All Was Spoken

“Noah,” Claire said gingerly, then, exlaimed with more sureness, “Noah!” 

Noah’s head snapped, too quickly to be casual, in the direction of her voice. 

“Hello?” he questioned. 

At the sound of Claire’s voice, his presence and character became more precise, more measured; it was as if he were being graded on how he carried himself. He brought himself to clear his throat, adjust his clothes, run a swift and tremulous hand through his hair, and straighten his spine. Noah could be seen as nothing but pristine, always devine, to those who laid their eyes upon him. As time went on and he had yet to see the owner of the voice who had called him, he began to wonder if it was just his own mind playing tricks on him. I could’ve sworn I had heard her voice, he thought to himself. This would not have been unordinary for Noah, it was his mind’s favorite pastime to play tricks on him these days. 

“It’s me. Claire,” she spoke still a tad unsurely. 

At these words, Noah was unsure if she could really be standing before him; and it seemed so that Claire thought the same thing. 

“It is you, Noah, right?” she wondered. 

Noah did not know whether or not to believe this beautiful image his mind had placed behind his eyes. He could not remember the last time he had seen her; and nowー as if the image of her face was a sort of antidote to his amnesia ー he could think of nothing but the last time he saw her. Their tangled history and feelings flooded his mind and compelled him to apprehensively reach forth his hand and feel the realness of Claire’s skin upon his own. 

They travelled silently to the park bench, partially lighted only by the single street light some feet away, which flickered with each violent stir of midnight wind, and buzzed at all passing moths. There they sat, for what seemed like moments, in silence, and then, in slightly and hesitant conversation, that which you’d make with a not-so-close acquaintance. These moments were the practices before the games, they were merely pulling up and preparing the contents that needed the most yanking; the subjects that which they wanted to expose the most, yet also hide the best. 

After a long while, Noah finally spoke. 

“Are you happy?” he asked Claire. 

She painted a misshapen smile on her face, looking off into the darkness around them. 

“Are you?” she replied. 

“No, no I am not!” Noah exclaimed remorsefully. “But how could I be? I may have been a happier man were I at loss of true emotion, if I hadn’t given into my pride when it first fought back; however, these things abated themselves in my mind. Now, I walk around as if I am living a life of dreams; I walk through life wrapped in the skin of another man, one I cannot shed! Claire, I am miserable!” 

Claire looked within his eyes ー once light and youthful, now shadowed and dim ー and was not sure what to say. His full expression of emotion brought to light the deep pain Claire had inflicted on this poor man. No matter that her intentions were honest, the path she would’ve so easily chosen for herself, had she been given the chance, was now proving itself to be more worrisome and tortuous than she had first believed. This had ultimately led her to expose the matter she had taken so long to dig up. 

“Once light and youthful, now shadowed and dim.”

“Noah! Please forgive me!” she explained rather surprisingly. “I have tried to be true in all things, and the moment I stray is when it matters the most. When it came to protecting your name and your life, I threw my truth away. I left because your father threatened disownment if I did not! I am truly sorry, I thought the path I chose for you would be better than this path you now trudge along!” 

With this, Noah looked at her with a fleeting moment of violence and hatred that could’ve only been established within his character in the time that they had lost. He then turned his head away, as if he could not bear to look at her, and buried his face in his palms. 

After a moment, he finally returned to their little park bench; “Do you know what sorrow, what shame, I have been through during this time? I cannot forgive you for this.” 

“Please, forgive me!” Claire bellowed, wrapping her hands around his outturned arms. 

The look of distaste and disapproval sitting on his face was unbearable to her. She could receive the looks and torment from his father and whoever else, but coming from him, it was worse than anything she could’ve imagined. She begged and pleaded with him to forgive her, not letting him out of her grasp during the entirety. 

After repeating her pleas, Noah solemnly replied, “I forgive you Claire.” 

And that was that. She held him tight in her embrace, as if he might swiftly slither away; however, he had given into her and accepted the grasp she gifted him. 

“How must I live now?” Noah questioned. “Am I to live as I have been, in this fit of despair? How am I to walk into my home knowing that my own father could do such a thing to me? Please, help me. You are strong, be strong for me too!” 

“You can move on. You can leave this life and begin a new one; a life full of happiness and free of condemnation,” Claire replied strongly. “You are neither limited to this small park bench, nor this city.” 

“No, I can’t. I can’t run from disapproval and judgment, it will follow me everywhere; nor is there any courage or bravery left in me to accomplish such a thing alone!” Noah said shamefully. 

“You won’t be alone,” Claire whispered.