that for me when I was really sad or anxious as a kid. I felt Noah lean into my touch and his shoulders lost some of their tension under my arm.
"Yes, my mom's on a kale kick."
"Disgusting."
"Who would win in a cage match, Lady Gaga or Madonna?"
"Gaga, those monsters would fuck Madonna up."
"Gaga would totally win, right?"
"Yeah, definitely."
Noah groaned again and looked back at his phone screen in sorrow. "The Victorians had it right. I wish I had, like, a lock of her hair or something real, you know? Not just pixels on a screen."
"That's not true, you've got your memories," I said, brushing his hair out of his face before going back to scratching his scalp lightly.
"You know, maybe if I'd punched my v-card, the rules of horror would've kicked in," Noah mused a few minutes later. "Maybe I'd be the one who died."
The thought of him dying made me want to vomit, not to mention the thought of him having sex with someone else. I needed to comfort him somehow and humor seemed to be the best way.
"I don't think that's how it works," Audrey quipped, smirking at him.
"You could always have a threesome with us right now," I replied, making Audrey grin and Noah freeze. "Unfortunately that would be us taking advantage of your heightened emotional state and we can't have that. Right, Audrey?"
"Mhmm, Gwen's right," she said, slapping palms with me.
"Thanks, guys," Noah said as his cheeks dusted pink –which was progress. "Yeah, it's very kind of you."
Noah leaned his head against my shoulder as Audrey leaned against him. I took Audrey's hand in my free one and laced our fingers together. Noah wasn't crying, but I could almost feel his sadness coming off him in waves.
"I'd rather channel my anguish into something more productive," he said later, still leaning against me with Audrey still on him. "Maybe vigilante justice…"
"We could all team up, 'Bi-curious and The Virgins,'" Audrey said, moving her hands dramatically as she spoke.
I laughed so hard at that my eyes started to water and my cheeks ached. Noah was grinning and didn't look like he was going to jump off a building anymore. He still needed to shower and drink four cups of coffee, but it was even more progress.
"That is the world's saddest crime fighting duo," Noah said after I quieted my giggles to quiet chuckles.
Audrey held up her fist and Noah and I hit it with ours, pulling back and imitating an explosion. It was originally their thing, but they graciously included me.
"Come on, virgins, we're gonna be late," Audrey said, standing up and heading toward the door.
"You guys go, I don't think I'm ready to face reality just yet," Noah said, gesturing for us to leave, but I stayed put. "Gwen, I'm good. You should go."
"Nah, I didn't even know Riley or Nina," I shrugged, eyeing Audrey. "Unless you need me to go with you we're gonna game and I'm gonna kick his ass."
The memorial for Riley and Nina was tonight and the entire town was going, my family included. The last thing I wanted was to go to it and watch people mourn. I had to force myself to go to my own mother's funeral because it was so suffocating to me. Death wasn't something I ever wanted to think about or be around.
"That actually sounds wonderful," he said.
I stayed there with him and played tons of video games that I had no idea how to play. I'd kicked off my booties and lost my cardigan in the haste to beat him at something, but he was too good to be beat.
"I know you were drinking earlier, I smelled it after Audrey left," I said, not looking away from the screens in front of us. "That's not healthy, Noah."
"I don't know what you're talking about…" he said, but his gameplay lagged and I knew he was lying. "It's not like they can fire me, I'm the only one that knows how to reset the router."
I paused the game and turned to face him instead of the TV. "Talk to me, talk to Audrey, hell, talk to yourself, as long as you're talking. Don't bottle it up, it's not healthy."
"Oh so you're the only one who's allowed to bottle up their feelings? The only one that's allowed to avoid death?" he shouted, making me jump in surprise. "You never talk about your mom or face that, but I'm supposed to deal with all this automatically?"
"Why are you screaming at me? I'm just trying to be your friend, Noah," I said, moving into the corner of the couch.
"Oh, is that why you almost kissed me last night? You almost kissed me when you knew I was with Riley," he accused, still screaming at me.
My body heated up as embarrassment flooded me. I thought I was being subtle about my feelings for him, but it was apparently obvious. I pushed my feet back into my boots and pulled on my sweater, grabbing my backpack before heading toward the door.
I didn't say anything to him or even look back the entire seven miles to my house. Heeled military booties were not the appropriate footwear for walking, but I was too stubborn to go back to Noah after he made me feel like that. I knew somewhere deep down he was just lashing out because he was hurt, but that didn't make the ache in my chest lessen.
I was thankful my family was still at the wake because I really didn't want to deal with them. I'd just dropped my backpack onto my bed when my phone rang. Audrey's face was on my screen so I answered it.
"What are you doing right now?" she asked.
"Uhm, waiting for you to show up at my house for some random adventure?" I asked, pulling on Converse instead of my boots and jogging downstairs. "I'll be on my porch."
When I got in the car with them, I literally could've passed out when they told me what we were doing. Some random guy was calling Emma and threatening her and her friends. She was completely convinced he was the killer because Tyler's body was found at the bottom of a ravine last night.
She also got a yearbook in the mail and it led to her going to talk to Noah about what they should do. Audrey made the conscious decision to leave him behind because he wasn't exactly stable emotionally right now. I guess I was the next best thing.
We were going to an old abandoned hospital that Brandon James used to go to. It was the place where the mask was made –a cryptic message written in the yearbook. Basically we were walking into a creepy old hospital, possibly in a trap, and doing it willingly.
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