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CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

AFTER

T he world felt empty again.

I didn’t block his number on my phone, but he didn’t attempt to call or text. I didn’t know how to make peace with this void he left behind. It felt like things were finally getting better, but now I was back in the pits. I didn’t want to get out of bed, go to class, or face training and see him. Noah occupied so much space in my life while not being a part of it and I was tired of it. I needed to accept that our last kiss was truly the last and move on. This time, for real.

Colin and Ezra were worried about me. Their constant check-ins felt eerily similar to that February, a time when their concern was relentless, masked under casual pretenses. It was draining. This whole situation was draining.

At training the next day, we each pretended the other didn’t exist. No head nods or tentative smiles. I didn’t turn towards the sound of his voice or his laugh, and I didn’t search for his smile. I forced my eyes to look elsewhere. I began questioning myself. Was I too rash? Did I let my temper get the best of me? Noah triggered me in such a way that anything he said could turn me vicious.

Every time I remembered the pain of him leaving me, I wanted to lash out.

The rest of the week was excruciating. I pushed through, telling myself it was only a few more weeks until the end of the term. Then, I could have time to heal again, hoping it wouldn’t hurt as much when we returned.

Fortunately, I had midterms and the move to deal with, which helped me stay distracted. Colin was still staying in LA, and he had gotten a new apartment to move into. He asked me to go with him. We had to have everything packed and ready to go in three weeks. I spent most of my free time either packing or in the library with Georgia.

Before our last practice game, I pulled my shoulder during training. Nothing bad, but enough to bench me for it. For the first time in my life, I was glad I didn’t have to play. Being on the court with Noah, depending on him, felt impossible to me now. I still went to training even with the restrictions.

On Friday, I wished I had stayed home. Four members were graduating this year, and they chatted about the end-of-the-year party, which I had no plans to attend. The last thing I needed was to be drunk around Noah again. David had brought a speaker, and they were taking turns playing music while training lazily and talking about the party. I stood farther away, next to Colin, using him as a buffer to keep my distance.

“I don’t have a problem with it. It’s just not my vibe,” Noah said.

I sighed. David was playing a song, praising it, but Noah obviously disagreed.

“You have the weirdest fucking taste in music,” David told him .

“Because I don’t listen to top charts?” Noah replied.

“David’s not wrong,” Hank added.

I glanced over at them. Noah was shrugging, not smiling, but not upset either.

“Play something. I’ll bet you anything it’ll be something from the eighties,” David challenged.

“It’s good music,” Noah insisted.

“Give me your phone,” David said, and Noah handed it over.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Colin asked me.

I shrugged. “Not well,” I admitted.

“Why don’t you head out? You’ve done enough today. You know you can’t push your shoulder.”

“Yeah, I think I will,” I agreed. The last thing I needed was a Noah concert now.

The music changed, and a new song started playing.

“Hey. Not that,” Noah said while David and a few others joined in on the joke.

I recognized it. My head snapped towards them. Noah was frowning, trying to retrieve his phone, while David held it out of reach, grinning.

“See? I was right. What even is this?” David teased.

“Dave, just give me my fucking phone back. Play something else.”

The singer started crooning the words, and something gripped my chest painfully. I could almost see Noah standing across the kitchen, spatula in hand, singing to me.

“Seriously, Rossi, what is this?” David pressed.

“Att?” Colin asked, but I didn’t turn.

Noah was really upset. I understood perfectly—no one was supposed to touch this. This was just ours. One song for a perfect moment between us, and right now, it felt like a hot knife going through my heart. It was too bright in the gym. Too bright and open and filled with people for this to be playing right now .

“I’m not kidding around. Give it back right now,” Noah said, his tone serious, but David wasn’t looking at him. He was still smiling, looking at Noah’s phone.

“It’s from a playlist. Here it is.”

I braced for the pain.

“Corny love songs for—” David stopped cold. The smile left his face, and he dropped his hand.

Noah yanked the phone away, stopping the song.

“I’m sorry,” David mumbled.

“Fuck off,” Noah spat. He didn’t look up. He just turned and left the gym.

“What just happened?” someone asked David.

He glanced at me and shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Att,” Colin said again. He looked sympathetic, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’d forgotten about that,” I muttered, rubbing a hand over my face. I couldn’t shake off the heartbreak this time. “Fuck, I’d forgotten about that stupid playlist.”

“Sorry, Att. That was one of the songs?”

“Yeah. I’m going to take off.”

I made my way towards the exit, making sure to avoid the parking lot where Noah might be.

Suddenly, I was right there again, all the times Noah sang those stupid love songs. Sometimes with a teasing smile, sometimes seriously. It killed me every time. Noah was usually crass and blunt, always joking. But when he sang those songs, it was incredibly sweet, making my heart race. I couldn’t control how much I loved him when he did. It was sincere and beautiful. I didn’t need to relive this now.

