Something Beautiful.

The door to the library closes and I watch Jules and Nick walk out the front doors. The librarian is God knows where and nobody else has bothered to stick around. That means I'm alone with Noah. I glance across the table at him and faintly blush. Holy shit, I'm alone with Noah.

Call me a little girl, but I'm suddenly thinking about nothing but Noah. I'm imagining being closer to him, brushing his hair out of his face, looking into his gorgeous eyes and- Stop. Okay, I've gotta focus. How I'm supposed to help him with his French I'm not really sure, but I've finally learned the alphabet and months. On a good day, I can count pretty high and recite the days of the week without any help. It's pretty impressive, huh? Jules isn't really in awe of my superior French skills, but whatever. I know enough to help Noah.

"So, uh, your notes?" he asks me quietly. I look back up at him and smile. The boy in front of me looks so young and innocent right now. He's not looking at me straight in the face, but the fact that he has lifted his eyes from the two square inch section of table directly in front of him seems like a victory to me. There's another silence as I look at him, and his right hand is visibly twitching in an effort to not cover his face. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was totally freaked out by me. I've lost count of the times he's caught me openly staring at him in the past two days.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I zoned out for a minute," I tell him, playing off my staring rather well. I mean, people unintentionally zone out while their eyes remain on someone, right?

"Yeah, that's okay," Noah replies. He's moved to sitting on his hands now as if he's afraid they have a mind of their own and will immediately cover his face if he doesn't keep them in check.

"Anyways," I continue, "Here's what I was planning on doing first. These are the numbers we're supposed to have memorized." I try to hand Noah the paper as I slide across a few chairs so I can get to the one next to him, but as I prepare to move to the last chair I catch my toe and topple backwards, taking two chairs with me. Smooth move, Shane.

"Oh my gosh!" I hear a squeal much higher pitched than I would expect coming from the boy who is still sitting at the table. Noah clears his throat, and although all I can see right now is a shelve of books, I can imagine how red Noah must be right now. I swear, that boy is always blushing. "Shane, are you okay?"

"Mmhmugh," I grunt back. Nothing on my body really hurts, a leg of a chair is awkwardly poking my butt and I'm pretty sure I have a carpet burn on my chin. Leave it to me to be the klutz. But he, what can I say? Noah's got me falling for him! Ugh. That was so corny, wasn't it? After a minute of staring at the bookshelf I roll over onto my back so I can stare at the ceiling instead and throw my hands above my head. "I'm such a fucking idiot!" I exclaim.

A little hand appears in m line of sight and I gratefully accept the offer, pulling myself up as Noah giggles. That's right, giggles. I stare at him in awe, wondering why anyone would want to cover up so many cute traits about themselves. If this personality is what's hiding under his hair and carefully constructed mask, it kind of makes me wonder what he's hiding under those baggy clothes. Okay, I did not just think that. I've known the kid for two days.

I thank Noah, but when when catches me staring at him again his hand immediately springs to cover his face, and he looks away again.He mumbles a thank you, and then returns to looking at the ground.

"Hey, don't be embarrassed," I tell him. "I think your laugh is absolutely adorable!" This has the opposite effect than I wanted though, because Noah turns, if possible, a deeper shade of red. He does a little nod slash shoulder shrug thing and gets back in his chair to copy the numbers down. Dammit, why did he have to retreat back into his bubble?

I sit the chairs back up and return to the seat next to Noah, allowing myself to get lost in thoughts. He has so many layers, but I don't want to peel them back one at a time. I just want to see Noah. The real Noah, not this hidden boy who shows himself in little streaks now and then. That, I guess, will take time. Thinking of time, Jules has another cross country meet this weekend and he has a good chance of setting the school record. The only problem is the meet is like 45min away, and I really don't want to drive that by myself. Hmm, I wonder if Nick would want to-

"I've got all of these," Noah says quietly and pushes my paper back to me. I glance at his paper and see that his words don't always follow the lines exactly straight. Weird for someone in high school. "Thanks, Shane."

"It's no problem Noah. Really, I don't mind at all." I look down at my watch and see that it's already past four thirty. We got out of school at three twenty, but after talking to people and being distracted by Jules and Nick we lost a lot of time. Honestly, I don't want to leave though, so I begin to pull out the days of the week to ask Noah if he minds doing one more little thing for the day.

