“I just think that I can’t focus with Noah around. He makes it so easy for me.”
“That sounds kind of contradictory. If Noah eases your way, doesn’t it mean he gets rid of all the clutter so that you can focus on finding your ‘direction?’”
“What’s with the scare quotes? I can hear you emphasizing that word with derision,” I mumbled into his pillow.
“Because, Grace, you have this rosy and very wrong picture that everyone else around you knows what the hell they’re doing. I’m probably not going to get drafted, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t play football, but I’ve got to figure it out. You don’t think Lana wonders whether the life choices she has made are right? Everyone has moments of uncertainty. You have to give yourself room to fail, Grace.” Josh pulled on my arm and rolled me back over so he could look at me. “I know you’ve been lost since Dad died. And I’ve been a shitty brother, at times, but not moving forward with your life isn’t going to bring him back. And it wouldn’t have kept him alive.”
The tears I had tried to keep at bay were sliding out of my eyes and dampening the pillow. Josh reached over to wipe them away. His own eyes were a bit wet. “I miss Dad every day, especially on game days. While I’m not a fan of the idea of my little sister dating, this Noah guy seems to make you happy. I’d rather have you happy and with him than miserable and alone.”
I wiped at my tears. “God, I’m like the poster child for every emo, sad-sack girl out there. I’m letting down my gender.”
“At least you admit it. Now dry those tears and come out. The fight’s over, and the guys are going to want to impress you by doing keg stands.”
“You make it sound so enticing,” I mocked.
“I know. This way they will be so disgusting, you’ll take a decade to want to date again.”
“You’re so clever.” I patted him on the chest and pushed off the bed.
Josh was right. Watching a bunch of players do keg stands and then puke did turn my stomach. I was glad to go home the next day.
***
I waited until I was sure Noah had returned to campus.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m doing the wrong thing?” I asked Lana as we were picking out the clothes I would wear to lure Noah back to me. I had, through some sneaking around, figured out that Noah was going to be at his gym tonight doing some kind of post mortem. Maybe planning for his next fight.
Lana was silent for a minute, and when she spoke, I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “I thought you’d fall apart if you and Noah broke up. But even though you’ve been a mess emotionally, it’s nothing like you were when he wrote you and said he didn’t want to meet you.”
I was stronger, emotionally and mentally, than I was two years ago. Even though I had been torn up inside about Noah being with another girl in Vegas, I was still functioning. I could be alone and survive, even though I was happier with Noah. He might have slept with a girl in Vegas. He might have done two dozen of them. But Noah had written to me faithfully for four years. He had come to Central College, thousands of miles away from his base in San Diego. Josh was right. Everyone’s life had uncertainty. But my future wasn’t completely unknowable.
I had my camera. My family. And, if all went my way, Noah.
He had no one in his life but Bo. And me. He could have me if he wanted me.
I pulled up the bus schedule on my laptop. The bus service was nowhere near The Woodlands but it did go to the Spartan gym. I had showered and shaved every part of my body.
I pulled out the shirt Lana had bought for me the first night I saw Noah at the fraternity party. It wasn’t gym appropriate, but I knew Noah had liked it. He told me once that he had wanted to untie those bows with his teeth.
I considered putting on the silicone cups that Lana had given me to wear with this top but decided I would go without. It was an overtly sexual message, but I wanted there to be no misunderstandings.
It was cold out, and I threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a cashmere shawl. I flatironed my brown hair so it hung like a silk curtain down my bare back.
I inserted a pair of wide hoop earrings in my ears and carefully applied some mascara and eyeliner. I didn’t try too much because I knew I wasn’t the artist that Lana was with the makeup. I outlined my lips in rose and ran a tinted lip gloss over the top, making my lips look bee stung and wet.
Popping two mints in my mouth, I stuck my ID and debit card in my pocket along with my lip gloss. I slid my wedges on and double checked the bus route I stored on my phone. I’d need to make one stop and get a transfer and the second bus should take me within three blocks of the Spartan gym. Lana had wanted to drive me, but I wanted to do this all on my own, no safety net.
Both buses were sparsely populated. When the driver stopped at my destination, he warned me, “This isn’t a night club, girlie.”
“I know. My boyfriend is a fighter.”
“You best hustle inside, then, else he’ll be using those fists of his.”
Thanking him, I hopped off. It wasn’t just cold; it was freezing. I hurried the three blocks west of the bus stop to the Spartan gym. The lights above the gym were dimmed, and for a moment I had this terrible thought that the place was closed. I checked my phone. It was 7:30 and the gym didn’t close until 10:00. I pulled at the door, and it opened easily, a bell like sound occurring when the door opened. The sickly sweet smell of antiseptic and sweat assailed me, and I took a moment to acclimate myself.
There were the sounds of metal against metal as burly guys lifted bars heavy with weights. Another person was watching himself do curls in front of the mirrors. No one stopped me, although it seemed like everyone was looking.
I took a few more steps inside the gym, clutching the shawl around me. For a moment I wondered what the hell I was doing here at this nearly all-male enclave of muscle and sweat.
“You lost?” I heard a familiar voice call out to me, and I spun to my left and saw Bo standing there. He was shirtless, and he was unwrapping a long cloth from his hand.
“No,” I answered, straightening my shoulders. “I know exactly where I am.”
