“I mean, the distance is probably a good thing. You can decide what you want better when you aren’t around him,” Brick explained.
This was what Noah thought too. It was just hard not to miss Timothy, which was potentially a sign that he wanted to be with him still. Yet, he really wasn’t sure. This was getting very annoying to think about. Noah wondered if what was best is that he just didn’t think about it at all?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TIMOTHY
Phillip had to get home to study, but Timothy wasn’t ready to go home even if it was already getting dark out. His mother didn’t care so long as he kept the tracking device on his phone activated. He just wasn’t interested in going home. He knew that Noah was avoiding him at all costs, which was understandable. It just made Timothy even more miserable and distraught than he already was. All the boy wanted was for his boyfriend to forgive him. He had to wonder if that really was just too much to ask.
As Timothy continued to kill time, a very familiar but now unwanted face popped out from around the corner. “Timmy, what are you doing here so late?” Tara asked, both shocked and concerned to see him.
“I’m just wandering around. I need to get going,” he explained to her.
Tara chased after him, “Wait, please, we need to talk about a lot of things.”
Timothy turned back around. “I don’t need you to berate me or call me a disgrace or whatever.”
His former girlfriend frowned, “Look, I’m sorry for asking you what I did. You just threw me off entirely, and I guess something randomly just popped into my head. It wasn’t right, and I know it wasn’t right.”
It was so easy to want to forgive his former girlfriend. It just wasn’t the right time to do so. “Look, I guess I’ll thank you for saying sorry, but I’m not sure what to tell you. What you said was really fucked up. Plus, what we did, and that is all on me, really fucked up my relationship with Noah.”
“You guys broke up, right?” she asked.
A chill came over him. “What do you mean, broke up? Why would we have broken up?” Timothy screamed at her.
Tara jumped back a little, “I mean, I just assumed since you moved back, which I’m happy about at least for Phillip and Collin’s sake. They missed you. I missed you.”
He missed them, and he missed her. Timothy wasn’t in love with her. The boy was in love with Noah Peters. Tara was now a part of his past, a part of his past that he had cherished. He had cherished her. She had always been there for him growing up. They shared so many firsts together, which included the first time they had sex. At least he assumed it was Tara’s first time. Why on earth did he care?
“I’d like to meet Noah the next time he comes to town. Clear the air with him,” she sounded so nervous.
Would there be a next time at this point? He sure as hell hoped that there would be. Timothy longed for the nights in which he and Noah would hold each other in the backseat of Noah’s car. Those were the days. It had been so brief and yet so damn powerful.
The curly-haired boy looked at his ex, “I’m sure that in an alternate universe, the two of you would have been best friends the moment you met one another.” Timothy thought about Noah’s friends back in Kansas. Lord, aside from Brick and maybe his boss Sasha there weren’t many people for Noah to confide in. The last thing he needed to do was keep this all in his mind. “He is just one of those very lovable people. Noah is sort of anxious, but in the most adorable way ever.”
The blonde girl frowned, “You really do love him? You never seemed to gush about me.”
Timothy walked a little closer to her, “I mean look. I loved…. I love you, Tara, even if I think what you said was beyond fucked up. You were always a great friend. I think it made sense that the two of us dated at one point. We were just always together. Do I think in an alternate universe we would have ended up married sometime after high school? Yes. Do I think we would have been happy? Yes, but I would still be bisexual.”
Bisexuality was such a weird concept for people to understand. Timothy didn’t even think that Noah understood it. He really was bisexual, though. As madly in love with Noah as he was, there was a large part of him that was still very turned on by Tara. He had always admired men from afar as well as other women. Timothy just wished that he had not cheated on Noah with a woman. It felt like he was just embracing a terrible stereotype of bisexuals that he didn’t intend to become part of. It was a heat of the moment situation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOAH
It wasn’t that Noah was a prude. He just could have lived without hearing Lily discuss her sex life. Oh, how was he friends with this girl? Timothy had been right. Lily was kind of a loser. Well, no, not kind of a loser, she was a loser. This was a girl who would probably work at the store with his mother after dropping out of community college and then get knocked up by Ned. Lord, was it disturbing to think about Lily and Ned getting it on. Yet he really didn’t need to imagine. Lily had shared their sex tape once. It was Ned’s birthday present last year. This was his closest and oldest friend.
The bell rang, “Oh darn… I need to get to the counseling office.” This day had not even started, and yet he was ready for it to be over with. Brick was supposed to get the DNA test results back today. The family had already obviously said they would support him regardless. Aside from Kelly, though, no one was really hoping the child would be his. Amber’s family wanted to sue for defamation. It wasn’t as if they had been running around, screaming that Amber was loose. Noah suspected that they were just that kind of lawsuit-happy.
“I’ll tell you more about it at lunch!” Lily explained as Noah ran down the hall.
Clearly, Noah was going to have lunch off campus today. That was a given.
The blond boy walked into the counseling office. Mrs. Barker was standing in the entrance, reading a file, “Noah, you are late!”
Noah looked at his watch. “I’m late by like half a minute,” he said with a look of confusion.
“No excuses,” she explained.
He looked around. Amy and Luna were not here yet themselves. “So, when Amy and Luna finally show up at the end of the period, will you be berating them as well?” Noah asked.
Mrs. Barker looked him right in the eye, “Those two are late because they are studying.”
“You know this how? I legit know they are in the parking lot either smoking or drinking or some shit like that,” Noah told his instructor. He wasn’t putting up with her bullshit today.
She looked at him and seemed to twitch, “So, you are late, and you use foul language? I’m really considering detention or suspension.”