I’m finishing my breakfast when a smiley nurse called Tim informs me I have a visitor.
‘Who?’ I ask.
‘A rather handsome young gentleman,’ Tim says, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. ‘Noah?’
My eyes widen. ‘Noah. Are you sure?’
Tim laughs. ‘Yes, I think so … Well, am I all right to let him in? I can send him away if you don’t feel up to it.’
‘No!’ I say. ‘It’s, er, it’s fine …’
‘Righty-oh,’ Tim says. ‘Be right back.’
As Tim walks away, my heart begins to gallop.
Noah is here.
To see me.
I comb through my hair with my fingers and check I don’t have egg down my nightie. I don’t need to look in a mirror to know I’m probably not looking my best. I didn’t crawl back into bed until 7 a.m., and have no doubt the lack of sleep is plastered all over my face right now.
I shove two Polo mints in my mouth and grab the magazine Bonnie left on my nightstand. I spread it open on my lap and pretend to be engrossed in a story about two celebrities who met on a reality TV show and are getting married. My sweaty palms stick to the pages as I hear footsteps on the lino, not quite daring to look up.
‘Hi.’
I raise my head.
Noah is standing at the bottom of my bed, wearing an expression that straddles relief and wonder.
‘You’re OK,’ he says, his lips quivering into a smile.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at school?’ I blurt in response.
‘Oh,’ Noah replies, looking down at his fancy school uniform. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re bunking?’ I ask.
‘I suppose so, yeah.’
‘How?’
‘I crept out of prayers this morning and caught the first train out of York.’
‘Won’t you be in loads of trouble?’
‘Probably. Who cares.’
I swallow. ‘Um, would you like to sit down?’ I ask, indicating the chair next to my bed.
Noah sits down. It’s surreal having him so close. I have to resist the urge to reach out and touch him, to check he’s really here.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I ask.
‘My dad texted me about the fire last night. I didn’t know you’d be here for definite, but I thought it was worth a try. How are you feeling?’
‘OK, I think. I inhaled a fair bit of smoke but they don’t think it’s going to cause any lasting damage.’
‘That’s good,’ Noah says.
There’s a pause.
‘Oh, I got you something,’ he says, pulling a plastic bag onto his lap. ‘I was going to get flowers. But then I remembered reading somewhere that lots of hospitals ban flowers so I went for chocolates instead. Is that OK?’ He hands over a plastic tub of Quality Street.
‘It’s more than OK,’ I reply. ‘Thank you.’
‘I got you this too,’ Noah says, producing a flat square box wrapped in Thomas the Tank Engine paper. ‘Sorry about the wrapping paper,’ he adds. ‘It was all I could get my hands on.’
I open the package to reveal a travel chess set.
‘It’s magnetic,’ Noah explains. ‘It might be a while before we can finish our game from the other day, but in the meantime, maybe we can start a new one?’
My heart lifts.
‘I’m sorry, by the way,’ Noah adds. ‘About Saturday. My dad and I had a massive bust-up at family therapy on Saturday morning so I ended up going back to my mum’s. I would have texted, but my phone’s been out of action all week …’ His voice trails off. ‘He didn’t tell you, did he?’ he says.
‘Tell me what?’
He discreetly punches the mattress. ‘I asked my dad to knock on your door and tell you I couldn’t come over.’
‘You don’t hate me,’ I murmur.
Noah frowns. ‘Hate you? What are you talking about?’
‘Halloween. I saw you at the window.’
Noah winces. ‘I didn’t mean to spy on you, I swear. I didn’t even realize it was you I was watching until the very last minute. Wait, why did you think that’d make me hate you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit.
‘I thought it was kind of badass. If I could do something like that to get through to my dad, I’d totally do it.’
‘Noah, why do you hate him so much?’ I ask.
Noah blinks. ‘You mean you don’t know? I thought everyone round here did.’
I shake my head.
He takes a very large breath. ‘Six months ago my dad was sacked from his job for sexually harassing five members of staff.’
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting him to come out with, but that definitely wasn’t it.
‘The company settled out of court in an attempt to keep the whole thing under wraps,’ he continues. ‘But it ended up all over the local papers anyway. “The Harvey Weinstein of Ostborough” they were calling him.’ He shudders slightly.
Now that I think about it, the story rings a bell.
‘It was awful. Pretty much overnight, I went from being the kid who flew under the radar to the most hated person at school. It was like I was guilty of all the shitty stuff my dad had done, just by extension of being his son.’
I’m quiet. From the very first moment I clapped eyes on Noah I’ve been trying to work out why I feel this weird affinity towards him. And finally I do. He knows what it feels like to be ashamed of something you have no control over.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I say.
Noah shrugs. ‘It is what it is.’
‘Are things still hard at school?’
‘It’s a lot better this term,’ Noah says. ‘People have short memories, luckily.’
I hope he’s right.
There’s a pause.
‘I meant what I said,’ Noah says. ‘It must have taken proper balls to do what you did at Halloween.’
‘I’m not sure it felt very ballsy,’ I admit.
‘Well, it looked it. You looked it.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, heat creeping up my neck. My eyes fall on the travel chess. ‘Got time for a game?’ I ask. ‘Or will the boarding school police be after you?’
Noah smiles. ‘Let ’em.’
I smile back and begin to set up the pieces.
About an hour later, Tanvi joins us in a wheelchair she didn’t steal, a huge grin spreading across her face the second I introduce Noah.
We swap chess for Uno and play game after game, drinking gallons of syrupy orange squash and ploughing our way through the tub of Quality Street until the bed is littered with shiny rainbow-coloured wrappers. As we giggle and crack jokes like we’ve all known each other for years, it dawns on me that this is what friendship feels like. I’ve been so afraid of it, so certain it wasn’t for me.
Part of me is gutted I spent so long resisting it.
Another, much bigger part of me just can’t wait to make up for lost time.