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“You’re not a man.”
She cursed at Noah some more before they finally left.
“Happy whoring!” Noah shouted, slamming the door shut.
Standing in deafening silence, his loft smelled of booze and marijuana. He took one last drag of his cigarette and crushed it into an ashtray on the coffee table. Noah knew he was a hypocrite. He had insulted those young women in such a degrading way; and the worst part was that he was fully awarehe was projecting his own shame and self-loathing. His first love and heartbreak had caused his downward spiral. Noah’s painful history with Natalie had damaged him. He resented his mother for getting involved to prevent their union. But what troubled him most was how he had relinquished his parental rights and was not involved in his daughter’s life. He had been too young to have understood what it meant to be a father.
Before moving away to college, he was confident in a reconciliation when he had proposed to Natalie. She threw him off when she had rejected him (because of her own fears and projections), and before he knew it… she had taken their daughter and disappeared from his life. He felt tremendous guilt for not being there for Natalie and Aria. Noah had got involved with the wrong crowd and developed addictions he never thought he would have struggled with.
I hate myself.He hung his head down, sitting on the sofa.
??
By 9p.m., Noah’s place had been cleaned and organized. He sat in his living room, typing away at his laptop and occasionally sipping a mug of coffee. He had a major term paper to finish and was hoping to make the deadline by tomorrow. Half an hour had passed when he finally got into the zone of writing, only to be distracted by a soft knock at the door. Clad in a pair of ripped jeans, he dragged his feet to the entrance, peered through the peephole, and let out an exasperated sigh before he opened the locks.
“What are you doing here, Cammie?”
“Well, hello to you too,Mister Ruggedly Handsome.”
A brown-eyed beauty with long caramel hair stood before him, wearing a white pea jacket, a black scarf, and blue jeans. Her boots were flat heeled since she was tall enough to bea runway model. The beauty mark on her left cheek only accentuated her full luscious lips. Her olive skin was flawless, with a healthy glow.
Noah stared into her rich mahogany eyes and leaned his weight on the doorframe.
“You missed Thursday’s lecture,” Cammie said. “I brought you the notes.”
Eyeing her carefully, he resisted the urge to dismiss her by being deliberately cruel.
“Can I come in?”
He hesitated to respond, but eventually stepped aside.
Camellia Castellano was attractive, intelligent, and ambitious. Every guy at Harvard found her desirable—professors included. Even though she had many dating options, she only wanted one man: an emotionally unavailable young man by the name of Noah Hunter.
Cammie was half Cuban-American, raised by a wealthy family in Florida. She had moved to Cambridge when she got accepted at Harvard. Her major was in political science and she planned to go to law school once she received her bachelor’s degree. Unlike Noah, she lived in a sorority house on Harvard’s campus. The two of them had been friends with benefits on and off throughout their first year. From the get-go, Noah had clarified that he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship, but Cammie was convinced she could change his mind. She desperately believed she could save him from himself. She was wrong.
Their relationship was extremely unhealthy. Cammie loved and hated a man who couldn’t reciprocate her love for reasons unknown to her. They would break up and make up constantly. She would promise to keep things casual and then go back on her word every time because she wanted more; she always wanted more. Despite Noah’s hot and cold nature, Cammie loved himin silence and refused to lose hope. She wholeheartedly believed that he would wake up and realize he was in love with her, too. She had yet to surrender to the fact that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.
They often partied together and experimented with party drugs. When Cammie wasn’t spending the night in her bedroom, she was sleeping next to Noah, naked beneath his sheets, where they frequently unleashed their sexual fantasies. There were many occasions where she had found out about his flings with other women, which caused her to sink into mild bouts of depression and distance herself for a while… But she always came back. She loved Noah too much to move on from him. Cammie believed they were destined to be together. Unfortunately, Noah was incapable of committing to her. His traumas had emotionally crippled him, and he refused to confide in Cammie or get professional help.
“I brought you some take out… Chinese—your favorite.” She placed the food on his coffee table and removed her coat.
“I already ate,” Noah answered wryly, walking into the kitchen to refill his coffee.
“Oh.” Cammie frowned. “Just save it for later.” She took the bag and put the food away in the refrigerator.
Noah watched her vigilantly. She was easy on the eyes, but he was far from happy to see her. Feeling agitated and moody, he didn’t want any company and was tired of Cammie showing up at random. All he wanted was to be left alone so he could finish his paper.
“A smile would be nice now and then,” she sarcastically muttered, returning to the living room.
“Look, Cam, I’m really busy.”
“Working on an essay?”
“Yeah.”
“I could help you,” she offered with a smile.
“I don’t need help.”
