Any Day Now

Ellie, Age 13

Ellie Harper. 

Ellie Noah Harper. 

Mrs Noah Harper. 

Just scribbled words on a page, but the shape of them in my eyes, the sound they make in my head, is enough to make my heart pound louder than if a bomb were to go off right in my room. The mental images they invoke make my cheeks heat up. Noah kissing me with those full, pouty lips whenever he wants. His big, strong arms around me whenever I want. That dimpled smile on his handsome face, just for me. Him saying his wedding vows. To me. We’ll have the prettiest, smartest, bravest, nicest, most athletic babies.

“Whatcha doing?”

I jolt up and reflexively snap the pages shut before whipping my head around to glare at Bri. “Can’t you ever knock?!”

My best friend plants herself down next to me on my bed, stomach-down like I am. “Mooning over Nolan again?”

“Noah.” I correct through gritted teeth. She knows it’s Noah. God knows I chant it enough times through the day like a prayer. 

Rolling her eyes, she rests on her side, propping up on an elbow. “You do realize he’s too good to be true, right? Mr Straight-A grades, captain of the Lacrosse team, plays the guitar, is rich and hot but kind, treats girls with respect, fights bullies during the week and volunteers on weekends…the guy’s a caricature. No 14-year old is like that. There’s something wrong with him. Bet you he’s a secret serial killer with a dark side or something.” She snorts. “At least that’d make him less boring.”

“Noah is not boring!” I hiss in defense of the boy I fell for at first glance a year ago. “Or a serial killer. He’s…good and perfect.”

“He also doesn’t know that you exist.” She quips dryly.

“He does too!” I claim indignantly. 

Okay, fine, so he hasn’t actually ever asked me out or anything, but those incessant, loaded looks he gives me, any time I see him? They’re fire. They linger on me like I’m the only thing worth staring at, the only thing he sees. He’s never the one to look away. Always the one steadily holding the gaze, even when his friends are around him. It’s a marvel they haven’t noticed yet. I’m the mousy chickenshit who gets clammy hands, a galloping pulse, and a sandpaper-dry throat every time those blue eyes lock with my gray ones with an intensity I don’t know how to process. So I’m the one who looks or walks away before I do something stupid like blurt out I love you forever and ever to his face. And even when I’m going away, his eyes follow me until I’m out of his sight.

Bri thinks I’m crazy. I don’t care. I know what I see. I know what I feel.

And I know he’s going to say something to me. 

Any day now.

Ellie, Age 15

A girlfriend. He has a girlfriend. Pretty and cool and witty, always ready with the right thing to say. Wanna claw her eyes out.

Just when I’d decided over the summer break I was gonna make the first move, because he simply wasn’t and I was tired of waiting. I like you.

I like how you always help everyone, especially that douchebag Dylan even when you know he’s a petty little shit who’s jealous of you. I like how you’re with your little sister, sweet and funny and protective. I like the way you run your hand through your dark brown hair, all bashful, when someone gives you a compliment. I love how you always do the right thing, even when it’s hard. I love how you know so many things about so many things. I love how smart you are but you never rub it in anyone’s face.  

Just that. That’s all I had to say.

I was too late.

And now they’re holding hands all the time, he’s putting his mouth on hers, taking her on dates, walking with her to and from school--

“El, for the love of God, stop moping over Nemo and his cheerleader girlfriend.” Bri chides, exasperated, and plucks the book I have in my hand. “You’ve been stuck on that one page for the last hour. The Algebra assignment isn’t going to do itself.”

“Noah.” I amend dully. “Not Nemo.”

“Who cares?! Get it together, you ninny.” She rolls the book and swats me on the back of my head with it. 

“Hey!” I grumble weakly, unable to summon the verve to properly tell her off.

“You’re out of your moronic mind! Tyler asked you out on the last day of school last year and you told him you like someone else?! Tyler, one of the most popular boys in the school, told you he liked you! That guy is legit! And you said…” She trails off, increasingly frustrated. “You’re seriously taking this bizarre obsession too far!”

Is that what did this? Tyler told me he liked me in front of Noah. Noah was right there in the library, his summer gaze piercing into me, tight and indecipherable. I shut Tyler down immediately, but what followed was two months of ghosting from Noah where I didn’t see him all summer, and then bam--he’s together with some girl?

It hurts. 

I ache for him. He’s never had a girlfriend before. She’s his first. She’s taking all his firsts. All that were supposed to be mine. 

Did I really imagine the last three years of those looks I felt all the way to my soul?

