Chapter 38 The Note
The apartment felt like a tomb after Noah left. Nora sat on the couch, surrounded by the scattered photographs, her body shaking with sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her soul. She cried until her throat was raw, until her eyes burned, until she had no more tears left to give.
The realization of what she had done, what she had thrown away, crashed over her in waves. Each memory of Noah felt like a knife twisting in her chest. The way he looked at her like she was the only person in the world who mattered. The way he had risked everything to save her from the compound. The way he had stood by her through her darkest moments, never judging, never abandoning her, always loving her even when she didn’t love herself.
And she had repaid that devotion by choosing to believe the worst of him.
Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. Ben’s name flashed across the screen, and Nora felt a surge of anger so intense it momentarily cut through her grief. He had done this. He had orchestrated this entire disaster with his carefully timed photos and his sympathetic words and his slow, steady campaign to win her back.
The phone kept buzzing. Ben called once, twice, three times. Each time, Nora stared at the screen with red, swollen eyes and let it ring through to voicemail. She couldn’t talk to him right now. Couldn’t hear his voice without wanting to scream. On the fourth call, she picked up the phone and blocked his number entirely.
But blocking Ben didn’t make the pain go away. It didn’t erase the look on Noah’s face when he told her she had already made her choice. It didn’t undo the kiss or the lies or the weeks of deception. It didn’t bring Noah back.
Nora got up from the couch and stumbled to the kitchen. Her legs felt weak, unsteady, like they might give out at any moment. She opened the cabinet where they kept the alcohol, bottles they had bought for entertaining guests that had never come, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.
She didn’t bother with a glass. She twisted off the cap and drank straight from the bottle, the liquid burning her throat and warming her empty stomach. She had barely eaten all day, had been too anxious about confronting Noah to think about food. Now the whiskey hit her system fast and hard.
Nora carried the bottle back to the living room and sank onto the couch. She drank and drank, trying to numb the pain that was threatening to swallow her whole. Trying to forget the devastation in Noah’s eyes. Trying to silence the voice in her head that kept repeating his words: You’ve already made your choice. You just don’t want to admit it yet.
The room started to blur around the edges. The photos on the coffee table became indistinct shapes. Her thoughts grew fuzzy and disconnected. She took another long drink from the bottle, then another, until the whiskey stopped burning and started feeling almost pleasant.
Her phone buzzed again. Not Ben this time, but her sister Sussie. Nora stared at the name on the screen, remembering their recent reconciliation, remembering how convenient it had been that both Sussie and Ben had come back into her life at the same time. Had that been planned too? Had they coordinated their approach?
She let that call go to voicemail as well. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Didn’t want to explain what had happened. Didn’t want to hear sympathy or judgment or advice. She just wanted to drink until she couldn’t feel anymore.
The bottle was half empty now, or maybe half full, Nora couldn’t quite remember which way that saying went. Her head felt heavy, disconnected from her body. The apartment was spinning slowly, like a carousel winding down.
She thought about Noah’s face again. The hurt in his eyes. The way his voice had broken when he said he loved her. The way he had looked at her one last time before walking out the door, like he was memorizing her face, like he knew it was the last time he would see her.
“I’m sorry,” Nora whispered to the empty room, her words slurring together. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”
Nora took another drink, and another, until the bottle slipped from her fingers and rolled onto the floor. She didn’t bother picking it up. She just curled up on the couch, pulling her knees to her chest, and let the alcohol pull her down into darkness.
She slept fitfully, her dreams a chaotic mess of fragmented images. Noah walking away over and over again. Ben’s manipulative smile. Her children’s faces on that video call. The photographs scattered across the table. All of it swirling together into a nightmare she couldn’t escape.
When Nora woke up the next morning, the sunlight streaming through the windows felt like knives stabbing into her skull. Her head pounded with a vicious hangover, her mouth tasted like something had died in it, and her body ached from sleeping in an awkward position on the couch.
For a moment, she couldn’t remember why she felt so terrible. Then it all came flooding back.
