The First Noel - 2. Chapter One: Broken Records, Broken Hearts

Christmas Eve, 2006

The day it happened, it happened quickly, so quickly it seems like a blur in my memory. The details were lost on me. Almost everything was lost on me. The only thing that I could remember was that it happened all in one day—and in the next, it was over.

Everything was different.

The pain was unbearable.

By the time I got outside, Adrian had already climbed halfway to the top of the maple in our yard. I could just see the tail end of his slim figure slip another branch higher when I scrambled off the porch on the side of the lawn across from him. My heart was racing and lurching like a drunken seahorse, but at the time I didn’t know it was from more than just the rush of friendly competition. The leaves around him quivered as he adjusted his weight, turning so he could look down at me.

“Noël, Noël!” He sang, his sweet alto seeming to come from the tree itself. His tone was light and teasing, knowing how much I hated that song. Wrapping one arm around the trunk, he extended the other to the stars. “The First Noël, the Angels did say, was to poor shepherds in fields as they lay...”

I jumped the stairs two at a time, pushing up the red toque that was insistently slipping down my forehead and getting all caught up in my eyelashes, making it super hard to blink or look around or anything like that. Stupid mothers...they were all the same—always trying to force you into that one extra jacket, that second pair of socks, that one violently red toque that could be seen from fifteen miles away by a blind man. I mean, sheesh! Enough was enough! If we didn’t want the freaking hat, we didn’t want the freaking hat!

What part of that didn’t they understand?

Adrian started into the next part of the song, his voice wavering as he scrambled onto the next branch as I neared. Despite being my very best friend, he had always been determined to one-up me on everything—and I mean everything.

“In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter’s night that was so deep!”

I charged through another snow bank, this time getting whapped in the face with my scarf as a big gust of wind hurled by. The little braided stringy things on the end of it stung my cheeks and eyes almost as much as the wind itself did.

“Noël, Noël, Noël, No—“

“Okay, enough with the song already!!”

The outburst seemed to have come out of nowhere and I immediately wished I could take it back, but it did what it was supposed to—it shut him up long enough for me to bound the rest of the way to the maple’s broad trunk. The notes faded into the simple crunch, crunch, crunch of snow under my boots and the steady in, out, in, out, of two thirteen-year-old boys panting out steam in the frigid winter air.

Much better.

I could feel his eyes on the top of my head, and imagined their green depths widening in surprise, then narrowing as the emotion was washed away. For some strange reason, the thought set my heart pounding even more as I wrapped my arms around the trunk and shimmied up to the first branch, reaching out with a gloved hand to swing onto it like a monkey. From there, I steadied my weight before springing up onto the next, then the next, then the next, until I was right below Adrian, looking up as he looked down.

His face was serious but his eyes glimmered with a hint of a smile.

“That was fast,” said he, the breath used for his words churning around him like a herd of playful clouds. They looked all fluffy at first, almost begging you to bounce the crap out of them as if they were a feather pillow or something—my mom had one of those somewhere—but they quickly faded to the boring, every day blue of the boring, every day sky.

“Yeah.” I watched one little puffball spiral around and around in a happy, blissfully unaware circle, glad for the excuse to avoid Adrian’s probing, curious eyes striving across my face, for the extra time to let my racing heart calm to a steady pace—except it didn’t.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adrian cock his head to the side, waiting for me to say more. Ha—cock. What a funny word that was, extremely inappropriate—or so every adult I’d ever come across says—but still so very, very funny. I knew it was immature of me, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard it—especially when those very same adults said it, like the time when my English teacher was reading some lame book to the class and said it about five times in three pages, and everyone started to giggle.

Having nearly forgotten Adrian, I shifted so I could see the fading blue of the jeans I’d wriggled into this morning. My gloved fingers slid up the outside of my thigh, searching over the smooth denim as thoughts of that English class spiraled in my mind. Ha, that was—

Focus, Noël! My mind jabbed at me, the command popping out of nowhere. I started, even though it was in my own head. Focus? Why the heck would I do that?

Because of him, it said back.

Him? Him who? Adrian?

