All The Ways We Break
1022 Words
By. Tuesdays, Ava. Lane couldn't. breathe without thinking of him.
Every hallway echoed with his voice, every. Tuesdays. even when he wasn't uttering a word. Every. Tuesdays. lesson, every glance, every accidental brush of fingers—she was thinking of him now. Noah Cole was more than just a crush.
He was gravity.
Deadly, unrelenting, and always pulling her in.
And yet—he hadn't. Tuesdays. sent her a single message.
Not after the rooftop.
Not after the kiss.
Not after the promise they'd made wordlessly with lips and not tongues.
And waited.
Quietly.
Acheingly.
Second Period – History Class
".and in 1939, the invasion of Poland."
Ava stared at the board, not a single word seeping through. Mr. Renshaw's drone receded to the background as her gaze flicked to the back of the classroom.
Noah was still not in school.
Two days. No calls. No messages.
Her phone buzzed.
Becca: He's not here again. Overheard him cutting first period. Crystal said he's "spiraling."
Ava's pen squeezes in her hand. Crystal knew too much about talking and too little about fixing people.
She needed the truth.
No more waiting.
Lunch – Confrontation
Ava saw Crystal near the vending machines, flanked by her usual group of boys and girls who laughed a little too hard at nothing counting.
Crystal spotted her and lifted one of her perfectly chiseled eyebrows. "Well, well, well. If it isn't special snowflake."
"I need to talk to you," Ava insisted.
Crystal grinned. "Alone?"
"Yes."
To her surprise, Crystal shrugged and followed her into the girls' bathroom, heels clattering like shots on tile.
"What's the emergency?" she said, leaning against the sink, bored.
"What did you say to Noah?
Crystal pouted sassy. "I don't know, Ava. I say a lot of things. Maybe if you're more specific."
Ava inched closer, not flinching. "I saw the note. The one you—or one of your duplicates—left in his locker. Karma? His brother?"
Crystal's sneer disappeared. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're lying."
"And what if I am?" Crystal had leaned in, though, now her voice lower. "You think you're helping him? You're not. Boys like Noah only want sorry girls to bleed on. He'll suck the life out of you."
"You don't know him."
"I knew enough to stay away."
Ava's voice a mere whisper. "No, you were scared of how real he was. So you tried to break him first."
For a moment, Crystal’s mask cracked. Just slightly. But it was there.
A shadow of regret.
Then it was gone.
“Careful, Ava,” she said. “People get burned playing with fire.”
“I’d rather burn than rot beside you.”
After School – The Door
Ava didn’t go home. She caught the city bus and rode across town to the address Noah had once scribbled on her literature notebook—the one he assumed she wouldn’t remember.
She did.
Apartment 307, Ridgeway Heights.
She stood outside the dilapidated red-brick building for ten minutes before working up the courage to buzz.
Nothing.
She buzzed again.
And again.
At last, the door groaned open.
Ava entered the stairwell, her heart racing, her nerves unraveling.
When she knocked on his door, no one answered. But the hall light was humming, and inside, she heard muffled activity. A breath. An oath.
She knocked harder. "Noah, it's me."
Nothing.
She gritted her teeth. "I'm not going anywhere until you open this door."
The knob twisted.
Slow. Reluctant.
The door opened with a groan, and Ava recognized a boy who did not look like the boy who had kissed her.
Noah's eyes were rimmed red. His hoodie was disheveled. His apartment smelled of leftover takeout and ash.
But the worst was his silence.
He did not say a word.
"Can I in?" Ava whispered.
He stepped to the side.
Inside the Apartment
It was smallSparse. A mattress on the floor, a half-filled bookcase, a cigarette-burned coffee table and a broken coffee mug still containing cold coffee.
"You live here alone?" she asked.
He nodded.
"My aunt is the one who pays the rent. Barely. She's in Arizona with her new boyfriend right now."
Ava stood to confront him. "Why did you not go to school?"
"I didn't want to."
"Noah—"
"I didn't want to see you," he said to her, his voice rough.
Her breath was trapped.
"A kiss like that…" he continued, "It was more than that. And that scares me. Because I don't do meaning. I do escape. I do distraction."
"Then what was I?"
He looked at her, eyes aglow.
"You were real."
They stood, locked in each other's gaze.
And bit by bit, he advanced on her. Closer. So close she could feel the charged space between them vibrating like a tightened string.
"I didn't text you," he panted, "because I know if I did, I'd ask you to come over. And if you came over, I wouldn't send you home."
Ava touched his cheek. "Maybe I don't want to."
Quiet.
Then, lips slammed—this time, more slowly. More deeply. Not wild. Strategic. His fingers tightened in her hair, hers against his chest. The kiss was burning and salty, like tears and fire. Like forgiveness and threat.
As they separated, she breathed on his skin, "Let me stay."
Noah's forehead was creased. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't want to be afraid of this anymore."
Of you. Of me. Of what we are.
"Not now," he said once and pulled her to the mattress.
They didn't have s*x—not yet.
But they got onto their side, side by side, legs wound together, hands clasped.
For the first time in a very long time, Noah closed his eyes and didn't see a ghost.
He saw her
Later That Night
As she drifted off to sleep beside him, Ava heard him speak, soft and tentative.
"If I break again… will you still stay?"
Sleepily, she replied, "If you break, I'll bleed with you."
And somehow, in all the destruction and chaos, that was the most dangerous thing they'd ever said.
- Writer