"I'm closing the library in ten minutes," the librarian announces as she walks into the door. Well damn, I guess that's our cue to leave then. I sigh and turn to look at Noah. I might just be flattering myself, but I swear there's a hint of disappointment in his face too.

"You ready to go then?" I ask him. I wish he would say something like 'no, I don't want to go home just yet' or something along those lines, but instead he just blushes and mumbles something about calling Nick. I tell him its nonsense though, so a few minutes later we're out the door and headed to my car.

I don't really drive a car, but car is just the general term for vehicle, right? Anyways, I drive a truck, and it's kind of my pride and joy. It's not new and big and flashy or anything, and to most people it would be nothing special. I'm not most people though, and I totally have a thing for old trucks. My truck in particular is a 1984 Ford F-150. Getting it to warm up in the winter is a bitch, and the gas pumps aren't my friend, but other than that, it's the best thing I could ever ask for. When my dad brought it home one day I all but cried from happiness. My dad just joked around with me saying he was thankful I had at least one manly tendency in me. Some people would get offended, but hey, that's just the relationship I have with my dad. I love that man to death.

"So did you understand how to pronounce the numbers?" I ask Noah. Even though I'm walking super slow and he's keeping stride with me we're almost to my truck. I really don't want to take him home yet.

"Yeah. I've heard everyone say them at the start of class, so its pretty easy to understand. I'm gonna be so screwed when it comes to the months though. I have no clue what's going on by that point."

I laugh and climb into my truck, and Noah follows my lead, sliding into my passenger seat. I like that. He just seems like he belongs there. I try to shake the thought from my head by turning on some music. Just about the only thing I changed about the truck was adding the radio/stereo. As much as I love old trucks, I love my music more. My ipod is plugged in, so I press play, letting it shuffle to a random song. It lands on a song by The Spill Canvas that, admittedly, I don't find very manly. Its one of those songs that Jules tells me is too slow and boring to play while he's in the car with me, so I prepare to skip it, like usual when I hear Noah gasp.

"I love this song!" He exclaims. I look over at him and his face is more lit up than I have ever seen before. His fingers beat on his thigh as he keeps time with the song, and his smile is so big its just contagious. I grin back and hold out my ipod so he can look through it himself. I think he'll be pleasantly surprised at what he finds on my ipod. I have an awesome taste in music. "I can't believe you actually listen to them!"

"Yeah," I reply. "They're actually one of my favorite bands. Their songs have really helped me through some... tough times in my life." I hesitate, because I don't want to get into that, but Noah doesn't notice my hesitation. He's too excited about the music, and honestly, it's super attractive. Before I know it I'm pulling onto his street and I'm disappointed I lost his attention the whole ride, but the look on his face when he was surfing through my ipod was almost enough to make up for the conversation I had hoped would take place. Almost.

"So how are you liking Comfort so far?" I ask him. I've pulled into his driveway already, but I want to talk, even if it's just a few minutes. Noah's eyes flicker out the window and to his house as if he just realized he's already home, but he relaxes into his seat and turns a little to look at me. He's still guarded, I can tell, but I think maybe I see a little tiny crack in his resolve to completely shut me out.

"It's, okay I guess," Noah says. "It's not exactly 'comfortable', but I've been in worse situations before."

"I hope it will grow on you," I reply, and I can't really decide if I'm saying I want the town to grow on him, or that I want me to grow on him. Either way, I want him to warm up to the idea of Comfort and being my friend and possibly something more. Noah is staring at me, and the look on his face is impossible to decipher. He looks confused, happy, upset, and suspicious at the same time. "What's wrong, Noah?"

"Nick put you up to this didn't he?" Noah crosses his arms and sinks into the back of his seat, reminding me so much of a teenage girl that isn't getting her way. "He asked you to be nice to me and act like my friend, didn't he? Don't lie to me Shane."

"What? No, Nick didn't ask me to do that" I tell him. I'm amazed he even thought I was pretending to be his friend because his brother asked me to. Noah doesn't seem to believe me though, because he still has his arms crossed, and he's looking at me through his hair quizzically as though he's trying to figure me out. "Look Noah, I brought you home, I'm talking to you, I've done all of this because I want to, okay? I wouldn't pretend to be someone's friend. That's just not right."

