The Boy Who Could Have Been Noé
“A star is born, it lives and it dies, just like people.” Dash motioned up at the sky, his back dug into the sand and not far away the ocean crashed against the rocky shore.
“Except people don’t explode.” I whispered. It was late but I didn’t feel like sleeping, I’d already done that enough today. Arden’s footsteps echoed around us as he came urgently bounding from the jungle. He sat next to my left arm. As I lay in the sand, with Dash clinging to my right shoulder, I fiddled with Arden’s tattered pants and ran my hands up his bare stomach. When Dash was about to fall asleep I threw his hands around my neck and rested him on my back then I carried him home, not even asking Arden once if he would hold the boy for me.
I wanted Dash there forever, depending on me, like I often depended on Arden.
He stirred once, nuzzling his chin into the ditch between my shoulder blades, whispering words that I couldn’t quite here. His soft hair was sticking to my hair. I stroked his legs, with great difficulty, but I still did it and that was all that mattered to me.
When we got back I stared at the fire, making shapes on the adults faces.
I put Dash into his bed, tucking the quilt under his chin. I kissed the bridge of his nose.
I smelt the fire from inside Dash’s room, it smelt like hope, it smelt like love.
I bent down to Millie’s face, whispering thank you and kissing her soft freckled cheek. Under the fire’s light she looked beautiful. Unnerved by my kiss, she smiled.
“You are Dash’s life now, he will wake up and whisper your name. He will see you and never stop smiling, I should be thanking you.”
The room that Arden and I were about to sleep in was much different then our hammock in the yacht. The walls were made of sticks and our bed was the softest I’d felt for a long time. I slumped on it, knowing I wouldn’t sleep.
Arden’s fingers ran up and down my arms, I closed my eyes and smiled. I felt his lips on my neck. He whispered in my ear.
“You are too beautiful to resist.” I turned my head, my lips only inches from his own. I pressed hard against him, droplets of sweat formed on his forehead as he pushed his hips into me.
I pulled away because we could both hear the footsteps outside.
He nodded.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too”
He was silent, staring at me with his green eyes.
“That boy, you don’t want to leave him do you?”
“Not one bit.” I murmured.
He fell asleep with his hands around my stomach, I watched his chest moved up and down. The creases in his brow deepened, but after a while I drifted off into sleep touching Arden’s freckled neck.
In the morning I woke Dash and he wrote a note to his mother saying he had gone to watch the sunrise. I held his hand the whole way. The morning was humid.
We sat for a while before the sun revealed the rocky shore.
“I missed you when I slept.” He smiled at me.
“How did you know, Dash?”
“Because I dreamt of you, when I dream of people it means I miss them.”
I touched his cheek.
“You are the most beautiful brother I’ve ever had.”
He looked confused. “How many have you had?”
“Other than you, only one”
“Where does he live?” He raised his eyebrows.
“In heaven.” I smiled.
Dash’s lips formed an ‘O’ but no sound came out. His blue eyes widened.
“What was his name?”
“Jasper.” My heart raced in my chest and I was sure he could hear it.
“Jasper.” His voice trailed off. “That’s a beautiful name.”
All I could do was nod and wonder how someone so small could understand so much.
He pushed his forehead into the dent above my collarbone, his cheek pressed into my breast. I cringed as he pushed his hands into my stomach and when he stopped I kissed his shoulder.
“I’ve never met anyone quite as amazing as you Dash.”
The boy smiled, his teeth sparkling in the morning sun. He open his blue eyes wide and stared at me curiously, like he’d never met anyone like me either. The beach was quiet for a moment until I pulled Dash up by his hands.
“Let’s get home.” And for the first time in a long time the word home sounded real.
When I got back I saw Arden, bitting his nails. His bottom lip was quivering in the morning wind. I could see he was wondering if I’d been with Dash, I could see that he had wanted me to take him. I pressed my lips against his. I whispered that I was sorry, told him I didn’t want to wake him, he looked like he needed his sleep. He kissed my forehead.
The trees swayed in the breeze. Millie reached her arms around me suddenly, her freckled fingers tangled in my hair. She smiled at me holding my face in her hands.
“Why are you so happy?” My voice was soft and I smiled.
