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Surfer Boy's name was Noah, Noah Hilton.
I wondered if he was somehow related to the famous Tyler Hilton...
Very unlikely, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was.
Noah was a sophomore at Providence and was majoring in photography. I found that completely fascinating and quite sexy.
His dorm was on the floor below mine and his roommate was some Drew Nash guy-
"Why are you looking at the student directory?" I jumped in my seat and immediately covered the computer screen with my hands. I turned my head slowly and smiled freakishly at my roommate, who had been hovering over me.
"Nothing," I said quickly, shaking my head at Alex. "I'm not on the school website."
"But I just saw you-"
"You're not wearing your glasses," I pointed out slowly, squinting my eyes. Alex's hands shot up to her face.
"I'm not wearing my glasses," She repeated. She began looking around our room feverishly and I knew I had managed to keep her occupied for the next fifteen minutes or so.
"You might have left them in the dining hall," I suggested, even though I knew very well she had left them in the laundry room.
Give me a break. The dining hall was further than the laundry room. If I was going to find anything else out about Noah, I sure couldn't do it with my roommate breathing down my neck.
Talk about freaky.
"Dining hall?" Alex asked herself, her face scrunching up in confusion. "But my shrink forbids me to go into the dining hall. Why would my glasses be-"
"Maybe they're in the laundry room," I confessed. I just wanted Alex to leave at that point so I could get back to my "research" in private. I wasn't very big on telling the whole world about my personal life.
Okay, so Alex wasn't "the whole world" but she did count for half the population in our room.
And okay, browsing the internet wasn't my part of my "personal life" but what can I say? I was a woman of mystery.
Alex had obviously believed me-she should have; it was true, afterall-because the next thing I knew, she was running out into the hall with her red hair flying behind her.
I waited a few moments before deciding it was safe to remove my hands from the computer screen. I turned my torso in my chair one last time to check that Alex wasn't standing behind me. When I saw she wasn't, I went back to reading the student directory.
Finding out Surfer Boy's real name wasn't as hard and challenging as I had expected it to be. I had thought it would have taken me hours to track him down and I even pictured myself going around, asking random people if they knew who he was or even what floor he was on.
I never would have gone through with it, though. Asking random people, I mean. What am I, a stalker? Please.
.....
Alright, so I was on the verge of stalking, but I didn't follow him to his room or anything! He actually came to me.
Sort of.
I was sitting in Starbucks one afternoon with the paper in my hands, sipping an overly priced cup of coffee when Noah and another guy walked in. They ended up sitting at the table in front of mine, Noah having his back to me. Suddenly feeling like a famous actress in a spy movie, I held my newspaper so it was covering almost half of my face. With songs by Damien Rice lightly playing in the background, it was easy to overhear what they were saying.
I had to admit, hearing Noah's voice in an actual conversation was much better than just hearing him ask for dryer sheets. He had a natural persuasive tone that made him sound like a born negotiator, or someone involved with a mafia.
Anyway, boys being boys, I heard the other guy call Noah, "Hilton" and I soon realized that that was his last name. I quickly made a mental note, finished my cup of coffee, and headed out.
According to Providence's student directory, there was only one Hilton in the Vander Building-the building I lived in-and although there wasn't a description of his gorgeous features or anything, I was pretty sure Noah Hilton was the guy I was looking for.
For God's sake, he even looked like a Noah.
I didn't expect for the student directory to have every detail of his life. It didn't list his address or anything extremely personal, just a lot of random stuff that, I'm sure, made his parents very proud. Apparently, Noah was on Providence's semi-good football team and had been ever since freshman year. He wasn't quarterback or some other position I would have been familiar with, though. His number was 68 and he played as something called a "defense end," whatever that was.
He was from New York and had won some huge regional photography contest that earned him a few scholarships. He was Vice-President of Providence's Photography Club-I didn't know there was such a thing-and had been class Historian all throughout high school. He did track-we had something in common!-and set a record at his old school for the two-hundred meter dash.
And that wasn't even a fifth of it. As I continued to scroll down the page, I came to the conclusion that my life was officially boring. Seriously, what the heck had I accomplished in the past four years? Certainly not being voted "Most Likely To Succeed" in my senior year of high school!
I pushed out my bottom lip and frowned pathetically. I was worthless. I was stupid. I needed to go out and do something! So, suddenly having an urge to go out and accomplish something, I closed the student directory and got up from my chair. I finally found my car keys after a few seconds of searching and exited my room, being sure to keep the door unlocked.
Alex always had a tendency to forget her key, and then when she would get locked out, she would blame me.
