21: Antidote to Righteousness (Noah)

"How's your college prep coming along Noah?"
Stevie Hunter has been Noah’s ballet teacher for three years now, and yeah she had kind of become a surrogate mother to him. So having a weeknight dinner together had become a tradition for them. It was a good excuse for Stevie to cook and for them to hang out together outside the dance studio.
Stevie had known Noah’s mother when they were both ballet dancers. They were friends, and by coincidence her son ended up at Xaviers where Stevie taught. She saw something in the frightened boy who had arrived at Xaviers and talked him into taking up ballet again, which he had started when he was six.
It was nice for Noah to hear stories about his mother, before she gave up her art for money and eventually embezzlement. It was a good excuse to have a ‘family meal’, shift out of work mode and have an actual, human conversation.
"It's fine, " Noah said mocking up a fair copy of enthusiasm as he shuffled the nondescript pasta dish around his plate. Stevie was a genius teacher but sometimes her cooking was dreadful.
"Do you need any help? I would be more than happy to-"
"Yeah, it’s a while off yet but I am thinking about the American Ballet School Stevie.”
“That’s a tough one to get into Noah.”
Noah frowned. “I thought I was good enough.”
“You will be. What about your maths?”
Noah was a maths prodigy and at sixteen was already doing college level classes with ease.
“I am not sure I want to do maths at college.”
“You could do both,” she said, “ABS has students that do their academic studies elsewhere if their academic specialties require it.”
“We are not there yet Stevie.”
She nodded and went back to the pasta.
Noah was feeling sluggish and dull and he knew Stevie could tell and that he wanted to break out of it. To be animated, engaged; the vivacious, charming guy everyone thinks Noah is. But sometimes talking to people, anyone, is impossible. It's exhausting.
Everything always sounded better in his head where his brain ran a mile a minute. He was clever in his head, then he opened his mouth and nothing came out.
There's something not right with him, he feels. He didn't feel his feelings in the
right way, this is not a new fact about Noah De Haan. Either he felt everything too much or he felt nothing at all. If you asked him he could not tell you which was better, or worse.
He was like a balloon with all the air let out, and he had no idea how to inflate himself again. If anything this is worse here in America than back home as there it was a constant fight for survival as a blond blue eyed white kid in the shanty towns.
He thought he was doing better, appearing better from the outside. Stevie looks at him, concern in her eyes.
It doesn't matter what he wants though, he is good with not doing/getting/hav-
ing what he wants.
Besides he is good at a lot of things. Maths, ballet, being an X-man. Noah knows he is even good at talking, if it's in front of a class or training group, just not the terrifying one-on-one conversations where you're expected to a have a normal emotional response and give normal social and emotional cues.
That, he’s knows he is crap at. Because he doesn’t excel at having the right
feelings. And he wishes he had the energy to hate this away.
Stevie’s voice drifts away in and out of his head and it’s like Noah is listening from underwater. But he is sinking further and further away and can’t be bothered to swim back up.
By the time the water clears from his ears Noah is stood at the sink doing the dishes, the repetitive motion calming to him bringing him back to his body in a way that he had been missing during dinner.
As he comes out of his daze he is vaguely aware of Stevie in the main room on the phone talking to someone. And he is wondering if she used an arc welder to cook the pasta onto this ovenproof dish.