He stares at me for a little while longer, but he seems to decide to trust me because he sighs and uncrosses his arms. "Okay, good. I was just wondering because Nick's been on my case about making friends. He told me this morning I had to actually talk to people. I don't talk to people." I give that a small laugh, and then have to explain the laugh was due to the fact he was indeed talking to me at the moment. Noah just rolled his eyes at me, and soon we had started a conversation. We didn't talk about much, just about class and teachers, and then a touch on music.

It hadn't felt like any time had passed, but looking at my clock on my dashboard I realized we had been sitting in Noah's driveway for almost an hour talking about nonsense. When Noah sees the time he blushes as though he's embarrassed by how long we had been sitting there. "I really have t go do the rest of my homework."

"Okay, don't forget about your French. No better than an 80 from Google Translate, right?" I ask him. He offers a small smile before climbing out of my truck and picking up his bag. I hate to see him go.

"Right. Thanks again for the help on the French, Shane. Bye."

"It's no problem bud, I'll see you at school tomorrow. Goodnight."

*****

"Noah!" I cal across the cafeteria. We were sitting at a different table today than we usually did so I was trying to get Noah's attention before he got lost. I first took Noah home two weeks ago, and since then we've become really good friends, I'd say. At first he was just as quiet at school as his first two days, but he's slowly warmed up to talking a little more and more at school.

The rest of his first week here in Comfort he avoided all eye contact at school, usually even mine, although I unintentionally locked eyes with him a few times. Every afternoon I helped him with French and then took him home. We always talked for a while, and more than a few times the librarian asked us to whisper even though we were the only ones there. Like what the hell, are we gonna wake up the books? The more we studied though, the more we talked and the more he warmed up to me.

After I dropped him off that first day I found Jules at my house and he grilled me for details, but really, there wasn't much to tell. I made a new friend and that was all. It was a pretty uneventful night, but I did get Jules to help me with my French because i told him I wouldn't give him any food if he didn't do at least half of the page. The next day in English, however, Nick also asked me what I did to make his brother in such a better mood. Honestly, I didn't do anything except give him a ride home and offer him my ipod to look through. I was as surprised by him starting to open up bit by bit as they were.

The following week we had to do a French project and Jules, Noah, and I were all in a group together. We had to make up song to remember the days of the week, and ours was terrible. As I've said before, Jules and I are totally musically disabled. When I asked Noah he said he was just as bad as we were, if not worse, and left Jules ad me to do it by ourselves, and so as you can imagine, we sounded more like we were talking than actually singing, but we made it by with a 95 simply because our teacher is awesome.

My friendship with Nick has also become better of the past two weeks. He came with me to Jules's cross country meet, but after waking up at 5 and sitting outside until he was done running, both Nick and I had gotten pretty much burnt out. Nick complained all morning, and we decided we wouldn't go to any more meets that were so far away.

The next weekend I hung out with Nick again, but this time Jules joined since it was his off week for Cross Country. I found that I really like Nick. He's funny, easy going, and pretty much just a great easy guy to get a long with. He's not as quiet as his brother, bu the's also not as loud as Jules. He's kind of like me, stuck in the middle, but at the same time he's more mature than me. Sometimes I feel like Nick is trying to baby sit Jules and I. Given, I'm a lot more mature when I'm not around Jules, but you know, you've gotta have someone to even out the wildness.

Pretty much, both of the White boys are growing on me. We've had their family over for dinner once, and Jules and I have been back for dinner twice since that first night they lived here. Honestly, it's just been a good two weeks, except for Jules's love life.

For some reason unknown to me Jules is still totally fixed on Madison who turns him down daily. At first I felt bad for him, but after watching him fall on his face over and over again it eventually became funny. Hilarious, even, at times. Because of Noah Madison usually sits with us at lunch now too, even though she usually leaves early. Ever day at lunch Jules has googly eyes after her and she shoots him down with a glare, much like is going on right now. Jules bounces back after every turn down though, and is after Madison again soon, sometimes even in the same lunch period.

"Hey Shane," Noah says as he sits down beside Nick. He's still mysterious, he's still wearing clothes that are way too big for him, and he still doesn't like people. The only thing that really matters though, is that he just smiled at me a little before sitting down. Hey, its a start.