A Mighty Need

The day after Noel’s birthday, Audrey awoke with a hangover to end all other hangovers. Her head was throbbing, her stomach felt sour and she felt dizzy from the alcohol still lingering on in her system. The moment she attempted to sit up straight in bed, she literally fell back down from her equilibrium being shot to hell. Any movement at all suddenly made her feel like she was going to vomit and then die. As her world spun and the abusive sunlight filtered into the bedroom like a little bitch, she could feel the bile rising in her chest. Audrey knew a mad dash to the bathroom was imminent, but she also knew that not moving one muscle and keeping her sleepy eyes focused on one spot on the ceiling allowed her to see straight. The only excuse she had for feeling this craptastic meant she must’ve been mixing drinks the night before. Not just mixed drinks, but going back and forth between what she deemed her “bitch drinks”, like a sex on the beach or vodka and cranberry juice, but also beer, which she had no stomach for under normal circumstances, and a rapid succession of shots.

Running over in her mind those possibilities made her stomach twist and turn and the bile rose higher. By the time it reached her throat, it was either embrace the dizzy spell and throw up in the toilet or sink (whichever she reached first), or toss the contents of her stomach onto the floor on her side of the bed. Since she didn’t want to clean the latter mess up, Audrey sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the mattress; a groan escaping her lips. By the time her bare feet made contact with the carpeted floor, she felt like God or Allah or whatever higher power had literally grabbed hold of the planet and was bouncing it around like a basketball. She braced herself slowly at first by gripping the covers on the bed which were cascaded in a rumpled mess all over the place. However, the bile was rising too fast to pussyfoot around and she bolted quite suddenly for the bathroom.

The door banged open, hitting the wall in her wake, as she dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and shoved her face into the porcelain bowl. As she vomited up everything she’d ever eaten in her life, tears stung her eyes from the hard heaving in her chest and the burn of the bile in her chest, throat and on her tongue. She utterly and completely hated throwing up and couldn’t understand those people who binged then purged.

Audrey was full on sobbing when Noel awoke; mostly due to the bathroom door slamming open in her fit to get to the toilet bowl on time.

Tossing the covers off from over his face, Noel immediately regretted that decision and recoiled away from the light shining into his bedroom like a vampire’s aversion to the sun. There might’ve even been a hiss that escaped from his lips if one listened carefully enough. When he got his bearings, he noted the sound of heaving and crying coming from the bathroom and sat up slowly. Noel was experienced enough with hangovers of his own to know to take it as easy as possible the morning (or afternoon) after. He sat up, letting his legs dangle off the side of the bed as he gripped the mattress. He closed his eyes tight and focused on the sounds and took a few steadying breaths before pushing up off the bed and walking slowly toward the bathroom. He stumbled a few times, but each time he was able to pause and right himself by holding his hands out as if they were weights balancing the rest of him out.

When he poked his head into the bathroom and found Audrey basically spewing out her internal organs and crying, he knitted his brow together and walked up to her. “Hey,” was his simple greeting as he slid down to the floor to sit beside her.

She didn’t respond; rather, she couldn’t. Noel simply reached forward and pulled her hair back out of her face and then held onto it all with one hand while he used it other hand to rub soothingly on her back.

“Do you want a glass of water?” he asked.

She shook her head first and mumbled no but a mere second later she changed her mind, so Noel tucked her hair inside the back of her shirt so it wouldn’t fall all over the place again. He considered giving her a few aspirin to take away the headache she probably had as well but, the way she was throwing up, the aspirin wouldn’t last long in her stomach. Instead, he stood up and poured water from the tap into the glass sitting beside the bathroom sink and handed it to Audrey. As she took it with shaky hands and forced herself to take a sip, Noel grabbed a face cloth and soaked it some cold water from the tap as well. Wringing it out, he folded it over a few times and then sat back down beside her; placing the cool, damp cloth on the skin of her forehead during the interim between upchucks.

“Did you get it all out or do you still think you’ll be praying to the porcelain god a bit longer?” He tried making light of the situation but he was only met with a death glare. “That bad, eh?” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “Does your head hurt?”