"You always have your key, Justine, so you never give me a chance to use mine," She had said. "So, maybe, you need to stop being so selfish and responsible and actually think of others."
Yeah. Whatever, Alex.
Including the ten minute walk to my car from my building, it took me exactly half an hour to get to Borders. I had given up on the whole "accomplishing something" idea. My mind grew bored of trying to think of ways I could make a difference in the world after the first few seconds. Wasn't there a secret society that did stuff like that, anyway?
I walked across the street-checking both ways before doing so, of course-and pulled open the heavy green door. The first thing I noticed about Borders was that it seriously needed a new color scheme. The second thing I noticed was that it was empty. That surprised me considering it was a Saturday afternoon with a "Buy two books, get third free!" sale going on.
I ran my hand through my hair and checked my back pocket for my wallet, making sure it was still there. It was. Knowing this, I immediately started towards the magazines. My eyes skimmed past Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire and didn't stop until they rested upon the latest issue of "Seventeen." Smiling, I reached out and picked it up, not even flipping through the pages before tucking it under my arm and moving away from the rack.
My bangs fell in front of my eyes as I turned around. I shook my head and continued to browse, this time, in the Young Adult section of books.
A girl around twelve or thirteen was browsing in the YA section, too. She looked at me rather curiously when I picked up a book by Meg Cabot and began reading the summary on the back. A few moments later, I opened the book to the first page and began reading that, too-I always read the first page of a book before I buy it, just to see if it grabs my attention.
My smile grew wider as Meg Cabot's humorous writing style jumped out at me. I had been about to snap the book shut-I was totally going to buy it-when I heard a small "click." I looked over to my left and saw a beautiful black camera about ten feet (3 meters) away from me.
The "click" sound went off again.
I looked over my right shoulder. There must have been a gorgeous supermodel or even a celebrity behind me, after all, this person couldn't be taking a picture of me.
But, no, there wasn't a famous supermodel or a celebrity behind me, just another bookcase and the same little girl.
The "click" went off for the third time.
Feeling a little freaked out, I furrowed my eyebrows at the mysterious photographer and started to walk away-
"Hey," The photographer was a man, "Don't I know you?"
Oh, God. Please, tell me he wasn't going to use a stupid pickup line and say something like, "Weren't you on the cover of Glamour last month?"
I turned back around, ready to tell him he must have been mistaken and I ended up gawking.
It was him.
Noah. At least I'm pretty sure that was his name.
He was holding his camera carefully in his hands, revealing his familiar face. He was wearing the same pair of black and white Vans and the same watch and wrist band he had been wearing when I first saw him. A teal Polo collared shirt and a shredded pair of Armani jeans finished off his "I-can-be-casual-and-sexy-at-the-same-time" look.
"I do know you." He smiled and moved his bangs out of his eyes without the help of his hands. Skill. I almost drooled. "You're the girl who gave me dryer sheets."
Okay, dreamy moment over.
What a way to be remembered. Dryer Sheet Girl. Seriously, wow.
Hence the sarcasm.
I continued to stare.
"Right, sorry," Noah quickly explained. "I didn't mean to startle you, or freak you out with this-" He waved his camera in front of him. "I just carry this thing around with me, in hopes of catching something, anything. And, well, you were there-"
"It's okay," I said, trying to sound casual, as if being photographed by random attractive men was something that happened to me every day.
"I just thought the entire concept was completely, I don't even know," He kept going. "I mean, a girl-woman of your age, reading Seventeen and a kid's book. You just don't see that every day, you know?"
Meg Cabot is not for kids!
"Sure." I nodded anyway. Noah was obviously in his own little world. He couldn't tell if my nodd had meaning behind it or not.
"I can totally see it now." He spaced out. "The title, I mean. 'Take time to grow.' Yes. I love it."
Title? Title for what?
"Black and white? No. Black and white would make it look washed out." He was still ranting. "Color. Definitely, color."
"Excuse me, um..." I played dumb and pretended to not know his name.
"Oh!" He came back down to Earth. "Noah. I'm Noah Hilton, sorry."
Ah-HA! His name was Noah! I knew he looked like a Noah, I knew it!
"It's okay," I repeated. "But, what are you talking about? Color for what?"
"Well, you see, I major in photography," He waved his camera for a second time, "And I'm vice-president of the photography club at school."
Really? I had no idea.
"I'm building up a portfolio, for future resumes and job interviews and stuff like that." Noah kept smiling. I could tell this was a true passion of his. "And, honestly, I'm really digging these pictures of you."
I didn't know whether to smile at his "compliment" or laugh at the fact that he just used the word "digging" in a sentence. I decided to take the first route.
