Smoke

Summary: Addictions come in all forms. This one begins with a kiss. Trent/Noah SLASH
Pairings: Trent/Noah, past Trent/Gwen, minor Duncan/Gwen and brief Trent/Courtney, among others…
Warnings: Slash (boys who sleep with boys), nonexplicit mentions of sex, underage drinking and tobacco use, infidelity, profanity, AU
Disclaimer: I do not own TDI, TDA, or TDWT.
Author's Notes: This fic is rated a hard T. It doesn't get into detail with the heavier aspects, but if anyone disagrees with this rating, please PM me and I'll change it.

Not all of this fic isn't told in chronological order. Certain parts come immediately after the one before, but others jump back and forth in time.

…I can't write short things.

one

Smoke billowed from between Trent's lips, clawing at the air and curling into the sky.

"That's going to kill you one day," Noah told him for what seemed like the hundredth time after junior prom. They sat beside each other on the steps leading to their school's gymnasium, granite digging into their legs. At the back of his mind, he wondered if Cody was still in there with jealousy gumming up his insides, watching Duncan and Gwen kiss under crepe paper in dim light and glitters.

Trent plucked the cigarette from between his lips and smiled. "Yeah," he said. He extended his arm to Noah. "Take it, if you're so worried."

Noah's first instinct was to say no, but he knew that Trent would be at that party with Geoff tonight, and he'd be too occupied with the thought of him drinking to sleep.

So Noah balanced it between his fingers and took a short puff. He dropped it almost instantly, and Trent rubbed small circles into his back as he coughed, eyes watering, but all Noah could think about as he watched the bud tumble down the stone steps of the school, edge gleaming bright red, was that Trent's lips were wrapped around that same filter.

·

two.

Their first kiss was in Cody's guest bedroom.

Trent was talking to Noah about a CD by a band he never heard of, and his words fell like dead leaves as Noah watched his lips form them: incredible, groundbreaking. Trent's hand fell over his pocket, tracing his finger over the rectangle that once formed the outline of his cigarette box, and he trailed off, eyes narrowed. And then their lips were touching.

The shadows of rain drops fell across an empty desk, and Trent tasted like peppermint.

Noah's fingers flexed hard against the comforter beneath him, and it took a moment for his mind to catch up to his body.

He kissed Trent back.

And Trent moaned, tilting his head to the side the slightest bit and parting his lips against Noah and Noah never knew it was possible for a tongue to feel so good inside of him. All rational thought was overwhelmed by Trent and his smell and his warmth, and Noah let one hand run down Trent's shoulder and over his chest, pinching the soft fabric of his shirt between his fingers, pressing against the muscle underneath.

It must've lasted several minutes, but when Trent tore away from him, it felt like seconds. "I'm sorry," Trent told him, cheeks flushed. "Fuck, I—"

Noah sat up as Trent stood, running a hand through his dark hair, cheeks flushed pink, and he waited, because he knew where this was going to go.

"I need to…" Trent flashed him a final, pleading look. His lips were wet. "I can't…"

Noah closed his eyes, but it didn't block out the sound of the door shutting in his ears.

·

three.

An accident.

That's all it was.

Noah nodded when Trent explained it to him in his car the following Monday, even though he knew full well what it was, and he even kept his mouth shut when Trent apologized for taking advantage of him, even when Noah was seventeen and he sure as hell didn't resist.

"Are you okay?" Trent asked him. His eyes were jade or emerald and Noah really wished he would just stop looking at him like it mattered at all.

"I'm fine," Noah told him. He added a smirk in for good measure. "Everyone needs a friend to make out with when they're having a gay crisis, am I right?"

A corner of Trent's lips twitched downwards.

"Come on," Noah said, playfully jabbing his elbow into Trent's side. "You think too much. I should have you take classes with Izzy. She stabbed Ezekiel's hat with a protractor today, and less than a minute afterwards, she was hugging him—I mean, he was still shaking, but hey." Trent managed a smile. It was small and barely perceptible, but it was enough for Noah to wrap his fingers around the handle of Trent's car door and speak gently. "Don't worry," he said. "The sooner we forget about this the sooner we can move on. It's simple."

"It doesn't feel that way," Trent replied, lips barely moving. Before Noah could respond, Trent asked, "Do you want me to give you a ride home?"

Noah smiled. "Would I pass up an opportunity to be lazy?"

On the ride there, Trent turned the radio on, and it almost felt normal.

·

four.

Gwen and Duncan were officially going steady the next week. They had matching black rings with silver studs; Duncan had one stud painted blue and Gwen had one stud painted green.

Despite this, they somehow managed to avoid the typical honeymoon phase behaviors couples usually had, such as pet names, baby talk, and even holding hands, all of which Tyler and Lindsay practiced on a regular basis, forcing Noah to reroute his paths between classes on Mondays just to preserve his sanity. Noah didn't hate Gwen, and, to a lesser extent, Duncan, no matter what Courtney insisted the student body thought.

Before second period and after lunch, they would kiss beside Gwen's locker. Cody ended up waiting with Noah at his locker once this began, while, according to Izzy, Trent took to showing up to class carrying three textbooks.

The few instances in the halls where Noah saw Trent did not alarm him. Trent grinned at him, like always, and went back to talking with Geoff or DJ or whoever as he padded along to class.

A week passed, and in the middle of the one that succeeded it, Noah was approached by Trent after the final bell.

"Can I talk to you?" Trent asked.

Noah nodded and bit down his sarcastic side.

Trent led them to an empty classroom—a chemistry lab, from the looks of it—and closed the door behind them. When he turned back to Noah, his hands were in his pockets, but that casual grin Noah expected wasn't there.

He crossed the room and leaned against the teacher's desk. Noah faced him, eyes narrowed. There was a dull ringing in his ears that echoed above the whir of the school's air conditioning.

A long silence followed, which neither of them were willing to break, but Noah sniffed and Trent finally sighed, turning his gaze to the scratched tiles beneath them. "I remembered what you said," he began, softly, hair falling across his forehead.

"And?" Noah inquired.

"And I don't know if I'm…like you," he said, and Noah wished that he could find it in himself to be mad at him. "But I've been thinking about it, about us." Trent peered up at Noah and Noah hated him at once for it, because he knew what Trent was trying to get him to feel, and he didn't want to feel pity for him, didn't want to remember that night and it didn't hurt before so why did Trent want it to hurt now? "About you," he added, and his voice was barely more than a whisper above the roar in Noah's head.

Noah stared at him, lips pressed tight together, and when Trent pushed away from the desk and approached him, he did not move away. Trent moved closer to him, and he could feel his warmth and smell him and he closed his eyes when Trent kissed him.

It was softer than last time, and tenderer, as if Trent was trying to keep him close, like he was trying to seal something away in Noah that he was frightened to see. His hands closed on Noah's forearms, firm yet secure, and he pulled away, breath moist on Noah's lips. "Is this… Is it okay with you?"

It wasn't okay. Every bit and piece of logic inside of Noah told him this. It wasn't okay, not in a moral sense, not when Trent was pining over Gwen and when he pushed away from Noah like he was acid the last time they kissed.

But one detail clung to him, unchanging and undeniably there.

Trent was sober when he kissed him.

So he nodded, and Trent was on him again, hands loosening on him, and Noah tried not to shiver as he kissed Trent back, ears growing hot once Trent slid his tongue inside of him again.

·

five.

It all started with a glance, he thought, across a classroom during their freshman year, before Trent dated Gwen, before Noah's locker had its first scratching of the word fag. They answered a question at the same time, something about Benito Mussolini, and their eyes met.

Noah glanced down at his hands for the rest of the day.