Audrey nodded, then swished some water from the glass around her mouth and spit it all out into the toilet to get rid of the vomit taste. She reached up to flush and sat back against the tub while she reveled in the momentary break from it all. She knew it wasn’t over. It was never over that quickly. Vomiting always came in waves; ebbing and flowing like the tide. Dried tears stained her face and she took the damp cloth from Noel to wipe them away.

“I drank too much last night,” she finally said to him; her voice raspy and sore. “I hate throwing up,” she whimpered.

“It’s no walk in the park, that’s for sure.”

“How are you so calm and collected after last night? You drank just as much as I did, didn’t you?”

“I paced myself a bit more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a death metal band playing a concert to one hundred and fifty thousand people in my head right now.” He smirked and brought his knees up to his chest before pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew he’d have to stand back up eventually to take some aspirin for his throbbing head but he didn’t feel like moving anymore at the moment. “I’d offer you aspirin when I take some in a minute, but you’ll probably just throw it back up, won’t you?”

“Probably,” she replied and then stilled. She stared off into space for a moment and then eyed the toilet once more.

Noel watched her as, in a split second, she had turned her body at a ninety degree angle and knelt back up to shove her face back in the toilet. The vomit returned with a force but this time it was mostly the water she had just drank and whatever was left in her stomach. It seemed she had thrown up the majority of whatever was sloshing around from the night before. The heaves were the clincher, though; forcing her body to hunch painfully is what brought on the waterworks again. She didn’t even seem to care about the burning from the bile in her throat anymore.

As she sobbed away in between retching and spitting, Noel moved to kneel behind her and hold her hair back once more. He didn’t bother with cliché pleasantries by telling her it was alright or it would be over soon because they were empty comments. The person doing the vomiting never wanted to hear that shit in the moment. Just being there with the person and assisting them however they needed was more than enough.

When the bile seemed to subside for good, Audrey flushed the toilet again and clamored to her feet with Noel’s help. She gripped the bathroom counter and glanced at her reflection in the mirror with disgust. She looked exactly like how she felt; like death warmed over. Her hair was a rat’s nest, her eye makeup was smudged and made her look like a raccoon and there was some vomit at the corner of her mouth. She used the wet cloth to wipe the latter away before turning on the faucet. She rinsed the cloth out, wrung it out a bit and brought it over her face and just leaving it there for a moment before going about wiping away some of the eye makeup.

Noel opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of aspirin and took the glass Audrey had been using and filled it up with cold water. Audrey, in turn, reached for her toothbrush and the tube of Colgate to brush her teeth.

“I’m so hungry right now, but I feel like if I eat I’m just gonna throw up again,” Audrey commented with a mouthful of toothpaste.

“You want some toast or some biscuits, maybe? It might help.”

Audrey shrugged, then spit out the frothy toothpaste and took the cup back from Noel to swish the water around to rinse out her mouth. Cleaning out her toothbrush, she placed it back in the holder beside Noel’s without a second thought and wiped her mouth on a hand towel hanging from the nearby towel rack. She placed a hand on her stomach and felt it gurgle and flip a bit more and, for a moment, she thought she might have to throw up again, but nothing further happened.

As she sauntered dizzily back out into the bedroom she began to strip off all her clothes as she was wearing the same things from yesterday. She padded to the top drawer to the left of Noel’s dresser and pulled it open. Inside was slightly bare but there were a few pairs of her underwear, bras and socks. She had some extra clothes hanging up in his closet until she packed her suitcase again to return to Philly. At the moment, though, she pulled out a new pair of underwear and bra and set them on top of the dresser while unhooking the bra she was wearing and tossing it to the floor. Her body felt achy and chilled all over from the hangover and the heaving that she just really wanted to take a long, hot shower; hoping that helped somewhat.

“Are you about to give me hangover sex?” Noel quipped, ruffling his hair, causing a few pieces of confetti that had been thrown on him the evening before to fall out.

“Yeah, right,” Audrey snorted as she staggered back into the bathroom.

“Do you want me to make some toast?” he called after her.

