High school romances are almost notorious for failing. The whole... 'sweethearts' thing grows old, and the two people dating start to resent each other. Gone is the day of hanging out after school, helping each other with homework, and sneaking under your parent's noses. It's all about working, going to colleges that are probably three cities apart, and not having enough time in the day to expend any sort of energy or attention.

At best, the couple makes it to the end of college. At worst, they break up after high school graduation. There are rarely any good, wholesome, happy endings.

But you broke that cycle. You and your girlfriend lasted the entirety of your high school and college ventures, and were a testament of what true love looked like. Matching promise rings, you owned an apartment together, had a dog... Everyone knew you'd both get married. It was like a fairy-tale, all wrapped up neat with a little bow.

Maybe you'd have kids in the future. Little yeans tumbling about and causing all sorts of problems with your eyes and your girlfriend's sweet disposition. It'd be a wonderful, quaint little thing.

"Mmmn..." The voice next to you grouses out, stretching her limbs and kicking at the bedsheets. "Are you not going to sleep?"

Noa rolls herself onto her belly rather unceremoniously, twisting around to look at you. She squints, the light from your phone oppressive in the dark bedroom. It's just enough that you can look at her, and admire her bed-ridden features—

She reaches out her hand and clumsily slaps at your face, aiming for your phone but missing a mile as her nails nearly jab out an eye. She gives another sleepy, drowsy little complaint before wriggling around again—arms and legs flailing like dead weights—and lifts herself out of the sheets to sit up. Noa's all soft, mouthwatering curves, and tattoos and holds herself in that lazy sort of disheveled that always seems to scratch your itch.

Even while fumbling for her pack of cigarettes and her lighter in the dark she's pretty.

Yeah.

This is decidedly not your fucking girlfriend.

Mostly considering you've been texting your actual partner for the past ten minutes, lying to her on why you aren't coming home.

Noa might be what some could consider a tad bit stupid. She never finished college, was a high-school drop-out, and barely got a GED before her brain started leaking out of her ears. She was still rather smart and intelligent, mind you, but there were definitely a few screws loose. It probably didn't help that her main source of income was a shitty retail job at a Spencer's, where her job was essentially to stop thirteen year olds from buying the sex toys that were on display in the back.

Was a fuckin' nightmare.

However, despite these forthcomings, Noa was still trying. She wanted to work at a tattoo parlor, and was real heavy with her portfolio and her apprenticeship. That's how she met you, actually.

Like stars were aligning, Noa had been given a chance to ink an actual person instead of fake silicone skin or just making flashes. She jumped at the possibility, leaving her job like her house was on fire just to make it to the shop. She was ecstatic. Sure, it was a bit awkward finding out it'd be a thigh tattoo—being all close and personal between someones legs was surprisingly intimate—but she got the job done, and it was a pretty damn stellar job at that.

...And then you started coming back to the parlor. Another tattoo, smaller this time. Then another. And another.

She might not have been your main tattooist, but she definitely was the one supplying the designs and flashes for whoever was giving you your ink. You essentially became her canvas, and her little dim-witted heart grew a few sizes bigger because of it.

That's how she ended up asking for your number, for social reasons.

That's how she ended up inviting you to dinner for social reasons.

That''s how she ended up giving you head for... social (?) reasons.

Who was she kidding, she was absolutely whipped for you and everyone knew it. That's why she clung to you like a little leech, always pining for your attention. Noa liked you, and that was what made her happy. You were what kept her up at night, and who gave her butterflies she hadn't experienced since third grade. Except, of course, there was one teensy-weensy, itty-bitty, little problem.

You had a girlfriend.

And Noa? Oh, Noa was well aware she was second fiddle. Didn't stop her, though. She's always been a masochist.

"C'mon, c'mon." She groans out, leaning against her car as she watches you take your sweet-ass time. "We're gonna be late, you sick fuck."

She was being dramatic, of course—stamping her foot and thrashing in place like a toddler—but that was just because the two of you had coordinated for an actual date at some high-rise, pricey restaurant and she was feeling jittery. Got all prettied up, skipped her smoke break so she wouldn't smell like an ashtray, and was wearing fucking heels for once. She was antsy.

One must imagine Sisyphus (Noa) happy.

There's a suitcase being thrown out of a window.

Record scratch. Freeze frame. Yep, that's yours. You're probably wondering why all of your belongings are out on the lawn, like a trashy breakup.

Well... Because it is.

Your girlfriend—as one might expect—wasn't exactly taking the knowledge of 'yeah, I suck and fuck my tattoo artist on the daily' too well. She not only found proof that you both were banging in her apartment (technically, you were on the lease too), but had flat-out seen you both making out and heavy petting in her car (again, technically you were also on the car note). She was livid.

And thus, all of your shit is currently being ejected from your home and you most likely are homeless now.

