Page 44 of Two Weeks to Fall in Love

The fresh air felt like a whip against my face; each step was heavier than the last. When we climbed down the steps I moved to the side and stopped. I saw Noah’s shoes as he came to stand in front of me. Deep breath. Rip it off. Like a bandage.

“We need to break up.” My voice didn’t sound like my own.

There was silence. And then Noah laughed. I looked up at him, confused at the reaction. When he saw I wasn’t kidding his laughter died.

“You’re serious? What?” Now it was his turn to be confused.

Get it over with . Just get it over with, Sky .

“I know we weren’t supposed to end this relationship until Tuesday, but I don’t think there’s a point in dragging it out. I think it’s better if we just break up now. Easier.” Nothing about this was easy .

“Wait, I’m lost, why would we break up? I wasn’t planning on—” Noah reached out to take my hand in his and I pulled away as if he had burned me.

“You hurt Lily,” I said, and wrapped my arms around myself. Wrong . Lily had never said she was hurt. “I thought you hurt Lily, and that hurt me, and so I wanted to hurt you. To destroy you.”

Noah was quiet for a while and then his voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry about Lily, honestly, it didn’t seem like she was that into me, maybe I didn’t notice. Still I don’t want to break—”

The fact that he was apologizing to me felt like a shard of ice going through my heart. Another reminder that I didn’t deserve to have this person in my life.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I said, my whole body shaking. “I was using you. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to find out your secrets and tell everyone. I wanted you ruined.”

“Okay. Okay, but that was before.” There was panic in his voice now. “Before you knew me. Before I knew you. Things are different now, everything has changed. I’m different. I’m in lo—”

“Nothing has changed!” I yelled, shaking my head and taking another step back. “You’re still Noah Archer. You’re the same guy I hated two weeks ago. This whole relationship was a stupid joke. It can never be anything else. I’m still the girl who wanted to ruin your life.”

I stared at him, biting down on the inside of my lip. Noah shook his head as he tried to stop the words from reaching him.

“Skyler, why are you saying this?”

“Because it’s the truth. Just deal with it, Noah. I was never who you thought I was,” I said finally, and when it looked like he was still going to argue against that, I knew what I had to say.

There was only one thing that could make him believe my words, but just the thought of saying that to him was making me nauseated. The taste of blood was on my tongue, teeth biting harder on the inside of my bottom lip. The pain kept the tears away. I couldn’t cry. Not now. Not yet .

“And you were exactly who I thought you were,” I lied, immediately feeling the sting of how completely false those words were.

He was nothing like what I’d assumed. And that was why I felt like the worst person ever for saying what I was about to.

“Like you told me at the hospital when my grandma was dying: don’t be selfish , get over yourself and love the ones who love you while they’re here .

There’s no point wasting any more time on me. ”

I’d used those words as a weapon to wound him in return, and while I’d once thought saying that to him would feel victorious, all I felt was sadness and pain.

At the start, hurting him was part of the plan.

But now, his pain was the last thing I wanted.

I just wanted him to be happy and find someone who was actually a good person because that was what he deserved. Someone good . Not someone like me.

His eyes went wide, stuck somewhere between alarm and denial. He shook his head as if he refused to believe what I’d said, and then, as if coming to terms with it, took a deep breath.

“Wait that was me? I said that to you? My memories back then are so fragmented, apparently it’s a stress response, I didn’t know—” Noah stammered.

“Don’t,” I said, because the thought of him apologizing, again, was making me want to pull out all my hair.

This was for his own good. I wasn’t good enough for him.

Not after all the assumptions I’d made, all the negativity I’d sent his way for the past few years.

In truth, my next words were meant more for me, not him. “Saying sorry doesn’t fix anything.”

“I see. So that’s all this was for you.” Noah spoke after a while. Then he turned around and walked away.

I let out a sigh, hoping I could finally let go. Break down. Then suddenly, he was walking back toward me, stopping just a few inches away.

“You know, this whole time I knew what you were doing,” he said and I looked up at him in shock. “Yeah. Even saw that little notebook in your room with the failed plans and executions. I mean, you left it open on your desk and my name was in bold letters, so it was hard to miss.”

I felt sick to my stomach. The thought he might have seen the notebook when he stopped by that day hadn’t even crossed my mind. It should have, but that visit had been so distracting that not much else had been on my mind.

“I thought it was funny, because as much as you claimed to want to mess with my life, you never actually did anything. And then I thought”—he let out a choked laugh and ran his hands through his lush hair—“well, I thought maybe you changed your mind when you got to know me. Things might’ve been a mess when they started but then it felt like it made sense.

