CHAPTER ONE - The Message, The Beginning of Noah

Eighth grade is the kind of year that feels bigger than it really is. Back then, everything mattered—even the smallest things had weight. A rumor could ruin your day, a look could make your week, and a boy you talked to in between classes could feel like your entire world… until he didn’t.

For a while, Malik was my world.

Not in a grown-up, deep, life-changing way—but in the innocent, middle-school version of love we swore was real. We were kids playing at being older, building “love” from F******k statuses, late-night messages, inside jokes, and hallway glances that felt more dramatic than any movie I’d ever seen.

Malik made me laugh. He made middle school feel less overwhelming. He gave me someone to look for in the mornings, someone to talk to when I got home, someone to joke with about things that didn’t matter but somehow mattered to us.

We weren’t serious—not really. But in our heads, at thirteen, we thought we were.

So when we broke up—over something small, something ridiculous—I had a moment, a brief one, where I swore the air had simply run out of the room.

A few hours of teenage heartbreak, the kind that makes you want to hide under your blanket and replay every moment, wondering how it fell apart so fast.

But the dramatic sadness didn’t last long.

By the next day, the hurt faded into something else—not pain, just a strange, quiet emptiness. He had been my routine. My comfort. My middle-school “experience.” And without him, everything felt a little off. Not painful. Just… different.

That soft sense of difference was strange, but manageable. I went through the rest of the week knowing I had successfully survived my first real middle-school breakup.

But a month later, when the Malik-sized hole in my routine was still fresh, I found myself sitting on my bed, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by homework I had no intention of doing. My room wasn’t pink or overly decorated—it was just a regular teenage girl’s room, a little messy, a little cozy, completely mine. Lotions and body sprays cluttered my dresser. Clothes folded neatly for a day before ending up where they always did: everywhere.

My old Dell laptop balanced across my legs, glowing a soft blue across the room.

Two tabs open, because that’s how everyone operated back then: YouTube playing Chris Brown in the background and F******k open in another tab.

Scrolling filled the silence Malik left behind.

I picked up the lotion on my dresser—a soft vanilla scent—and rubbed it into my hands slowly, focusing on the texture and the smell. It was a stupid, small ritual, but in a life where I couldn't control the sound of my parents' voices, I could control the scent of my skin. I could control the quiet of my room.

And beneath everything, there was another constant in my life—my cousins.

My overprotective, loud, take-no-chances cousins. They never let boys talk to me. They never let me talk to boys. They didn’t even like boys looking at me for too long.

I knew the drill well. I’d seen it happen.

The summer before seventh grade, I met a boy at the pool—sweet, harmless, chlorine still dripping from his hair. We “dated” for a day. Not even twenty-four hours. Before I could figure out if I liked him, my cousin had already pulled him aside. A quiet threat. A sharp look. One conversation was all it took to scare him right out of my life. He wouldn’t even look at me after.

I learned then: if a boy liked me, it was a problem.

And when one of their close friends messaged me later on, I watched my cousin hit him with the infamous line that lived rent-free in every boy’s mind after that:

“There’s a million girls in the world. Why would you choose my cousin?”

Point made. Boy gone. Story over.

So sitting there on my bed, laptop open, music playing, I knew that if a boy ever messaged me again—especially someone in their circle—it would be over before it started.

That’s what made the next moment feel so strange.

A blue F******k message notification popped up in the corner of my screen—the old message bubble everyone recognized before the redesign. My heart hitch-hiked up my throat, more from reflex than expectation.

I clicked it.

Noah.

For a second, I didn’t breathe.

Not because he scared me—but because seeing his name felt… different.

He wasn’t just some boy from school. He wasn’t someone random.

He was someone girls noticed.

Dark-skinned, clean fade always crisp, dark brown eyes framed by thick, pretty lashes that made everyone secretly jealous. And he had the best smile—full and genuine, the kind that reached his dark brown eyes and crinkled them at the corners. A basketball player—lean, athletic, not too tall yet, but already with that natural “I can play” build.

Smooth. Not loud, not flashy—just quietly confident in a way that made you look twice.

And he was friends with my cousins. That alone should have been the end of it.

But his message was simple. Easy. Just enough to start something.

We talked that night. And the next night. And then the next.

What started as harmless messages quickly morphed into a secret, gentle addiction. It wasn't the flirting that held me—it was the consistency. Every night, around 9:30, I could count on that blue notification. He asked questions that made me think, not just questions that killed time. He remembered the small details I shared about my day. He spoke about his life with a straightforward honesty that was utterly disarming. It felt like a deep, warm current running beneath the surface of my normal, chaotic world.