No, that’s not…no. They were real. What he showed me, it was real. And even now, sometimes, if I look closely, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Not like it used to. I should know, I’ve studied every subtlety, every change in his face like it’s a graded subject over the years.

I don’t know what it means, but I have to hold on to it. That he feels like something’s missing too. That he’s not fully happy with someone that’s not me.

I’ll wait for him. 

If he wants to be with someone else for now, I won’t be the girl that comes in the way of that. It’s timing. That’s all it’s got to be.

Because he’s supposed to end up with me. That’s the way it’s meant to be. I know it in my bones. He’ll find his way to me.

He will.

Any day now.

Ellie, Age 19

“What’s going on? Why’re you all looking at me like that?” I scan the living room when I enter my parents’ house. Bri, mom, dad, my brother Jake, Aunt Sheila, Uncle Dan, all stand in a weird semi-circle, arms crossed on their chests, staring me down with a blend of resolve and pity.

Bri, ever the bandaid ripper, spells it for me. “It’s an intervention, El.”

Goddammit, not this again. I’ve been avoiding coming over during breaks, preferring to live in the empty dorms, for exactly this reason. Every single time I’m home, it’s the same thing. You have to get over it. This has gone on long enough. You’re in college and you’ve never had a serious relationship. This isn’t healthy.

“We think you should see a therapist.” Bri, clearly the representative of the band, tells me. “I found a good one and made an appointment for you. All you have to do is show up.”

I seethe. It was fine until their interference was limited to unsolicited opinions, but this? This is crossing a serious line. “I took a red eye to spend Christmas here because you guys asked me to. And this is what you ambush me with?”

Mom shuffles closer, concern writ large on her face as she cups my cheek. “El, pumpkin, we love you. We’re worried about you. All we want is for you to be happy, and it’s been years since we saw you truly, genuinely happy with anything.”

“You went to a college on the other side of the country because of…” Dad pauses with a frown, looking at Bri.

“Norman.” She supplies.

“Noah.” I snap.  

“Right, Noah.” Dad says, rubbing the back of his neck. Conflict makes him deeply uncomfortable, so I can only imagine what this whole scene is doing to him. But he trudges along, “You went to college there because apparently he did, and we didn’t say anything because we thought you’d be happy there.”

I would’ve been happy, had it not been for Noah and his revolving door of girlfriends. One after the other, without any gaps between them. But never me. I followed him to college so I could be near him, and he’s the furthest he’s ever been from me. 

What did I do wrong?

Why wasn’t I enough?

I waited.

I watched.

I followed.

I’ve saved all my firsts for him. 

And it doesn’t seem like he wants them anymore. He’s going out of his way to make that clear.

But if he’s not mine, I don’t know where I belong. 

“I’m fine.” I swallow and push past the lump in my throat.

“No, you’re not.” Bri powers through, not cutting me any slack. “You’re still living in some fantasy where you’re in love with the idea of that guy, and it’s ruining your life. Tyler has been so patient--he’s been your friend, he’s asked you out a hundred times and he’s somehow stuck around despite you rejecting him a hundred times. El, he’s not going to be around much longer if you keep treating him like shit.”

My eyes sting. He has. Tyler has been my rock. We’re in the same college, and he’s become one of my best friends. He knows what I feel for Noah. And he’s never judged me or made me feel like shit for wanting someone who doesn’t want me back. 

When mom’s warm, soft hand circles around my shoulders, her familiar, comforting vanilla scent filling my senses, my tether breaks, and I fall sobbing into her embrace. 

Everyone starts saying something, all of them talking over each other. I can’t hear any of them over the din of my thoughts.

I wish…I wish I’d fall for Tyler. I wish for something, anything, that’ll take away this gut-wrenching pain of unrequited love that’s now my constant companion.

I just don’t know how.

My heart is so full of Noah that it doesn’t have space for anyone else. I can’t get rid of him. Even though he’s been different for the past two years--he won’t look at me directly anymore. He’s cocky and likes to get around and I just…I don’t know him anymore.

But I can’t stop craving him. The old him. The boy who snuck into my heart and never left.

I can’t stop waiting for him. 

Wanting him.

Hoping for…any day now.

Noah, Age 21

You have to kill me, Matt. It’s the only way.

“No!” Matt says furiously, his fingers flying on the keyboard. “I won’t let you go. I can’t. She’ll get over it.”

She won’t, Matt.

“I don’t care!” He yells, hammering the keys. “I’m not going to do away with you because of some silly girl!”

