The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

Break up

Author's Note - This is a fan fiction based on The Kissing Booth books by Beth Reekles and movies on Netflix. I have kept the movie versions of characters and events since they are more vividly in my mind after watching the last film. As much as I hate to put you all through the break up again, I really needed to work through it to get in the right headspace to imagine what happened in the months and years afterwards. Plus, I kind of wanted to hear Noah's version....hope you like it.

I ached to take everything I had just told her back, about not wanting to be someone who made her put herself last, to just cross the distance between us and wrap her in my arms and apologize for being a stubborn idiot yet again. But I couldn't. I had to put her first, even if she wouldn't. Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax my throat, which suddenly felt in danger of closing up, like even my body didn't want me to do what I was about to.

"I know better than trying to stop you going to Boston. But if you do decide to go - it's not going to be with me."

The words came out quietly, almost a whisper, and I could barely stand to look at her, knowing the hurt I was causing her in that moment. The irreparable damage to us both. Knowing it was the right thing to do did nothing to lessen that pain.

"So that's it?" Elle sobbed, "The fact that we love each other means nothing?"

"I do love you. But, maybe sometimes loving each other just isn't enough."

She looked away then, out at the view over the city, but I still saw the tears start to spill from her eyes again, down her lovely cheeks. I am such an asshole, I thought. A few days ago I told her that I would fight for her and now here I am, breaking her freaking heart when she's about to move across the country to be with me? As if I needed more evidence that I didn't deserve her. Elle really was too good for me after all.

She turned back to me then, the last light of hope in her eyes and said "Are you sure this is what you want?". Giving me one last chance to save this, to save us, before it was too late. I desperately wanted to, it took every last shred of my willpower to hold firm and not take it all back. In the end, it only took one word.

"Yeah," I replied and I watched the impact of that one word shatter Elle's heart into a million tiny pieces like fragments of glass. I watched the light in her eyes dim ever so slightly and, after an unbearable moment, she turned and ran away, back down the trail towards the carpark. I took a step to follow her and stopped. I couldn't make her feel better about this, couldn't take away the pain, much as I wanted to.

It didn't matter that I was the one to break up with her, I had broken my own heart too. I couldn't breathe from the pain. It felt like actual physical pain, like my chest was achingly empty, like I had ripped my heart out and stomped on it, crushed it into the dust. I leant back against the "L" sign and then slumped down to the ground because it had taken everything I had to go through with that and now I had nothing left. I let the misery take me then, let it close over me like it was water and I was drowning. I was.

____________________________________________________

I had no idea how much time had passed when the sound of my phone ringing roused me from my stupor. It was now well and truly dark, the lights of the city spread out below me, evidence that time had not actually stopped, the world had kept turning, life had gone on after mine had run away from me in tears.

I looked at the screen, the caller ID flashing Chloe. I pressed the decline button. I couldn't deal with the inevitable questions just yet. I sent her a text "Will call u ltr" and put my phone down again. I sat there for awhile longer, just staring out at the lights, thinking of nothing, existing without purpose.

Eventually I stood up, dusted myself off and walked back down the trail to my bike. There were no cars in the lot, Elle had left. I hoped wherever she was, she was safe. I thought about texting Lee to find out if she was ok, but I couldn't face the stream of profanities he was likely to send back if he knew what I had done. Of course Lee would know, he was the first person Elle ran to when she was upset, always had been.

I hoped he decided to stay at the beach house tonight instead of coming back home because I wasn't looking for a fight with my brother on top of everything else. I didn't have it in me. Lee wouldn't want to hear why I had done it, that I was trying to give Elle a chance to make her own life choices for once, to find her own path. He would just hate me for breaking his best friend's heart and living up to all the reasons why he had thought Elle and I shouldn't date in the first place.

I rode back to Mom and Dad's, finding the place dark and empty when I arrived. They must have been still out at dinner and Lee hadn't come back to kick my ass yet. I flicked on the lights in the entry and hallway, keeping my eyes low so I didn't have to see all the photos on the wall, photos of Lee and I from our childhood, many of them also with Elle. It didn't matter though, I could see them all in my head anyway and it stung. She was a part of my family and I had fucked it all up.

I went to the fridge, got a bottle of water and trudged up the stairs to my bedroom. I stopped in the doorway, remembering how small Elle always looked curled up in my bed, from the first time she had slept there after I rescued her at that party her junior year, to the last time the night my parents took us out for dinner to celebrate her and Lee's graduation at the start of summer.

I stowed that happy memory away as something to think about later. Much later, when it didn't hurt so much. Would there ever be a point in time when thinking of Elle didn't hurt like this? I wanted to believe so, but didn't think it likely.