Chapter Text
When Noelle was small, she was told she’d marry Kris Dreemurr.
Not in so many words, but in the way adults said things like, “You two are always together,” and, “Wouldn’t that be sweet?” Her mother used to fix her with this look, equal parts amused and certain, every time she came home with chalk on her fingers and scuffed knees. Playing with the Dreemurr boy again? she’d ask, even though Kris was already going quiet back then. Even though Kris had already started drawing shapes in the dirt instead of talking. Even though they never really felt like a boy.
But Noelle was polite. She nodded and smiled. She said yes, ma’am. She said he was very kind.
By middle school, the expectations calcified like plaque. A good boy from a good family, a good girl from a good one too. Toriel taught Sunday school back then. Mayor Holiday shook her hand every Easter. They had a little pond behind the Dreemurrs’ house, and once, while feeding ducks with her shoes off, her mother said, “You could do worse than someone like Kris.”
She’d said it with a smile that just twisted the curl of her lips, a distant one, the same one she wore when talking about dresses or old hymns.
At the time, Noelle didn’t know what she wanted. She knew how to be good, though. So she nodded.
Kris changed. But not all at once.
It was like watching the tide go out when you hadn’t noticed the moon. It started with silence. With Kris pulling away at the seams—speaking less, slipping out of reach without ever physically moving. It wasn’t anything dramatic. Noelle didn’t cry about it. Just noticed, one day, that he was no longer where she’d left him.
Then came Susie.
The two of them were suddenly everywhere together. Sitting at the back of class. Sharing lunch. Laughing at things no one else heard. It hit like cold water. Not jealousy, exactly. Something stranger. Like seeing someone build a new house in a field where you’d always imagined one day planting your own.
Noelle watched them from across the cafeteria. Watched Susie laugh until Kris snorted milk through their nose. Watched Susie bump shoulders with them like they were made of something she could knock over and still trust to get back up.
And suddenly, Noelle’s little peach-pit heart began to ache.
She’d never felt this way before. Not really. There had been boys she’d found cute. Girls she’d noticed in summer dresses. But Susie? It wasn’t the same. It was sharper, meaner. Like something blooming where it shouldn’t.
Her mother would never approve. Susie smoked sometimes and swore loudly and didn’t come to church. She had a scar on her mouth and her jacket sleeves were torn and Noelle could imagine the exact look her mom would give if she ever brought her home.
Noelle never tried.
There’s a kind of grief that doesn’t have a date. Dess had a funeral, but Noelle’s grief never ended. It hung in the corners of things, like dust on picture frames, sending little motes like spores drifting through the air.
She didn’t cry all the time. She got good grades. She smiled when adults asked her questions. But something inside her stayed frozen.
She thought maybe Kris understood that part of her. Or they used to. But now they were disappearing too, just like everyone else. Asriel had gone to college, and even though Kris didn’t say anything, Noelle could see the hollowed-out space where he used to stand.
Everyone was going somewhere. Susie was getting louder, more confident. Kris was getting quieter, but not in the same way—this quiet had edges. It meant something. Like a secret, held close.
Noelle stayed the same. She had the same room, the same piano lessons, the same walks past the church. Some days, she wondered if her childhood had been a hallway with only one door, and she’d walked through it and found herself back where she started.
She never told anyone how much it hurt.
Sometimes, she thought about what might have happened if things had gone the way the adults imagined.
She’d marry Kris. Probably stay in town. She’d go to church with her mom. Kris would wear a nice shirt and stand quietly beside her. Maybe they’d live in a quiet house near the pond where the ducks still came in spring.
It wouldn’t be bad. It might even be nice.
But she’d never kiss Susie. Never hear that laugh up close. Never run her hands through her stupid, tangled, wonderful hair or say all the dumb, honest things she’d been holding onto for years.
Kris still looked at her sometimes like they remembered everything. Like they knew her, really knew her. And that hurt worse than anything, because even knowing her, they’d still gone so far ahead.
She watched their back as they walked away from school with Susie, shoulders brushing.
She walked home alone.
The air was cold. The sun went down slower these days, the clouds hanging low like they’d forgotten how to move.
Noelle pulled her coat tighter and kept walking.
She still had choir practice tonight. Her mom would ask how her day went. She’d smile and say fine, and mean it a little less every day.
And still, in some soft place in her chest, she hoped maybe tomorrow—just maybe—someone would see her standing there and come back for her.