“Sure,” she replied, turning on the water. “Don’t butter it though. This shower is gonna be hot and long so don’t go making the toast right away so it doesn’t get cold and gross.”

“Alright.” Noel looked down at himself. He was only in pair of Boosh pants and finally chose to look at his entire person in his full length mirror. He had raccoon eyes just as Audrey had and there was glitter stuck to his stomach. He didn’t recall where the glitter had come from. He remembered the confetti from when he returned home yesterday with Audrey, but that was it. The glitter must’ve come about by the time he was far gone.

Grabbing a pair of sweatpants from the dresser, he threw those on and sat down on the end of the bed, still squinting because of the sunlight. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the bedside clock which stated it was three in the fucking afternoon. He wondered exactly when he went the fuck to bed. Very late, obviously. Thinking back on it, he tried to remember the details of the night that started to get fuzzier. Majority of his friends had left by three and he was pretty sure a few had passed out in the living room. They might still be around, actually. At one point Chappell, The Howling’s bassist, and his girlfriend rejoined everyone downstairs and Audrey had pointed at them and clapped, congratulating them on the noisy sex they must’ve been having in one of the extra bedrooms.

Then he remembered Lliana staying a while longer as well. She joined in when shots began, hanging back mostly with Alison who had thrown up on the bouncy castle. Apparently Audrey had paid to keep the bouncy castle until today at some point, which made Noel wonder if and when someone from the company would stop by to deflate and pack it away, if they hadn’t tried getting a hold of Audrey or him already. Noel supposed he should probably take a hose to the bouncy castle to clean it off.

No. Wait. No, he had already done that. Yes, that’s right, after Alison threw up on it, Noel grabbed the hose and turned it on; spraying the bouncy castle and Alison. Oh yeah.

Noel smirked. That’s when the water war began.

It was probably just before three in the morning and someone from inside the house was throwing water balloons from a second floor window down at those in the back garden. Noel, like a drunken idiot, aimed the hose at the window and promptly soaked whoever was the culprit. Probably Russell. Or Rev. He couldn’t remember. Everyone ran back inside because…did a neighbor shout at them about the hour and threaten to call the police? Yeah, that might’ve happened. So, inside they went and Noel found a plethora of mini squirt guns he kept for God knows what reason, but suddenly he had one. He passed them out and everyone went to fill them with water. A few smartasses filled them with booze and instead of aiming at anything a game was made out of it to see how well everyone’s aim was to get the stream of booze into another person’s mouth. Eventually obstacles were added to make it more interesting or harder to achieve.

Grimacing, Noel realized in that moment there might be alcohol stains on his walls and furniture from the squirt guns. The floors were probably gross and sticky as well. Maybe he would just leave it all and call for a maid service to come ‘round the next day.

It wasn’t just his birthday the day before, it was his birthweek and he was gonna milk it. Why not, right?

Where had Audrey been in all that chaos? Noel wondered as he stood up and sauntered out of his bedroom and downstairs toward the kitchen.

Oh, yes. She was instigating a drinking game of Never Have I Ever. That got interesting very quick, considering the group of people still lingering around. Russell left shortly after that, Noel remembered. The younger comedian had caught a cab home, then Lliana and Alison shared one a short while later. Noel had promised he would keep in touch with Lliana this time and briefly recalled seeing Audrey’s steely gaze and sensed her feelings about that. He was no daft berk. He had walked up to her after saying goodbye to Lliana and Alison and lifted Audrey up, literally throwing her over his shoulder and announcing to whoever was left downstairs he was about to fuck his girl.

And those were basically the exact words he’d used.

“Alright, fuckers, if you need me: tough shit. I’ll be upstairs fucking my girl till her eyes explode.”

Noel laughed at the memory. He vaguely remembered actually having sex with Audrey. Well, not the details anyway. He remembered throwing her down on the bed and peeling her clothes off with drunken fingers. He also remembered that it was getting light outside while he lay down on his back and let her do all the work.

From then on out, it was a dense fog in his mind. But that was okay. At least he knew he had a great birthday.