We joked. We teased. We shared songs from YouTube. He told me I was beautiful in a way that didn’t feel forced or childish. He checked on me. Asked about my day. Told me stories about school and basketball and things that didn’t matter but somehow mattered to me.

And somewhere around the two-week mark, I realized I liked him.

Not a tiny crush. Not a “he’s cute but whatever.”

No. I liked him.

The real kind, as real as it gets at our age. The kind that made my chest ache with quiet anticipation. The blushing-at-my-laptop kind. The hiding-my-smile kind.

But I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell anyone. Especially not my cousins.

So Noah became my secret.

For two months, we talked every day. Sometimes late into the night. Sometimes just a quick check-in. Sometimes long conversations that made me forget Malik entirely.

We’d both mention hanging out here and there—nothing serious, nothing planned—but the timing was never right. He had practice. I had family things. My cousins were always around.

And somewhere in between all that, we kept missing the chance to see each other.

Still, a tiny part of me wondered what it would feel like to see him in person. To talk without a screen between us. To see that smile up close.

But life kept getting in the way.

Back then, the mall was the place. You didn’t go to buy things—you went to be seen. To walk loops around the same stores. To stop in the food court pretending to choose between fries and pretzels. To run into people you hoped were there. To do absolutely nothing in the most important way possible.

One random day that summer, I ended up there—not looking for him, not expecting anything. I was just… walking.

Then I saw him.

At first, I noticed my cousin. Familiar laugh, familiar posture, sitting at a table in the food court.

And then I saw who was sitting with him.

Noah.

My chest tightened, a sudden, dizzying drop. The air in the bustling food court felt thin and loud, and all I could focus on was the table in the middle.

He looked up and our eyes locked—not in a dramatic movie way, but in a “there you are” way that felt deeper. His smile came slowly, recognizing me before I could pretend I didn’t see him.

I felt the heat rush before I could stop it.

My cousin waved me over, and I had no choice but to walk toward them, praying my face wasn’t doing anything suspicious.

I sat down at the table, trying to act normal, trying to keep my hands still, trying to answer whatever my cousin asked without sounding breathless.

But I could feel Noah looking at me. And when I finally let myself glance his way, he was already watching.

Warm eyes. Soft smile. A quiet intensity that felt like a secret.

He didn't flirt openly—he wasn't stupid. But as my cousin launched into a long, loud story about basketball, Noah waited until my cousin looked away to gesture subtly with his head toward the door, a silent question: Why are you here? I met his eyes and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of my head—a silent, I have to be here—and watched his smile fade into pure, charged understanding.

That shared, certain glance lingered—a simple, sweet warmth. It was the safe path. The kind of comfort my grandparents had modeled.

I kept my gaze locked on my cousin, half-listening to his story, half-terrified he would sense the current passing between Noah and me. That day, Noah felt like a stolen moment, and I knew that eventually, my cousins' authority—and my own need for drama—would demand I give it back.

When it was time to go, I didn’t hug him or say anything special. Neither did he. Just one last look. One last small smile. And then we walked away, back into our own worlds.

We talked for a while after that—through more of summer, into the beginning of freshman year. But slowly, the rhythm changed.

Texts got shorter. Reply times got longer. Days passed without messages.

Life kept shifting. High school started. Schedules changed. New people entered our lives. My cousins watched closer.

He drifted into his world, and I drifted into mine.

We faded. Not all at once—but in that soft, inevitable way people do when timing isn’t on their side.

I didn't try to stop the fading with Noah. I didn't fight for that easy, quiet connection. Why? Because it felt too simple. It felt too... easy. I was convinced that if love wasn't hard, if it didn't feel like a high-stakes, breathless secret, then it wasn't real love at all. I was still waiting for the loud thing. I was waiting for Kaden.

He stayed with me. Not physically. Not in constant messages. Just in the way some people leave quiet marks you don’t notice until later—in the way their presence teaches you something about yourself you didn’t know yet.

Some people never leave your story; they just move to quieter chapters.

And I didn’t know it then, sitting across from him in the mall food court with my cousin beside us, but this—this tiny beginning—wasn’t the end of our story. It was the first time our paths crossed in a journey that would bring him back into my life at a moment I never saw coming when I was a different girl with a different heart learning a different kind of love.

It was the first time I was offered safety, and the first time I chose to pull back and wait for the drama.