Guilt and confusion take me over. I feel sick to my stomach, like I’m going to throw up, and tears continue to pour out of my eyes. I cry for what seems like an eternity while Quinton stares silently at the ceiling beside me. Somehow I fall asleep and then next thing I know I’m being shaken awake. Moving past the grogginess, the headache, and the hunger rumbling in my stomach, I open my eyes to Delilah kneeling on the bed beside me. Quinton is gone and his bedroom door is agape.

I sit up and she scoots back to give me room. I rub my eyes and yawn. The music is still playing and I’m very unsettled on the inside, like each of my nerves is supersensitive. “What happened?” My voice is hoarse and my throat feels dry, like I just drank sand.

She inspects me closely, leaning in to examine my eyes, her hair falling into her face, and I notice the giant purplish hickey on her neck. “You tell me.” There’s speculation in her tone. “Nova, did you… did you smoke weed? Or have you been crying?”

I tug the elastic out of my hair and secure it around my ponytail. “Both.”

“Why were you crying?”

“Because.”

She waits for more details that I’ll never give to her. “Why did you smoke weed then?”

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

I wait for her to lecture me, chew me out for being so stupid, so I can call her a hypocrite, but she simply sighs and then backs off the bed.

“Let’s go,” she says, motioning for me to get to my feet. “Dylan wants us out of here, for some reason, and honestly, I don’t want to stick around and find out.”

My knees wobble a little as I stand up and tug down the bottom of my dress. “Why do you sound mad at him? What did he do to you?”

“He didn’t do anything to me, so drop it.” Her eyes turn to ice as she yanks open the bedroom door.

I raise my hands in front of me as I head for the door. “Sorry, it just seems like you’re really upset about something.”

“So do you,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at me, assessing my tear-stained eyes. “What were you doing back here anyway?”

I shrug. “I came back here with Quinton.”

“To do what?”

“Nothing,” I say, but the lie sticks in my throat. “We just laid around and talked… listened to music.” Kissed.

“Slept together.”

“Yeah, but in the sense of actually sleeping,” I reply in a snippy tone, bracing my hand against the wall as the room starts to spin. “I didn’t have sex with him.” Just kissed. And it wasn’t him with me. Not really. At least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.

She halts at the end of the hallway and I crash into the back of her. It only seems to aggravate me more, and I seriously consider pushing her to the floor because of it.

She turns around and sighs, placing a hand on each of my shoulders. “I know you didn’t have sex with him. And relax. You’re coming down, and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

I’m too tired to say anything else, so I nod, and we duck through the curtain and exit the hallway together. There’s a bunch of guys in the living room and a few girls in skimpy dresses that barely cover their thighs and boobs. It’s really loud and really bright and it’s making me edgy.

Nikki is one of the girls there. She’s sitting by Quinton on the larger sofa, laughing at something as he sips on a beer. He’s smiling and it irritates me, but everything’s irritating me at the moment, even the way my legs feel like two rubber bands weighted down my bricks.

Delilah leans over Dylan’s shoulder and whispers something in is ear. He shoots her a harsh look, then reaches up and cups the back of her neck, roughly yanks her in for a violent kiss. At first Delilah tries to pull back, but then she gives into him and kisses him back. I pretend to be engulfed in my thoughts, pressing my fingers to the brim of my nose, but my head is hollow, and I’m very aware of all the sounds and noises going on around me. I want to count to regain some control over the situation, but it seems too much like a project, so I stand near the wall, while Dylan and Delilah make out, wanting to shout at everyone to shut the hell up.

While I’m scratching at my wrist, trying to keep myself together, Quinton looks over at me. I can tell by the way his expression drops that he’s not happy I’m looking at him. I’m not happy, either. I fight for my expression to remain neutral and tell my legs to move slowly as I head toward the front door. His eyes follow me, though, and it’s hard not to run as the past nips at my heels and raw emotions fire up in my heart.

Once I’m outside, in the summer air, I can breathe again, and my head starts to clear. As I lean over the railing, wanting to rest my head and go to sleep, I take in everything I’ve done. I tell myself never again. Never. But deep down, I’m already desperately longing for the brief silence the weed gave and the split second of comfort kissing Quinton brought me.

Chapter 8

July 12, Day 54 of Summer Break

Quinton

I’ve felt like shit for the last couple weeks, even though I’m smoking more weed than usual. Dylan bought a bunch of weed from various dealers and he’s got the three of us testing them, to see which kind is the best. Why, I’m not sure. Either he just really wants some good weed, or he’s planning on selling some on his own and wants to check out the competition. I’m guessing the latter, since Tristan’s mentioned him dealing before.

