Noah laughs mirthlessly. “I’m not sure I want you to explain.”
That’s what I was afraid of. I take a step forward, but Noah holds his hands up, refusing to let me any closer, and it pisses me off. He says I’m in his heart, yet he won’t let me fucking talk.
“I’ve traveled this road before, Lennon, and I vowed never to go down it again. These pictures tell me everything I need to know.” Picking up the articles and photos, Noah tosses them at me. The papers scatter to the floor in a wild mess. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Noah looks up at me, tears in his beautiful brown eyes.
“Don’t you dare compare me to Kim,” I yell. “We’re nothing alike. The situations are nothing alike, and you’d know that if you’d let me fucking talk.”
“You want to talk?” He holds his arms out the side. “Fine, explain it to me.”
I take a deep breath, relieved that I’m finally getting somewhere. “Mathis threatened to kill himself if I didn’t talk to him, and I couldn’t take that chance.”
Noah’s nostrils flare at the mention of Mathis’ name, his jaw clenched tight, but I push forward, desperate to get my side of the story out.
“I found him at a club, finally got him to leave with me, and we got pulled over. I didn’t know Mathis had drugs on him. He lied and told the cops the drugs were mine, and I was arrested. But they weren’t mine, Noah.”
“You lied to me.”
“About what? About my parents?”
“I don’t give a shit about your parents,” he roars. “I don’t care what name you fucking go by. What I care about is that you kept something of this magnitude from me.”
“I was going to tell you about the drugs and about the arrest.”
“Were you?” he asks, shaking his head. “You had to know it was going to be a problem for me.” Noah runs a hand through his hair, over his face. “I can’t do this.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to walk away? You’re not even going to try to understand where I was coming from?”
“You didn’t give me a choice,” he says, his words broken as a lone tear slips down his cheek. That tear is my undoing.
My anger dissipates and is replaced by fear and doubt, because he let me explain, and it didn’t make a difference.
“I can fix this. I can fix us. You just have to let me.”
Noah shakes his head. “I can’t. Nova is my entire life. She’s everything, and she deserves everything in return. As much as I want to believe you, I don’t. You kept something huge from me…” Noah’s voice cracks, his words trailing off as he tries to regain his composure. “You’re only telling me now because you don’t have a choice. How can I trust that you aren’t keeping something else back? I won’t do it, Lennon. I can’t.”
Then he turns to go.
“Noah, wait!” I plead, chasing him toward the door. I reach for his arm, but he shakes me off, refusing to slow his pace. He’s out the door faster than I can keep up, and I stumble down the porch steps behind him, losing my balance and falling to the ground. He doesn’t look back, and I scrounge to get up, running after him.
This can’t be the end.
Noah stops abruptly and whips around, his face stopping me in my tracks. “Why are you doing this? You’re making this so much harder. You need to stop. Stop, Lennon,” he begs, breaking my heart all over again.
“I can’t,” I sob, shaking my head. “I swear I’m not keeping anything else from you. You have to believe me. I just wanted you to know the real me before all the bad stuff came out.”
Furrowing his brow, Noah stares at me—it’s cold and brittle, but his eyes are still on me and that’s all that matters. He’s all that matters.
“I love you, Noah.” He flinches at my declaration, and I scramble toward him. “I love you, and I love your daughter. So much.”
“Don’t.”
“I love you.” With each declaration, I can see him breaking a little bit more, so I keep saying it, hoping he’ll finally believe me. “I love you. I love you so much. You’re my entire world, you and Nova. You’re all I need,” I sob.
He shakes his head.
“Yes, and I will make this right. I will fight for you because you two are mine,” I declare. “You’ll always be mine, and I’m not going to walk away from that. I’m not going to walk away from you, because I love you.”
“You don’t know the meaning of love,” he says, the fight draining from his body. “If you loved me, you would have been open from the beginning. You had a million chances to tell me the truth, a million different opportunities to come clean, but you didn’t. Every single day you kept something from me, because you knew it would be a deal breaker. If you loved me the way you say you do, you would have found a way to tell me about the drugs and the arrest. I should’ve heard it from you, not from Mathis. Not from the internet.”