“Noah?” she called out, her voice hoarse and cracking. Maybe he had come back during the night.
But there was no answer. The apartment was silent except for the sound of her own ragged breathing.
She stumbled toward the bedroom, hoping against hope that Noah was there, that he had simply been too angry to respond when she called his name. But the bedroom was empty. The bed was neatly made, untouched from yesterday morning.
That was when Nora noticed that some of Noah’s things were missing. His laptop that usually sat on the desk. The backpack he took to work. Some clothes from the closet. He hadn’t just left in anger last night. He had come back at some point while she was passed out drunk and packed his things.
Panic seized Nora’s chest. This wasn’t just a fight. This wasn’t just Noah cooling off for a night. He had left. Really left.
She rushed to the bathroom, hoping to find some sign that he was coming back, but more of his toiletries were gone. His toothbrush, his razor, his deodorant. All of it missing, leaving empty spaces on the counter that felt like accusations.
“No, no, no,” Nora muttered, running back to the living room. Her phone was dead, so she plugged it in with shaking hands and waited for it to power back on. The seconds felt like hours.
Finally, the screen lit up. She immediately pulled up her messages, looking for something from Noah. An explanation. An address where she could find him. Anything.
But there were no messages from Noah. Instead, there was a note. Not on her phone, but on the coffee table, tucked under one of the photographs. In her panic and hangover fog, she had missed it.
Nora picked up the note with trembling hands. It was written on a page torn from one of Noah’s notebooks, his handwriting rushed and slightly shaky, like he had written it quickly, emotionally.
She read the words, and her heart shattered into a million pieces.
Nora,
I know I can’t compete with the place Ben has in your heart. I’ve known it for a while now, but I kept hoping I was wrong. I kept hoping that what we had was enough, that I was enough.
But I’m not. And that’s okay. I don’t blame you for loving him. He’s the father of your children. He was your husband first. He represents a life and a family that I can never give you.
As much as I love you, and I do love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, I don’t want to fight for something that was never really mine. I don’t want to be the person standing in the way of you and the life you actually want.
You deserve to be happy, Nora. You deserve to have your children back, to rebuild your family, to have all the things that were taken from you. And if Ben can give you that, then I won’t stand in your way.
I hope you find everything you’re looking for. I hope you get your happy ending, even if I’m not part of it.
Goodbye, Nora.
Noah
The note slipped from Nora’s fingers and fluttered back to the table. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t process what she had just read. Then, all at once, the truth hit her with devastating clarity.
She loved Noah. She was actually, truly, completely in love with Noah.
Not Ben. Not the ghost of her old life. Not the fantasy of getting her children back and playing happy family. She loved Noah, the man who had saved her, who had stood by her, who had loved her unconditably even when she was at her worst.
“No,” Nora sobbed, grabbing her phone. “No, no, no, please no.”
She tried to call him, her fingers fumbling with the screen. The phone rang once, then went straight to a message: “The number you are trying to reach is not available.”
Blocked. He had blocked her number.
She tried texting him anyway, her fingers flying across the keyboard through her tears: “Noah, please. I’m so sorry. Please talk to me. I love you. I’m in love with you. Please don’t do this.”
The message showed as sent, but there was no indication it had been delivered. The blocking feature had stopped it from going through.
Nora tried social media next, opening every app where they were connected. But Noah had blocked her everywhere. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, everywhere. Every single platform where she might be able to reach him, he had systematically cut her off.
She called his number again and again, each time getting the same automated message. She sent emails that bounced back. She tried everything she could think of, every possible way to contact him.
But Noah was gone. And he had made sure she couldn’t follow.
Nora sank to the floor, her phone clutched in her hand, and cried. She cried for what she had lost. She cried for the love she had been too blind to see until it was too late. She cried for the future they could have had, should have had, if only she hadn’t been so stupid.
“I love you,” she whispered through her sobs, knowing he would never hear it. “I’m in love with you, Noah. Please come back. Please.”
But the apartment remained silent. Just Nora and her grief and the devastating realization that she had destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to her.
And there was no way to get it back.