·

six.

That Friday, Trent drove him to his house, tall with white, latticed fences and beige walls. The floors shined and it smelt like mint even when Noah laid back on Trent's bed, breathing hard, heart thudding painfully hard against his chest.

He acknowledged that there was something vaguely fucked up about this, but when Trent kissed the underside of his jaw and asked if he was okay, he nodded.

"Want me to get you something?" Trent offered, and Noah felt a slight pang of sympathy for him and his lack of experience, much less with another male.

My self-respect, Noah's inner muse replied, but he shook his head.

They took a shower together, and Trent wrapped a slippery hand around Noah again, kissing him against the tiled wall, hair wet and itchy against Noah's forehead. Every part of Noah's body that wasn't touching him felt slimy and cold, and he was shivering hard, fingers gripping wet shoulders tight enough to bruise.

Trent held him as the water cooled, chin heavy on his shoulder, and whispered into the wall behind him, "I'm sorry."

Noah wasn't sure what he was talking about, didn't want to think about it, so he simply leaned his head into Trent's neck and closed his eyes until the water pressure slowed to a trickle.

·

seven.

Noah watched his school's talent show alongside Eva more out of politeness towards Izzy than anything else. Izzy's ventriloquism was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bad rapping and clumsy dancing, unfortunately, and around the third guy who rhymed about how many girls he could get in one night, Noah could feel his eyelids drooping.

After Katie and Sadie's dance, Trent came on stage with his guitar strapped around his back. Noah had only ever seen and heard snippets of him playing silly love songs under lush spring leaves on his way home from school, but Eva sat up a bit, so he decided not to make any comments.

"Hey," Trent said into the microphone. A set of bleached blonde girls several rows down from Noah and Eva started giggling, cheeks flushed with color. "This one goes out to someone special."

He began to play his guitar. A few chairs squeaked, and the auditorium was in silence. Even Lindsay, who had been chatting on her phone for the past two performances, kept quiet, blue eyes wide.

"Oh…
Of all the beautiful things I see
Blurring the lines of a fantasy
Is this something like reality?
Changing what it seems to be for me…"

Noah bit his tongue. The lyrics felt like a mess of words strung together, but the smooth chime of Trent's voice kept those feelings under the surface. He watched instead, and the warmth of May seemed to leave him, bringing intrigue in its wake.

"You and I…
Under the night sky
Oh, you and I…"

Trent's eyes flickered up, meeting someone in the audience, but he glanced down at the microphone once more and continued. Noah briefly scanned the people around him for who he was looking at, but he couldn't find anyone acting differently, so he listened for the rest of the song instead.

The lyrics were still lackluster, and the beat reminded him of a song he couldn't place a name to, but every movement Trent made, from slow blinks to the strokes of his guitar, felt like it had a purpose behind it. Noah was caught, and he couldn't look away, not even for a moment.

"The stars may shine above
But that won't change our love…
Mm…"

The final note hung in the air, resounding into parts unknown. There was an audible hush across the audience.

Trent stood, a small grin on his face, neither too modest nor too cocky. "Thank you," he said into the microphone. He exited stage left.

A wave of thunderous applause was left in his wake.

Noah clapped with the others, including, to his surprise, Eva, though her expression was no different than before Trent played. There was a thrill of excitement rushing through Noah's veins, one he deduced as a byproduct of all the squealing fangirls and Trent's whooping male friends a few rows to his left.

A month later, June began, and with it came Noah's sixteenth birthday. His algebra class was reduced to watching the World Cup, and Trent and Gwen held hands down crowded hallways and exchanged looks when they thought no one was watching.

He had a hollow, gnawing feeling whenever he watched them, and, until they began kissing in the halls, Noah didn't understand what it was.

·

eight.

Noah remembered reading a book years ago, maybe during elementary school, and catching the word crustaceousness. Noah stared at it for a moment before he took out a dictionary and tried to determine if it was real. A few entries before he came to it, he fell upon a definition for another word that he scoffed at.

crush [krush] – n. An intense, typically short-lived romantic attraction, especially in teenagers and young adults.

There wasn't a word in the dictionary, not even the most obvious, to describe how Noah felt towards Trent. His emotions were caught up in a web of undetected glances and a stone weight in his chest, and if he couldn't decipher them, no one else could.

But there had to be a reason why he was on his knees—in school, no less—missing Latin 3, his least disliked class, zipping Trent's jeans back up with calloused fingers still stroking his hair.

He stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and Trent kissed him, slower this time, hand curling around the back of his neck the way he knew Noah liked it. "Thanks," Trent murmured into his ear. His voice was smooth fire. His voice was soft lightning.

On the shelves across from Noah lay bottles of cleaning solution and industrial sized sponges in dusty plastic wrappers. He wanted to say You're welcome, but it felt inappropriate.

He knew enough Latin already, enough to get him a solid grip on any Romance language, now, and it wasn't that he disliked this. He didn't. Not at all.

Trent pulled away from him quickly, too quickly, and he sniffed, glancing at the door. "Well, um… I have to get to class." He shot Noah an urgent look. "See you after school?"

"Sure," Noah replied.

He received a curt nod in return before Trent left.

·

nine.

He came home late, usually in the bustle before dinner. In sophomore year, his twin sisters would greet him with dual flicks to the forehead, but when they started college the following September, they didn't come home until eleven or so. Noah would slip off upstairs to his room, and when his mother knocked to ask if he was ready to eat, he would say he was still working on his homework. She chalked it up to his AP classes, he assumed, and now she took to leaving Tupperware filled with leftovers outside of his door.

His mother still hugged him on the weekends, however, and his father would ask him how his week was. Fine, nothing special, Noah would reply, and his father would nod behind his morning newspaper with the stink of coffee in the air, somehow stronger than his old cigarettes. Addictions never ended, Noah knew, they were just replaced with stronger or weaker ones.

Noah's older sister, closest in age to him, was in her senior year when he was a junior, and their mother had misty eyes whenever she was in the room. She wasn't as smart as him, but she did sports and was fairly popular and well-liked. She would steal Noah's video games and sell his Pokémon cards when they were younger, and, even as they grew older, she still didn't acknowledge his presence in the proximity of others from their school.

When they found themselves alone in the house on Saturdays as their parents went out, a thick silence lay between them, something they never quite learned how to break. Noah was usually the one to leave—as the youngest of nine, he was accustomed to it—and he'd call Cody or text Izzy and Eva while he sat under the cool shade of an oak tree in his backyard.

His golden lab would curl up beside him and lay his head in his lap, even if he was reading (especially if he was reading). Noah would rub his furry head with one hand, and even if it was just for a moment, everything seemed all right.

Senior year came, and his house was the emptiest it had ever been. His parents smiled at him, and he'd smile back, but there was a rope there that had unraveled long ago and it would take far too much effort to bring the fibers back together again. Noah never needed that connection, however; tugging that rope was useless to him when he was younger, so he saw little purpose in it now.

So they'd continue that pattern on weekends. His mother would hug him. His father would ask him how his week was. When his twin sisters visited, they would greet him and offer to help him with his homework even though they knew he didn't need it.

Holidays brought the dull roar of his house back, and watching his parents and siblings smile—big, bright things that lit up the room and accompanied boisterous laughs—made Noah bear a crowded home once more. He still locked himself in his room in the afternoon until nighttime, and his dog still rested his soft head in his lap, but he'd paint a smile over his face when he came out for dinner and pretend he had a place there.

·

ten.

They first talked—really talked, beyond sarcastic quips and nods of acknowledgment as they worked in groups together—sometime after Christmas, when Noah was fourteen and he hadn't run for student council president yet.

