The Biker's Regret: The Enemy I Became.

I'm not going anywhere

(Noah)

I rode back to the building with my head clear for the first time all night.

Not calm. Clear. There was a difference. Calm was what I felt when everything was settled. Clear was what I felt when I had made a decision and was done second guessing it. I had made mine somewhere between the compound and the highway and I had not looked back from it since.

I parked, went inside and took the elevator up.

The fourth floor was quiet. Her light was on under the door. I could see it from the hallway. I stood in front of my own door for a moment and then I crossed the hallway and knocked.

It took a moment. Then I heard her footsteps and the door opened and she was standing there in different clothes from earlier, her hair down, looking at me the way she looked at me every time I showed up somewhere she had not invited me. Like she was already preparing for whatever this was going to be.

"Noah."

"I need five minutes," I said.

"It's late."

"I know. Five minutes."

She looked at me for a moment and then stepped back and let me in. I walked into the apartment and turned around and she closed the door and crossed her arms and waited.

I did not build up to it.

"What I did in high school was wrong," I said. "The way I ended things was immature and it was cruel and I have known that for a long time. I am not standing here asking you to forget it. I'm telling you I know what it cost you and I'm sorry for that."

Something moved across her face. She had not been expecting that to be the first thing out of my mouth.

"Okay," she said. Her voice was careful.

"But what is not going to keep happening," I said, "is you treating me like I don't exist every time I'm standing right in front of you. The cold shoulder, the wall, the act. That ends now."

Her expression changed. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"You come to my door at this hour to tell me how I'm allowed to act in my own home?"

"I came to your door to be honest with you," I said. "Which is more than you're being with yourself right now."

She dropped her arms. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to show up here, say sorry and then tell me what I'm doing wrong in the same breath."

"I'm not telling you what you're doing wrong. I'm telling you what I see."

"I don't need you to tell me what you see, Noah. I need you to respect that I have a life and a fiancé and I am not interested in whatever this is."

"You are interested," I said. "That's the problem."

The room went quiet.

She looked at me and I looked at her and neither of us moved for a moment. Then she turned toward the kitchen like she was going to put some distance between us and I crossed the room before she got there.

I was not rough about it. I did not grab her. I just stepped in front of her and she stopped and we were closer than we had been since the morning she told me that night was a mistake.

I could see everything she was holding back from here. All of it, right there behind her eyes, everything she had been managing and controlling and filing away since moving day.

I reached up and put my hand against her face.

She went still.

I leaned in and she let me get close, close enough that there was almost no space left between us, and then her hand came up flat against my chest and she pushed.

Not hard. But firm. Decided.

"No," she said.

I stepped back.

She was breathing a little faster than she had been a minute ago and her eyes were direct and serious and she was not pretending anymore that she was not affected. She had stopped pretending the second I stepped in front of her. But her hand had been clear and I was not a man who pushed past clear.

"You think an apology and a move fixes five years?" she said.

"No," I said. "I think honesty does. Eventually."

"I told you what this is. I told you where I stand. You keep showing up like my answer doesn't count."

"Your answer counts," I said. "I just don't think it's the real one."

She made a short sound that was almost a laugh but had nothing light in it. "You are unbelievable."

"Maybe," I said. "But I'm not wrong."

"Get out, Noah."

"I'm going," I said. "But I want you to hear me clearly before I do. I am not going anywhere. Not out of this building, not out of this floor, not out of your life. I spent five years making the wrong call and I have been straight with you about that. I am going to pursue you and I am not going to stop until you give me a real answer, not the one you've been rehearsing."

She stared at me. "I have a fiancé."

"I know you do," I said.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago," I said.

She opened her mouth and closed it again. That was the first time since moving day that I had seen her run out of words and I did not feel good about it the way I might have expected to. I just felt certain. Like the ground under me was finally what it was supposed to be.

"Goodnight, Reese," I said.

I walked to the door and let myself out and pulled it closed behind me.

The hallway was quiet.

I went into my own apartment and sat down and did not turn any lights on. I just sat there in the dark and let everything settle.

She had stopped me. That was her right and I had respected it without hesitation.

But she had let me get close first.

She had stood there and let the distance go down to almost nothing before her hand came up and I had felt her decision in that moment, the one she made with her head and not the rest of her, the one that had been costing her something every day since she moved in.

She was going to keep making that decision for a while longer.

I could wait.

I had told her I was not stopping and I had meant every word of it.

She knew that now.