“Yes!” I replied playfully.
Noah gave me a teasing eye roll followed by a disapproving head shake, and a bolt of something shot through me. I’d never experienced such a bolt before. This was new. This strange feeling that zapped through me, from the center of my chest, all the way to my toes and fingers. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was wildly uncomfortable. On one hand, I didn’t want it to stop, but on the other hand, I did. Like when something is ticklish for too long and it becomes painful. The music continued to blare, despite it being turned down.
“Did you know that a man named Ramin Djawadi wrote the music, and that sound you’re hearing is a cello?” I gushed, pointing at the screen. It was the only thing I could think of doing to dissipate the way the bolt seemed to be churning in my stomach now. It was no longer a bolt, more of a wave.
“Ha! Another thing we know about you,” Noah pointed back at me.
“What?”
“Facts! You know millions of random facts!”
“Yes, I do! Like I know that the language Dothraki in the show is a real language. It was created by a linguist called David Peterson. You can actually learn it!”
Noah laughed at this. “Take out your list, write it down.”
“Cool. I will.” I took my list out and wrote down the other things I knew about myself:
Hate mosquitos.
Good listener and good friend.
I know facts!
LOVE chocolate. Especially Kit Kat.
I picked my chocolate up, took another bite and then placed it back down on the table.
“And another one,” Noah said sounding excited. “Definitely not OCD!”
“Why?
“Look how you’re eating your Kit Kat, you’ve bitten through the fingers. That would completely trigger someone with OCD!”
I looked down at my Kit Kat for confirmation. I had indeed bitten into it, leaving what looked like a large shark bite through the four fingers.
I took another bite, quite pleased with Noah’s assessment of me so far and with the things I was finding out about myself. Maybe Maxine had been right, that figuring out who I was could be fun and exciting. Because, so far, I was a coffee- and plant-loving, spicy-food-devouring, chocolate-obsessed, fact-knowing, non-OCD good friend.
CHAPTER 20
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine!” I felt my body lift off the seat as the loud voice ripped me back to reality. I opened my eyes and blinked several times as the voice seemed to ring out around me, coming from all directions at once.
“Wh-What . . . uh . . . WHAT?”
I looked to my right when I heard the series of “what”s ringing out. It was in a familiar-sounding voice, although I had no idea who the voice belonged to just yet. But when the shock of the loud wake-up washed away, I realized it was Noah. We were both slumped in the chairs that we’d fallen asleep in last night, watchingGame of Thronestogether, at around three in the morning. We kept saying, “Last one, last one,” but after saying that at least five times, we both passed out at some stage.
“Gym, guys,” Maxine said, with so much damn enthusiasm, as if she’d been drinking straight out of the enthusiasm chalice and was now drunk and giddy on the stuff.
I dragged my eyes to where she was standing and gave her the once-over, top to bottom. She looked perky as hell in her luminous gym gear and big smile, protein shake in one hand, gym bag in the other. I blinked at my watch a few times and then moaned.
“It’s waaay too early,” I said.
“I caaaan’t,” Noah moaned next to me, his voice deep and croaky.
“Me neither,” I said, massaging the base of my neck. It felt stiff. Not surprising. I’d fallen asleep in some awkward position, my neck hanging over the back of the chair, my leg over an arm, slight drool pooling in the corner of my mouth.
“You’re not getting out of it,” Maxine said, looking full of the joys of early mornings and protein shakes.
I rolled over and covered my face. “I don’t have any gym clothes,” I said, hoping this would end the conversation. Of course, it didn’t, because twenty minutes, one borrowed set of gym clothes and two cups of coffee to wake up later, I found myself standing inside a gym. I’d walked around aimlessly at first, while Noah and Maxine had started doing regimental boot-camp-like exercises that almost looked inhuman. Vigorous jumping, and lunging and lifting and . . .
