Nova and Quinton: No Regrets

  Need.

  Want.

  Need.

  Now.

  I suck in a sharp breath and then turn for the stairs, telling myself to be stronger than this. "I'm going to go unpack," I say as I head up the stairs.

  "Okay." My dad drops the keys down on the table by the front door, below a picture hanging on the wall of my mother and him on their wedding day. He looks happy in it, an emotion I've rarely seen from him. "Do you want anything in particular for dinner?"

  "Anything sounds good." I remember how many days I could go without eating dinner when I was fueling my body with crystal and smack. Getting healthy was actually part of my recovery over the last two months. Exercising. Eating. Thinking healthy. I actually chose to get some tests done just to see how bad my health was, if I'd done any permanent damage to my body with the use of needles. Like HIV or hepatitis. Everything came up negative and I guess I'm grateful for it now, but at the time I felt upset because disease seemed like the easy ticket out of the hellhole coming off of heroin and meth created. I'd hoped that maybe I'd have something deadly and it'd kill me. Then I wouldn't have to face the world and my future. My guilt. The decision between going back to a world full of drugs and living.

  When I reach the top of the stairs, I veer down the hallway, walking to the end of it to my room. I enter gradually, knowing that when I get in there a lot of stuff I've been running from is going to emerge. I thought about asking my dad to clean everything out for me: the photos, my drawings, anything related to the past. But my therapist said it might be good for me to do it because it could be the start of giving myself closure. I hope he's right. I hope he's right about a lot of things, otherwise I'm going to break apart.

  I hold on to the doorknob for probably about ten minutes before I get the courage to turn it and open the door. As I enter and step over the threshold, I want to run away. I'd forgotten how many pictures I had of Lexi on the walls. Not just ones I drew. Actually photos of her laughing, smiling, hugging me. The ones I'm in with her, I look so happy, so different, so free. So unfamiliar. Less scarred. I don't even know who that person is anymore or if I'll ever be him again.

  There's also a few pictures of my mother, ones my grandmother gave me before she passed away. Some of them were taken when my dad and mom first married, and I even have one from when she was pregnant with me, her last few months alive before she'd pass away bringing me into this world. The only pictures of her and me together. She looks a lot like me: brown hair and the same brown eyes. I was told a lot by my grandmother that we shared the same smile, but I haven't smiled for real in ages so I'm not sure if it still looks like hers.

  I manage to get a smile on my mouth as I look at a photo of her giving an exaggerated grin to the camera. It makes me feel kind of happy, which makes me sad that I'm supposed to take them down. It's what I've been taught over the last few months, let go of the past. But I need just a few more minutes with them.

  After I take each one in, breathing through the immense amount of emotional pain crushing me, I drop my bag onto the floor and wander over to a stack of sketches on my dresser. I lost my most recent drawings when the apartment burned down, and this is pretty much all that's left. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. One thing's for sure, I'm glad I don't have any of my self-portraits. In fact, I hope I never have to see myself look the way I did two months ago. I remember when I first looked in the mirror right after I got to rehab. Skeletal. The walking dead. That's what I looked like.

  There's a mirror on the wall to the side of me and I step up to it. I look so different now, my skin has more color to it, my brown eyes aren't bloodshot or dazed. My cheeks are filled out instead of sunken in, my arms are lean, my whole body more in shape. My brown hair is cropped short and my face is shaven. I look alive instead of like a ghost. I look like someone I used to know and am afraid to be again. I look like Quinton.

  I swallow hard and turn away from my reflection and back toward my sketches. I fan through a few of the top ones, which turn out to be of Lexi. I remember how much I used to draw her, even after she died. But during the last few months of tumbling toward rock bottom, I started drawing someone else. A person I haven't seen in two months or talked to. Nova Reed. I haven't talked to her since I got on a plane to go to rehab. I wrote her a few times, but then never sent the letters, too afraid to tell her everything I have to say, too terrified to express emotions I'm pretty sure I'm not ready to deal with just yet. She tried to call me a few times at the facility, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to her. A month ago she wrote me a letter and it's in the back of my notebook, waiting to be opened. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do it. Face her. Be forced to let her go if that's what she wants. I wouldn't blame her if she did. After everything that I put her through--having to visit me in that shithole I called home, my mood swings, the drug dealers threatening her.

