“Okay.” I stand up to give my mom a hug good-bye.
She wraps her arms around me, squeezing me way too tightly, and I wonder if she can smell the weed on me or if I’ve aired out enough. “If you need anything—anything at all, call us.” She shakes her head. “God, I feel guilty for even leaving at all.”
“I’m nineteen years old,” I tell her. “And I’ve been living on my own for almost a year now. I’m fine.” I draw back. “Now go have fun on your trip.”
She presses her lips together and stares at me directly through my sunglasses, and I wonder what she sees. Does she know what I’ve been doing? Can she tell how lost I am? That I don’t know what I’m doing? That I’m not sure who I am anymore? Can she still see her daughter thriving inside, or is the Nova she gave birth to, raised, tried to shape into a good person with values, gone?
She sighs, hitching her thumb under the strap of her purse and heads for the stairs. “I love you, Nova.”
“Love you too.” I sit back down on the swing again, feeling guilty about all my bad decisions, but it quickly vanishes through the lingering high inside my head. They load up the car and back out of the driveway, and she watches me the entire time, looking away only as they reach the corner. Then everything gets quiet; even the neighborhood has decided to bask in the silence. I rock in the swing for a while, and even though my eyes aren’t focused on his house, my mind still is.
I take my phone out of my pocket, flick the screen to turn on the video, and aim it at Landon’s old house. “He doesn’t live there anymore or anything, but I kind of feel tied to it. Maybe it’s because I spent so much time there, engulfed in everything he did.” I wiggle my foot out from beneath me and place it down on the concrete patio. “Not too long after he died, his parents moved out, and now the porch is littered with bicycles and toys, and in the backyard on the hill where I once lay beside him, there’s now a swing set.” I slant to the side, so I can get a shot of the backyard and the hill that dips down to the fence line. “It’s like he doesn’t even exist anymore… like he never did… but he still does to me, inside my heart. In fact, he still owns it.”
The door creaks open, and my heart pounds deafeningly inside my chest… It matches the beat of the music as he hangs lifelessly from a rope.… His skin is so pale, like snow, and his eyes are still open, like he’s still there, holding them open…
I slap my hand across my face, hard, wanting to get the hell out of my own head. My sunglasses fly off my head, and the pain erupts up my cheek as my ears start to ring and my eyes start to water. My skin is tender; I clutch my cheek, tears stinging my eyes, sorry for not thinking before I act. It hurts. Badly. But so does the memory.
I wait until my heart settles and my adrenaline balances out. I take a deep breath and another, then sit up straight and rotate the camera around, so I show up on the screen. There’s a bright red handprint on my cheek, and I wonder if it’s going to leave a bruise. “Sometimes I wonder how unhealthy my attachment is to him. I mean, is it normal to feel like this after over a year has passed? But who’s to say what’s normal and what’s not. Who’s to say anything, really, because it always seems like everyone is saying a bunch of different things and we don’t make sense to each other. At least that’s how it is for me. Nothing makes sense anymore…” I trail off, glancing up as Delilah’s truck pulls into the driveway.
I’m surprised, because I thought she was heading out to the concert. She parks the truck and hops out, waving at me, and I notice that there are two other people in the truck. The passenger door swings open and Quinton jumps out, followed by Dylan.
“Hey, Nova Dova,” she singsongs, energetically skipping around the front of the truck. She’s changed her outfit from this morning into a pair of maroon corduroy shorts and a white tank top. Her auburn hair touches her shoulders, and she has an array of colorful bracelets on her wrists. “Are you making one of your videos?” Her jaw drops as she nears me, her eyes fixing on my swollen cheek. “Did you get in a fight while I was gone?”
I drop the phone to my lap and click off the recorder. “No,” I lie. “I fell out of the swing and hit my face on the floor.”
“Are you okay?” She trots up the steps.
I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Quinton and Dylan are talking to each other in hushed voices at the bottom of the steps, and Quinton looks like he’s getting annoyed. Dylan’s got a hood pulled over his head, which doesn’t make any sense since it’s blistering hot. Quinton has on a black-shirt on and a pair of faded jeans. His jawline is scruffy and there’s a tiny bit of black smeared on the upper section of his cheekbone.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as she stops in front of the swing. “I thought you were taking off for the concert.”
“We are but we came here to pick you up,” she says, folding her arms.
Dylan steps up to the porch and drapes an arm around her shoulders, his gaze focused on me. “Whoa, what happened to your face?” His slides the hood off his head and rubs his hand over his bald head.
“I fell,” I respond robotically, covering my cheek with my hand.
His face contorts as he takes in the gnarly welt. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I answer drly.
Delilah elbows him in the gut. “Don’t be a dick.”
