Page 87 of All of Him
I opened my mouth to confirm his suspicions, my heart suddenly pounding in a good way, but he held up his hand for me to stop.
Noah Murphy loves me.
“You can’t say that until you have all of me, okay?” he asked, still holding up his hand.
“Okay,” I whispered, suddenly hopeful.
“But I can’t give you all of me yet.” Noah took a deep breath, unaware of how disheveled he looked.
I still wanted all of him, even the bad. I wanted to take care of him, to be there at every waking moment. I wanted to calm his anxiety, to fight off his demons for him.
“I can handle this…” I started.
Noah shook his head sternly, then cut me off, “I won’t let you. Not with me in this state.”
He wasn’t going to budge.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his for the first time since the incident, and he surprisingly didn’t pull away. It was all I could think to do in that moment.
“Amanda,” he finally said when I backed up, “I haven’t told you everything, and that isn’t fair. So, even though I don’t deserve it…”
“I’ll wait for you,” I said, doubting my patience. “I promise.”
Noah looked worried rather than happy, but he accepted my offer nonetheless.
“Hopefully, what I tell you won’t change your mind.”
48
Noah
WATCHING AMANDA LEAVE INthe rearview mirror crushed every part of me that I’d rediscovered over the prior months and then some. I’d promised Teel and myself that I wouldn’t do that to her, but my actions would end up hurting her along with Amanda. However, my own feelings regarding myself didn’t matter to me, and that was the first problem. The emotion, or lack thereof, was familiar and unwelcome.
Amanda and I had jumped right into one another, and that was the correct decision. We had simply been wrong on the timing. Part of me felt as if I shouldn’t have gone through the intersection, but the other part felt relief. Unfortunately, it’d also peeled back the entire layer of progress I’d built, leaving the post-accident version of myself exposed. My psyche was on fire, like someone had hit me over the head and set my personality back an entire year.
I might have seemed fine before, to myself and others, but there was more work to do. What had been happening between us had to stop so that she wasn’t dragged into the darkness with me. Whether she was willing or not, I didn’t want to share the shadows. I needed to find the light again on my own.
I was in love with Amanda Bette. I didn’t deserve her, especially after leaving her at her apartment that way. After sleeping with her and then dumping her before anything even officially began. After kissing her like it was the only thing in the world I wanted—because it was.
It hadn’t even been my plan to spill those words. They’d just kind of fallen out with my pathetic, depressive monologue, selfishness being the reason. If she knew I loved her, there was a bigger chance she’d wait. But who the fuck was I to make her wait for something that might not happen? I was supposed to be taking care of her, not stealing her future. Just because I’d never said those words to anyone didn’t entitle me to a matching response.
I dropped my luggage in the foyer and went to the kitchen. I hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, but hunger wasn’t present. The feeling was familiar—depression eating at my insides. Making the best decision since driving through the intersection, I pulled out my meds and dumped them on the counter. Splitting them up into a couple different baggies, I hid them from myself throughout the house.
With what little self-preservation I still had in the moment, I knew what I needed to do to prevent history from repeating itself.
Due to flying in on a Friday, I had the whole weekend to get my shit together before returning to work. Saturday didn’t go smoothly at all, not that a major depressive episode ever did. I slept until noon, forced myself to drink some water, and then ate a few bites of stale bread.
I felt like the ghost I had been before moving back to the States, minus the flashbacks. It was strangely comforting, but also alarming. Before, I hadn’t had a day that went by without seeing and hearing Garrett. Since I’d gone through the intersection, he hadn’t made an appearance once. I could think about it, but it was as if the memory was no longer triggering.
It wasn’t necessarily a good thing though, not seeing Garrett every time I closed my eyes. It was as if he was just gone, which I assumed was what fueled the depression. I needed to climb out of the hole, needed to get to Amanda. Luckily, I was aware that I couldn’t rush it.
One step at a time, I told myself Sunday morning.
It was snowing, a layer of white visible on the windowsill from my bed. I groaned, having plans to get off my ass and run, but they were squashed immediately. There were far too many roots and wet leaves on my trail to run. If I twisted my ankle, I’d be out of my only escape for weeks.
I pushed myself to put on clothes and head down to the kitchen. The effort to do just that task was exhausting. It didn’t help that I’d still only had that toast and water over two days, and my body needed food. Pouring myself some cereal, I forced myself to eat it dry. Just thinking about adding milk made me want to vomit.
“Damn it,” I hissed, realizing I hadn’t checked my phone since Friday.
