“You’re right. But if you are going to Harvard, it’s not going to be with me.”
A quiet, broken gasp left my lips, a stilted rush of air.
He was breaking up with me.
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
Noah shook his head, his eyes pressing shut. “Please don’t, Elle. It’s not like I’ve been planning to do this all summer, drawing up lists of pros and cons or anything. But I can feel how distant things have gotten with us sometimes, even when you’re right there next to me. And it’s nothing to do with Levi or Amanda or Lee or anybody else. It’s just…”
“Hard to love me sometimes?”
He gave a quiet chuckle, slumping back on his elbows now, lying almost flat, to peer up at me with that smirk I loved so much. “You’re impossible not to love, Elle. But like I said, maybe that’s not enough.”
“So…that’s it,” I whispered.
“I…I guess so.”
For a couple more moments, the two of us stayed there, the city sprawling out below us. Beyond the distant noise of traffic, the muffled sound of voices of other people around, I could hear Noah’s breathing. Deep and slow and even.
Calm. So calm.
Meanwhile, I was holding my breath like it was the only thing keeping me together, and the second I let it go, I’d fall apart at the seams. My hands were trembling, and I balled them into fists. I felt like I should look away from him, that it might be easier to digest if I wasn’t looking at him.
But it felt like…this was the last time I would get to see him, really see him, as my boyfriend. With the sunlight on his dark hair and shining in his blue eyes, clear and bright as the sky, that square jaw and crooked nose, those lips I’d kissed countless times.
We were breaking up. Boston, Harvard, Berkeley—none of it meant anything, not really. Noah and I had been fighting so hard to make things work after the mess of Thanksgiving. We had been working at it so hard.
And that had carried on into this summer, hadn’t it? Even without race day or his almost-fight with Levi yesterday.
I’d asked myself when my relationships with Lee and Noah had become work, this job of spinning plates and balancing things.
It was easy to figure out the Lee part of that: it started when I chose Harvard.
But Noah…
That had always been a spinning plate.
Maybe he was right: maybe loving each other wasn’t enough.
Maybe it was time to let that plate fall.
I reached out and cupped my hand over Noah’s, giving it a last squeeze before standing up. I brushed off my pants, took a breath, and knew then that I didn’t have anything else to say to him.
Because what would I say? Thanks for all the memories? We had a good run, it was great, see you at dinner later? I could fight for him, for us, of course I could. It was obvious that Noah had made up his mind, and nothing I said would change it.
I let out the breath I was holding back in a near-silent sigh and started down the hill.
I got a couple of feet away before I heard him scramble to his feet and call, “Elle!”
I turned just in time to see Noah running toward me, my heart leaping as I met his embrace, and he drew me in, his arms encircling me and my hands cupping his face as we shared one last kiss. His mouth moved desperately over mine, his tongue dragging over my lip, and I pulled myself closer. It was still there—that fire, like when we’d first kissed, like when we’d kissed every time since. One of my hands slipped to the back of his neck, my fingers toying with the ends of his hair, and one of his hands moved to the small of my back to pull me flush against him. There were no fireworks this time—just the quiet of the world seeming to stand still for us, before everything ended for good.
We broke apart suddenly, abruptly, both of us stepping back to put some distance between us.
He held my gaze for a second, on the verge of saying something, but I knew exactly what he meant and I nodded. He gave me a soft, warm smile in return, his dimple only just showing.
One last kiss.
One last time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
For a little while, I just drove around, replaying the whole conversation with Noah in my head. Tears kept pouring down my cheeks in a steady, quiet stream, in contrast to my loud, ugly sobbing the last time we’d broken up. My mind drifted to imagining what might have been: would things really have been any easier if we were together in Boston? Would we have fought less—or more—being under each other’s feet all the time? Noah had obviously had doubts sometimes throughout this summer—enough, I guessed, that we’d ended up here.
I still couldn’t believe how mature that conversation had been. How shockingly levelheaded Noah had been about everything, how much he’d obviously thought about this, and how right he was. I wasn’t used to that.
I hadn’t seen it coming, not in a million years.
And as for Harvard…I hated to admit that Noah did have a point. I’d only applied because of him, and I’d only accepted because, well, it was Harvard, and who turns that down? My dad was so damn proud. And it had meant being with Noah more.
I’d never really stopped to ask myself if I wanted to go there.
It was only when I started driving back toward the beach house that my mind turned toward Lee. I guessed maybe, if Noah and I weren’t going to be an item anymore, I’d have a little more time to make sure my relationship with Lee didn’t suffer because we lived on different coasts. And since Noah and I had ended on pretty civil terms, things should be a lot easier than the last time, and Lee wouldn’t need to feel stuck in the middle.
Oh my God.
Lee.
The arcade!
I gasped audibly, letting go of the steering wheel to clap both hands to my face in absolute horror for a second before I grabbed the wheel again and jerked it around, hitting my turn signal at the last second to pull a U-turn.
I was the worst. I was the absolute worst.
Even though I was pushing the speed limit, it seemed to take forever to get to the boardwalk. Running down toward the arcade, I felt like I was running through syrup, like I was trying to run in a dream.
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten.
I couldn’t believe I’d blown off the bucket list for my relationship again.
I was the worst.
By the time I reached the arcade, I knew it was too late. The sun was already low in the sky, a few lights shone outside buildings or along the boardwalk, and families were leaving. And Lee—