Chapters (16)
But before I’d made up my mind about what I should say, my mouth was already blurting out, “We could try long distance. We could at least give it a shot.”
I stopped talking before I said something really stupid, like Unless you’d rather break up. Luckily for me, Noah didn’t seem to notice that my mind was freaking out more than a little bit.
“That’s really what you want?” he asked.
“Yeah. I mean, is…isn’t it what you want too?”
Great work, Elle. Now he’s going to say no, it’s not what he wants, and the rest of the summer will be ruined. Good job.
“Of course it is! But—I mean, I feel like I’m being selfish, if that’s not what you want. You’ll be waiting around for me to come back for Thanksgiving and Christmas break. It’s not fair to you that I’m all the way across the country in Massachusetts. That feels like a huge commitment, and I don’t want to ask you to do that if you’re…not…like, if you don’t…”
My heart skipped a beat.
He was more worried about me waiting for him to come back home than the fact he might meet someone who was prettier, smarter, all-around better than me? He was worried that I was the one who wouldn’t want to give a long-distance relationship a fair shot?
“What I don’t want,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows and giving him a stern look he probably couldn’t see, “is to just break up and make things easy. Hell, Noah. When have we ever made things easy for ourselves?”
I could just about make out his smile. “So…”
“You know, I was the one thinking you wouldn’t want to do long distance,” I groaned, pressing my head into the crook of his neck. “I think we should get better at talking to each other.”
“Talking is going to be pretty important when I’m on the other side of the country,” Noah agreed. His voice had taken on a low, husky quality, and he pulled me closer, his lips finding my neck. “But I can think of something pretty important for right now.”
“That so?” I teased.
Noah flipped us round so he was leaning over me, and I guessed it didn’t matter how old my pajamas were when Noah was busy running a hand under my tank top, the two of us moving slowly, quietly, whispering in the dark, glad to finally have some time alone.