“Please, your parents would never let you starve.”

He’s quiet. I expect at any moment he’ll crack some joke like he always does, but it doesn’t happen. Did I step on a touchy subject? “Noel?”

He sighs into the phone. “Yeah, I’m here.”

He’s frowning. I can tell by the tone in his voice. I panic. “I’m sorry if I—”

“Don’t worry about it, Lane. I guess I should have told you that Dad and I really don’t talk any more. For some reason, I figured you already knew that, seeing as how our families are still neighbors and all.”

I hadn’t had the nerve to face his parents since our break-up. They still live beside my Mom on Cedar Creek Lake in Texas. The only time I’ve had any contact with them is at my father’s funeral three years ago, but I wasn’t up for much talking having just lost my father to cancer. There’s so much that has changed in our lives.

“I didn’t know, Noel. I’m sorry if I upset you. You want to talk about it?”

The line is silent for a long time, but I can hear slow and steady breaths on the other end. I don’t understand it. What could be so bad that Noel wouldn’t speak to his father? Doesn’t he know that family can be stripped away at any moment? I know his father. He’s stern. The kind of man who always gets his way and people don’t cross. Those two always butted heads when we were kids, especially, when it came to Noel’s grades. His father couldn’t grasp why school was such a struggle for his dyslexic son.

Noel’s mother, on the other hand, is a lovely woman, and she’s always considerate of Noel’s learning disability. I can’t even count the number of different tutors she hired to help him.

Noel is a mixture of both of them, I guess. His sweetness comes from his mom, while his need for complete control comes from his father. But, since I’ve reconnected with him, seems like his father’s genes are winning out. He’s pushy, just like him.

The relationship with his father was always strained when we were young. The constant need for perfection and success wore on Noel a lot. He always tried to please his father, but something in the last four years has changed, and I’m dying to find out what.

“Noel, I mean it, we’ve been friends a long time. You can tell me.”

He lets loose a loud, shaky sigh. “It’s nothing. Forget I even brought it up.”

I press the pillow tighter against my chest and for some reason I wish it’s Noel. The need to wrap my arms around him and tell him things will work out grips my heart. I know better than to believe that this isn’t a big deal. Not being able to see his family, when they meant so much to him, must be crushing.

He should talk about this with someone. If he won’t tell me willingly, I’m going to have to force it out of him.

“Bullshit,” I say.

“Excuse me?” He questions with a sharp tone.

“You heard me, Noel. Bull…shit. This isn’t nothing. Tell me. I’m your oldest friend, and I want to know what happened that’s so terrible you don’t see your parents anymore.”

Another heavy breath on the line—he’s wavering. Noel knows how relentless I can be. “He gave me an ultimatum. Go to college or get cut off.”

My eyes widened. “He threw you out? Your mom let that happen?”

Noel sighs. “She tried to stop him, but Dad was hell bent on teaching me a lesson. The only thing he let me leave with was my car. Good thing that old Chevelle has a huge back seat. It was my home for quite a while.”

“I’m so sorry, Noel. Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve let you come and stay with me at the dorm.” The thought of me dumping him coupled with what happened with his father causes an ache in my soul. He didn’t deserve to be tossed aside like he didn’t matter.

“I was too proud. I wanted to prove to you and my dad that I could succeed with my music. That it wasn’t just some hobby for me.”

“You certainly did that. You should be so proud of your success and tell us both to kiss your ass.”

“I could never do that. That’s just not the kind of person I am.” He is so right. I could never picture him telling me or his father that, but I wouldn’t blame him if he did. I deserved it. We both did. “It’s a lonely life if you don’t have good people around you. People are so fake when fame hits. The only real family I’ve got now is my band. These guys are my brothers. They know what all this is like.”

“When’s the last time you spoke with your folks?”

“I haven’t talked with my dad since the night he threw me out four years ago.”

“That’s awful.” My heart breaks for him. “And your mother…”

“Nah, Mom’s cool. She sneaks around and calls and emails me when she can. If it weren’t for her sneaking me money that first year I was on my own, I probably would have starved to death. Believe me, those cheap, shitty, little noodles are the best meals ever when you’re starving and poor.”

“I always wondered how rock stars stayed so skinny with all the beer they drink. The starvation diet should be marketed,” I say, trying to lighten his mood.

He laughs. “You should totally head that up.” The tension seems to melt away a little from his voice, with my joke. I want to ask him a million things. There are so many questions that still linger in my mind about the possibility of fixing their relationship. Some day I hope he’ll feel comfortable enough to share everything with me again, just like he used to. But for now, I’ll take whatever intimacies about his life he’s willing to give me without pushing the issue too much.