He turned on the coffee pot while he was in the kitchen and wondered how many coffee cups he’d need. He didn’t know how many people were still in his house, if any at all beside him and Audrey. For now, he grabbed just one for himself. If anyone was there and wanted some coffee when it was done percolating, they could help themselves. He pulled some pieces of bread from his bread box but held off putting them in the toaster. He could hear the shower upstairs still running, thanks to his piping which he probably needed to have updated, so he knew Audrey wouldn’t be ready for her toast. Leaning against the kitchen counter with the small of his back, he folded his arms; waiting for the coffee while staring off and beginning to daydream.

His mind wandered back to the night before and he remembered the key Audrey had given him to her condo and he frowned. Not that he hadn’t liked the gift or the message behind it (that she was thinking far enough into the future where she still wanted him around), he just wished it had been a key to something else.

When Noel had blown out the candles to his cake, he’d looked at Audrey and thought about how he wanted to live with her on a permanent basis. It had been a thought rolling around in his head for some time now and he finally decided that after six months of dating, and the hassle of trying to fly back and forth to see each other, that he wanted her to move in with him. He knew it meant she’d have to uproot herself, but Dave and Julian had made a point back in early November; that Audrey could work from anywhere because she was a writer whereas Noel’s career was based out of London. His painting, his shows, his life was entirely in one place. Granted, he had the leeway to travel around from time to time, but it was taxing on him and it sometimes meant rescheduling around other projects. Audrey didn’t have that kind of thing tying her down. Anything she needed to do she could use her laptop for.

Writing a novel? Laptop. Writing a script? Laptop. Skyping for professional and personal reasons alike? Laptop. Banking? Laptop. Booking air travel? Laptop.

As long as she had one, she could make her living.

That’s why he was a bit conflicted about her key. He didn’t want the key so he could visit her whenever he wanted and just let himself in. He wanted to give her a key because he wanted her to love with him.

No more visiting. Staying.

Lliana showing up like she did cinched it for him.

Noel wanted to be with Audrey. He had gotten over any hang-ups where Lliana was concerned and was looking to his new future with Audrey. She was the one he wanted to be with, she was the one he wanted to live with and she was the one he wanted to make a life with.

The last notion stirred a bit of anxiety in him, but in a good way. He couldn’t help but imagine where their lives would lead together. He assumed after a time that maybe they would get married, maybe they’d have kids and he’d finally be a dad. Hell, maybe he’d sell his house and they could pick a new one together somewhere else. He’d want his kids to have a larger garden to play in and go to good schools. Maybe he’d join some parent-teacher groups and help with bake sales, not that he was such a keen baker.

But he was getting a bit ahead of himself.

One step at a time, Noel. He would have to find a way to ask Audrey about this and soon because she was heading home Stateside on Sunday and the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t wait to hear her say the words yes; that she would move in with him. He wanted to help her unpack her belongings she’d have to ship to England, and then unpack them when they arrived. He was looking forward to waking up every morning beside her, not just seven or so mornings in a row and then nothing until a few weeks later.

When Noel heard the water shut off upstairs, he also heard a groan coming from the direction of the living room.

So, they weren’t alone.

“D’you want coffee?” he called out to whoever it was.

“Fuck yes,” came the reply.

It was Blacky’s voice.

“Is it just you?”

There was no response at first, then, “Rev, you want coffee?”

So, Rev was still there.

“Yeah, uh, wait…no. Me, Rev and Melvis and…” there was hesitation, “Mike want coffee. You want coffee, right?” The last question wasn’t directed at Noel, but the next thing was, “Four coffees for the peanut gallery. Thanks, mate.”

Noel smirked.

So, he did, in fact, still have a full house. And, as he heard Audrey’s footsteps moving around upstairs in his bedroom, he hoped it would always be full. And he didn’t want it to be his bedroom; he wanted it to be their bedroom.