After sampling the fifth bowl, I drag my ass to my room, grab my sketchbook, and flop down on the bed, planning on letting my hand go crazy and letting it draw some tripped out picture. But as I sit there, with my legs crossed and the blanket bunched up at my feet, all I can picture is the way Nova looked the last time I laid eyes on her and how soft her lips were, the way she felt underneath me, the scent of her hair, and the sound of regret as she sobbed.

I’d woken up in the bed with her, feeling guilty, not just for kissing her, but because I’d let her get high. I realized I should have ripped the joint out of her hand, but instead I’d stood by and watched her basically jump off a fucking cliff. Some people can handle the fall pretty well, and they climb right back up, but there are others, like me, who don’t care enough to figure out how, and I wonder which one Nova is.

Then I ended up fucking up even more by kissing her, because it wasn’t the same as when I kiss someone like Nikki. With Nova we’d talked before making out, she’d made me smile, and I’d made her smile. And for a second, even through the fog of drugs, the moment I spent searching her mouth with mine had altered into realness.

I’d left her sleeping in my bed, hoping to run away from the feelings intensifying inside me; the one’s telling me that I need to fix the mess. I ended up making it worse, though, when Nova saw me talking to Nikki. I could see the hatred in her eyes, and I knew she’d stay away after that, and I haven’t seen her since. It’s a good thing, at least that’s what I tell myself.

“Hey man,” Dylan says, interrupting my thoughts. I blink at my drawing, realizing that through my daze, I’ve managed to draw Nova’s eyes. “You up for that concert in a few weeks, because we’re trying to make plans and decide whose car to take?”

I set the pencil and sketchbook down on the bed, shaking my head. “Nah, I think I’m going to bail out… maybe…” I trail off remembering how Nova begged me to go and how I told her I would, unintentionally. Part of me wants to do what I said I’d do, while the other part is begging me to stay away from Nova, like I have been. “I don’t know what I’m doing yet, honestly. I’m still deciding.”

He backs out of the doorway with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Tristan will probably be fucking relieved if you decide not to go.”

“Why?” I sit up and stretch my arms above my head.

He pauses just outside the door, bracing his hands against the doorframe. “Because he thinks you have a thing for Nova.”

“How does me not going prove that I don’t have a thing for her?”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t, but it’ll give him time alone with her.” He rolls up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, reaches for his cigarettes in his pockets, and pops one into his mouth. “I don’t really get why, though. The girl’s seriously crazy sometimes.”

“Crazy?” I push up from the bed and head over to the dresser. “She seems normal to me.”

He lights the end of his cigarette and puts the lighter into his back pocket. “Yeah, but she’s not. Delilah said she went off the deep end when her boyfriend killed himself and she even tried to slit her wrists.” He makes a clicking noise with his tongue as he traces his finger over his wrists. “But who can blame her? I mean, she was the one who found him dead. That seriously has to screw with someone’s head…” His eyes widen as he pulls an oh-shit face. “Fuck, I completely forgot… Shit, man…” He rubs his bald head with his hand that’s holding the cigarette. “Look, I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, you did,” I say in a tight voice, not just pissed off at him for bringing up my painful past, but because he insulted Nova and is talking about her like she’s some kind of freak show. Me, I deserve it, because I caused the agony in my past, but Nova, she didn’t do anything. Something happened to her and it fucking makes me ache, like physically hurt on the inside and out. “Now can you get the fuck out so I can change?”

His eyes turn cold. “You better watch how you talk to me. You’re a guest in my house, and I’m not going to let you stay here for much longer if you don’t start paying for rent.”

I head for the door, my hands balled into fists, wanting so badly to punch him the face. “I’m working on getting a job.”

He slams his hand against the door as I start to close it. “If you need a job, I can get you one.”

I look him over skeptically. “Doing what?”

He takes a drag from the end of the cigarette, and smoke eases out of his mouth and envelops his face. “I think you know.”

I do, but what I’m not sure if I’m that desperate yet. Yeah, I do drugs, but dealing is a whole other level of crap. “I’ll think about it.”

He lowers his hand from the door and steps back. “Well, don’t think for too long, otherwise you’re going to miss your chance.”

I nod, and he backs out into the hall so I can shut the door. I turn in a circle, looking at the pathetic little room that’s become my home, trying to remember how I got here, but the path leading from Lexi’s death to this exact moment is nothing but a blur. I wonder if that’s how Nova feels. I wonder if that’s why she looks so sad all the time. To see something like that—to see death. It’s the kind of thing that scars people on the inside. And not just small scars, but long, thick, jagged ones that never go away. The kind of scars that alter the appearance of things, change people. Ruin them. The only difference is that I put the scars on myself by crashing the goddamn car, while Nova’s were forced on her by someone else’s decision.