Chapter Nine: What Noah Said

Danny POV

She fell asleep holding my hand.

She looked younger asleep. Like all the walls she'd spent days holding up had finally slipped for a few hours.

I stayed longer than I meant to. After some time, I gently let go of her hand, placed it on the bed, and left the room without waking her.

I paused for a moment in the hallway.

We need to figure out what that means. Not just me. Us. It felt like it was already settled, like we already mattered together. She said it the way people do when they mean something, but don't try to show it.

I walked home and barely slept.

---

The next morning, I found Noah in the campus café with his feet propped on the chair across from him. He was reading something, but as soon as he saw my face, he flipped it over.

"Is it really that bad?" he asked.

"My mother has been keeping an eye on Myra."

He didn’t seem surprised. Instead, he seemed to be quietly figuring out how long he’d been right about this.

"Since when?"

"Long enough to know where we'd be. Long enough to show up at exactly the right moment." I sat down. "And when I pushed her on it, she slipped up. She said she'd done this before. Tried to manage something like this before. Then she shut down completely."

Noah was quiet. That was always the sign. When he stopped talking, it meant he was thinking something he wasn't sure I was ready to hear.

"Done what before," he said.

"That's the question."

"Have you asked your father?"

I glanced at him.

"I know," he said. "I'm just pointing out that there are two parents, and you've only talked to one." He picked up his coffee. "Richard always seemed like the reasonable one. Maybe he knows something Victoria doesn't want to come out."

"Or he's the reason it stays buried."

"Either way, you don't find out sitting here."

He was right. He was always right, which was honestly the most annoying thing about him.

"I don't know how to handle this without..." I trailed off.

"Without what?"

"Without making it worse for her." I tried to keep my voice steady. "Every time I try to fix something, I end up doing exactly what she told me not to do. I take over. I decide what's best before she's even had a chance to..."

"Danny." Noah set his cup on the table. "You stayed at her dorm last night, didn't you?"

I kept quiet.

"How did you leave it?"

"She fell asleep. I let myself out."

He looked at me for a moment. "And this morning?"

"I came here."

"Instead of going back to her."

I stayed quiet again. He went back to his book.

"She told you she's not something to manage," he said. "So stop trying to handle things from far away and just go talk to her." He turned a page without reading it. "Don't text her. Go in person. And this time, actually listen instead of planning your next move while she's still speaking."

I walked away from him and slipped my phone into my pocket.

Some things have to be said face to face. She was the one who taught me that.

I found her coming out of the architecture building with a bag on one shoulder and a sketchbook under her arm. She moved with the kind of focus you see in someone who seems a little annoyed that the world is in the way of wherever she needs to be.

She noticed me and slowed down a bit.

"You waited outside my building," she said.

"I figured you'd come this way."

"You could have just texted."

"I could have." I walked next to her. "But I didn't want to."

She glanced at me, then kept walking.

"About last night," I said.

"Danny,"

"I'm not managing anything. I'm just here." I kept my voice steady. "That's it. I'm just here."

She walked for a few more seconds. Something changed in her shoulders, not fully relaxing but adjusting, as if she had set down something heavy just a little.

"She's been carrying something for years," Myra said. "Your mother. Whatever she said she'd done before, that's from a long time ago. I could tell by the way you talked about it." She kept her eyes away from me. "That kind of tired has been there for a while."

"No," I said. "It’s not."

"So whatever it is, it started a long time ago." She stopped for a moment. "Before us."

We kept walking while the campus grew quiet around us. The November wind pushed the last leaves along the path.

"My mother's hands shake," she said. "When someone mentions the Blanchams." Her voice was quiet, as if she hadn't meant to say it. "Not so you can see. Just a little. I've watched her hands my whole life, so I notice." She stopped walking. "I always thought it was just because she worked for your family. That kind of tiredness." She looked down the path. "But that's not it, is it?"

I stopped beside her.

"No," I said. "I don't think it is."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked at me straight on, not trying to soften it.

"Then we need to figure out what it really is," she said. "Together. I don't want you to handle it and tell me later. We do this together."

"Together," I agreed.

For the first time since the seminar, it felt like we were finally standing on the same side.

She looked at me for another second. She began to walk again. I walked next to her, our shoulders almost touching, and we both stayed silent.

Suddenly, her phone rang.

She glanced at the screen and came to a complete stop. Whatever she saw made her freeze in a particular way, not out of surprise or confusion. It was the kind of stillness that happens when something you have been half-expecting finally shows up.

She declined the call and slipped the phone back into her pocket without saying anything.

"Myra."

"It's my mother," she said. Her voice was steady. Her hand wasn't. "She never calls this early."

She looked at me once, just once, then answered the next call before I could say anything. I saw her expression shift while she listened. Whatever Margaret said, it was over in less than thirty seconds. Myra slowly put the phone down.

"I need to go home," she said. "This weekend. She says it can't wait."

The way she spoke made me think it had already waited too long.