The bouncy castle was gone two hours later as were Mike and the others. Audrey had come back downstairs and ate some toast, oblivious to the looks Noel was giving her because she mainly kept her head in her hands. She made it through only one of the two slices of toast he had made for her before her stomach turned sour again and she had to dart for the downstairs bathroom. However nothing happened. It was a false alarm. She settled on nursing a bottle of water from the fridge and lying down on the couch in the living room for a while until everyone left. Their chatter, despite being low, still hurt her ears and she couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye to them. She merely gave a grunt; acknowledging they were leaving.

Noel followed suit, coming to join Audrey on the other end of the couch. He laid with his back on the cushions and his legs dangling over the armrest as his cats came out of the woodwork and began to inspect him and Audrey. The small one jumped up onto the couch and curled up against Audrey’s stomach and rested a paw on her hip as if it sensed she was feeling unwell. When the larger cat just sniffed at Noel and walked off toward the kitchen where its food bowl was, Noel scoffed.

“What about me, you little twat?”

Despite how shitty she felt, Audrey couldn’t help but smirk at his comment. They didn’t talk any further, to the cats or with each other; they just laid there and rested their eyes. It was some time later when Audrey reopened her eyes, realizing she had fallen asleep. She lifted her head, which was still throbbing, though not as strongly as before, but the sour feeling in her stomach had subsided and was replaced by annoying hunger pains. Noel was no longer in the living room and she heard nothing else that could’ve given her a clue as to where he was.

Slowly standing up, she walked into the kitchen and decided to make herself a cup of tea and, while she waited for the kettle to whistle, she scavenged through the cupboards for something quick to eat. She settled on a package of Pop-Tarts and sat down at the kitchen table when Noel suddenly appeared in the doorway and scared the bejesus out of her.

“Shit,” she muttered. “You’re as quiet as the grave.”

“Sorry,” he smirked.

“Where were you?”

“Painting,” he replied. “After you fell asleep I got bored and needed to keep moving.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

“Shit. Well, today was wasted.”

“Not as wasted as we are,” Noel quipped. The kettle began to whistle, so he grabbed it off the stove, turning off the burner. Audrey held up her empty tea cup and Noel filled it for her. Once she mixed everything in with the tea bag, he sat down across from her at the table and began to fiddle with his fingers. “You feeling better?”

Audrey nodded. “Yeah.”

“Headache gone?”

“No.”

“Can your stomach keep down some aspirin now?”

“I think so.”

“Alright, I’ll go get you some.”

With that, Noel stood back up and disappeared from the kitchen, leaving Audrey alone with her tea and Pop-Tarts. When he returned less than two minutes later, he handed over two tablets of Panadol which Audrey took and placed on her tongue before knocking it back with a sip of tea. She knew it wouldn't take effect immediately but just knowing she had consumed something for her headache made it seem already a bit better.

She smiled over at him. “Thank you.”

“Welcome.” He sat back down but not before pulling something from his pocket and playing with it. “Thanks again for this.” He held up the key she had given him the night before.

She smiled once more. “You’re welcome again.” Despite saying thanks, his face didn’t seem too thankful and this made Audrey furrow her brow. “Why do you look like it’s Christmas and all I gave you was coal?”

Noel shook his head. “No, I just…” he trailed off for a moment, looking at the key and turning it over and over as if trying to master a magic trick. “I wasn’t planning on us exchanging keys, exactly.”

“Well,” Audrey spoke warily. “We didn’t exchange keys. I gave you a copy of mine and that’s all.” She narrowed her eyes at him and felt her anxiety from the night before rear its ugly head again and using her already sensitive stomach as a pair of bongo drums. “I don’t care if you had no plans to give me a copy of yours. It’s not a big deal or anything.”

“That’s not it,” he spoke, looking up at her. “I didn’t want your key because I wanted you to have my key. Just mine.”

Audrey flashed a look of confusion his way. “Huh? I don’t understand.”

Licking his bottom lip, he let out a deep breath and glanced shyly at her. “I want you to move in with me. I think we’re ready to take that next step.” He paused, waiting to see what her reaction and response would be.

“You want to live together?”

Noel nodded. “Yeah. On a permanent basis.”