We stood there for a minute as he weighed my response against his own love for Noah. I must have passed, because he jerked his head toward the back room that held the boxing ring. “He’s back there.”
“Thanks.”
As I was walking toward the back room, I brushed by him and heard him say, “Don’t make me regret it.”
I saw Noah almost immediately, sitting on a bench against the wall. His elbows rested on his knees and his shoulders were hunched forward. Noah had always appeared solid and in charge, but in this moment he looked burdened by the weight of something.
My cork wedged heels made almost no sound as I walked toward him on the rubber mat floor that covered the expanse of the gym. It wasn’t until my feet were nearly under his nose that he even noticed another person was in the room with him.
“Not interested, babe,” he said without raising his head.
“You haven’t heard what I’m offering,” I said. His head jerked up and for a moment I saw a strong emotion blaze in his eyes. Relief? Love? I knelt down in front of him and placed my hands on his.
“Congratulations on your win. It looked fairly—” I cast around for the right word“ —, effortless.”
“It wasn’t exactly effortless, and my body still hurts more than usual, but it was a good win. I’m surprised you watched it,” he admitted.
“I couldn’t not watch it. I’ll definitely believe anything you say about the other guy looking worse than you.”
Noah shook his hands a little restlessly but didn’t move them out from under mine. “Did you really come down to the gym to tell me congratulations?”
I took a deep breath. “I need to ask you an important question. One bigger than whether Converse sneakers are better than Keds. Or what the best super power is.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I paused and took a deep breath before plunging ahead. “Do you think magnet polarity can be reversed?”
“All of those sound interesting, but I think we both know the answer to one of them,” Noah replied in a serious tone.
My heart sank. “So that’s a no?”
“Every sane person acknowledges that Chucks are the superior sneaker.”
I managed a weak smile. “Indeed.”
This time he turned his hands palms up and gripped mine. “Magnets can be reversed. But, for some, their attraction is so strong that they can’t be kept apart.”
“Not even by stupid words and stupid actions?” I said softly, looking at our entwined hands. I could feel mine getting sweaty, and I wanted to pull them away and wipe them on my jeans.
“Not even.”
“I picked out my own clothes and rode the bus here,” I blurted out.
This statement was met with silence. Then he said, “You’re the strangest girl sometimes. Let me help you, Grace: ‘Noah, I miss you, and I forgive you for being an asshole.’”
I looked up at him, wanting him to see how earnest I was. “Noah, I’ve missed you,” I didn’t repeat the last part calling him an asshole, but I was glad that he knew the mistake wasn’t all mine. “I was afraid of what you made me feel, and it was easier to push you away than accept it. I’d like to try again if you’re willing.”
He let go of one of my hands to sweep my hair back and tuck it behind one of my ears. His big hand cradled my face. I leaned into it and turned to kiss his palm.
“I’ve just been waiting for you to come around instead of forcing myself on you,” Noah said softly. He drew me closer to him with his one hand, still holding my face with the other. The kiss that he gave me was more tender than passionate, but it still curled me toes and made me want to drag him down on top of me.
“I was never interested in Mike, you know. You’re the only one for me,” I vowed.
“I didn’t sleep with a ring girl in Vegas. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.” He tipped my head up, his face suddenly vulnerable. “We all right?”
“Yes, forever,” I breathed out. He swept me up against his body. Neither of us cared that his sweat was staining or even ruining my top. He could rip it off me later, and I’d keep a piece in my memory box as a remembrance of our reconciliation, tucked in next to all his letters and notes.
***
The next morning, I told Noah my plan to submit a different set of photos to Dr. Rossum. The one with the girl on the bench. The gravesite of my father. The picture I took of the front of our house the one time Josh and I returned for a visit after we’d moved to Chicago to live with Uncle Louis. And another tilt shift photography piece–the one of Josh looking awesome. Someday I hoped the portfolio would include Noah fighting.
“After class today, I’m going back to see Dr. Rossum,” I said, pouring Noah a cup of coffee.
He made a face, but I knew it was about my announcement. I made good coffee. “Why Grace? Do you really need an art major to take pictures for a living? You said before you just needed more practice.”
“No. But I can learn a lot about perspective and composition and self-expression.” I took a sip of my own coffee. “It would make me better at photography.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” he announced.
“You can, but you have to stay outside the building.” I had anticipated this and wanted to set early ground rules. If Dr. Rossum was mean again, I could see Noah barging in and punching the professor in the nose, which would result in Noah getting suspended or worse.
“No way. I’m coming inside,” Noah insisted.
“You aren’t the one applying for entrance into the art program,” I replied calmly, sipping on my coffee. He wasn’t going to win this argument.
“No, but I’m not going to sit on my thumb while someone tears you a new asshole.”
I tried a different approach to reason with him.
“Let’s assume that at some point in the future, I’m working for a newspaper or magazine and I have a problem with the editor. I need to be able to work out these issues on my own,” I explained.
“No, you really don’t.” He looked so serious that I tried to keep from smiling at the absurdity. “I’ll come and break his face and then your problem will be solved.”
“What if you’re gone on a fight?”
“When I get back, I’ll come and break his face.”
“Noah, be serious. You can’t go around breaking people’s faces in order to protect my feelings,” I admonished him. I couldn’t tell at this point how much was teasing bluster and how much was serious threat.
He heaved a huge, put-upon sigh and took a long drink of his coffee. “Is it okay with you if I’m mentally punching their lights out?”