Remember Us This Way

by Sheridan Anne

Noah said my kisses were stupid, but they’re not stupid. They’re special. Like a gift from me to him. If he gave me a kiss, I would always keep it special.

“Zozo,” he says, squeezing my hand as he leans in to whisper in my ear, a wave of goosebumps spreading over my skin and making the butterflies start to roam again. “You know I love you, right?”

I was agonizing about how I’ve changed over the years, but it didn’t occur to me until now that Noah would be older too. All this time, he’s been frozen in my mind, still the fourteen-year-old boy I used to know, but when I see him tomorrow,

My heart pounds out of my chest as the world fades around us, so many things left unsaid but never forgotten. Zoey has been nothing but a figment of my imagination for three years,

Zoey remains frozen on the spot, and I can almost read her thoughts. They’re so fucking loud, they’re practically screaming at me—demanding answers, demanding anything that will bring her just a hint of closure. But she’s not going to get it from me.

“You and me—we’re nothing. Not anymore. I don’t need you, Zoey. I haven’t needed you for three years, and I sure as fuck don’t need you now. So, let’s get this straight because I don’t want you trying to recreate something that will never be. I’m only here to play football, and that’s it. I’m not here for you. At this school, we don’t know each other. Whatever the fuck we used to be, doesn’t exist anymore. You see me in the hallways, you look the other way. You see me outside, you go somewhere else. I’m not some fucking project for you to save. Got it?”

“Wow, Noah. Haven’t you become a giant piece of shit?” she says, taking a step back and grabbing her backpack off the ground. Not meeting my eye, she slings it over her shoulder, more than ready to race out of here. But I’m not surprised, she’s always run at the first sign of conflict. What does surprise me is how casually she called me a piece of shit. The Zoey I knew would never talk that way, and I’m not going to lie, her disgust and judgment stings.

I was better off without you. Fuck, those words keep circling my mind. Why the hell do they hurt so much? She’s lying. She has to be. I could see it in her eyes.

The other kids on the playground were terrified to even look at me wrong because Noah was my protector, but not anymore. The hateful, cruel words that so easily fell from his lips . . . shit. They chilled me to the bone.

It made me realize that I can’t even pretend to know him anymore. And yet, every piece of me was calling out to him, desperately needing him to make this right. I hate how much I wanted him,

if that’s true, my heart is going to break. I’ve been crushing on him so hard ever since I saw him

Our souls formed an impenetrable bond the day we first met, and since then, it’s only gotten stronger.

Come on, Noah. Look at me, just once. Let your eyes light up like they used to. Show me you still care.

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. Crap, I love him so much.

An ugliness pulses through my veins, poisoning me from the inside out, and I quickly realize it’s jealousy. I was thirteen when he walked away, and while we were definitely flirtatious with each other, it was never inherently sexual. We were too young, only just starting to see each other in a new light. He pulled me down onto his lap a million times before, but it never looked like that.

Seeing that old nickname of Noah’s has tears welling in my eyes, and I fight them back, refusing to let a single tear fall for Noah Ryan, though something tells me this is only the beginning.

if I’m about to suffer through an emotional war with Noah Ryan, then I’m going to need all the strength I can get.

What the fuck is this guy’s problem, thinking he can come at me about Zoey? I’ll deal with her the way I see fit. Our relationship, or how I handle it, is none of his damn business. The only thing that pulls me up is his comment about her going through a hell of her own, and it fucking grinds on my nerves that I don’t know what the fuck he’s referring to. Has something happened to her over the past three years that I don’t know about?

Without this, I’m going to spiral out of control. I’m going to end up hurting someone, and not just the surface-level bullshit I’ve been dishing out, but the real, life-changing kind of shit that will live with me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be this fucking person anymore. I don’t like hearing my mother cry at night, and I sure as fuck don’t like hurting Zoey and pushing her away. That pain is the only thing I’ve felt in three years, but if I force myself to feel anything else or to deal with the real issues at hand, it will fucking drown me.

My brows furrow, finding Zoey fucking James slipping out of the library, her arms filled with books. She makes her way toward the student parking lot, her stare unnaturally focused in front of her, making it damn clear she’s doing everything she can not to look down here. Fuck, she’s gorgeous.

I once adored, she’s changed.

Having childhood cancer was never part of my family’s plan, and it definitely wasn’t a part of mine,

You were his sweet little Hazel Girl.” “I know,” she says with a heavy sigh, the old nickname bringing a fond smile to her face. “I miss him.” “I know you do. Me too,”

“I warned you,” I growl, the fury burning through my lethal stare, ignoring the way her familiar scent overwhelms my system. “I told you to keep my name out of your fucking mouth and then you go and throw Linc’s name around like it means nothing.”