Audrey blinked a few times, letting this information roll around her head. “So…I’m assuming you want me to pack everything up and move here; just like that.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it makes sense, really. My work, how I make a living, that’s all here in England. But you—”

“What about me?"

“How you make your living can be done anywhere. As long as you have your laptop or access to any computer, you can write and communicate. You can type your stories and send them to your editor and conference call through Skype all with your laptop. And you can do all that from here.”

“And what about my condo, my friends and family?”

“You can sell your condo, or sublet it,” he suggested. “And you can always go back to visit your friends and family. But, instead of me being the one you visit for a week here or there, they’ll be the ones you visit.”

“So, I can give up my life in the States without a second thought, but you can’t do the same? Is that it? My way of life is expendable?”

“What—no. You’re twisting my words.”

“Am I?” she questioned. “According to you I can easily drop everything like a hot potato.”

Noel leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of frustration. “That’s not what I meant. I just want you to live with me. I want you to be with me. I mean, if you’re not ready for that step yet, we can wait, but it’s on the table for when you are.”

“I said nothing about not being ready. I am saying you don’t seem to understand that I can't just toss it all away like yesterday's news to live here. Everything I’ve ever known is back in the States. My condo isn’t important at this point but my friends and family are all there. All the comforts of home I’m used to and I don’t mean in the literal home. I mean the people I’d be giving up and the States as a whole. I’m almost thirty-three years old and I’ve never lived more than a half hour drive away from my family. And you’re not even asking if I want to move in with you, you’re only saying you want me to and how easy it will apparently be,” Audrey rattled. “This is the type of thing that deserves discussion.”

“Well, it sounds like we’re having one, aren’t we?”

Audrey placed her hands on her face and emitted an aggravated sigh.

Before she could answer, Noel spoke again, leaning forward on the table with his hands folded in front of him. “So, what I’m getting from this is that you’re nearly thirty-three years old, a grown woman might I add, and you basically can’t grow up and cut ties.” He stopped himself right there, realizing how mean that sounded. “Okay, that sounded differently in my head.”

But it was too late.

Noel had already put his foot in his mouth and opened the door for an argument.

“I can’t grow up?” Audrey glowered. “Not wanting to throw away the only life I’ve ever known all willy-nilly is not grounds for not being able to grow the fuck up. Growing up,” she scoffed. “Now that’s a conversation to have.”

“You’ve said it yourself to me, countless times, that your family is so spread out now and that you barely get to see your closest friends anymore because of the different paths you’re all taking. How different would seeing them be if you lived here rather than there?”

“I wouldn’t have to travel thousands of miles across an ocean on top of having to travel across state lines to see them,” she spoke matter-of-factly.

Noel widened his eyes, getting so frustrated with her that he unclasped his hands and smacked his palms down on the table’s wooden surface. “You do that with me already and vice versa.”

Audrey jumped slightly at the banging sound his hands made, and responded by pursing her lips. She had no idea how this could’ve escalated so quickly but she suddenly felt like jumping across the table and just pulling his hair, and not in the sexual way. “Who’s the child now?” she braved.

“I’m not being a child,” he snipped. “I’m. Emphasizing. A. Point,” he added in a staccato manner, banging his hands on the table with each word.

From then on, the argument continued and worsened; both too stubborn to just step away and gather themselves and instead bringing up nitpicky things that had nothing to do with the initial conversation. She reiterated her feelings from the gallery opening about being just a flash in the pan for him and if she moved in with him, that if they broke up, she would’ve given everything up for nothing. He said she was being too sensitive and pessimistic, and then let slip that whenever he came to Philly to see her that he always felt so holed up with nothing to do. Unlike when she visited him in London, there weren’t a bunch of friends they could hang out with at any given point, there weren’t as many places to go to and the only constant outsider they ever did hang out with was Austin. He couldn’t even pass the downtime with painting because all his shit was at home. Audrey threw it back that if he was so bored with visiting her then he didn’t have to visit her at all, it could be all about him and how she could cater to his every whim instead. That’s not what he meant, he said. But wasn’t it? She scowled and he glared back.