  Blowing out a heavy sigh, I get my notebook and a pencil out of my bag, then flop down on the bed. I open the notebook up to a clean sheet of paper and decide which I want to do more, write or draw. They're both therapeutic, although I'm way better at drawing. After some debating, I put the pencil to the paper and start drawing. I know where it's headed the moment I form the first line. I lost all my drawings of Nova when the apartment burned down. Not a single one remains. It's like the memory of her is gone. But I don't want it to be gone--I don't want her to be gone. I want to remember her. How good she was to me. How she made me feel alive, even when I fought it. How I'm pretty sure I love her, but I'm still trying to figure that out for sure, just like I'm trying to figure out everything else, like where I belong in this world and if I belong in this world. Everyone keeps telling me yes--that I belong here. That what happened in the accident wasn't my fault. That yes, I was driving too fast, but the other car was, too, and took the turn too wide. And that Lexi shouldn't have been hanging out the window. And I want to believe that's true, that perhaps it wasn't my fault entirely. That's the difference between now and a couple of months ago, but it's hard to let go of something I've been clutching for the last two years--my guilt. I need to find a reason to let it go and to make life worth living in such a way that I don't have to dope my body up just to make it through the day.

  I need something to live for, but at the moment I'm not sure what the hell that is or if it even exists.

  Chapter 2

  Nova

  "I sometimes sit in the quad and watch the people walk by. It probably sounds creepy but it's not. I'm just observing. Human nature. What people do. How they act. But it's more than that. If I look close enough, I can sometimes tell when someone is going through something painful. Maybe a breakup. Perhaps they just lost their job. Or maybe they've lost a loved one. Perhaps they're suffering in silence, lost in a sea of questions, of what-ifs. Pain. Loss. Remorse." I shift in the bench that's centered in the quad yard as my back starts to hurt. I've been sitting out here for hours, recording myself, watching the people walk by. What I really want to do is run out there and stop each one. Ask them their story. Listen. Hear it. If they need consoling, I could do it. In fact, that's what I want to do. Be able to help people. I just wish I could somehow figure out a way to do it through filming.

  "Death. It's around more than people realize. Because no one ever wants to talk about it or hear about it. It's too sad. Too painful. Too hard. The list of reasons is endless." The wind gusts up from behind me, causing leaves to circle around my head and strands of my hair to veil my face. The fall air gets chilly in Idaho during this time of year and I forgot to bring my jacket.

  Shivering, I get to my feet and collect my bag. After putting my camera away, I start back to the apartment, picking up the pace when I realize how late it is and that I should have been home already. Today is actually a very big and important day. Not because I have a calculus test or had to turn in one of my mini video clips for my film class. Nope. Today is important because Quinton was released from the drug facility. It's not information I learned directly from him.
Sadly, I haven't even spoken to him since the day he got on the plane with his father and headed back to Seattle to get help. But I have other sources to get me information. Tristan sources, to be exact.

  Tristan is Quinton's cousin and he just happens to be my roommate. They talk occasionally on the phone and I think he hears stuff from his parents, but that's mainly negative stuff, since Tristan's parents still blame Quinton for the car accident that killed their daughter, Ryder. It's a messed-up situation, but I don't think it's ever going to change. Tristan agrees. He told me once that he doesn't believe his parents will ever let their blame go, that they have to hold on to it in order to live each day, no matter how fucked up it is. But thankfully, Tristan is a good guy and tries to make up for it by being Quinton's friend and forgiving him.

  Forgiveness. If only more people could do it. Then maybe there'd be less pain in the world.

  When I walk into the house, it smells of vanilla, the scent flowing from a candle burning on the kitchen countertop. There's a stack of magazines by the front door, along with the mail. And Tristan is sitting on the sofa, staring at his phone as if it's the enemy.

