All The Ways He Didn't Look At Me

Chapter Two Pain and Thrill

Abby’s POV

“Abby?” Jordan calls again, his feet clacking through the floorboards as I crumble down in tears. I haven’t cried since I heard the news of my father’s death. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to.

But now, something seems to have snapped inside me. Something raw. Something human.

"Jordan," I breathe, my heart aching so bad as tears spill down my face. My hand reaches for my chest and I try to press it down, to breathe, to feel anything but this insane ache. "It hurts. It hurts so bad.”

I don’t know who I am crying for anymore. My father’s death or the look Noah gave me before walking away.

My boyfriend reaches for me, pulling me into his arms. From the corner of my eyes, I think I see Noah halt for a fleeting second, those green eyes watching me, one foot about to dash in my direction. But he disappears in another second, so fast that it must have been a figment of my imagination.

Noah Fisher can never come back for me.

“Do you need me to call Wes?” Jordan asks, his tone laced with so much panic and care that I feel bad immediately. Noah is just some crush that I should have gotten over a while ago. He means nothing. I am here with Jordan, the one person who has sacrificed so much to be here with me.

With beads of tears flowing down my face, I turn to Jordan and shake my head. "My brother already has so much on his plate. I can't put this on him, too."

His phone buzzes, but he reaches for it instantly, turning down the screen before I can see it.

"What can I do, babe?" Jordan whispers, tucking a stray strand of curl behind my ear. I try to lean into his warmth, yet for some reason, I couldn't shake off the chill that it brought.

“You are here,” I whisper, pushing into his arms. “That is more than enough.”

We stay that way for a while, my sobs reducing to an uneven breath, and his fingers drawing circles on my back. “Do you want to get out of here?”

I nod, my head nestled in his chest.

“We can take a walk or…”

“Let’s go back home.”

Jordan stops suddenly. Bringing his hand to my shoulders, he pushes me back gingerly, staring into my eyes. “Are you sure? You said you wanted to…”

Leaning into him, I press my lips against his. He tastes like my tears; salt and water. Jordan kisses me back, and I wait for the butterflies that used to be there in the beginning.

I try telling myself it doesn’t matter. As long as Jordan is here with me, constantly choosing me, I don’t care about all the others.

I shouldn’t.

Jordan helps me off the floor when I pull away from him, holding my hands in his. Just like Noah, Seattle isn’t for me either.

And it took the death of my father and seeing him here for me to realize that.

***

“Are you sure you are fine?” Jordan asks for the umpteenth time as we settle in the backseat of the car, the city of New York ushering us back. “You were oddly quiet throughout the ride back.”

I shake my head and try to plaster a smile on my face. "I'm fine, Jordan," I sigh. "It's just been…hard, you know? Watching a man who has always been so strong just grow frail and die. And then, my mother…"

“Yeah,” Jordan breathes, pulling me into his arms. I don’t think he believes me, because I don’t believe myself. But it works because he says nothing else, his hand pulling gently at the knots in my hair.

His other hand retrieves his phone from his pocket, and I allow my eyes to close. I try not to think of Noah, of the accusation in his eyes when he stared at me earlier. Wes told me when his mother died. I should have reached out to him.

But Noah has never liked me, not even when I was a kid running around with pigtails and braces. He has always regarded me like the enemy, and I grew up thinking that I was.

Maybe I still am.

I must have fallen asleep during the ride, because the next time I open my eyes, it is to Jordan’s nudge. “We’re home.”

Finally.

Pulling out of the car, we grab our suitcases from the booth and turn around to the row of buildings. But my forehead scrunches up in confusion when the name of my dorm comes into view, the neon lights glowing in the dark.

“Jordan, I thought…”

“I know,” he sighs, wrapping his hand around my shoulders again. Something doesn’t feel right. He always acts this way when s**t is about to hit the fan. “I would have taken you to my place, but it is currently being fumigated.”

“Fumigated?”

“Come on,” he drawls, looking away from me. “I didn’t think we were going to be back today. Can we just stay at your dorm instead for the night?”

Jordan doesn't wait for my response as he trudges ahead with my suitcase in his hand, leaving me no choice but to follow behind. I wait as he slides the key into the lock, smiling at me before pushing the door open.

"Home," he sighs, pushing the suitcase to one end of the room and sliding his phone into the nightstand. This isn't home, and as much as I want to remind him of that, there is something much more important on my mind.

I wait for Jordan to get into the shower, the sound of the water hitting the ground in uneven rhythm, before I move towards the nightstand. The screen of his phone lights up, as if sensing my arrival, and I swallow when I take in the message written on it.

"I can't believe you are back in New York, yet I am spending the night alone in your bed. What can I do to make you leave her and come home to me?"

With shaky hands, I click the message open. It requests a password and I hit it in from memory.

The groan jumps back at me. He has changed it.

I don’t hear the shower when it stops running from the loud roar of blood against my ears. But suddenly, he appears inside the room with me. I look up at him, expecting to feel guilt, or at least, the slightest trace of remorse.

But as his lips open, the rain starts outside, and the night grows ten times worse.