You and me. I thought that maybe you even felt the same way.

” He shook his head, then stepped back with his hands in the air.

“Congrats, Skyler. You got your revenge.” And with that, Noah Archer turned around and walked away.

*

The whole drive back home, I could feel Melissa’s eyes on me. Glancing over every so often to check how I was doing. The thing was, I wasn’t doing anything. I couldn’t do anything but sit there and wonder how an empty mind could still be so loud.

In that same emptiness I walked into the house, said hello to Mom, and climbed up to my room.

I was vaguely aware of the fact that Melissa had stayed behind, probably using her finest acting to explain my disconnected state.

By the time I reached my bed and lay down, I finally had enough energy to check my phone, and for a second everything inside me stilled.

The name felt like a cruel joke as it shone on my screen, and yet irrational excitement rushed through me. Heart in my throat, I unlocked the screen and opened the message.

Noah : hey, look, I know you hate me and I’m the last person you want to hear from but I just needed to explain something, I can’t leave it like this.

that day in the hospital when we were thirteen, that was probably the day my mom was first hospitalized with cancer.

with the type of cancer she had we knew then it was a matter of when not if.

I don’t really remember a lot from that day, it was a bad one.

tbh, whatever I said, I was probably just projecting.

I’m not trying to make excuses or get you to forgive me, I just hope that now that you know the truth you can just forget about those words and about me and just be happy.

I just want you to be happy, Fox. that’s all I want to say, I won’t bother you again

Suddenly, everything hurt. Everything hurt and at the same time, I felt numb .

What an odd combination. Even as Melissa lay down into the bed next to me, wrapped her arms around me, and held me.

I felt numb . As the tears fell down my face and Melissa kept telling me everything was going to be okay.

I felt numb . While the scene from earlier kept replaying in my head, on repeat, over and over.

I felt numb . When I ran out of tears to cry and could only stare into empty space. I felt numb .

Later that night, when we were both almost drifting off to sleep, Melissa finally spoke.

“I never thought you would actually break up with him.”

“That was the plan from the start,” I said. She knew that the best. That this fake relationship had come with an expiration date.

“I know. But I just never thought you’d actually go through with it,” she said slowly, as if she was scared of my reaction. I was too exhausted to have one.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I sighed, closing my tired eyes.

“Because you’re in love with him.”

My eyes shot open instantly and I turned to her with a frown. “I’m what?”

“Uh, you’re in love with him?” Melissa replied in a way that implied I should know what she was talking about.

“I’m not in—” I started, and then stopped.

Every single day I’d spent with Noah flashed through my mind. His voice. The sound of his laughter. That charming smile. The deep sadness he sometimes wore. His playful side. The way he always surprised me. How warm his hand felt when he held mine. The taste of his lips.

My heart sped up. Cheeks warmed. It felt like I had something stuck in my throat. No. There was no way .

“I’m in love with him?” I asked, dazed and confused.

“Well, yeah?” Melissa mirrored my confusion.

How did I not realize this sooner? The fact that I was so excited but nervous when I was going to see him. Or that my heart sped up whenever he was close. Or that he’d somehow become the last person I thought about before going to bed and the first person on my mind as soon as I woke up.

I was stupid. I was so freaking stupid for not noticing.

“I’m in love with Noah Archer.”

For the first time, I said how I felt out loud and it felt right . It felt true. Oh sweet baby pandas, I was in love with him .

“Yeah, you are!” Melissa said, grinning.

I sat up in bed, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her. “Why would you not tell me that?”

“Jesus, girl, I thought you knew!” Melissa put her hands on the side of my face and kept me in place.

I took a deep breath. And then another.

“I didn’t know.” I exhaled, losing all my strength and letting my body fall back on the bed.

“Well, that’s not great,” Melissa said after a moment of silence, and lay down next to me. “Maybe it’s not too late to tell him and—”

“No. It is too late,” I mumbled, energy depleted.

It didn’t change what I’d done. It didn’t change the fact that I didn’t deserve him.

It didn’t change how I’d thrown that day in the hospital in his face.

In fact, it felt more like justice. A punishment for my actions.

Instead of making Noah fall for me and breaking his heart, I’d fallen in love with him and broken my own. Poetic justice, really.

The sound of laughter filled the room. Manic. Irrational. It took me a while to recognize it as my own. After a minute, the laughter stopped and was replaced with hiccups. I tasted salt on my lips again.

Melissa sighed and wrapped her arms around me. This time I curled into her, sobbing into her soft red sweater.

“You’re a hot mess, girl,” Melissa whispered.

Truer words had never been spoken.