Eventually they were shouting and more so back on point, having navigated the bumps and detours in the argument and come full circle. When he got so angry that he threw the key across the table and it bounced off to land on the floor, Audrey took it as the affront it was and tossed what was left of the contents in her tea cup at his face. As the tan liquid rolled down his face in streaks, he jumped out of his seat and shoved his chair over. Stepping away, he then shoved other shit off the kitchen counter, letting it all clank and clatter into the sink or onto the floor; whatever which way it fell.

Audrey bent down and grabbed the key from the floor and sneered at him, “If you don’t want the key because you can’t be bothered to visit me and my boring ol’ life in Philadelphia then you can take it and shove it up for ass.” Audrey threw the key back at him and stomped out of the kitchen.

“There she goes, walking away like a child would!” he yelled after her.

“Fuck you, Noel!”

Turning his head, he pinpointed that, by the sound of her voice, she was already in the living room at the front of the house, so he followed after. “No, fuck you,” he said back at her. “If your life is so fuckin’ beautiful back in the States, no one is keeping you here. Go on, then. Go back home to mummy and daddy and your baby brother and spend your days hanging out with them. See if I fucking care.”

“No one’s keeping me here,” she repeated, then laughed off. “No one, for sure.”

Noel spotted her stepping out of the living room and out into the front hall so he followed after her. “Nope, no one cares,” he reiterated, even though he didn’t mean it. He was just too angry to say otherwise. “I guess you really were just a passing fancy, after all!”

Low blow, low blow, low blow.

Noel grimaced.

The words were spoken, it was too late. He couldn’t take them back now and he kicked himself, mentally, wishing he could. The least he could’ve said next was a simple sorry, but no such thing escaped his lips. He just stopped at the bottom of his stairs, watching as she stopped halfway up and turned around to look at him.

The pain in her eyes was evident and he immediately hated himself and wanted to pretend their entire fight hadn’t happened; to pretend he never even brought up having her move in with him in the first place. But he was too stubborn and to chicken to back down, despite what he knew was coming next.

Audrey just stared at him with cold eyes. “I guess you were just another chapter in my life,” she said with no tone in her voice whatsoever. “Time to turn the page.”

Noel’s nostrils flared and his heartbeat raced with panic.

What had happened? What had just fucking happened?

No, no, no, no, no.

“Audrey,” was all he could muster to say, but she wasn’t listening anymore.

The fire was gone from the fight but the coals were still hot. She turned and walked back up the rest of the way and headed in the direction of his bedroom. When he heard the door slam shut, he felt tears stinging his eyes and hate toward himself burning in his chest. He felt hate for the entire fight, altogether. They’d had tiny squabbles here and there before like any couple would but they never amounted to anything, probably because their relationship had been so raw and young and they were treading carefully through the foreign waters, getting familiar with the ebbs and flows.

This had been entirely different. This had been some sort of beast they’d unintentionally awakened and Noel had no idea how to put it back to sleep.

Sauntering back into the living room, he plopped heavily down onto the couch and folded his hands between his knees and just stared at nothing in particular on the floor. Every moment of the fight felt like such a blur now; maybe because it was so soon after and because it had been so heated. He couldn’t pinpoint any of the details of the fight. It was like treading through the same foreign waters but now it had turned to quicksand and he was drowning and every time he struggled he made it worse. He just needed to sit there and not move and not think.

An hour later, a cab pulled up outside Noel’s house and Audrey left in it.

She said goodbye but she didn’t say where she was going and he didn’t know how final the goodbye was. He knew her flight home wasn’t until Sunday so he could safely assume she was going to check into a hotel somewhere until then.

If he was smart, he would’ve gone after her and stopped her from leaving. If he was smart, he would’ve subsequently found out which hotel she was going to and brought her back. If he was smart he wouldn’t have let her go without a kiss and a promise to see her again real soon.

But Noel was being a jackass and jackasses were rarely smart.

What Audrey had said to him on the stairs reminded him of the lyrics from a Bog Seger song, which whirled around his mind like a plastic bag caught in the wind.

Here I am, on the road again
There I am, on the stage
Here I go, playing star again
There I go, turn the page