“Yes, you, asshole,” she seethes, trying to shove against my chest to give herself space, but I’m not going anywhere. “I said what I had to say to keep people from speaking ill of Lincoln. If you knew what they were saying—” “I don’t give a shit what they were saying.” Zoey arches a brow, and I do what I can not to breathe her in. “Sure. You don’t care what they are saying, yet the second you hear one little whisper on their lips, you come in here to abuse me. I set the story straight, Noah. They were saying you killed him, and I know you’re determined to forget he ever existed, but I’m not, and I wasn’t about to let them spread shit like that and leave a stain on Linc’s memory. So, talk it up all you want, Noah, but I see right through you. You don’t fool me.”

Mom was right. Noah is hurting. He’s a lost soul trapped in a world of darkness, screaming for someone to save him, but he’s also a complete asshole.

“You don’t have the right to come to me. Not anymore. And especially not after the bullshit you’ve thrown at me the last two days.”

“You used to be my hero. My bestest friend. I thought the whole world shone through your eyes, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. What happened in there . . . That’s on you. You had the power to make it stop, but you didn’t because you’re too fucking scared of feeling anything. You’re a coward.”

“Every prince in the kingdom is gonna want a piece of this ass.”

My father left us after that, and the guilt eats at him, so he overcompensates by throwing money at me to avoid having to deal with the fact that he’s a piece of shit. I’m not complaining though, that money bought my Camaro and paid for the killer matte black paint job. It also kept me out of jail, so there’s that.

“You’re drunk,” I spit at her. “Go home. You don’t belong here.”

“I told you that you were the greatest love of my life,” I tell her, the words so hard to say out loud, but I know I meant every fucking word, maybe I still do. “That I would make you the happiest girl in the world and protect you with my life.”

We’re two halves of the same whole, and no matter how much I try to pull us apart and burn that tether between us, we’ll always be forced back together. It’s inevitable.”

Had he forgotten it all or buried it so deep that it was impossible to recall, I might be able to understand how he could so easily push me away. But it’s right there for him, tormenting his mind in the same way it does mine, yet I need him now more than ever. I don’t understand how he can keep pushing me away when he still feels it. He can deny it all he likes, but I heard it in his broken tone as I watched the agony drive him to his knees in the quiet street. The idea of hurting me is killing him inside, but maybe that’s what he needs. I think he wants to feel numb to our past because the memory of his brother is woven intricately through each memory of us, and if he lets even a sliver of light shine through the darkness, he’d be left to deal with Linc’s death, and I don’t think he’s even a little bit ready to come to terms with it.

Checkmate, Noah Ryan. Check-fucking-mate.

Fuck, I want to kiss them so bad, but not like the way I used to. I’ve kissed her thousands of times before, each one just as amazing as the last, but they were the kind of kisses an innocent boy gives to the girl of his dreams, nothing but a respectable peck here and there. But the way I want to kiss her right now. That’s different. I want to claim her, kiss her so fucking deeply that her knees crumble, and I have to grasp her waist just to keep her on her feet.

Always waiting for the moment we realized that we were so much more than bestest friends.

“Just . . . When you finally realize that you deserve to be happy, come back to me.” He flinches at my words as though I’d physically slapped him, and the agony in his eyes is almost unbearable. “I’m sorry, Zozo,” he murmurs, before leaning back in. He presses a gentle kiss to my temple just as the tears spill over and roll down my cheeks, and before I even get a chance to reach for him, he’s gone. The closet door clicks closed behind him, and my heart breaks all over again.

Noah scoffs. “Baby, I talk about you every fucking chance I get.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m in love with your daughter, sir. I plan on having a whole life with her. Marriage, children, a whole fucking zoo if she wants it, and I’ll be right by her side until fate comes to take me out of this world. We only have a year of distance to get through and then we’ll be done. She’s strong, she’s going to be okay, and in those times she’s not, I’ll be straight in the car, flying down the highway to get to her. This year is going to be hard and sometimes she’s going to hate me for being so far away, but we’re going to get through it.”

“Fuck, Zo,” I murmur, my voice breaking as something grabs ahold of my heart and squeezes. “I don’t know what I can say to you to make this better or how to make the hurt go away, but just know that with every single beat of your heart, I’ll love you even more.”

it seems that my stupid girl kisses are his most favorite thing in the world.

After all, nothing puts a mean bitch in her place better than a broken nose,

No one ever claimed that Noah Ryan didn’t know the exact path to my heart.