I finally snuck a peek at him through my lashes, just a flicker of my eyes up to where he stood, leaning against the tree with his face turned down to me curiously. His eyes followed my fingers as if transfixed, but I didn’t pay attention to that.

I felt my face go pink. That him?

Yes.

What the eff?

I wanted to demand an answer with the power of a thousand speeding rhinos, but something stopped me. A weird, sentimental feeling floated through me, and it was almost familiar, like I’d felt it before, once upon a time. And, honestly, I didn’t think rhinos could speed...damn. Focus. Right.

I was confused beyond belief. It must have shown through on my face—either that or he grew tired of the game—because Adrian snapped his eyes to mine almost guiltily, dropped into a crouch, and reached toward me, his questing fingers finding purchase on a thicker strand of my longish brown hair and tugging down. Hard.

Pain shot through me, washing away any other questions as I yelped in alarm. “What the—” I stumbled on my branch, the pain taken over by fear, then short-lived release that soon gave way to anger when my arms wrapped tightly around the branch nearest me, momentarily anchoring me safely to the tree. “Adrian?! What the heck did you do that for?!”

He shifted his weight. “Did that song really annoy you that much?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question!!”

“So it did?”

“What?”

“Noël!”

Our eyes locked, both of us fighting to get our questions answered first. My heart rate picked up, just like before, but this time it was accompanied by these weird little flutteries in my stomach, like butterfly wings. When he said my name they only got worse.

What was this? This was weird.

I must be losing my mind.

My memories drifted back to when I’d very nearly touched myself in front of him, and how his eyes travelled with my movements almost like he couldn’t look away.

Did he feel this way, too?

I broke the staring contest first, afraid that my thoughts would show through in my eyes. My cheeks burned with some creepy new emotion. Embarrassment? No, it couldn’t be. Embarrassment didn’t involve an ache in your heart. Did it?

I mumbled a bunch of meaningless sounds as an answer—to his question, that is.

“Noël, are you okay? Noël?” He leaned toward me, the curls of gold framing his face bouncing and gleaming in the pale winter sunlight. My heart beat even faster. “Huh?” Those eyes narrowed into a squint, trying to make sense of me.

I mumbled it again.

“Noël, jeez, speak up, will you? I can’t hear a thing you’re saying!”

I m—

“Noël!”

Something in Adrian’s eyes flashed bright and strong, and, before I could even get out the first sound in my useless chain of vowels, his hand lashed out and struck me clean across the face. Gloved as it was, the gripping fibers helped to soften the blow, but the leather pads of the palm and fingertips left blazing trails of agony patterned across my cheekbone. Paired with the sting of the frigid wind attacking from all sides, the shock of having a friend strike you physically, and the throbbing bite of the strange, new, pulsing emotion lurking deep within me, it was enough to shatter the resolve of anyone, no matter how strong, how determined, how...whatever.

My face exploded in agony, and I could feel the ache of tears rising to my eyes. Still turned away, I tried to hide behind my scarf so Adrian wouldn’t see the hurting—both physically and emotionally—in my eyes. But despite my efforts, one of those tears escaped.

“Noël, are you...are you crying?” Adrian’s tone was shocked, like he was numb or something, but not numb enough to avoid smacking me across the face.

From behind my wall of arm, I wanted to snarl at him, but could only come out with a whimper. Pain prodded at me like I was a stubborn horse. “What the eff, Adrian?”

He tilted his head, still numb. “Huh?” he repeated.

What is wrong with you? I wanted to scream. What is wrong with me? Do you feel this too? I choked back a sob, terrified of the answer. “You pull on my hair then slap me? What is going on with you today? I thought you were my friend, man. Did something change?” My voice wavered, but I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t understand why.

Does your heart race when you see me, hear me, feel me?

Something finally clicked. Even though I couldn’t see it, Adrian’s eyes went huge. “Ohmigod, Noël, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Is it bad? Ohmigod, I really didn’t mean to do that, I don’t know what came over me, I—ah...”

“Shut up. Just shut up, okay? I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Noël, I—”

“Shut up!”

