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“Dude, you're the geezer in this friendship, so drop the ma’am crap.” Kristina pushed onto her tiptoes and gave him a strictly platonic peck on the cheek.
Friendship. Right. Good, at least they were on the same page.
She walked around the foot of the bed and stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Sure you’re okay? I wouldn’t mind hanging awhile.”
“I’m good,” he said, forcing a smile, forcing himself to stay together for just a few more seconds.
“Okey dokey,” she said, disappointment plain in the cast of her eyes. ?
??Gimme a call tomorrow.”
“Yup.”
Kristina slipped out the door and closed it behind her.
Noah released a long breath and braced his hands against his knees. The room seemed cold and the silence loud without Kristina there. And he didn’t want to examine that too closely. Or, really, anything that’d happened in this room during the last…hell…he didn’t even know how long he’d been with her.
On autopilot, Noah tore off his clothes, locked himself in the bathroom, and turned on the shower water. Not wanting to meet his own gaze, he kept his eyes off the mirror while he waited for the water to warm, and then he stepped in, closed the shower curtain, and rested his hands against the white tile as the hot water sprayed down onto his head.
A sob clawed up from deep inside his chest. Shit, no. If he let that sucker free—
No, goddamnit.
Noah raked his fingers into his hair and pulled against the pressure building up inside him. He’d already lost it. He’d already lost it enough today. No more. No more.
Except the pressure just grew and grew and fucking grew—
Noah whirled and punched the wall. Hard. White tile cracked and crumbled under the blow. The destruction…was fucking freeing. He punched again. And again.
And, damn it all to hell, it was like someone had pressed a release valve. He sagged against the side wall and stared at the damage he’d done at the back of the shower. Fuck.
He felt guilty about that. He really did. And he was going to have to get it fixed quick so he didn’t have to explain it to his parents.
But it also didn’t escape his notice that despite fucking up that wall—and the knuckles on his right hand—he could breathe again. He didn’t feel good, but it was still the best he’d felt in days.
Chapter Four
Thursday came and went, and still Kristina didn’t hear from Noah. She’d texted and called him. Nothing. And it was stressing her out on so many levels.
Sitting in her car in the parking lot at school, the air conditioning slowly but surely cooling the late May air, her thoughts raced.
First, his panic attack. What if he’d had more? What if he was holed up in his room and fighting against them on his own? Kristina had witnessed her dad having plenty of panic attacks over the years, so she knew how they could make a person feel exhausted and in despair, isolated and alone.
Second, his overall mental health. After a lifetime of living with someone who suffered from mental illness, she knew that panic attacks could be just one part of a larger picture. So she’d spent last night ignoring end-of-term papers that needed grading and researching veterans and fireworks online. Her reading led her beyond panic attacks to PTSD, blast-injury symptoms, depression, and the terrifying statistics of how many veterans with untreated conditions like these committed suicide every day.
Twenty-two. Twenty-two veterans every day. How was that even possible?
Not that she had any reason to believe Noah was struggling that badly, but that didn’t stop her chest from aching every time she thought about all she’d read.
Third, their make-out session. Was he avoiding her now because they’d kissed? Or was that her projecting her own confusion onto him? Because Kristina was confused. By what had happened. By her reaction to it. And by the series of dreams she’d been having all week that played out every filthy-hot scenario of what might’ve happened if those fireworks hadn’t gone off.
She’d masturbated to those memories and imaginings. Twice. She’d had orgasms thinking about Noah. Noah.
That wasn’t weird at all. Nope.
Oh, God, it’s so weird! Kristina dropped her forehead against the steering wheel.
At some point, she was going to have to spill about her make-out session to her best friend from college, Kate Arnold. But for today, there was only one way to know the answers to any of the questions swirling around her brain. Talking to Noah. Since he wasn’t answering his phone or her texts, that left Kristina only one solution.