I went back to the apartment, hoping Colin or Ezra would bring my bag. I flopped down on the bed, an arm over my face. It was like Noah was a part of me, a part of my body living outside. I didn’t know how to get rid of him. For every two steps forward, something like this would happen, and it felt like a wave crashing, pushing me a thousand steps back .

I tugged my phone from my pocket, opened the app, and found the playlist. It was still shared with me. I scrolled through it, reading the familiar names and feeling that ache in my chest grow stronger. Then, there were more songs. Songs I hadn’t seen before. I sat up on the bed. The list kept going. Noah hadn’t stopped adding them.

“Damn it,” I breathed and kept scrolling. Why hadn’t he stopped?

I reached the bottom of the list, the last song from a band called Chicago. He had mentioned that song at the library, how it spoke to his soul. He always said things like that, but before, it was about our love. I didn’t want to know what this song was about now. I closed the app and dropped back onto the bed, closing my eyes.

I was never going to shake him off.

A week later, finals began, and I immersed myself in the routine: exams, studying, training, and repeating the cycle. I only stopped to sleep, eat, and pack. If there was no free time, then there was no thinking and definitely no listening to any playlist.

I had a checkup for my shoulder and an appointment with the school’s sports medic to get cleared to play again. They had me waiting forever until a nice nurse guided me towards the back. While walking to the consult room, I spotted Noah running on a treadmill, shirtless, with wires connecting him to a machine. A nurse was next to him, too, saying something as he huffed a laugh, a little breathless. His back was to me. He had put on muscle weight. His back was strong, the muscles working to keep a steady pace. A new tattoo adorned his shoulder, small like the one on his hip.

“Atticus, this way,” the nurse escorting me said, pulling my attention away from the scene .

“Don’t those things monitor heart activity?” A knot of worry tightened in my stomach.

“Come on, this way,” she insisted.

I started walking again, glancing back at Noah running steadily.

I got the all-clear on my shoulder, and on my way back out, I spotted him again. Noah wasn’t running anymore. He was talking to a doctor, smiling and breathing heavily. A towel hung over his shoulder, but I could still see his abdomen. Even though it wasn’t as flat as it once was, it looked even more enticing.

He glanced up, did a double take, and his eyes grew in size.

Grabbing the towel, he pressed it more securely to his chest. My eyes fell away from him, and I kept walking, confusion gnawing at me. What was that about? Why was he getting his heart checked? In all the time we had been together, he never complained about his health. Other than being out of shape, which he was way past now, there was nothing.

Back at the apartment, I asked Colin about it and saw his shoulders tense. He told me he didn’t know anything, that it was probably just a routine checkup, but I wasn’t buying it. He avoided looking at me, and I had never seen him like that before.

The next time I saw Noah during training, I went back to watching him like a hawk. He kept his eyes trained away from me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I kept looking for something to be wrong, to be different, but I couldn’t see it. The only things different with Noah physically were the little hoop earring he wore and the fact that he had put on weight. The rest was the same.

My mind raced with possibilities, each more worrying than the last. Why were they checking his heart? There couldn’t be anything terribly wrong if he was playing on the team. He had to be going to the gym to look like that, which meant strength training. He couldn’t do that if his heart wasn’t right.

I knew I was obsessing over this. I thought about asking him, but Noah kept avoiding me. He probably wouldn’t take kindly to me asking about his health. Plus, I didn’t want to confuse things between us. It wasn’t like I had changed my mind about being with him. I just wanted to know if something was wrong.

The last week of classes came, and still, I had no way of knowing what was going on with him. I had a second checkup for my shoulder and asked the nurse, but she told me they weren’t allowed to give medical information to non-family members. I had no idea how to figure it out before the vacations started.

Then, one day, the answer found me.

“Atticus King,” a familiar voice called. I turned to see Holly’s smiling face.

I smiled back and walked towards her. “Hey, Holly, long time no see.”

“Still looking as fine as ever,” she said.

I chuckled. “Same, Holly, same.”

“Thanks, Att.”

Then it hit me: Holly had to know. I couldn’t just ask her, but surely she knew.

“Holly—”

“Att—”

We spoke in unison, then laughed awkwardly.

“You go first,” I said.

“Are you busy now? I need to talk to you about something.” She had her serious Holly face on. I had hardly ever seen her like that.

I thought about the class I had now—not an exam, but a final review. “It’s about Noah, right? He told you I ran into him at the health center? ”

“He doesn’t know that I’m talking to you, but yeah, it’s about that.”

I glanced towards the building and back to her. “Yeah, I’ve got time.”

She gave me a tight-lipped smile before we started walking. I could feel my heart in my throat as I braced myself for whatever she was about to tell me. I knew it wasn’t nothing.