The ground was still lined with snow, the fresh, virgin kind that Noah didn't dislike stepping in as opposed to the crunchy brown slush that would follow. He stepped through the path pre-made by students who left before the final bell only to have a hunk of ice thrown at his head. His initial reaction was a silent thank you to his mother for forcing him to wear a scarf that day—it hid his humiliation well—and he was preparing to set a death glare in the thrower's general direction when a voice echoed his thoughts:

"Dude, are you fucking stupid?" There was a cruel laugh—Noah recognized it as Duncan's—and a hand clasped over his shoulder. "You okay, bro?"

He turned his head and met Trent's jade eyes. "Fine," he mumbled past his scarf.

"Don't mind Duncan; he's an idiot who's gonna get busted for selling pot one day," Trent said, and it flowed so smoothly off his tongue that Noah couldn't help but wonder what heinous thing Duncan did to him.

He shrugged. "It's alright. Nothing I haven't been through before."

The black gate outside of their school had icicles hanging between the bars. They didn't glisten, even under the slivers of sunlight emerging from flurries of clouds.

Trent tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "Aren't you Noah?"

"Yes…"

"Is it true that you're a year ahead in science and math?"

"Yeah."

"That's awesome," Trent said. His grin was warm; his figure was warm. He had the air of a guy who wanted to be liked, who feared being hated, who loved himself too much to allow that to happen, Noah thought, and he wondered if Trent was speaking to him to earn karma, because he couldn't think of any other reason.

He nodded. "Thank you. Most people don't believe me when I say that—even the sophomores."

Trent gave him a few pats on the arm. "Well, good for you. I hate math; all those numbers and stuff drive me crazy." He shifted his backpack and stepped away from Noah. "Anyway, I'll see you around, Noah."

Noah nodded. He waited until Trent was a good distance away from him, but several feet past the gate, he turned around.

"I'm Trent, by the way."

And he continued.

That name lingered on Noah's tongue for hours afterwards.

·

eleven.

"My parents aren't going to be home tonight," Trent offered one Friday afternoon as he helped Noah button up his jeans in an empty classroom.

Noah nodded and told him he'd come over, and Trent smiled lightly and kissed him, fingers hovering over one cheek.

They had barely made it through the front door when they were over each other, on each other, lips and teeth and tongues colliding the same way they had for almost a month, hands hot, too hot, and Noah couldn't think it was so much.

Trent laid against him this time, his body heavy over Noah's, breathing hard. He kissed Noah once more, lacing their fingers together, sticky with sweat, and he muttered, "You're really good."

Noah scoffed. "I'm touched."

He pulled away from Noah, grinning, and shifted on his side to face him. Noah mirrored him. Trent toyed with the curve of his waist for a few seconds before he glanced up at him, the green of his eyes blotted out by the dark. "Do you ever want to…?"

"Want to what?" Noah asked, raising a single eyebrow.

Trent stared at him for a moment longer before he pulled Noah in and kissed him, long and slow, making his lips and tongue tingle. "Nothing," Trent rumbled against him. "It's nothing."

·

twelve.

Trent drove him home at four o'clock, when the air was wet and lawns around them were heavy with dew. He kissed Trent, and Trent took his wrist before he left and kissed him again. He didn't drive away until Noah opened his front door.

His father was awake. The thunder of the coffee machine felt like a police siren, and Noah held his breath as he passed by the kitchen on his way to the stairs.

"Noah."

Noah put on his most innocent look and turned to him. "Yes, dad?"

"Where were you last night?" Tired eyes stared at him, wrinkled in the corners from years of work and the burden of nine children. His newspaper lay across the kitchen table, opened to a black and white picture of a girl who killed herself two towns over after being bullied.

"At Cody's house. I lost track of time, and after we fought over nachos, I fell asleep. He didn't want to wake me up, so he just left me there. I'm sorry."

His father stared at him for a few seconds before he sighed and nodded. "Okay. Just tell me or your mother before that happens again, okay?"

Again.

Noah nodded. "Okay."

He slipped into his bedroom and sent a text to Cody: If my parents ever ask you if I stayed at your house, just say yes. Please?

He received one word in response: ok :)

No questions asked.

One night became another, and another became a few nights a week, and that evolved into whenever Trent's parents weren't home.

Noah encountered Trent's mother when she came home from work early one Tuesday. They weren't caught in a compromising situation, thankfully, and Trent explained that Noah was a friend from school. She nodded and smiled wearily with eyes that almost looked like Trent's and told them that that was okay.

When they got into Trent's bedroom that night, Trent exhaled against him and shivered. Noah wanted to ask him why, but Trent kissed him on the chin, and he kept that question to himself.

·

thirteen

He saw Trent and Gwen talking in the hallways once, but that biting mineminemine feeling he got before he shared nights with Trent no longer haunted him, and he simply walked past with Cody in tow. Cody's failed matchmaking skills still bothered him, Noah knew, so he asked Cody questions about the AP Statistics homework over his shoulder, and Cody smiled at him and gladly took the lifeline.

Noah slid into Trent's car after a student council meeting. Trent set his car into drive and laid his hand over one of his jean's pockets before he heaved a heavy sigh. Instinct, Noah assumed. He only quit smoking over the summer.

He glanced over at Noah over the whir of the car engine. "You saw me with Gwen, right?"

"Yeah."

"I don't want to get back with her," Trent said. He pulled out of the parking lot and started down the street. A network of starkly bare tree branches stretched over the gray afternoon sky above them.

"Okay." Noah smirked at Trent, with both hands on the wheel, unlike the casual elbow-out-of-the-window pose he usually held. "Do you want an award?"

Trent chuckled and smiled, eyes melting into the road.

When he slid off Noah's jeans in the dark of his bedroom, breath heavy in his ears, his hands were shaking.

·

fourteen.

Life was divided into portions for Noah. Getting ready in the morning. School. Sex with Trent. Doing his homework. Trying to get to sleep. Playing videogames was once there, but he hadn't picked up a controller in weeks, not even for a moment, and he spent most of his time somewhere out of himself.

Sometimes Trent would talk to him as they lay next to each other. He'd talk about where he wanted to go, who he wanted to be. Trent wanted to go to Italy someday. He wanted to change lives with his music. He wanted his name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Sometimes Trent would just sigh and hold him for what felt like hours, heart beating against Noah's chest as they slowly synced in unison, breath cool against his neck, hands gentle.

Sometimes Trent would wordlessly turn to his side and sleep, and Noah saw no problem with that.

Moments with Trent became a halt in the smear of time that was his life. In the blurry chapter that led up to college, where Noah would have his first proper boyfriend and have people listen to him beyond plastic holidays and student council meetings, these moments were the candlelight behind him, the dim flame that just barely kept his life something more than unremarkable. Trent held a small, tiny piece of him that was destined to exist in his memories, a piece of himself he could easily part with and would probably be better off without.

Trent held his hand when he fell asleep sometimes, and Noah would stay awake long after his breathing had evened out. He would count his heartbeats until he was lulled to sleep, and when he woke up, their fingers were still laced together.

·

fifteen.

Trent and Courtney were dating by the time December rolled by in a mess of rain and biting wind.

Noah didn't believe it at first, when Cody informed him during their first period, lip curled up in disdain. He told Noah that it would probably last only about a week or so; no one had ever seen them talking in a civil manner before, and Noah nodded and agreed with him.

When class let out, he passed by Trent's locker on the way to Latin 3. Sure enough, there they were, laughing with wide smiles, Courtney holding her books against her chest. Trent glanced at Noah as he passed, but their eyes met for only a brief second before Noah continued walking. Trent's stare burned into the back of his neck.

