Part 9: Frozen Peas and Stolen Pride

Aside from throwing stones at and performing serenades beneath my dorm room window, Noah had done a lot of other tremendously romantic things for me during our first year at the University. A few times, I would come back from the shower to find a note taped to my door. These notes spoke tenderly of how amazing I am, how much I am missed by the "anonymous" writer, and that I should not attempt to uncover who had written these notes, which were, of course, "accidentally" signed by Noah. He wrote a song for me about how heartbroken he was that I didn't ever call him back, and sang it to my answering machine while I was in class.

One thing that particularly sticks out in my mind is when he volunteered to drive me to my parents' house over spring break. I had an appointment to have my wisdom teeth pulled on the last day of break and wouldn't have been able to drive back to school myself. The car ride is a long 4 and a half hours through hills and winding roads, and is far better when you have company.

I don't remember much from the trip back to school; my mind was so foggy due to the Vicodin. I remember that my face was bruised and swollen - I looked like a chipmunk who held all of winter's stores in my cheeks - and I was mortified that Noah had to see me in such a way. My mom had packed a cooler with a bag of frozen peas (to help the swelling) and orange juice (to drink). The peas might have leaked a little, because I recall the melted ice looking a little green and sludgy after the trip was over. I remember putting the cooler on the floor beneath my legs in the front seat, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before we even reached the freeway.

When I awoke 4 hours later, I was facing sideways in the car seat leaning to my left, facing Noah as he drove. I opened my eyes a little without him noticing, and caught a glimpse of him with the glowing backdrop of the sun setting behind the hills outside of the his car-seat window. I saw him turn and look at me, but my eyelids were so heavy that they shut again before he could see that I was awake. I opened them once more after a few seconds, just as he turned to look at me again. He noticed that I was awake and smiled.

"Good morning, Sunshine." His voice was soft and low.

I let out a groan. "I'm.. sorry.. I didn't mean ...to fall asleep." I could barely get the words out, my mouth hurt so badly. I was a disaster.

"Oh, I don't mind, but could you please stop drooling all over my car?" he joked. I'm quite positive that I would have been embarrassed at that point if I hadn't been so groggy and out-of-it.

I managed to stay awake for the rest of the car ride, but I don't really remember anything else from that day.