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After we finished with dessert and I paid the bill—at my insistence, I wouldn’t let Noelle pay for hers, since I had been the one to ask her to dinner in the first place—I got up from my chair and extended a hand to her. I couldn’t explain what made me want to hold her hand again, but all I knew was that ever since the trip to the zoo, since taking her home from the bar, maybe even before that, it was all I wanted to do.
I didn’t drop her hand outside. She didn’t release it from my grip either.
“So…” she began, finally breaking her gaze away from her heeled boots and looking into my eyes. Like this, I could appreciate our height difference. Her shoes added a couple of inches, but she was still short enough that I had to lean down a little bit to look at her, but not so much that I couldn’t lean my head forward—just a little—to place a kiss on her head.
Not that I was going to. That would be weird, considering the state of our current relationship. Which was… Friendship? Yeah. That’s what we had agreed on. Even though it felt like something more could come of it, neither one of us had mentioned it. Not yet. Even though she had agreed to dinner and this entire night had felt like so much more.
But there were so many things I needed to tell her before we got to that point—if we ever got to it.
“Okay. You had questions,” I said, as we strolled past the trees with the twinkling lights. It was strange to me, how even in the cold, all I could feel was the warmth from holding Noelle’s hand.
She nodded, and I began to think about what she asked me earlier.
Do you have any siblings? Do you love your mom? Are you going to steal me away into the night, so I never see my friends or family again? How old were you when you had your first kiss? Do you think this is crazy?
“I have a sister. My mom is the best woman I’ve ever known. I have no intentions of kidnapping you, sunshine. I was sixteen when I had my first kiss, but it was awful, so I think it shouldn’t count. And yes,” I concluded, leaning in closer to her, lips almost at the crown of her head. “I do think this is crazy.”
She beamed, and God, I loved seeing her smile directed at me. Just from my truths revealed to her. And yeah, maybe it wasn’t everything I needed to tell her, but it was a start.
“Okay. Now my turn.”
I didn’t need any time to think about it. “Why’d you decide to be a Hall Director? What was your favorite thing about living in New York? What’s your favorite dessert of all time? Can you tell me the best Christmas gift you’ve ever gotten? And lastly… do you know how amazing you are?”
She blushed, and I couldn’t help but tip her chin up to look at me with the hand that wasn’t holding hers. “You are quite incredible, Noelle; do you know that?”
“Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded,” she murmured under her breath, and I knew, right then, that she hadn’t been told how special she was enough, and I vowed to do everything in my power to make her believe it. To make her see what I saw in her. A strong, brave woman who was doing everything she could to pursue her dreams.
As I said nothing, just watching her.
She took a deep breath before answering my questions. “When I moved back from New York… I knew I needed a change. I still had a lot of connections back here, and I’ve always loved the campus. It always felt like home. So when someone told me they thought I’d make a good Hall Director, and that it came with housing and food and a salary, I jumped. My favorite thing about living in New York…” She twisted up her face as if she was thinking. “Maybe Broadway. I don’t know, I expected to like to live there more than I actually did. My favorite dessert is red velvet cheesecake, and I think the best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten must be my typewriter.” She beamed. “I know they’re impractical, but it’s so cool. And to maintain some modicum of self-preservation, I will not answer the last one.”
We stopped at the end of the street, by a little park, in between two of the lit-up trees. I brushed a hair back behind her ear.
“Any other questions for me?”
She shook her head. And then she sighed, and I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I couldn’t, so I just stood there, running my fingers over the back of her hand, trying to tell her with my eyes what my words couldn’t.
It was too soon to comfort her like I wanted to, and I managed to pick the exact opposite of the right thing to ask when I said, “What happened… with your dad? You mentioned him at the zoo…”
The frown on her face was instant, and I wished I could take it back, but it was already out there. “My dad… died when I was three.”
“Oh, Noelle, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t worry. You didn’t know. I didn’t say it before. And I… I barely knew him, anyway. My mom was the one who lost the love of her life, you know? There was an accident at his work and suddenly, he was gone. Ever since, it’s just been my mom and I.”
“I understand,” I said softly. She looked at me, and I wondered if she knew how deeply I understood the pain that I knew she carried under the surface, even if she didn’t show it.
The thoughts that I had carried with me all day at the zoo. Because I remembered the last time I was at one, standing in front of the gray wolves at the Zoo in Seattle. The animals I had always loved, always felt a kinship with that I couldn’t quite describe.
“Noelle—”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to apologize. I… I’ve had a long time to get used to it.”
I had wanted to tell her then, standing in front of the red pandas, but I hadn’t been able to find the words. But today—I knew what I needed to say. Felt in my heart, the words that she needed to hear. So I took a deep breath and plunged feet first into the depths of my grief.
“I lost my parents when I was in college. Car accident. There was black ice on the roads, and their car slipped, and rolled… Luckily my sister was at a friend’s house that night, but I… It never really gets easier, does it?”
“No…” Noelle shook her head. “Oh. Matthew. Is that, why, at the zoo—”