It wasn't that big of a surprise, Noah mused. Freshman year started Harold's efforts to woo Leshawna, Beth was dating some random hot guy during junior year, and Heather almost dated Alejandro the year prior before she publically humiliated him in front of the student body. This year had DJ and Eva as lab partners with the highest grades in their chemistry class. Not to mention the times Izzy said she caught Cody looking at her in art…

So Noah shrugged and didn't bother rerouting his paths between classes. He would come home early after student council for the first time in months, and then he'd rest for a few hours before he got started on his homework. Life flowed back in all its lukewarm glow, but it wasn't any less bright than before.

And if he had to ignore Trent's stare in the hallways, that was fine too.

A week and a half of that passed before Noah was stopped on his way home from school by Trent, his eyes soft jade. "Can I talk to you?"

"I can't exactly forbid you from it, can I?" Noah said. There were a few stragglers outside of their school. Across the street, a few freshmen were smoking. There was a woman walking her dog along the grass.

Trent sighed. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You know," Trent told him. He wouldn't meet Noah's eyes, and that fact irritated Noah more than anything. "Me…and Courtney," he whispered, like she was due to descend upon them at any moment, PDA in tow, screeching out her vocal chords like a nightmare.

Noah smiled at him, and it felt easy, it was easy. "It's fine," he said. "Remember what I said when this all began? Everyone needs someone during their obligatory gay crisis." He wanted to add something else, maybe I'm glad to be of assistance, but he knew that would make Trent unreasonably guilty, so, instead, he said, "It's not like I didn't enjoy the past few months. I'm not a cardboard cutout of a teen gay, in case you haven't noticed."

Trent blinked at him, lips parted slightly, as if in shock.

"I wish you and Courtney the best," Noah said. "I do suggest you invest in some earplugs, though. That girl has quite a…a voice on her."

Before he could turn, Trent said, "You're not angry?"

"No." He raised an eyebrow at Trent. "We were just…" He glanced across the school grounds at this point, then whispered, "Having sex. No obligations there."

Trent pressed his lips into a thin line. Something flickered over his eyes, too quick for Noah to decipher, but Trent took a step closer to him then. "Can't we still?" Trent breathed, eyes cast downwards.

Noah looked up at Trent, into him. There was something in the way he moved, the slight twitch of his fingers, that told Noah that there was so much more here than he could ever imagine behind those three words, but he couldn't read Trent. He didn't understand what Trent was trying to tell him, or if he was even trying to tell him something, but that fact lent him no suffering.

He should've said no. Trent had a girlfriend now. He was either straight or bisexual, but for now he was with her, he would kiss her in the hallways and fuck Noah in the sanctity of his bedroom, he would give her gifts on their anniversaries and hold Noah in that same night, breath warm against his shoulder.

But Noah nodded. He nodded, because that candlelight was something, something real and tangible before what really counted, and six months until real life began sounded so much longer than it really was.

Trent gave him a small smile.

He broke up with Courtney about two weeks later. It was a quiet thing, and she didn't look angry afterwards, just self-assured, and Trent acted as if nothing had happened, though there was a sort of resolve in his eyes now, a change in his stance that made him look taller, hands lingering too long on Noah's skin.

·

sixteen.

There was a time when the world presented itself in soft pastels to Noah, innocent and so small. He must've been about four or five when he still believed in Disney fairytales and pure happiness, kind souls willing to help all who came their way and friends that lasted forever.

That innocence died, fast and silent, before he had the proper time to mourn it. He couldn't. He was a genius, after all, a child prodigy, reading before he could walk and capable of long division when most kids were still pushing around blocks with hands sticky from sugary juice and fruit snacks. Noah was different, and everyone knew that. He was special, and stupid things like wishing on shooting stars couldn't be wasted on him.

He read, rather than spending his time trying to understand everyone else his age and their backpacks covered with cartoon characters. He played videogames under the slides so that no one would watch over his shoulders. When someone bothered him, he carefully manipulated another kid into bothering them back.

A roadblock separated his world and theirs, and he didn't want to make the effort of trying to understand.

That innocence, that calm, blissful time of naps and sweets, lay in wrinkled photos and scribbles in notebooks he glanced at and threw away. In retrospect, he could've been a different person had that time lasted longer. Maybe he would've been nicer or more trusting of others.

Of course, any of those potential lives lacked what he had: a shell, hard and thick around him. He could've been what society deemed as a more 'pleasant' person, but he would've been so easily pierced and crushed by words and fists.

And he was fine now. It was fine.

·

seventeen.

It took three words for everything to change, for the placidity in Noah's heart to shift beyond his control and consume him.

"I love you."

Noah stared up at Trent for four, long, disbelieving seconds. "Get off of me," he said, hard gravel rough in his throat.

The pained look in Trent's eyes—soft, fragile jade—served only to further the intense swell of disgust inside of Noah. He pulled away from him, and Noah stood, body heavy and sticky with sweat, gathering his clothes from around the room and blindly putting them on. He shoved his sweater vest into a ball and left Trent's house, head pounding, vision smeared over with that feeling.

Trent didn't stop him.

·

eighteen.

His cell phone had four missed calls, one voicemail, and nine texts in the morning. He sighed and deleted the calls and voicemail. His phone displayed a preview of his most recent text: but I can't think of any other way to (…)

He hesitated for a brief moment before he deleted those too.

·

nineteen.

Monday consisted of stares in the hallways, hot and cold at once against his neck, but Noah kept his eyes down and attached himself to Cody or Eva or Izzy between classes when he'd hurry down the halls, determined not to be late.

Trent stopped him after the final bell, breathing hard as they stood amongst the influx of students down the hall, some glaring at them for blocking up traffic. "Noah—"

"Don't." He glared at Trent for the first time, sending all he meant with that one word through his eyes. Don't talk to me. Don't pretend that you care. Don't say you love me. Don't act like this meant something.

His lips twitched downwards, but his expression was blank afterwards. They shared that look for seconds that melted into hours in Noah's mind. His throat hurt and his head felt light and his body was throbbing hard into the ground, but he stood there as the people around them became light blurs and empty faces.

Trent shook his head, a barely noticeable thing, and walked past Noah.

It didn't hurt.

·

twenty.

This was stupid because he didn't hate Trent.

This was stupid because he didn't love him either.

He liked Trent. He liked the darkness of his hair, his jade eyes, jaw lined with stubble, broad chest, long hands with calloused fingers. He liked the way Trent felt when he kissed him, that tingling he left his lips with, the way he smelled, a cologne that filled him to the core and lit up his mind, his warmth, encompassing his body when he held him. He liked it when Trent said his name, when he sang, when he played the guitar. He liked the sex. Very much so. The nights following the confession felt cold; they felt boring, and he hated sleeping when his room had only the sound of his own breath for company.

But he didn't love him.

It was a four letter word, easy enough to understand. That word, coupled with a subject and object, formed the most overused statement in the entire world, a phrase that lost power and meaning through common speech and expensive gifts.

Noah had never heard those words in his life before. Not from his parents, however much they cared for him, not from his friends, and certainly not from himself. He understood the meaning, the sentiment, but not the purpose, why anyone would dare leave themselves out like that, heart and soul bare for the world to see. Say it once and you scream it on top of a mountain. Say it once and you risk falling off.

Somehow occasional conversations in class and his polite concern, driving him and Cody home in a car that did not belong to him on a permit, evolved into this, stolen moments in empty classrooms and Trent's bedroom, kisses that lasted longer that they had to and sweat-stained sheets hanging off the mattress. And then Trent loved him.

Trent loved him.