“Dash,” She whispered. “He hasn’t watched the sunrise for years, not since his father died. Jaak used to take him down once a week. He really loves you Poppy, which is something you should know.” She pressed her lips against my rosy cheeks.
When she walked away, Arden squeezed my hand.
I called for Dash; his hair was mattered to his forehead.
“I just had a shower.” He whispered when I stared at him.
“Dash, I’ve been wondering, who’s that boy?” I pointed to the boy who could’ve been Noé.
The boy blushed, his blonde hair was chaotic and he smiled but it didn’t reach his wide brown eyes. The freckles on his nose were faded in the morning light. His lips had been cherry yesterday but now they were bluer.
“Is his name Noé?” I asked and Dash smiled.
“Yes, he was born here; his parents were on a trip, just like you.” He giggled. “His mother was pregnant but she didn’t realise she would have her baby so soon. She died giving birth to him. My own mother and father came here not long after and soon after that Noé’s father left him with them.”
Arden looked impatient, but I knew he understood how much I needed Dash. He walked away from me, looking exactly how Olev had, trying to be sophisticated but actually looking silly wearing no shoes.
I smiled at Noé. He closed his eyes and went inside his hut made from straw looking like it could barely stand.
I let go of Dash and kissed his forehead, his soft skin felt like it could bruised if I kissed it as hard as I had with Arden.
I probably looked silly with my long legs striding over the soft dirt under my toes , my hair was a tangled mess and I wasn’t wearing shoes or a shirt, but I was wearing my bathers and my khaki shorts hung low on my hips.
“Noé.” My lips curved as I said his name. I couldn’t stand not knowing him, not being able to feel his blonde hair in the creases of my hand. I saw him to late, bumping into his lean body. My nose touched his, and for a moment the specks in our eyes were perfectly aligned. I smiled at him, crimson staining his cheeks.
“Are you like Dash’s brother?” I stared into his brown eyes.
“Maybe, Dash doesn’t love me much since you came.”
I looked shocked whilst he looked hurt. I felt as though I had ruined everything that these two had once had.
After a while I whispered, my voice shaking. “I’m sorry, I lost my brother not long ago, it’s feels good to have one again.”
He stared at me. Noé’s lips pursed at the edges.
“Well he was the only one I ever had, at least you had one before you came here, just go home.”
I would have never had imagined this, his eyes sparkling with fury.
“You’re kidding me right?” I spat through my teeth. “I didn’t make Dash love me!”
“He’s never once watched a sunrise with me after his father died.”
“So?”
“And the first night that you are here he takes you out there!” He growled at me. “You’re not even special.”
“Well you’re not that great either, I thought you were beautiful and now you’re just silly.”
He stormed off, looking even stupider that Olev had.
I could feel the tears running down my cheeks and Arden wiping them with his thumb. I kissed his lips.
“I’ll never watch a sunrise without you ever again.”
He nodded and kissed my forehead. He pulled me into the dent in his chest, his skin pressed against my cheek. I bit my lip, exactly like Dash did. I looked up at his skin soft in the late morning light. His freckles were darker than usual, springing from his face. He was the star in my sky, shooting across so I could wish for more than I’d once had.
I smiled at this thought, it was remarkable to be loved unconditionally, maybe this was how Dash felt when I looked at the dots, the colour of coffee, on his face. Maybe his father was an artist because I know no other man that could devise a child with a work of art painted on the very tip of his nose.
For a while, longer than I’d thought, Arden held me in his arms. He pressed me close, my chin pushing into his neck.
His eyes were emerald discs, his facade was a night sky littered with stars. His skin was a canvas, painted with arbitrary dots the hue of spilt coffee. Arden’s face was a subtle map of where he had been and the way he had lived. He was open minded and boundless, you could see it every time you looked into his eyes. You could spend hours exploring his supple cheekbones much like a botanist would explore a fern.
Sitting outside Noé’s house made me nervous. I felt as though he was going to scream at me again, and I didn’t need that, I couldn’t stand the thought of his lips curling over his teeth. The growl that escaped from his throat. I shuddered and Arden pulled me closer.
Droplets of rain fell over us and he sheltered me until it stopped. There were children walking around us, they didn’t even noticed. I saw Dash try to smile but he just couldn’t, his face was scrunched in pain and I wanted to grab his shoulders and kiss his forehead but sitting with Arden made me feel safe and I couldn’t bare to wriggle from his grip. I kissed his neck.