“But—”

“No!” I finally lifted my gaze and shot him my best if-you-don’t-shut-up-I’ll-make-you glares. Adrian paled and his mouth closed so quickly his teeth clicked together. “No, just...please stop talking.” I closed my eyes, then opened them but didn’t look at him. “Something’s really weird is going on inside me right now, and I’m not myself, and I...I...Just be quiet for a minute, okay?”

I could practically see the question marks glowing in his eyes, right there on the surface, written across his face too. But there was also an inner struggle as he tried to listen to my request. Adrian had always been a curious boy, and it really showed in times like these.

Does your heart whisper suggestions in your ear, to reach for me, hold me, treasure me?

But for once, his lips stayed sealed. About a minute of silence passed—longer than I expected but not long enough to still my racing heart and fluttering stomach and quaking nerves. But still I had to look at the bright side—it was more than I’d expected. And for Adrian, that was a miracle.

At the start of that minute, I closed my eyes.

And so the revelations began.

Okay, brain, what the hell is going on?! I wanted to scream. Okay heart, okay feelings. What. The. Eff. Are. You. Trying. To. Prove?

Focus, came the mysterious whisper from before. I wanted to smack it. Focus, Noël, focus...

This was turning out to be such a weird Christmas Eve. I leaned back against the tree, feeling like I wanted to burst into tears. I could feel Adrian’s eyes on me and that helped calm me a tiny bit, but...what?

Calming ways, racing heart, butterflies in the stomach...could this be...?

Do your nerves quake like the earth in a storm, trembling like piano strings whenever I’m around?

I had to know.

“Noël? Noël? Hello, earth to Noël?”

I lifted my eyes to him, round and emotion-filled as they were, and knew what I had to do. I had to be honest with him, ask those questions my heart wanted to scream. “A...Adrian?”

Do you want to touch me, protect me, as much as I want to for you?

His own eyes clouded over with worry and, I thought—I hoped—something else. “Are you okay, Noël? You’re really quiet and it’s making me...um...” He blushed, lowering his gaze.

“Making you what?” I leaned forward as much as I could, pushing my toque away to see better. “Making you what, Adrian?”

Do they?

He met my eyes. “I...I...it’s, um...”

I pushed the toque up again, working my thirteen-year-old face into an encouraging expression. I had to know. “Adrian...?”

“I’m...uh...”

“A...dri...an...?”

Well?

“Yeah, that.” The breakthrough I had been so eagerly anticipating—for a reason I didn’t understand, no less!—crumbled, just like I felt my heart doing right in my chest. Adrian grinned nonchalantly, like I’d just helped him tell part of a story he’d forgotten, and nothing weird—nothing meaningful—had happened at all just now. “I’m Adrian, nice to meet you.”

He stuck his hand out, the same hand that smacked me, as if we were strangers meeting all over again, like that one time in first grade when Teacher had us all stand up and pick a partner for introductions...

Adrian had wandered right up to me when nobody else would...

He stuck out his hand...

“I’m Adrian, nice to meet you...”

I looked at him with wide eyes, the voice in my head echoing the voice of the thirteen-year-old boy with golden hair and smoldering eyes and an allure I couldn’t fight any—

—I reached out and gripped his hand reflexively, shaking it as I said—

“Hello, I’m Noël. I’m—”

My foot slipped.

I began to fall.

Taking Adrian with me all the way to ground.

Everything happened fast from there.

“Adrian!” I remember crying, completely, utterly, entirely without thinking, my arms flailing wildly in the air as we dropped ever-nearer to the snowy ground below. My eyes felt as round as dinner plates, and my mouth gaped wide open like I was trying to catch snowflakes. Wind whipped by me, wrenching off that toque I’d been so annoyed with and casting it up, up, up as we fell down, down, down. It was cold and unforgiving and—

“Noël!” Adrian, falling above me by about half a second, reached for me with urgency and fear burning in his eyes. But not fear for himself—fear for me, fear for the one who would hit the ground first with a one-hundred-some-pound boy on top of him, flattening him to the snow.

I wanted to tell him not to be scared—I wouldn’t mind the flattening part. Oh, I wouldn’t mind that at all. The landing was a different story, however...

I barely had time to form my lips around the words before we suddenly stopped falling.