I am because of that silly girl. I was a thought you created until she woke me up. Matt, I exist because of her, for her, and I can’t tell her. And it’s killing her and breaking me. She’s fading because I won’t end.

“Damn it, there has to be another way.” He sounds desperate, in denial. I don’t blame him. Neither of us saw this coming. Neither of us saw her coming. Ellie Smith, with her golden curls and bright gray eyes, a smile that lights up my world even when it’s closed and dark.

There isn’t, I persist. We’ve tried everything in my stories. Ignoring her, avoiding her, pretending interest in others where I have none, turning me from a good guy into an asshole. She won’t change. Her heart’s too loyal. Too patient. Too hopeful. As long as I exist, it’s going to beat for me. She’s going to waste herself pining over someone who can’t ever give her everything she deserves. I can’t let that be her life. I can’t let it be anything less than extraordinary. That’s what she made mine. Please, I’m begging you. Kill me so she can live.

He doesn’t reply for a while. When he does, it’s defeated. “You were supposed to be my best friend, you know. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I know. And I am your best friend. But she’s…mine. Will you tell her that for me? That she was it for me too?

He’s gone after that.

An hour later, so am I.

Ellie, Age 20

“El, sweetheart, there’s someone here for you.”

It’s probably just more sane, rational people coming helpfully to tell me that I’m a lunatic to hold this funeral. I get it. There’s an empty casket, for crying out loud. His family didn’t know me. I was no one to him. Of course I wasn’t invited to his actual funeral. What was I supposed to do but hold one just for myself? I’m pathetic. I don’t care. “I don’t want to meet anyone, mom.” 

“El, you need to see this guy.” Bri pipes up with an urgency I don’t understand.

Noah’s dead, the pang in my heart bruises right on cue. What’s the rush? “I told you, I don’t--”

“Yes, you freaking do.” She squats down on her knees so she can meet my eyes where I’m crouched in a ball on the couch. 

I frown. She looks…stupefied, dazed. And is that regret joining the party on her face?

“It’s Matt Crowley.”

The name’s familiar. 

He’s…oh God, he made my Noah.

And he finished my Noah.

I dart up in a sitting position, ready to run to him to...I’m not sure what yet. Except he’s already there, sitting across from me in the one-seater recliner. 

“Hey, Ellie.”

He looks like I feel. Dead inside. Good. He chose to do this and I hope he lives with it every day. 

He says more things in a listless monotone, and I try to pay attention through the white noise ringing in my ears.

He wanted to create a relatable teenage character with a normal life with typical troubles and regular hopes and dreams. Heart-stopping Noah Harper was what he gave the world, nothing ordinary about him. The comic book series was an instant hit.

Everything was fine until I bought an edition and read it. Read him. 

And Noah went from a chiseled drawing in a book to a sentient fantasy.

Trapped in the pages Matt created, Noah felt everything I felt. Fell for me like I did for him.

“I still can’t believe…” Matt whispers. “He shouldn’t have…been.”

My heart stops for several beats before kicking in again double-time.

He’s wrong. Noah wasn’t an anomaly. He was my proof of life.  

The room is full, but thunderingly silent. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, incredulous. I wasn’t crazy after all. What solace can I find in that when he’s not here? 

I just have one question. “Why?”

Matt’s throat bobs with a swallow. “He asked me to. He couldn’t be with you, so he didn’t want to…be at all. He…he told me to tell you…that you weren’t alone.” He pauses, then adds, “That it was real for him too.”

 I exhale a breath I feel like I’ve been holding since I was twelve. He was mine. For whatever pocket of time and space he existed, Noah Harper was mine. And I was his. What more can a crazy, obsessed girl in love with a boy ask for?

The next few minutes, maybe hours, are a blur. My cheeks are wet, my voice is hoarse, my head hurts, and I’m exhausted. 

When awareness returns, I register Tyler holding me wordlessly. Somehow he’s been next to me on the couch this whole time. He does that. Always in the background, never trying to hog my time or attention. He’s just…there. 

I turn in his arms to face him, squinting at his face. Why does it feel so unfamiliar? I’ve literally seen him almost every day for the past five years. “Were your eyes always this brown?”

A bemused expression plays on him when he answers my absurd question, “Always.” Tilting his head, he asks one of his own, “You okay?”

“I’m not.” Leaves my mouth on reflex. Right before I catalog more things I haven’t seen before. That scar on his temple. The string of freckles on his neck. His slightly crooked nose. Something clicks into place. Something weightless and buoyant. And I know with absolute certainty, down to my toes, right at that moment, for the first time in forever, “But I will be. Any day now.”