  "Hey," I say, dropping my bag to the floor. "Are you ready to call him?"

  "I feel like a narc," Tristan gripes as I plop down on the sofa beside him.

  I give him a friendly pat on his leg. "But I assure you, you're not."

  He narrows his eyes at me, pretending he's mad, but I know him enough now to know he's not. Just a little annoyed. "But I sort of am, seeing as how I'm calling him, but only so I can get information for you."

  "But you want to know too," I remind him, grabbing a handful of Skittles out of the candy bowl on the coffee table. "What he's going to do--if he's okay. If he needs anything now that he's out."

  "Yeah, but I'm not even sure he'll talk to me since he barely would in rehab," he says as I pour the Skittles into my mouth.

  I stop chewing and pull a pouty face and clasp my hands in front of me. "Pretty please."

  He shakes his head and then swipes his finger across the screen. "Fine, but I'm only doing this because you let me live here and because your pouty faces are ridiculously hard to say no to."

  "You don't owe me for living here," I say reassuringly. "And you pay rent, so this apartment is as much yours as it is mine."

  "But you take care of me," he says as he pushes buttons on his phone. "And keep me out of trouble."

  "And you're such a good boy about it." I pat his head like he's a dog, although he's much cuter than a dog. His blond hair, blue eyes, and smile make him seem like he belongs in a boy band, all perfect and charming. But his past is dark. Haunted. Full of mistakes and addiction, something he struggles with every day.

  "I'm not a dog, Nova." He gives me a dirty look for the head pat and then gets up from the sofa with the phone pressed to his ear, rounding the coffee table and heading toward the hallway.

  "Hey, where are you going?" I call out after him, slanting over the arm of the chair and peering down the hallway at him.

  "To talk in private," he says, disappearing into his room. "Because your excessive staring is driving me crazy." Seconds later, his bedroom door shuts.

  I sit back and retrieve my cell phone from my pocket. I've been making recordings of myself for a year and a half now and it's sort of become a habit whenever I've got a lot of clutter in my head, like I do right now. For me it's like writing in a diary, even though I also use some of the stuff for film class. Although it didn't originally start out like that. I first started doing it during a rough time in my life, about a year after my boyfriend Landon killed himself. He'd made a recording right before he did it and for some reason making recordings myself made me feel closer to him. Eventually I learned to let it go--the need to still connect with him.

  I sit up straight on the sofa and press the button that flips the screen at myself, and my image pops up on the screen. My long brown hair runs to my shoulders and my green eyes stare back at me. My skin has a healthy glow to it and freckles dot my nose. I'm not the most beautiful girl in the world, but I look decent when I'm sober and my system is clean, which it has been for a year now.

  After I get the right angle, I clear my throat and start recording. "Tristan can be so serious sometimes, at least when he's doing stuff he doesn't want to do. Not at all the same person I knew two months ago or even two years ago. He's been sober for over three months now and living with me and Lea, my best friend for over a year. It's good that he's more serious though because it seems to be keeping him out of trouble. He goes to work at the coffee shop a mile away from the house and attends the university and stays away from parties. I can tell there's times when he'd rather be out doing something fun than sitting in the house eating pizza with Lea and me, but he always stays, which to me means at the moment everything is okay, at least I hope it is. And I hope it is for Quinton. I wish I knew. Something... anything about him, but he won't talk to me and never wrote me back when I sent him a letter a month ago. I'm not sure if he's mad at me, but Tristan assures me he's not. That he probably feels guilty over putting me through what he did, but I don't want that for him. He has enough guilt as it is and I'm okay now. I really am. Healthy. Happy. And moving forward."

  I click off the camera, and then I get up and start doing the dishes as a way to keep myself busy. Part of me wants to revert to my habit of counting because I'm anxious right now, but the urge is nowhere near what it used to be. In fact, it's been sort of silent for the last couple of months. I think maybe that's because I've managed to stay so busy with school, my job at a photography studio, and of course my band.