It'd be mortifying if you didn't have the tattoo artist and sidechick standing next to you, smoking, and watching all of your belongs fall from the fifth floor of an apartment. Noa looked almost pensive—thoughtful—as your shoes tumbled to the sidewalk. It was like watching a car crash happen right before her eyes. She's not even judging you; not really. Noa's more impressed by the fact that you both ended up marginally unscathed from the wrath of a woman scorned.

"...You think she's mad?" Noa asks rhetorically, cigarette dangling from her lips. "I think she's mad."

No shit, Sherlock. Your girlfriend had nearly reamed you, flayed you open with her manicure. She slammed her purse into your head and you're pretty sure you've got a concussion. Not as bad as Noa's broken nose, sure, but still. Somehow—somehow—both of you are still breathing.

Ah.

Here comes the rest of your closet. All of your expensive dress shirts, some jewelry, and—damn. Your TV.

Noa tugs on your arm as she takes a few more steps backwards, wary of the heavier objects being tossed out now. While 'impalement caused by Xbox' would be extremely funny to read on an epitaph, she already signed herself away to die by lung cancer or liver failure first.

Happy endings weren't for someone like Noa.

Happy endings were white picket fences, puppy dogs, and rice thrown over the shoulder. It was 'good morning', it was 'I love you', it was 'get home safe'. All these little things—culminations of some bigger plan—that amounted to warmth, affection, and someone to come home to.

She'd always levied herself as someone who was, at most, second best. In tournaments during school, she'd get second place in the hundred meter sprint. The silver trophy during spelling bees. She never thought she'd have anything worth its weight in gold, nor that shined like one. She was okay with that. Noa didn't mind being the one left on the bleachers, or the last person to leave a building after closing.

She was... content.

So, when she managed to meet you, and you craved her, she fell for you. Hard. Even when she knew she was second fiddle, and that an hour or two after sweat gathered in the crooks of her knees and her hips ached, that you'd go home. To your white picket fence, your puppy dogs, your rice.

Until—despite everything—you didn't. You stayed longer. You craved her more. You were so close to her and so wanting, and she was hungry for it. Hungry for you, and everything you meant. Because, really, what else was she supposed to think? You had a girlfriend and you were picking Noa over her. Over the person you'd been with since what felt like the dawn of time.

She watches you as you come home—or, at least inside her home, her sanctuary—and set down your things. Your coat, set onto the hanger next to hers. Your shoes, tucked away on the rack right by her boots. Your keys, dumped into the little basket by the door where she kept her own. All those little spaces, filled with you willingly. She's never seen those filled before. Never felt this full.

It's scary, being craved.

So, instead of questioning it—instead of wondering your motives, what you were doing, why you were so, so, so willing—she just smiles. Tilts her head back. Waves. Draped over the leather couch she's had since she bought this damn apartment, wearing whatever clothes were clean in the laundry.

"Welcome back, prick." Noa greets, aiming for levity even as her words scream—Good morning, I love you, I'm glad you're home safe.

'They're just another fling', she tells herself even if she doesn't want it to be true.

Even if she begs for it to be a lie, and even when she wants you so badly it hurts.

That's why she sees other people. Other guys, other girls. Other anyone. She's usually more careful about who she lets inside of her—asking for bug reports, using protection, staying on birth control—but she slipped up. You had stayed over at hers for a week while your girlfriend was out of town and neither of you remembered safety, just going at it all teeth and needy hands and crashing bodies. Usually she was so, so, so careful.

And it happened, because of course it did.

There's boxes littering the bathroom floor; some in the sink, soggy with water and disintegrating, the ink dripping and smearing. There's several on the floor, ripped open with the little pamphlets sprawled out. The plastic sticks are in a row on the bathroom counter, lined up in sequence of 'recent' to 'oldest'.

All of them have two, small, barely noticeable red lines.

Maybe it's a scare. Maybe she's hallucinating. Noa might have loved you like you were the death of her—something she'd never admit, even if it was ripped from her chest—but that didn't mean she wasn't seeing other people too. She had to, in a way, to keep you out of her head. To keep you thoroughly tucked away somewhere, just as another warm body. It couldn't be yours. It wasn't possible (even if she wanted it to be).

So who's was it? Who does she contact and announce that she's pregnant with their kid? Hell, none of her flings would want to be tied down to her. Take care of a kid, share custody, pay child support. She was on her own and would have to figure out how to take care of it if she didn't terminate. She doesn't want a baby. She's too fucked up, too messy, too everything to care for a family right now. Thus, the only thing she can do is cry. Sob. Bawl into her hands as the pregnancy sticks mock her. Mock her for being a 'warm hole'. For being a 'slut'. Mock her for not being able to keep her legs closed, because all she wants is to be loved.

At some point during her breakdown, she calls you. Babbles out a simple: "Can you come over, please? I need you", before hanging up, not bothering to listen to your excuse on why you can't or hear you worry.

She didn't have time for that, right now. She just needed something—somebody—to tell her it was okay.