"Would you like to see them?" Noah offered, walking closer to me.
Even though I hated having my picture taken, especially when I don't know when one's being taken of me, I nodded.
Noah stood next to me and held the camera just below my face. His thumb pressed a few buttons and eventually, a clear shot of me appeared on the screen.
My eyes widened and my mouth fell open.
"Do you like it?" I heard Noah ask right by my ear.
Did I like it? Did I like it?! I wanted Noah to print out multiple copies of it and send it to every modeling agency in the world! I wanted to hang it on my refrigerator just below my Calculus test, that I made a ninety on, in my room! I wanted to glue it on a paper bag and wear it over my head so others would see that instead of the real me!
Uh, yeah I liked it!
"How'd you do that?" I asked stupidly, still stunned that I was staring at myself and not at an ad on a bilboard.
It was a side shot. My baggy jeans covered most of my pink slip-on Vans and my candy red belt hung loosely over my hips. My hair was messy in that "I-just-got-attacked-by-a-group-of-five-year-olds" kind of way and surprsingly, it didn't bother me. The title of my magazine was clearly visible under my arm, as was the title of the book I had been holding. I was smiling naturally at whatever I was thinking about at that moment-why couldn't my smile be that nice for my yearbook pictures? The "Young Adult" sign hung right over my head and the little girl, who had been standing next to me, wasn't making a curious face like she had been when I saw her. Instead, she was reading the exact same book as I was, adding more of a youthness to the photo.
The neatest thing, however, was that, somehow, Noah had managed to make my eyes shine, even though there wasn't much light. For the first time, my eyes looked like their actual color; hazel. Normally in pictures, they looked like an ugly shade of brown.
And just for being able to catch my natural eye color on film, I fell in love with Noah the way that a Fall Out Boy fan would with Pete Wentz.
"Do you think, you could...um..." My voice trailed off because I had suddenly become aware that Noah was practically breathing in my ear. My nose filled with the scent of spearmint gum, my favorite.
"You want a copy?" Noah finished my sentence and smiled. I nodded eagerly, causing him to laugh. I liked his laugh. I wanted him to laugh again. "I'll make you one, don't worry. Anything my source of inspiration wants, she gets."
I mentally glowed with pride.
Was that even possible?
"Thanks," I whispered as Noah pulled his camera away from my eyes. I frowned.
"By the way," I turned up my head to look up at him. Had I mentioned that this guy was freakin' tall? "Does my source of inspiration have a name?"
"Justine. Justine Hankins." I stepped away from him so he could, if he wanted to, get a full view of my profile. I was, afterall, his muse. Sort of.
"Justine Hankins," He whispered, squinting his eyes, making him appear serious. "Very 'modely' name."
Thank you, Mom. Or Dad. Or whoever decided to name me.
"Well, I'll let you shop. Goodbye Justine Hankins. I hope we have more random run-ins in the future." He gave one last grin, turned his back, and started to walk away. But just as he took one two steps, he turned around suddenly and took a quick picture of me, most likely, smiling like an idiot.
"Kristy, he's amazing!" I repeated for the millionth time over the phone as I laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, he owns a camera! How cool is that?"
"Pretty cool." Kristy seemed bored and uninterested, but I couldn't stop.
"And his name is Noah! Like Ryan Gosling from The Notebook!" I squealed at the coincidence I had noticed earlier. "How awesome is that?!"
I had to admit, I was definitely overreacting. I practically just met Noah-if you consider a question about dryer sheets and a completely random conversation in Borders, meeting-and I was already the number one fan of his "I-Heart-Hilton" fan club. Heck, I didn't even know the guy!
"And he does this thing with his hair where, get this, he doesn't even use his hands-"
"Justine!" Kristy screamed out of nowhere on the other line, cutting me off. "He took a few pictures of you in a store! So, what? Big deal!"
I furrowed my eyebrows and sat up, taken aback by the tone in my best friend's voice.
"What's with you?" I asked, sounding more rude than I had meant to.
"Just..." Her voice trailed off. "Nothing. Sorry. I'm stressed out."
I knew there was more to her sudden outburst but decided to not push it any further.
"It's okay," I whispered. "I'll let you go, Kristy. You should get some sleep-"
"Please call him, Justine," she said quickly. My hand gripped the phone tightly and my body tensed as all the blood rushed to my head and began pounding into my temples. "He misses you-"
"That's crap," I mumbled. I was one second away from losing my temper and screaming.
"It is not!" She protested. "He misses you, Justine! He still cares about you-"
"Just stay out of this, Kristy!" I snapped. I was so tired of talking and thinking about Brennon every day. Why couldn't everyone get it through their thick heads that we were over and that nothing, no matter what anyone said, was going to change that?!
