The next morning dawned bright and hot. Successful integration notwithstanding, Noah dreaded another day in the van.
Jane’s aunt and uncle treated them to an amazing breakfast of waffles and fruit, with a cheesy egg casserole Noah had difficulty not claiming entirely for himself. His full stomach combined with the previous night’s short sleep on the floor rendered him nearly comatose once they passed the southern border. He awoke a couple of hours later to a painfully dead arm and a barren stretch of Mexican highway that looked the same as when he had fallen asleep. The group was quiet with the exception of Chad and Jane talking quietly in the front.
Arm prickling awake, Noah stared out the window and thought back on the previous night. How long had it been since he had fun like that? Too long. He wasn’t sure when he’d fallen back into the habit of isolation, but it was becoming clear to him how deep he’d been. Apparently, he wasn’t maintaining his mental health as well as he’d thought. Looking back, he felt he could trace his backslide to Thanksgiving.
He’d gone home for the long weekend on a high from helping Grace. It was obvious to him that she was better at math than she gave herself credit for and that her confidence grew each week. She had teased him more than usual during their session on dimensional analysis, her hair taunting him with its unruliness. He’d come dangerously close to craving a taste of her mom’s brownies, wishing he could meet her brother or go to the pizza party they had hypothetically planned, tempted to throw out his resentments and touch one of those tantalizing brown curls . . . He had even allowed himself to lean a little closer than usual to check her calculations, but she had leaned away as if his proximity were disturbing. That had gone a long way to restoring his defenses, reminding him to keep his distance.
But a new thought struck him. What if it had been a good disturbing?
She had invited him to dinner at the end of the semester . . . Was it possible she’d moved away that day because she was attracted to him?
No.
This was Grace Ebert, he told himself. She had been repulsed by him from almost the moment they’d met. The dinner was merely a thank-you, as she’d said. A show of appreciation. Possibly pity.
Platonic.
Not a date.
In spite of his good mood going into the holiday, Thanksgiving had been a disaster, as usual. His mom had been a mess, striving to make everything perfect for his perfect brother and Matt’s high-society, high-maintenance girlfriend, Anabella. Noah had struggled through a day and a half of his mother’s special blend of anxiety and nonstop fawning over the power couple before he’d resorted to blaming schoolwork for an early departure. Unfortunately, Matt and Anabella had left around the same time, rendering his mother even more depressed and anxious and alone than she had been before the holiday. She had called Noah repeatedly that evening until he’d finally answered, and then she’d spent the call rethinking everything about the abbreviated visit and begging more than once for Noah’s assurance that her future daughter-in-law wouldn’t hate her. This had persisted throughout the weekend, until Noah had again stopped answering her calls. After that she had text-bombed him mercilessly.
Add into that mess the anniversary of his dad’s death and his mom’s insistence that he accompany her to the cemetery, and it became obvious why his walls had been so ineffective in his next meeting with Grace. He’d been reading a text from his mom, racking his brain for a legitimate-sounding excuse to avoid the cemetery when Grace had walked through the math lab doors, refreshed from her break with her perfect family and glowing with the belated discovery that, yes, she could do math. Her account of stargazing with her father had helped Noah understand where her interest in science originated from, sparking a flame of sadness and envy so strong he could hardly breathe.
And then he’d gone and spilled the beans about his alcoholic father.
To Grace.
After weeks and weeks of keeping his walls up, resisting her attractions, and maintaining his disinterest in all things personal, he had confided his deepest wound—one even Ryan didn’t know the full story on—to Grace, of all people.
If she hadn’t already been disgusted by him, that would have tipped things against him for good. What could she possibly know about such things, with her perfect life and family?
Only . . . she had asked him out after she knew. His past hadn’t turned her away. It had brought them closer—or it might have, if Noah had allowed it.
What if, instead of berating Grace and throwing her dinner offer back in her face, he had accepted? A scene formed in his mind of them together at dinner, laughing about the awkwardness of their beginnings and the irony of his winding up as her tutor.
No.
He pulled his thoughts back to the barren sameness outside his window. There could be no rewriting of the past. He’d thoroughly burned that bridge, and there was nothing he could do about it.