Noah wondered how long those feelings existed. He wondered if Trent knew what he felt, if he thought that this—that they—would last beyond high school, if he thought of them holding hands in the hallways like he did with Gwen and kissing him between classes and not caring who saw. He wondered if it hurt when he left, if he was angry, if he was sad, if his heart constricted his throat and if he wanted Noah to love him back.

He picked up his DS for the first time in months, dusted off the cover, and played Pokémon until his mind numbed over and he couldn't think anymore.

·

twenty-one.

His father looked at him for the first time in his memory—really looked, with eyes that held more emotion than indifference or exhaustion—and told him, "You look sick."

"I don't feel sick," Noah told him.

He nodded at him absently, shifted back in his seat, and continued watching the television without missing a beat.

Noah stared at the screen, a documentary on war criminals, from the looks of it, and kept his focus on that, tried to move himself to tears or outrage as the crimes were described in sentences that made sense in his head but fell as mere words in his heart. There was something hollow there instead, deep and heavy and never-ending, and he sighed before he returned to his room.

·

twenty-two.

He received a text after school on Friday. The preview said: I meant it. Noah stared at it for a moment at first, confused, before the next one came: I love you.

·

twenty-three.

He sometimes drove Cody back home from parties in his sister's car from a deep sense of obligation. One part of his mind thought that waking up with his clothes stolen would make for a good life lesson, but another feared the image of Cody's body, cold and still and hard from alcohol poisoning.

Cody's house was too big and too empty, and Cody would whimper for Noah not to leave him, so he would stay by his side until the morning came.

Trent brought Cody into the car a few times, patting Cody on the back as he laid him back in the passenger seat. "You're a good guy," he would tell Noah, and Noah nodded as he mentally wished for the cops down his street to be sleeping.

There came a time when Trent and Cody both had shaky knees, and they were leaning on each other, talking too loud and singing bad renditions of songs on the radio.

Noah sighed and told Trent to come in too, and the next morning, the three of them sat at Cody's dining room table. Trent and Cody struggled to eat Noah's attempt at scrambled eggs, and he pretended not to notice.

Before they left Cody's house, Trent would sit on the porch swing, swaying back and forth on it with his heel, flicking his lighter against a cigarette. Noah frowned at him as the tip glowed red and Trent started inhaling, eyes shut, brows relaxed. Ashes fell on his jeans each time, and Trent would sweep it away into the wooden cracks of Cody's porch.

Trent glanced up at him when he finished it and gave him a tired grin. "Gross, huh?"

"A little," Noah said. "Reminds me of my dad."

"Mine too," Trent murmured. There was a slight flicker in his eyes and he touched his pocket, fingers tracing the rectangular box underneath the denim. He peeled his hand away after a moment, closing his eyes shut as he pulled his hand into his lap. "I'm gonna try to quit over the summer," he mumbled.

Noah raised an eyebrow at him.

"I promised Gwen I would last year, but everyone knows that worked out…" He bit his lip then, clenching his hand when it started toward his pocket again. He covered his fist with the other hand and grinned up at Noah with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

He had half a mind to tell Trent that he could right stop now, but he only ever saw his parents arguing over his father's addiction, and he didn't want a teenage boy with a hangover to yell at him, so he sighed and looked away from Trent. "Want me to give you a ride home?"

"No, I'm good. But thanks."

He usually said that when he talked to Noah on Cody's porch after a cigarette or two. Noah would keep away from him in the hopes that his clothes wouldn't smell, but he would end up sitting next to Trent on most nights, and they would talk about school and whatever came to their minds that day.

Sometimes he couldn't notice the smell of smoke in the air. Sometimes it was still dark outside and the sun was only just rising, and they just sat and stared. Sometimes Trent would rock the swing back and forth with his heel wedged between two wooden boards of the porch floor. Sometimes Trent would sit lazily, with his legs spread and knee barely touching Noah, and he'd reach for his pack again before sighing and sitting up with better posture.

·

twenty-four.

FAGGOT

It was most annoying when they wrote it on his locker with permanent marker rather than their keys, because that required going into the janitor's closet and stealing paint. The handwriting was familiar as well, so at least he didn't have any new vandals seeking to desecrate his locker.

After student council, Noah proceeded to a closet and entered it. It smelt of mildew and dust, and the walls were dark gray. Black handprints lined the shelves opposite Noah, and he tried not to think about them as he took the proper can of paint ('Forest Green', the label said).

The word was down to GGOT when he heard footsteps down the hall. He ignored them and continued painting, layering it on thick.

The footsteps slowed as they went by him. Then they came closer, steady this time, as if hesitant to approach him. And then he recognized it. The clean smell of cologne overpowered that of the paint, and Noah set his brush down, staring into the ground, wishing he could melt into it and disappear.

"Hey," Trent said from behind him.

Noah stood. He turned away, hands clenching into fists, but he wasn't angry. Not in the slightest. "…Hey," he said.

Two and half weeks didn't change much. Trent was now clean-shaved, however, rather than the fine gray of stubble lining his chin, and Noah noted that with an odd sense of disappointment.

Trent pointed to his locker. "Who wrote that?"

"The same person as last time, probably."

His eyes met Noah's for the briefest moment, showing nothing, hiding everything, and he walked beside Noah, kneeling down and taking the paintbrush from the can. He waited for the excess paint to drip off and then began to paint over the G. His strokes were horizontal while Noah's were vertical, but that didn't bother him.

He did the same with the other letters. There were smears across his side and little bubbles too, but the word was obscured, and for that, he was glad.

"Noah." Trent looked up at him, though his eyes wouldn't meet Noah's.

He smiled at him, a small, sympathetic thing. "Thank you."

Trent put the paintbrush back. "It's no problem." He shoved his hands into his pockets. He stood there, and in the moment, he looked so small to Noah, more like that boy he held when Trent's mother met him, but this time he had no anchor, he had no one, and Noah felt a slight pang of sympathy for him.

"…I'll see you around?" Noah offered.

Trent nodded. "Yeah. Yeah."

His head hurt as he walked home. He blamed it on the paint.

·

twenty-five.

"What's the point of driving yourself to a party if you're going to be too drunk to drive back?"

"…Points with the status quo?"

Noah glared at Cody, with his sheepish, almost nervous grin, from across the table. He had long since deduced that the full extent of his cooking skills was instant ramen, which Cody didn't seem to dislike.

Cody stirred the contents of his bowl clockwise once, counterclockwise twice. He glanced up at Noah before shoving a forkful of noodles into his mouth. Soup dripped onto his dining room table and chin, and he wiped it off with a paper towel. After swallowing, he asked, "Have you heard from Trent?"

"No," Noah said. March was reaching its peak, and it was over a month since he had been with Trent. The world was coming to life around him, and he didn't need anything to keep himself from watching it.

"He doesn't talk much, now," Cody said, stirring his ramen once again. He tilted the bowl and drank some of the soup, not spilling any this time, thankfully. "There was a falling-out between Katie and Sadie. Think that has anything to do with it?"

Noah shrugged. "Maybe. I doubt it."

"He's been smoking a lot too," Cody mumbled.

He stared at Cody, pursing his lips. "I thought he quit over the summer."

"He was trying to quit," Cody corrected him, a small glint of confidence in his eyes at doing so. "I dunno if you know this, but Trent only really smokes when he's trying not to think about something." He glanced up, as if mulling over the list in his head. "It got bad around the time he dated Gwen and she was hanging out with Duncan a lot, then when they broke up, then when he almost flunked history class last December, then before Duncan and Gwen were official, but not official official, y'know, with the matching rings and Facebook status, like they did in October." He blinked, then added, "But that was, like, a month beforehand. Around junior prom, I think."

