Chapter two
Jen
I have ignored Noah's calls for a day until he sent the message just now, I knew my time was up.
Noah: If I don’t hear back from you, knowing you are off work today then I will be hanging on your doorstep. Whatever’s up, don’t lose sight of who I am.
I respond once I get coffee and can deal with the shit storm that is Noah on a tear. I understood his concern, to a degree. It was one day and yes, we talk a million times every day, but isn’t a girl allowed to lick her wounds before she cries to the bestie?
I mean...
This is unjust.
Me: Yeah, sorry I was licking my wounds from a really awful fight with Cal. Can I come by?
His response is immediate.
Noah: Yeah, I need you to help me with something.
I contemplate what that could mean and the list is endless. I will probably help him mate socks or something just so he has a pretense to ask me what crawled up my ass.
I throw my hair in a messy bun and dress in my workout clothes knowing I will hit the gym on my way home.
I stop and get an Iced coffee for both of us and pull in to his drive about twenty minutes later.
The garage is open and boxes everywhere and I feel the dread come on scared he has asked me to help clean shit out to prepare for even more of Raleigh’s shit.
"What exactly is going on?" I ask and hand him his drink and take in the various boxes with instructions on them.
"Are you moving?" I ask, and there is some serious sadness because this place had so much meaning to him and what he accomplished after moving to Gig Harbor ten years ago. I met Noah after we had graduated from high school and he started hanging out with Chad and eventually joined TAT.
He cringes when he takes a drink and hands me his, taking mine and I realize I handed him the wrong one and he hates sweet anything. "What the hell is the point of coffee if you taste no coffee?" He looks at me and shakes his head but laughs. "Bright does the same thing, fucking disgusting."
I laugh and sit on the bumper of the covered car. He has a serious car addiction and built a four thousand square foot garage in the back for them, but this one must be the choice for the day.
Weirdo.
"And yes, I am moving. This place is too small for us all." He lifts a box that says Candey on it and gently places it with a few others that have her name on them.
I say nothing as I try to take in what he is saying, but point to the boxes with her name on them in question.
"Well, I can’t very well keep her stuff where she left them like I had been doing." He looks at me softly and leans back against a treadmill. "Bright headed to Cali with Ral to sign on the lease for her apartment above The Brew that she is renting to the new manager of the Yorba Linda store." He looks at me and shrugs before drinking is bitter cold coffee,ew.
"I figured I would need some privacy to go through it all. I moved most everything in the spare bedroom, but it still felt like a shrine. I won’t delete her from my life, and have all her art at the studio and the special and valuable stuff on display." He shrugs again and dashes inside quickly before coming back with another box and a Trucker Hat on his head. He sets the box in front of me and I see my name and roll my eyes because I know what’s in it.
I know he needed to stop talking. Not because I was judging him, but because he didn’t need to explain why he wanted to do it alone. Even happy, in love and healthy he would miss her because he loved her. More importantly, Bright respects it and the love he had for her.
I open the box and start laughing and fold it back up. "So that’s where all my travel mugs and work out water bottles are."
He laughs and takes the box to my Escalade, or his that he gave me almost two years ago before he met Bright.
I stand from the bumper of the car and lift the cover and stop short. "Did you buy another car Noah?" I ask and lift the cover higher, but he stops me and shakes his head no.
"Let me uncover it please." He says and his tone is reverent and I roll my eyes because he is seriously too obsessed... My thoughts trail off when I see the state the car is in. The entire drivers side of the car is caved in and damaged as is the roof, front end and even the back end. I look to the passenger side and though it isn’t caved in as bad as the other side, you can tell this car was impacted on the driver’s side, rolled; and skidded on the right before stopping.
It hits me that this is his car, his first muscle car and it was the one that delivered the fatal blow to Candey and put Noah on the path of wreckage.
I look at him with such sadness now. "Noah why would you keep it?" I want so bad to understand why he would want another reminder of his loss.