  Yeah, I'm in a band called Ashes & Dust. Jaxon, Lea's ex-boyfriend, is the singer, the bassist's name is Spalding and the guitarist is Nikko. I'm the only chick and Lea always makes jokes about how lucky I am, but it's awkward because things with Jaxon and her didn't end well. Sometimes things even get uncomfortable between Jaxon and me, whenever Lea's name is mentioned. Still, it's awesome that I get to play my drums and I wish I could do it all the time. Life would be so much less complicated if I could.

  Tristan is still in his room when I get the dishwasher loaded and I can hear him talking through the door. I think about putting my ear up and listening, but it makes me feel bad, so I go into the living room and crank up the stereo, putting on some Papa Roach. Then I start to rock out, dancing around. I'd play my drums but I'm not allowed to anymore, ever since the neighbors complained about the noise. So sadly I have to dance to vent and I pretty much suck at dancing.

  I'm whipping my long brown hair around and really shaking my ass as I belt out the lyrics when suddenly I hear a cough from behind me. I immediately stop dancing and try to ignore the rush of heat I feel on my cheeks as I go over and turn the music down.

  I smooth my hair and wipe the sweat from my forehead before I turn around and face Tristan. "So what'd he say?" I ask, breathless.

  He crosses his arms and arches a brow at me, trying not to smile. "Nice dance moves."

  I take an embarrassed bow and it gets him to relax. "Thank you." I straighten back up. "Now tell me what he said. Is he okay? Good? Bad? What?"

  "Come sit down." He nods at the leather sofa and I walk over and have a seat. He sits down beside me, seeming slightly nervous as he fiddles with the bottom button on his shirt. "He's doing okay," he says.

  "And." I motion my hand, needing him to give me more details. "Did he seem, I don't know, in need of help?"

  He sighs, sweeping his fingers through the locks of his blond hair. "I think he sounded pretty okay. He's staying with his dad and he says they're talking and everything, which they never used to do. He's supposed to start going to a therapist next week and to a sobriety support group, which is good in my opinion. A support group helped me a lot when I got out of rehab. He told me he'll probably stay in Seattle for a while and try to find a job there." He pauses, watching my reaction, like he thinks I'm about to break apart.

  "Oh." I should sound happier than I do--should b
e more happy for him. And I am, but for some stupid reason I was hoping for... I don't know... that I could see him again. "That all sounds great, I guess."

  "Then why do you sound so sad?" he questions, searching my eyes for the truth.

  I lift my shoulders and shrug. "I'm happy for him. Just sad that I can't see him."

  "You could always call him... in fact, I told him you might."

  I swallow the lump of nerves that has shoved its way up my throat. "And what'd he say?"

  "He said you could." He looks like he wants to retract the statement as soon as he says it. "Well, I mean, he sounded nervous about it and everything, but I think that's more because he feels guilty about what happened to you while you were down in Vegas, which he shouldn't." He stares down at his hands. "That shit that happened with the drug dealers... that was my fault."

  I remain silent, not just because of what Tristan told me about Quinton but also because of Tristan's guilt. Even though it was his fault--what happened with the drug dealers and them threatening me and beating up Quinton--it still doesn't mean he needs to feel guilty about it. "You don't need to feel bad for that, Tristan." I slouch back in the sofa and cross my arms over my chest. Everyone's always blaming themselves for stuff, including me, and I'm sick and tired of it. I just want us to let go of stuff. Move on. "I get that your mind wasn't in the right place when all that stuff happened."

  He glances over at me. "You're too forgiving sometimes."

  "And you're too sad sometimes," I retort. It gets quiet and I can feel us both moving toward a depressing slump. Before we can get there, I rise to my feet and extend my hand to him. "Come on. Let's go do something fun."

  He cocks a brow. "Like what?"

  I shrug with my hand still extended. "I don't know. We could go see a movie, maybe? Or rent one, pick up some pizza, and come back here and watch it."