Noah stared at him for a moment longer, lips parted, before he came to his senses and nodded. "Oh yeah," he said. "I remember."

Those afternoons when he sat with Trent on the bench hanging off Cody's back porch forced themselves onto the forefront of his mind.

"Well, I've got to go help him," Cody mused over his ramen. "He's like the brother I always wanted, y'know? An older one, the kind that'll write a song for you to sing to the girl you like and sneak you wine at the dinner table. You're like my brother too, but the responsible one that'll keep me from eating glue."

Noah managed to make himself smile. "I'm glad you hold me with such reverence."

Cody smiled back at him. "Why shouldn't I? Truthfully, you can be mean, but you're honest, and even though you try to hide it, you're a really good person."

Something thick and dark gummed up his insides and made his heart hurt. Cody was wrong. He was so wrong.

·

twenty-six.

School would be over in a few months. Noah managed to bypass senioritis altogether and still held his place as his grade's valedictorian. This chapter of his life was coming to an end, and a new one was soon to begin somewhere in New England, in any one of the colleges that accepted him with free room and board. Perhaps they found his 'youngest child of nine, had to fend for myself' story pleasing.

Noah's plan was to leave his neighborhood with his middle finger extended to all those who tormented him and come back five years later to gloat at all his former peers. Some of them would turn out successful, he knew, but even more of them would be sedentary, spreading their hate and ignorance in an environment that was doomed to drift along endlessly, neither improving nor deteriorating.

But he couldn't. Not now, at least. He wanted to leave with no regrets and no baggage, starting out with a clean slate on campus that would lead to him becoming something greater than anyone would ever think of him.

Somewhere along the line, he became a lifeline. He became a person to rely on, a heart to confide in, a body to desire.

Somehow, he became something to someone else.

The thought sent a rush of emotions through Noah's head and heart that he couldn't decipher and didn't understand, feelings that made him want to tremble and run and scream.

He faced them with a weary heart, however, because it was almost over. Almost.

·

twenty-seven.

He parked his sister's car (used with permission, this time) in Trent's driveway and stared into the dashboard before he forced himself to open the car door and trudge to the porch.

Trent opened the door shortly after he rang it, a couple of dollars in hand. "Hey, bro, I—" He stopped upon seeing Noah, eyes wide, before he composed himself and stuffed the cash into his pocket. "Uh, hey, Noah," he said, glancing beyond him, at his car parked in the driveway.

Noah stared at him until he was certain that Trent wasn't going to meet his eyes. "Are your parents home?"

Trent shook his head.

"Can I come in?"

He said nothing, only opened the door wider for Noah.

His house was just as Noah remembered. The floors looked a little duller, and the walls darker, but, otherwise, it was the same as it once was. There was the slightest hint of citrus amongst the scent of mint, but he chose to ignore it in favor of turning back to Trent.

Trent glanced at him, pressing his lips together in a tight line. "Um, living room," he said, gesturing vaguely in that direction. Noah nodded and continued there.

He realized that he never really looked here before. The couch cushions were soft velvet and square throw pillows leaned against each armrest at a precise forty-five degree angle. The flat screen television and glass coffee tables had no dust or fingerprints on them, and the black rug was free of any debris. It was something straight out of a real-estate catalogue, Noah thought, and Trent stepped in almost carelessly, leaning against an armrest and facing Noah.

"You can sit if you want to," he said.

Noah shook his head. "I'm fine."

Silence, except for the constant click of the grandfather clock in the corner.

Trent caught him staring at it, and mumbled, "That thing's pretty annoying. You have to wind it every hour and set the time in the morning. But it belongs to my grandpa's dad, straight from Italy, so…"

His voice faded into the corners of the room. He looked small, then, hands clasped together and thumbs curled up, and Noah sighed.

"I'm not in love with you."

Trent's eyes met his for the first time in over a month. Sadness mingled with resignation resonated in those jade eyes, but they were unreadable once more after a brief moment.

"I don't get love stories," Noah continued. "I don't understand why people watch Disney movies. My sisters used to call me Aladdin when I was little, but whenever I watched it, I didn't get why he cares so much about one random girl he met on the streets one day. They get married or engaged or whatever, but Aladdin's the first decent guy Jasmine met. Not to mention that she's incredibly sheltered. They have nothing in common other than feeling trapped, which she pretty much still is, and it's all played off as being something good. Like they'll be together forever, surviving childbirth with no modern medical equipment and the scorn of her entire kingdom and maybe some neighboring ones."

Trent blinked at him.

"I won't even get into the moral implications of Sleeping Beauty," Noah continued. "Or the stupidity of Snow White. Especially not the unhealthy aspects of Beauty and the Beast."

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts and forcing himself to form words with them. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, racing against his mind, and he tried to keep his rational side at the very top.

"What I'm trying to say is that things never work out the way they do in the movies. There are thousands of conflicts and not all of them get resolved. People do things that make sense only if you try to think of the psychological aspects rather than how idiotic their choices are. Happily ever after doesn't exist. All relationships end in either a death or a breakup."

He looked up at Trent again, wanting him to hear what he said next, wanting him to feel it, and the sight of him, with his lips pressed together hard and his eyes half-confused, made Noah want to close the distance between them. He shook that thought out of his head and focused.

"Our relationship would have never worked out. And you know it. You're popular and you'll be unanimously voted 'Best Eyes' in our yearbook. In the meantime, I still get the word faggot scratched on my locker on a weekly basis. We exist through sex in your bedroom and blowjobs in empty classrooms. We were founded on a mistake."

Trent's lips parted, but his closed his mouth right after, red coating his cheeks at once.

"What is it?" Noah asked.

His eyes were guarded this time. Still jade, solid jade, staring at him but not into him, as if fearful to look any closer. He cleared his throat, glancing at a corner of the room, and asked, "When did this start—really start, I mean—for you?"

Noah pursed his lips and remembered. "History class. Freshman year."

"Ms. Jogias asked a question about Benito Mussolini—"

"—and we both answered it at the same time."

Trent swallowed, rubbing his hand against his neck. "I heard rumors about you before we met. Like how you're a genius, that you almost skipped three grades in elementary school until your parents stepped in, that you're kind of a jerk, that you're…" He paused here, tongue passing over his lips.

"Say it," Noah said.

"Gay," Trent mumbled, quietly, eyes darting about his living room. "I saw bits and pieces of you, but it wasn't until you started picking Cody and me up when I started thinking about you. It was nonstop. I didn't get it. And I hated it," he confessed, his voice hushed, cheeks growing darker. "It didn't make sense because I only liked girls before that, I still do, but…" He heaved a heavy sigh, shifting against the couch's armrest. "…I don't know if I'm gay. But when I'm with you, it's like…like that word doesn't even matter, like I'm more than this, this label, y'know?"

Noah stared at him. He was certain that his own speech made as much sense as his did, but he grew to understand what he meant behind his words. He wanted to offer a comforting hand or soothing words, but he had none. He couldn't. That wasn't what he was here for.

Trent looked up at him, jaw set even as his hands trembled. He shoved them in his pockets and said, quickly, "I want to be with you. When I said I loved you that night, I…" He swallowed, eyes never leaving Noah's. "I meant it."

It didn't hurt, Noah told himself. It shouldn't hurt.

But it did.

"…This was never meant to last," Noah told Trent. Trent squeezed his eyes shut, a muscle flexing in his jaw. "I'm going to go to the States for college, and I'm not looking back. You're going to be just a memory in my life, and I'll be one in yours. In a couple of years, we'll have trouble remembering each other's names, but it won't be important because I'll have a boyfriend by then and you'll have one too, maybe, or a girlfriend or a wife."

