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No matter.
It just means I have to dig a little deeper.
Without a minute to lose, I go to his desk and open his laptop, hopeful that maybe I can find some dirt, or at the very least, some embarrassing porn that I can use against him.
“Damn it,” I exhale, frustrated when I see that his computer is password-protected.
My shoulders slump as I look around his desk, trying to see if there is any piece of information lying around that can help me crack into it. Unfortunately, after a quick glance, there doesn’t seem to be much here that looks to be of use to me. Not one to be defeated so easily, I start opening his desk drawers, one after another, and again I’m disappointed to find there isn’t anything in them that shouts out password. Just some old motorbike magazines and some discarded change.
I spin around the room, hopelessness starting to set into my bones that this clandestine endeavor of mine will end up bearing no fruit. It’s only when my gaze falls on Noah’s bedside table on the other side of the room that I pause. Even though it’s a bit far from where I’m standing, I can still clearly see the photograph of a woman pushing a young boy on a swing set. My feet move before I even tell them to and walk over to it, picking up the frame in my hands to inspect the image closer.
There is no question in my mind that the boy in the picture is Noah, even if it doesn’t remotely look like him anymore. It isn’t the fact that the boy in the picture is so much younger than Noah is now—maybe only seven or eight, if I had to venture a guess—it’s the significant change in him. It’s the fact that he’s smiling that is so alarming. A real, genuine smile. One that I’ve never seen on his face before. I didn’t even think he’d be capable of such a thing.
And God, it’s beautiful.
Blindingly so.
My chest tightens seeing how happy he had been once. Such a contrast to the bitter, angry boy who has put my life in such a tailspin lately. If this version of Noah still existed, maybe we could have actually been friends instead of sworn enemies.
My gaze trails from his cheerful face and chubby cheeks to the cause of such happiness. The woman who stands behind him with a beaming, wide smile, laughing at her son’s joy. She has the same blonde hair and playful twinkle of mischief that her son’s eyes carry.
She is beautiful. Happy. Loved.
“Annabelle,” I whisper softly, the fist around my heart squeezing it to a pulp.
When I decided to invade Noah’s personal space, it was with the sole mission of finding something embarrassing that would put us on an even keel. I never thought I would find such raw vulnerability that this memento of Noah’s mom represents. I swallow dryly, looking back down on his bedside table and see that this photograph isn’t the only thing he has of her. On closer inspection, I can see that there is a small shrine of sorts just for her.
A handkerchief with her initials embroidered in blue on it.
A butterfly hairpin, the same one she’s using to pull the hair away from her face in the photograph in my now trembling hands.
A book of poems.
And a velvet ring box that I don’t dare open.
Feeling overwhelmed with the display of such sad devotion, I carefully place the frame back on the table. I then take three huge steps back, not wanting to tarnish Noah’s need to keep his mom’s memory alive with my uninvited presence. Suddenly, my plan to sneak into his room for dirt feels like I’ve stepped over an invisible line that I should have never crossed.
I know what it feels like to lose a parent.
To not have them around anymore.
But my pain is so different from Noah’s.
My father chose to leave me.
His mom had no say in the matter.
She was ripped from his life in the cruelest of ways, and those types of wounds never heal fully.
It’s easier to pretend that you’re better off without a parent when they don’t want anything to do with you. But to accept a loss like Noah had to suffer feels excruciating to me. I’m not sure I could ever recover from it. If I lost my mom like that… God…just thinking about it makes me want to curl into a ball and cry.
This is not what I expected to find when I came in here.
Not by a long shot.
And it sure as shit wasn’t meant for me to actually feel for Noah.
To care for him.