Pain. Pain everywhere. My world exploded in it, tainting everything redder than redder than red. A thick wall of crimson blotted out the world. My head cracked against the ground. Even though it was snow, it still hurt a ton.

Then Adrian landed, and the crimson turned to sheer black. I heard myself gasp, felt my body reflexively straighten under his weight, then collapse and curl around him as he settled. The tears I’d failed at keeping hidden earlier burst forth, this time in waves of agony streaming down my face, freezing almost instantly in the cold winter air. My eyelashes clumped together and I couldn’t open my eyes, making it ever more terrifying an experience.

Adrian tried to leap up and off me, but I had curled so snugly around him that easy escape wasn’t possible. His worried, anxious, desperate voice sounded in my ear, frantic and scared, all for me. All for his best friend.

Friend...

No.

I wouldn’t settle for just a friend to any further extent. I’d stuck with that for seven long years, and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—hold back anymore. Something had changed, something had shifted inside me. And now I could see that it’d been there all along, just waiting for me to finally notice it and bring it into the light. Ever since that first day, that first handshake, I’d wanted to be there for him, care for him, protect him, just like I wanted him to do for me. I may have only been thirteen, but now I understood.

Every emotion that’d leaked through me in the last while burst forth, fighting back the pain just enough for me to wrench open my eyes, lift my head, and start them wheels of change a-turnin’.

The movement caught Adrian’s gaze mid-shout and he looked down at me, shock and relief shining in his face. He’d been hooting and hollering for my mother, waving wildly with one hand while keeping a secure arm around me. My gut told me she’d heard something but wasn’t entirely sure what yet. We had time.

“Mrs. LeBlanc, Mrs. LeBlanc!! Hello?! Anyone th—”

I reached up and snatched his arm down, eyes narrowing as I hissed at him. “Shut up, you idiot, we don’t want her to come too fast, now, dammit!” A wave of dizziness swept over me and I had to close my eyes for a second.

Adrian gasped, his eyes going even wider, but he clamped his mouth shut and held still. “N-Noël, what’s—nnngh!”

I couldn’t stand to hear anything else from his mouth, so I used the last dregs of my strength to sit farther up, while sliding the hand I’d used to yank his arm down quickly along his shoulder before he could get away. A convenient gust of wind blew the hanging bits of our scarves away from our faces as I leaned into him, and...

And pressed my lips to his.

I’d never kissed anyone before, not even a girl, so it was weird. Really weird. The feeling of another’s mouth against mine was something I’d never thought to predict at the simple age of thirteen. It made me wonder why that was so, because the truth of it all was quite...pleasant.

Adrian’s lips were warm despite the cold season, and willing despite our genders. It must’ve been instinctual, because no boy my age in his right mind would ever dream of kissing another guy, let alone his best friend. But even though I knew that, a small part of me couldn’t help but hope.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a light shining at the end of this tunnel.

Maybe something could be worked out, or—

And then it was over.

Adrian wrenched free of me and the world rushed back. Everything—the pain, the hopelessness, the confusion—swirled around me like a tide and I felt horribly dizzy again. He stared down at me with a mixture of absolute shock, worry, and...and...and something else. It might’ve been shyness, but I couldn’t tell.

I slumped in his arms, that thick wall of red returning and jabbing at me from all sides. Adrian’s insistent shouting for my mother started up again, like a broken record skipping over and over again at the same part of a song. I think I heard the front door slam and Mom hurry over to us, but I couldn’t be sure. All I could focus on was the broken record of my own heart, repeating the same thing over and over again, until even that faded out.

When the world returned, I was staring up at a tiled ceiling, surrounded by white walls and crisp sheets and that weird, overly clean Lysol smell that stung a kid’s nose until they felt like they couldn’t breathe. I certainly felt that way—at least for a moment before the world faded out again.

My mother was at my bedside, holding my hand in her vise-like grip. Her face loomed over me, close enough that I could easily see that she’d been crying. I could hear Dad’s heavy shoes thudding against the linoleum floor as he paced the space at the end of my bed. Mom gasped when she saw my lashes flutter, gesturing wildly for Dad to come join her.

He rushed over and his face joined the view.

