ONE
I won’t wait for you.
Noah stared down at the piece of paper in his hands, hardly able to believe that he was holding it. It had been a long shot, to say the very least, and he’d done it one night when he was sad and alone and the bed on the other side of the room. The one that had been Darien’s, which the university had never filled with anyone else,and seemed to be mocking him with its emptiness.
He had said those five words, and he had meant them. He had intended to move on with his life like Darien had moved on with his. The relationship that they’d had obviously always meant more to Noah than to Darien, and it was time for him to buckle down, to focus even more on his studies, if he could figure out a way for that to even be humanly possible.
It certainly wasn’t time for him to look into his options at UCLA.
Switching from one school to another could be a logistical nightmare, from everything that he’d heard. At least if he wanted to keep his credits, and after a full year and a half of top marks, he wasn’t going to start all over. Still, he’d applied for the transfer, and he honestly hadn’t expected anything to come of it.
Let them say no to him, he’d figured. Then maybe he could move on, really move on. Get into med school, as he’d dreamed about since he was a child. Help people. That was all that he’d ever wanted, and he was well on track toward that.
He looked down, his eyes once more scanning the letter. He would soon be able to read it pretty much by heart.Dear Noah, we are delighted to inform you … full scholarship … welcome to UCLA, and we look forward to having you.
Just like that, he was in. He could finish this term, and there wasn’t that much of it left, and then he could pack up and leave Boston, cross the country for the first time and go to sunny California. He would find a place waiting for them there.
He had applied for this, and he had dealt with all the red tape, talked to the school counselors, done everything he was supposed to, and yet, somehow, he hadn’t imagined it would come to this.
He could still back out, though. He could still decide to stay. An acceptance letter wasn’t a legal contract, not like, say, just for an example, a record contract was.
Groaning, Noah flopped down on his bed, and he closed his eyes. His slender fingers reached over, and he turned on the radio, just because it would give him some background noise, something to think about other than what the hell he was going to do about all of this.
“And now, the latest single by America’s newest sweethearts, the Lost Boys!Play with Meis already number one on the charts, and in our hearts,” the DJ droned, with a manic sort of energy that Noah had never understood. How could anyone be that happy about another boy band, no matter how talented they were?
He closed his eyes firmly, because they were prickling as he listened. This particular boy band, it wasn’t just any pop group, not to him. He could still remember the shock that he’d felt the first time he’d been scrolling through on Facebook and had seen Darien’s face staring soulfully out at him, surrounded by three of the most beautiful men that Noah had ever seen.
Noah had wondered, before he’d seen that photo, at least, if Darien hadn’t been taken advantage of, lied to. If there was no band to join. But that was proof positive that Darien was in fact in this band and that he hadn’t left school for nothing.
From that time, Noah hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Well, no. He had been thinking about him long before that, of course, but that was when his brain started to work on the problem, to worry at the edges of it like a dog with a bone, and that had led him right back to where he was, staring down at the paper.
Slowly, with his eyes still fixed on the white paper, which gleamed innocently back at him as though it didn’t have the power to change his life completely, Noah reached for his phone. He tapped, without even needing to look, on his former best friend’s number, someone that he hadn’t texted in close to a year, and had sworn that he never would again.
Noah had said that they would remain friends, but he’d lied, he supposed. The same way that he’d lied when he’d told Darien that he wouldn’t wait for him.
Darien was probably too big of a deal to use the same old number. He probably had some special pop superstar phone, with a whole new number to go along with it. He probably wanted to put as much distance between his brand new shiny, sparkly self and who he’d been when he was last in this dorm room, when he’d lain behind Noah and cradled him and kissed him until neither of them could breathe.
Quickly, before he could change his mind before his logic could catch up to his emotion, Noah tapped out a text to the number that probably wasn’t even in service anymore.
Hey.
That was it. Just the one word, a tentative hand reaching out to his former friend, poking lightly at him to see if he responded. He probably wouldn’t, Noah told himself firmly. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up, he decided. He put the phone down, but before his hands had even left the sides of the smooth plastic casing, it was buzzing under his fingertips.
Noah jumped, his stomach clenching, and the buzzing of his phone seemed to echo the buzzing of the swarm of angry hornets which had sprung into his belly without him noticing until now. He felt like he was going to be a little bit sick, and his fingers shook, trembling faintly as he scooped the phone up so that he almost dropped it.
Noah? Oh my god, Noah, is that really you?
A smile touched Noah’s lips, and he closed his eyes for just a moment, remembering. The way Darien had tasted, the way his strong body had felt against him, Noah remembered all of it, as well as the movies they’d watched, the conversations they’d had on any and all topics.
Darien had been his best friend, and that was not something that Noah had ever had before. It wasn’t something, he told himself, that he even had now. Darien had left.
But none of that made it any less good to be in contact with him. It was like, about a year ago, Darien’s departure had cut off Noah’s right arm, and he was only now being reunited with it.
Yeah. Hey.Noah hesitated, and he had to figure out what he was even going to type now. Should he tell Darien about the offer he’d gotten to transfer to UCLA? Should he tell him how much he’d missed him?
No. That would be pathetic. After all, it hadn’t been Noah who had done the leaving. Darien had, and Noah had to remember that. He had to be cautious, and not let himself fall all over again.
His phone vibrated at him, but this time, he hadn’t even put it down. This time, he had, stupidly perhaps, been waiting, but Darien didn’t let him down.