“I’m very in love with you, I choose you.”
“Too late,” He whispered. “I wouldn’t leave even if you wanted me too”
And this made me smile, his words made me smile wider than ever before.
My brother told me that there were three people in this world, quitters, winners and people who couldn’t decide on who they were. When I looked at him, with his eyes glittering, he answered the questions I’d longed to ask.
“I’m the last one, Poppy” Jasper’s voice was a soft as austere words would ever be. “I quit a lot, but I won when you came into my life. I’m not sure who I am, but that’s okay, I am happy with you by my side.”
“Then you know who you are, you are none of those things, you are happy and if you are happy then so am I.”
“Poppy, happy people only go far if they are winners.”
And I didn’t believe him, I still didn’t but truth, like the sun, was inching through my window. I was happy and I hadn’t won a thing. I smiled up at Arden. Actually, I might be a winner after all.
He looked at me like I had truth in my smile, like my eyes weren’t covered in lies anymore. My fingertips stroked his face.
“I am a winner.”
He had no idea what I was talking about, I could have been insane but it didn’t matter, the veracity was there, naked and blatant.
They ate fruit here, not just any fruit but bananas and Noé ate nineteen of them. At first I thought he was bananas himself but when I ate twelve, I changed my mind. It looked like he had forgiven me because he smiled at me twice, and I didn’t even smile at him once. Maybe Dash had given him a mouthful which was, coherently, what he needed even from a seven year old child.
I stared into his dark eyes, curious in whether he understood my odium from him. And when he wasn’t looking I threw a soggy banana, that had been roasted on the fire, at him. It was childish but hilarious and he knew who it was.
He didn’t smile at me again after that, exactly what I’d hoped for and as if Arden could read my mind, he whispered in my ear.
“You are not Dash’s age.”
I smiled at him, it sure felt like I was, but it changed when he pulled me into our hut.
His fingers trailed down my naked stomach.
“I sure hope you’re not seven.”
“I’m not, I promise.” I whispered.
That conversation would have been peculiar to anyone who didn’t know our ages and had heard the groans that followed.
With his lips kissing my chest and his fingers tracing my collarbone there was nothing else I could do but moan. His fingers trailed intensively down my breast. I pressed my hips against his.
He took his lips from my skin, and waited.
I stopped, my groans fading off into the distance.
“Dash” I whispered, praying he wasn’t there.
“It’s me” I heard a voice that definitely wasn’t Dash’s. It was soft and reluctant.
“Millie,” I could hear the lump in my throat, Arden’s legs unravelled from around me, I pulled my bathers on, because they were the only things I could find. “Just wait, stay there, I’ll be out in a second.” I threw a pair of board shorts on. I kissed Arden’s neck.
“Sorry.” I burst outside, my heart still racing and my skin was glittering with drops of sweat. She ran her fingers down my stomach.
“Are you sure you love this boy enough?” She was careful not to let Arden hear.
“I’m sure, we’ve done this quite a bit.”
“I’m definite you were going to do more than what you have done before.”
I nodded, she was right. My fingertips were shaking.
“I love him.” It came out fainter than I’d expected.
“That, Poppy, is very good,” Her smiled widened. “I’m glad you love him.”
She called to Dash and walked away, her skin shining in the moonlight.
I curled into Arden’s arms, his lips touching my bare shoulder. He was wearing a shirt now and I was sure I ruined it, because I cried for a long time.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jasper. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dash, or Millie, or Marlow. And most of all, Jaak, Dash’s father. I was sure Dash missed him more than anyone could ever miss a person.
I pulled his face down to mine.
“You should promise me something.” I gasped.
“And what’s that?” He ran his fingers through my hair.
“That when we leave, which I know we will, we will take Dash and Millie.”
He nodded.
“I promise you that we will take Dash and Millie”
He kissed my frost tipped nose.
“Sleep, Poppy.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. Curling into him, I whispered.
“Goodnight, Ardy”
“Goodnight”
That’s how I wanted it to stay forever, his fingers creased into my hair and my lips pressed to his neck.
I'm Kirsten and I'm going to be your reviewer for today 