“Noël! Noël? Noël, honey, my lovely little Christmas boy, can you hear me? Are you hurting? Tell me where you’re hurting honey, and we’ll make it stop, we’ll make it...”

Her voice faded out as I closed my eyes again. Nothing she said made sense to me. Nothing clicked in my brain. I couldn’t answer any of her questions, I couldn’t do anything other than long for the darkness of sleep as it loomed up at me from the corners of my mind, bringing with it one word that I whispered both in my head and out loud. A wisp of longing followed it, quickly extinguished, like the flame of a candle on Christmas Eve. Like the flame of my heart.

“Adrian...”

My mother looking incredulously at my father was the last thing I noticed before I blacked out again.

I was only in the hospital for a handful of hours, but it felt like an eternity. I didn’t want to stay overnight like the nurses suggested; I needed to get home, needed to get back to Adrian and see if I’d ruined everything between us for the rest of forever.

My mother had to half-carry, half-drag me to the car.

“Honey, are you sure you don’t want to stay?” she asked, panting slightly, her tone dripping with anxious worry for ‘her lovely Christmas boy’, as she’d said. I was surprised I’d even remembered—I’d been focused on Adrian when she called me that.

I snorted, all too eager to get in the car and speed home. That was all the answer she needed.

Mom sighed. “Okay, okay, I get it. We’re going home, now. See? We’re already at the car.”

Dad pulled the keys from his pocket, hurriedly unlocked the doors, and in no time I was curled up in the backseat practically begging time to fly by faster so I could get back to my best friend and apologize.

But what was I apologizing for?

I closed my eyes and sighed to myself. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—think about that right now.

It took another eternity to drive home. Dad helped me out of the car this time while mom dashed into the house to make some hot chocolate. I was determined to follow her as fast as I could, but my father wouldn’t let me go any faster than a meager trudge down the driveway.

I didn’t even make it to the door.

“Easy, there, easy now, Noël,” Dad said, speaking softly, like I was a horse getting ready to bolt. What was it with them and horses today? I didn’t get it.

I had discovered the magic of words a while before. “I’m fine, Dad. I’m not going to fall and crack my head open like an idiot.”

He frowned disapprovingly. “Then you better call yourself an idiot already, son, because you almost did just that a couple hours ago.”

I just waved it off, my attention focused elsewhere.

Adrian stepped out from behind the gate.

My heart nearly stopped beating.

Everything from before burned through my veins—the feelings, the butterflies, the kiss, oh, the kiss...I didn’t even notice when Dad let me go and wandered inside, shaking his head and muttering to himself about ‘kids these days’.

I took a step towards him, eyes wider than soup bowls. “A-Adrian...” I touched my lips, remembering the way his had felt on mine and surprising myself when a rush of sheer longing filled me. I wanted to do it again.

“Noël...” He nodded stiffly at me, looking for the world like a man on a mission. I opened my mouth to reply, but he cut me off with a sharp look. “I came here to tell you something, something I should’ve told you earlier, but you...well, you interrupted me and I didn’t get the chance.” Adrian blushed and looked away for a second before returning stronger than ever. “You see, I’m leaving, Noël.”

I gaped, my mouth flapping open for a moment before I found the right words. “Y-you’re—”

“Leaving. Yes.” Adrian spun on his heel and started walking away, leaving me swaying on my feet as shock, pain, and horror flooded through me. “My family and I, we’re moving away. We’ve known for two weeks now, but I never had the heart to tell you until now. Mom told me to say my goodbyes, so...I’m starting with you. Goodbye, Noël.”

He started to walk again, but I found myself and stumbled after him, catching him with a hand on his shoulder before he could take three steps.

“Adrian, you can’t be serious!” I didn’t believe him. I wouldn’t accept the heartbreak I already felt. “You…you can’t leave!” My voice broke off into a sob.

His eyes were cold and he shook me off him like I was nothing more than another grabby tree branch. “Yes, I can. And I will. I am.”

“N-no, please...”

“Goodbye, Noël.”

It happened that suddenly, that erratically, without any warning at all.

He said goodbye.

I begged him to stay.

He left me there, in the snow.

I already missed him.

And for the second time that day, I felt like I was going to die.