Why couldn't they understand that it was killing me to even mention his name?!
Why couldn't they understand that that old part of my life was gone? I used to hang on every word that came out of Brennon's mouth. I would stare longingly into his gorgeous gray eyes, hoping that one day, they would look back at me and see me as more than a best friend. Every memory, every conversation, every feeling I've had around him could be recited at the top of my head. I was never happier when I was with him, playing Dance Dance Revolution in my room and eating chocolate chip waffles with peanut butter on them.
But I just didn't want to go through it all again. I couldn't afford to put my life on hold for someone who wasn't able to keep a promise or guard a fragile heart with their life. I couldn't afford to be distracted by someone who lived eight hours away, not now, not ever. I wanted to start over. I didn't want to be that self-conscious little girl in high school who was in love with her best friend. He had been the best part of my life and at the same time, the absolute worst. He knew every childish secret and every embarrassing moment I've had to endure. He could finish my sentences for me when I couldn't find the right words. He knew me inside and out. And I knew that Brennon would manage to, somehow, bring out the old part of me if I were to talk to him. Everytime I would look at him, I would be seeing that self-conscious and scared little girl in high school all over again.
Why was it so hard for someone to understand that?
I watched my phone out of the corner of my eyes, taking off my headphone every few seconds just in case it would ring.
"Dude, you've got to get out." I looked up from my lying position on my bed and saw Ben hovering over me. I cut off my iPod and pulled the uncomfortable headphones out of my ears. "C'mon. We're all going out tonight."
I closed my eyes and stuck the headphones back in, drowning out whatever my roommate had to say. I didn't care. I didn't want to go out. I wanted to stay in my room and wait for a call from Kristy. I needed to hear from her. Ever since I had called her over two weeks ago, we had been talking more and more. I was pretty sure she was still a little cold towards me-who wouldn't be-but, I could tell she was slowly starting to get where I had been coming from.
I still didn't know where Justine attended school or what she was majoring in or even if she was visiting for Thanksgiving, and it killed me. But knowing something was better than knowing nothing at all. So, instead, she told me what had happened in the past year. The year I had missed.
I listened carefully to everything I was told and searched for any hidden meanings. So far, I had found none. One thing I had found out, though, was that I always felt like shit whenever my conversation with Kristy ended. Three years ago, I never would have guessed I would be cabable of causing so much damage and pain for the one girl I loved.
Like Kristy had said, it wasn't me.
I was going insane. I could see Justine's eyes whenever I closed mine and I was even starting to hear her screams in the middle of class. I had that same nightmare every night and because of it, I grew more anxious for Kristy's phone calls when I woke up. Even though she kept Justine's life a secret, surely she would mention if Justine had moved on, right? I mean, I hadn't moved on. I told Kristy this numerous times and I wondered if she hinted to Justine that I missed her. Just because Justine didn't want me to know about her college life didn't mean she couldn't know about mine, right?
Did Justine even want to know?
My eyes snapped open as soon as I heard Ben close the door. I yanked out the headphones and kicked my iPod under my bed. I reached over and grabbed my Razr from my desk, flipping it open. I sighed as I read, "No Missed Calls" and snapped it shut.
I closed my eyes for a second time and continued to lie on my unmade bed. I knew very well that I still had a ton of Physics homework that needed to be turned in by midnight to my professor, but all of a sudden, it didn't seem so important.
Everything didn't seem important to me, anymore. I was slacking off in every class and sometimes, I wouldn't even go. In the end, though, I knew it would all catch up to me. Once my parents would see my grades-I couldn't hide my test scores from them forever-it would all be over. They couldn't ground me when I was at college but they sure could when I came to visit. And never being allowed to leave the house would mean never being able to see Justine. If she decided to come back home, that is.
I snapped my eyes open and sat up, feeling a little nauseus from lying down for so long. I took a deep breath and grabbed my Physics book from underneath my bed. I found a pencil off the floor and managed to scrounge up a blank sheet of paper.
I scribbled my name in the right hand corner like I used to in fifth grade, and began my assignment.
You say hello, inside I'm screaming I love you.
You say goodnight, in my mind,
I'm sleeping next to you.
You drive away from my car crash of a heart,
And I don't know.
But you gave me the best mixtape I have,
And even all the bad songs ain't so bad.
I only wish there was so much more than that,
About me and you.
You talk to him, inside it burns me like the sun.
You talk to her, and you say that you feel like he's the one.
I talk to me, but you can't hear the pain I feel.
You don't know.
MixTape by Butch Walker
Thanks for reading! <3 Erin