Trent's eyes opened, staring at him, into him. He was shaking. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought… I thought we could be…" He bit his lip, eyes unblinking, shiny with unshed tears. Noah felt the instinctive urge to be close to him, like he did back when this started, months ago as September came to an end, but it would only lead to more, he thought, so he kept still. "I'm sorry," Trent repeated.

"You shouldn't be," Noah said. "At least it ended sooner rather than later."

"I never expected you to say it back."

He nodded.

"I'm not…" Trent glanced away, staring into some unknown point in the wall. "I couldn't deal with any of that. Any of what you deal with. I'm not brave like you."

It took a lot of courage to sit in front of a crowd of spectators and sing, Noah thought, but he scoffed. "'Brave'? Ha…"

A pause.

Noah took a step back from Trent. "…Goodbye," he said, for no other reason than he had nothing else to say.

Trent nodded, and it seemed to seal the distance between them. He pressed his lips together, then said, "I guess I'll see you around school?"

"I guess," Noah said, offering a small smile. Trent gave him one in return, a tiny thing that drew a wall against his eyes and kept them guarded.

The sun beat down on him as he left Trent's house, scorching but dry, and Noah's hands almost slipped on the driver's wheel before he pulled out of Trent's driveway.

·

twenty-eight.

Life filtered back to normalcy in enough time, and Noah spent his days alternating between staring at his unfinished valedictorian speech draft on his computer and sleeping. School nearly slowed to a halt as the year ended and the seniors were lazing about.

But Noah didn't feel that same relief as everyone else. There was something thick and unpleasant in his head that clawed at the back of his skull and made the world dull before him. While Cody and Izzy walked down the halls with an airy sort of happiness, Noah felt like…something. He felt like something beyond the bare expanse of his imagination and he wanted to smother the thoughts that haunted him like a bad memory.

And it was a memory. Whether it was a bad or good one, he wasn't sure. He found himself floating away at times, not remembering or thinking, just drifting along an endless plane of existence.

Time moved, of course. It continued, and that thick feeling gradually left him day by day, and by the end of May, things were almost the same as they were before.

·

twenty-nine.

Noah only figured out the theme for his valedictorian speech after a long nap, when his mind was fuzzy but his fingers itched with the urge to write. He typed out a few paragraphs before sleep threatened to overcome him again. He rubbed his eyes and stared at his screen until the last sentence was perceivable to him.

But bravery isn't persevering through adversity; it's about taking risks and leaps in hopes of a brighter tomorrow, despite knowing the potential consequences.

·

thirty.

It was the first day of high school, and Noah spent twenty minutes thinking about whether or not to put his LGBT pin on his bag.

He did, and as he stepped down his school's main hall for the first time, eyes lingered on him down the hall. He ignored them, the stares that made the back of his neck feel hot and the ones that provoked the bare instinct of fear in him, until an almost unfamiliar face appeared in front of him.

"Is that yours?" a boy asked, pointing down to Noah's pin.

Noah remembered him then: Duncan, who lived down his street and had a thick mop of black hair back in elementary school. He traded Pokémon cards with Noah, once: a Mew for a holographic Charizard.

Duncan didn't wait for him to respond. He tore the pin off the strap of his bag and tossed it to the side. It fell facedown, metal point sticking uselessly out. "Fag," he hissed from the corner of his mouth before he continued walking.

He found that pin in his locker about a month later, surface scratched but still intact.

It took him years to find out who left it in there.

·

thirty-one.

"I can't believe we'll be graduating in just one week."

"Yeah," Noah said.

They stood beside each other in Cody's room. He had grown since freshman year, Noah thought. He was about an inch or so taller than him now, but Noah didn't notice until they were standing in front of a mirror, moments like this.

Cody leaned forward, staring hard into his reflection. He brushed his hair back, observing his forehead, then poked at his nose.

"…What are you doing?" Noah asked him.

"Nothing," Cody murmured. He touched his chin and grinned. "Sweet. Check it out, Noah, am I growing anything?"

No.

"Yeah, I think so," Noah said, and Cody grinned, glancing away to hide it, but his reflection betrayed him.

He deserved this happiness. Even if Noah didn't share the same sentiment.

His reflection's eyes held fear. Confusion. Resignation. Things only he could recognize in himself. He learned to hide it years ago, to seal it up and wait for the flames to extinguish themselves like they always did, but now they didn't. This fire was growing inside of him, fed by the thoughts that wouldn't leave him, the hollow ache deep inside of him that felt like it would never go away.

"This year was crazy, right?" Cody told him. There was a freshness to his stance, a broadness to his shoulders that made him look stronger, powerful. The grapevine of high school gossip claimed that he was dating Izzy, and Noah wanted to have that confirmed, mainly to avoid a repeat of the disastrous breakup between Izzy and Owen when the latter moved away a year ago, but Cody never pried into his romantic life, so Noah saw it fit to do the same.

"It was," Noah concurred, and it was the first truth he had said in a long while.

·

thirty-two.

Graduation was just the way Noah expected. Lots of tears, lots of laughing, lots of hugs that lasted a little too long and family members in the crowd. He counted seven of siblings and both of his parents in the stadium bleachers as he sat beside the salutatorian of his year, Courtney. If there was tension on her part on account of losing the top spot by .02 points, he didn't notice.

He made his speech, which was far more intimidating in his head. Noah removed the tassel from his cap before he threw the annoying thing in the air along with the rest of his class. He didn't bother retrieving it afterwards.

Before he went to his family, he took a moment to look at everyone else. He took note of their faces and his own predictions for them—Eva would form her own line of female-only gyms, while Duncan was destined to be either a cop like the rest of his family or in jail for manslaughter. He stopped at Trent, speaking to Geoff at the opposite end of their group. They seemed almost relieved.

He swallowed, pushing back his hesitance as he stepped towards him. The faces around him faded out, turning into smudges against the corner of his vision. Trent's eyes, the same jade that he remembered, looked up at him.

Noah stopped before him, managing a smile. "Hey."

It took a second for Trent to smile back. "Hey."

"…Uh, I gotta say hi to Bridgette's mom," Geoff said after a moment. He glanced between them, then hurried off in his girlfriend's direction like a fire was lit underneath him.

"I didn't tell him, if that's what you're wondering," Trent whispered in a rush, eyes directed upwards, toward the clear sky stretching above them.

"I wasn't wondering that," Noah told him. Trent looked back at him. "I just wanted to wish you the best of luck in the future." The words felt thick and dumb on his tongue, but instant flow of regret he expected didn't come.

Trent's eyes softened for the briefest moment, the jade Noah came to know so well shined under the sun, and he said, "Thanks. You too."

There was that feeling. That shaky, all-encompassing feeling that consumed his thoughts and made his head throb. It felt disgusting and unfamiliar and confusing, but they both paused, and Noah didn't look away. Time melted into seconds, minutes, hours. He could almost feel Trent's warmth.

"I ought to…" Trent made an odd gesture, but his eyes never left Noah's.

"Okay."

When Trent left, his entire body felt heavy, his heart pinned right to the ground, gut buried beneath gravel and dirt, and then he understood. He finally understood.

His oldest sister, who had a son just three years younger than him, asked him if he was feeling sick. Noah remembered his father asking that months ago, and he didn't respond for a long while, staring out of the car window as identical houses passed by instead. Only when the clouds passed over the sun did he say, "Yes."

·

thirty-three.

They had an addiction that laid in each other, impossible to ignore and harder to quit. It tore Trent apart, tore him apart, but he felt hollow for so long that he needed something, anything to fill that void, and now Trent was his smoke.