His gaze bores into her, and Delilah cowers back as his jaw tightens. “So are you down, Nova?” he asks, still scowling at Delilah.
“Down for what?” I ask nervously, rocking the swing.
“For the concert.” He diverts his attention to his watch, and Delilah releases an uneven breath. “We have to go buy some camping shit from the store, go back to my house and get Tristan’s f**king car packed and then hit the road soon if we’re going to make it in time to hear the opening band.”
Quinton steps up beside them and leans back against one of the porch columns. I pretend he’s not there, looking at me with those honey-brown eyes I’ve been hiding from.
I slip off my sandals and let my feet drag against the floor as I swing back and forth. “I already told Delilah that I changed my mind about going.” I can’t do it. I’m not that strong. It’s too much.
Delilah shakes her head and waves a finger at me. “No way. You said you’d go and you’re going. I will not let you sit around here and mope all week.”
I sift through my thoughts, trying to think past the numbers floating in my head. One, two, three, four, take a deep breath. “My mom needs me home this weekend,” I lie, scowling at her, because I know what she’s up to. She thinks that because she showed up here with Quinton, she can get me to go.
“Your mom left for her vacation.” She elevates her eyebrows accusingly. “I was here this morning while she was packing, remember?”
“You know, you’re the only reason I’m going.” Quinton straightens out his leg across the porch and nudges my foot with his. His eyes are bloodshot, like they almost always are, and I can smell the scent of pot flowing off him. “It’s pretty f**ked up to bail out now and leave me hanging.” He gives me a smile and I get caught up in it for a minute, until I remember everything that happened between us and how he just walked out and started talking to Nikki, forgetting about everything in the time it took for me to catch my breath.
“I’m sure you’ll live,” I say. “And I’m sure you’ll find someone else to take.”
His tongue slips out of his mouth and he licks his lips, and then presses them together, looking remorseful. “No, I can’t. And I don’t… and I don’t want to.”
Delilah teasingly swats my arm. “Come on, Nova, just come and have fun.” She skips over to the front door and fumbles with the handle, before opening up the screen. “I’m going to go pack your stuff up, and then we have to make a stop at the sporting goods store.” She walks into my house and Dylan tags along behind her, the door banging shut behind them.
I get up from the swing and trudge toward the front door, preparing to fight with her over going when Quinton’s fingers enfold around my arm and he lures me back to him. “Hey… about what happened? I didn’t mean any of it.”
I glance over my shoulder at him, the sunlight blinding and reflecting in his eyes. “You don’t need to apologize. I know I’m not as much fun as Nikki is to hang out with. And I’m really sorry I cried when you kissed me…” I swallow hard. “That wasn’t really about you.”
“Then what was it about?” he asks, sounding genuinely interested.
“The past…” My gaze aimlessly wanders to house on the other side of the street. “And the fact that it all caught up with me.”
His brows groove and then he shakes his head. “I didn’t mean to leave you in the bed like that. I just kind of woke up and panicked, you know, because you were there in my bed.”
I don’t get what he’s saying and with the way he keeps blinking, I doubt he even does. “Quinton… what do you want from me?” It’s a strange question and a glimpse into the awkwardness that once used to radiate from me. “I’m sorry,” I apologize and turn for the door. “That came out weirder than I planned.”
He hauls me back before I make it too far, maneuvers me around him, and steers me back against the railing, until the wood is scraping at my skin through the fabric of my shirt. He scans my face over and his lips dip downward at the sight of my cheek, then he quickly wrenches his gaze away from it, like it hurts to look at it—or me.
He bends over a little to look me in the eye and the nearness of him is overpowering to the point that I actually want to touch him. “I know I don’t know you that well and I’m not that good with people, but I’d like us to be friends.”
Friends. Is that what I want from him? I cross my arms behind my back so I’ll keep my hands to myself. “You want to be friends with me? Really?”
He nods, delicately cupping his hand on my injured cheek, careful not to press down too hard. “Yeah, I like you Nova. You’re very…” He racks his brain for the right word. “Amusing,” he finishes, and the corners of his lips quirk, but he battles the smile swelling through. “What do you say? Will you be my friend, Nova Reed?”
I feel like I’m a kid again and the boy across the street is asking me if I want to hang out. I want to say that I’m getting in over my head. That I’m too unbalanced and confused to be around him, but as he continues to stare at me with his honey-brown eyes, streaked red and brimming with despair, I feel my doubts melting and I find myself nodding.
“All right,” I tell him. “We can be friends, if that’s what you want.”
He pauses with a flicker of misery appearing in his eyes, but it promptly disappears. “That’s what I want.” A smile expands at his lips, but I wonder how real it is. How can I tell? “Now, can you do me a huge favor?”