Cigarette filters lined the cracks in the sidewalk, orange death against cold gray, and Noah realized that, whatever he and Trent had, it was nowhere near a love story. No, the stories of their lives stood alone, and somehow, somewhere along the line they crossed, turning into this, a chapter to a story that was never meant to be written. It wasn't scrapped like it should have been, though, and here it was, drifting along forever, serving only to take up space and time in their memories.

He had to fix that.

·

thirty-four.

In retrospect, he should've thought of an excuse as to why he came before he showed up on Trent's doorstep as the sky grew dark and a light drizzle started pouring down on him. The thought escaped him when Trent opened the door, a confused look falling over his features.

Noah pushed past Trent, arms wet with rain, and stopped in the hall, turning to face Trent.

"I'm sorry."

Trent blinked at him and stared for a moment before his tongue passed over his lips and he glanced away. "For what?" he mumbled towards the wall, eyes blank in the darkness of the hallway.

For letting you kiss me that night. For not noticing the signs sooner. For running away from you, from myself. Noah pressed his lips together he mulled over the options, but they all passed over his tongue, fluttered out of his mind, and left only one thought inside of him.

"This," he replied, softly, before he took two steps and leaned into Trent, kissing him. His smell and warmth came back to Noah at once, and he pulled away before Trent could respond. He wiped the back of his hand against his lips, noting Trent's eyes, wide with barely concealed awe, and smirked. "I just had to do that one more time," he said, then he brushed past Trent once more.

A hand seized his shoulder, twisting him around to face Trent. "Noah," Trent said, voice quick and harsh, "What was that?"

Noah blinked at him and sighed. "I'd be lying if I said I don't have feelings for you—" He took advantage of Trent's pause to pull his shoulder out of his grip, "—but that's all. This was never meant to be more than what it was."

There was a sort of rawness in Trent's eyes. Desperation, perhaps, but Noah could never read him well enough to know what he was feeling. "I don't get you," he said, with an air of controlled calm. "I thought you just didn't like me that way. Then you tell me that, and, I…" He glanced about, then stared into Noah's eyes as he spoke, "I don't understand. You'll kiss me and smile at me and wait for me while I deal with my own crap, but you won't be with me. Why?"

"'Why?'" Noah repeated, narrowing his eyes at Trent. "Isn't it obvious? Because when you first kissed me, you pulled away like I was fire. Because in two months, we'll be an entire country apart. Because you don't belong here and neither do I." He shook his head. "We were doomed from the start."

"And what if we're not?" Trent asked him. His eyes were intense, too intense, and Noah closed his eyes and exhaled, trying to ignore the steadily increasing pounding in his head. "What if it does work out? What if I love you enough that it doesn't matter? What if—"

"Why do you even like me?" Noah said, voice echoing down the halls. "I don't even know why the hell I like you." His mind felt hot, and his vision was blurring over with the anger or stress or something he was feeling.

"Because," Trent told him, voice soft and eyes hurt, "You..." He ran a hand through his hair at this point, cheeks tinted pink. "I remember… I remember you wearing this purple pin on the first day of school. For gay pride or something like that, right? Duncan and a couple of others gave you shit for that, but you just kept walking like it didn't bother you."

The roaring anger inside of Noah dulled to a murmur, and he pursed his lips together.

"And then," Trent continued, "You complain about Cody drinking but you're always the one who drives him home and waits until the morning so you can make sure he's safe. During junior prom, you sat with me outside when I figured that Gwen probably liked Duncan all along. You just sat there by me, didn't say much, and knowing that someone cared enough not to throw meaningless words at me meant a lot."

Trent smiled at him, a tiny, desperate thing, and Noah tried to cling to that resolve, the decision he made before he came into Trent's house and touched him just one more time, but it slipped away from him with every word, and his world melted back into Trent's eyes.

"You're the only person I know who can put up with so much crap, and even though people are pressuring you to be someone else, someone they can call normal," Trent frowned around that word, but he pressed on, "You're still you. And I know it sounds stupid," he added, word rushed, glancing away from Noah, "But you have the most gorgeous eyes.

The thick dullness in Noah's head faded, replaced by a fresh sort of embarrassment mingled with surprise. He thought about telling Trent that he was too…too perfect for him, with his sleek hair and olive skin, that unlike Trent, he was better at using words to hurt than to heal, that he deserved someone nicer, who wouldn't sleep with him for months only to reject him. The words lingered at the edge of his tongue, and he blinked quickly as Trent looked back at him. "We have too little in common," he murmured instead, a final, feeble protest against him.

Jade eyes stared into his own, and he said, softly, "Isn't love enough?"

Noah paused.

He closed the distance between them and kissed Trent again, but this time, Trent kissed back, gently at first, then harder as Noah pulled him in closer, heart throbbing hard, wanting to remember each curve and contour of his body. He pressed Noah against his front door, hands moving urgently along his skin, breathing hard as he pulled away for air.

"I missed that," Trent said against his neck, one hand under his shirt.

"Me too," Noah confessed.

·

thirty-five.

When he came home the following morning, Noah prepared for another few months of sex in Trent's bedroom and kisses where no one could see them. At least he would enjoy his last months before college started and life began, he thought.

His parents were out on Saturday, and Noah kept his cell phone by his side as he played Tales of Symphonia for the twelfth time. He paused during a boss battle when his doorbell rang, and he glanced at his phone instinctively. It lay there, still, and Noah huffed before he trudged downstairs and opened his front door.

Trent stood there with a bundle of yellow flowers in one hand, bound together by a violet ribbon.

Noah's hand flew to his mouth. "Is that…?"

"Yeah," Trent said, grin wide on his face, "Nine tulips. You're not allergic, are you?" he added, exchanging a worried glance between Noah and the flowers in question.

And despite himself, knowing that this moment was a cliché in thousands of love stories everywhere, Noah smiled.

Maybe his story was something on its own, and Trent's story stood by itself as well, but they had crossed long ago, and only now did they start a chapter of their own.

"Do you have something I could put this in?" Trent asked him. Noah nodded, guiding Trent into his house. "I like this, by the way," Trent said in the dining room as he placed the flowers in a thin glass vase, pointing at a painting at the far end of the table.

Noah stared at it and stifled a laugh. "My sister literally just threw paint at the canvas, Trent."

He gave Noah a wide-eyed glance before he snorted and ran a hand through his hair. "I think that's the first time you've said my name."

"Is it?" Noah asked, setting the vase in the middle of his table. It looked nice there, like it belonged, like it had its place.

"Outside of…well, you know," he said. He looked at Noah and told him, "I love you."

Noah blinked at him. Hearing those words—actually letting himself hear them—was strange, but not bad, necessarily. He swallowed past the surprise, and the grin that fell over his face didn't feel so forced. He formed the words in his head, but saying them was far more intimidating than any valedictorian speech. "I…" He took a deep breath, and the look Trent gave him, almost sickeningly hopeful, made him laugh lightly. "I love you, too."

Trent laughed too, but it was more of a sigh of relief than anything else. He leaned in and kissed Noah, hand caressing his cheek, and Noah closed his eyes and held Trent close against him.

Maybe this wouldn't last forever, but he and Trent were woven together now in a story that was just beginning. He would have to tell his family at some point, and Trent would face coming out to the people closest to him. They'd hesitate over holding hands in public, and Trent would write songs for him as Noah pretended he didn't like the lyrics, but those were small pages in chapters that could span days or months or years.

For now, though, he would kiss Trent and let that fluttering in his heart linger there. Later, Trent would hold him in bed and whisper soft words in his ear, but for now, they'd lock their hands like they'd never let go.

And for now, that was enough.