Nova and Quinton: No Regrets
Page 32
I reach up and draw my hood over my head, before inhaling another breath of smoke and exhaling it. “Are you okay if we’re together? Or does it… does it bother you?”
He pulls a nah face as he hops off the bench into the snow. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” I get to my feet and trample through the snow after him as he heads for the gate. “Because you can talk to me if it does.”
He shakes his head, walking backward so he’s facing me, with his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat. “I’m fine with you and Nova being together. You’re better for her anyway.” He spins on his heels, walking forward and kicking the snow.
I’m baffled as I hurry after him, because I’m not better for her. She just chose to be with me, despite how much I don’t deserve her. “I’m not better than you in any way, shape, or form.”
“Yeah, you kind of are,” he says simply. “And besides, I don’t think I’m going to be with anyone for a very long time.”
“What do you mean?”
He’s quiet for a while, flicking his cigarette ashes into the snow as we reach the gate, where he pauses and faces me. “You know, after I got clean again, I looked at it as a second chance.” He opens the gate and then walks through it, turning his back toward me as he continues. “I mean, I f**king nearly died, for Christ’s sake, and so I should be grateful I’m alive.”
“Aren’t you?” I ask, closing the gate behind me.
“I was.” He stares out at the icy road as we walk up the side of it. “Until a couple of weeks ago when I found out I have hepatitis C.”
I freeze in place, stunned beyond comprehension. “What?”
He shrugs as if he didn’t just say something major and life-changing, eyes ahead, refusing to look at me. “Yeah, I feel like it’s some kind of cosmic joke. Keep me alive just so I can find out I have some stupid disease that might complicate my life depending on how things go”
I don’t know much about the disease, but I know enough to know that he probably got it from shooting up. It doesn’t really matter, though, how he got it. All that matters is his life is changed forever. “Tell me what I can do.” I lean forward and catch his eye. “What do you need?”
“There’s not much that you can do for me. You and I both know that.” He reaches for his pack of cigarettes, thinking. “Just take good care of Nova, if you end up with her.” He opens his pack and pops a cigarette into his mouth. “She’s one of the good ones—you’re f**king lucky to have her.” He offers me a cigarette and I take it.
I pull my lighter from my pocket, still stunned beyond words at what he just told me. All that time we spent in the drug world and I was able to walk away from it, while it’s going to haunt him forever. It feels so f**ked up.
“The roles should be reversed,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You should be healthy and with Nova and I should be the one who…” I can’t even say it.
“It doesn’t really matter,” he replies, flicking his lighter and lighting the cigarette. “You’re the healthy one. You’re the one Nova wants. You’re a lucky SOB, so be grateful and take it.”
He’s right. I am lucky. Lucky to be standing here healthy and sober after everything I’ve done. Lucky to be alive with all the death in the world, when so many people aren’t. Lucky I got to spend the time that I did with someone as amazing as Nova. And I make a silent vow right now to take my second chance and do something good with it. To change my life. Start doing things that matter. Stop being afraid and tell Nova I love her. Stop holding on to the past. It’s time to start moving forward.
Nova
The funeral was harder than I thought. I cried more than I wanted. Delilah’s mother was a wreck, barely able to walk into the church without falling down. My mom cried, too, and so did Quinton a few times. I hated seeing him so sad and I’d subtly tried to talk him out of coming, even though I wanted him there with me. But he came anyway and I think I might have fallen in love with him a little bit more because I knew how hard it had to be for him.
While I was there, I heard whispers among the people who attended the funeral. There were rumors of Delilah’s having being beaten. Raped. Some even said that Delilah’s mother was lying about her being shot and that she’d simply OD’d. But Quinton, Tristan, and I have our own theory. We saw how Dylan was with her—they knew he had a gun, which is what we told the police. Whether her death will ever be solved, I don’t know. But regardless, it’s a tragic story, one that I wish would never happen again.
After it’s all over, I can feel that familiar burn inside me, the one that wants to do something instead of sitting around and watching all the bad that surrounds me. I realize I need a change. Need to do the things I want to do in life and stop worrying about the what-ifs. Life’s too short to constantly be worrying about everything that could go wrong. And it’s time to start chasing my dream of helping people instead of thinking about it so much. But I wonder if I can do it. Give up school. My friends. My band. My job. Quinton.
This is what I’m thinking about as Quinton walks up the path to my house, bundled in his coat, his nose and cheeks reddened from the cold. I’ve been sitting in the porch swing for about an hour, chilled to the bone, yet I can’t seem to bring myself to go inside, frozen in place until I make the decision about which path I’m going to take in life.
“Hey,” he says as he reaches the steps. “How are you doing?” He shakes his head as he trots up the stairs, removing his hands from his pockets. “Never mind. Stupid question.”
“No, it’s not a stupid question,” I say as he takes a seat beside me and the swing sways beneath us. “I should talk about how I feel, and I feel like shit.”
He places a hand on top of mine as he rocks the swing back and forth. “Tell me what I can do to make you feel better. I want to make you feel better.”
“Build me a time machine,” I say with a sigh. “So I can go back and pull her out of that house.”
“Nova, you can’t torture yourself over this,” he says in an uneven voice, gripping my hand. “Trust me. It’ll ruin you.”
“I already feel ruined.”
“But this isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is.” I shake my head, sliding away from him. “You don’t get it. I knew Dylan was wrong for her since they first started dating a few years ago. Knew that he probably was abusive to her, and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“You can’t stop everything,” he says. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make it any easier not to feel guilty.” I watch snowflakes swirl down from the sky and dance around us.
“I get that.” His voice softens, but I feel him stiffen beside me. There’s this long pause when it feels like maybe I should say something, but ultimately he’s the one to start talking. “That night… the night of the accident… Lexi was sitting up in the window of the car.” He pulls his hand away from my leg and folds his arms, staring straight ahead. “She was kind of crazy like that. Always pushing her limits and being way too adventurous.”
I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think he’s ever talked about this aloud before and I fear that if I speak at all, I might ruin this moment for him as he lets out what’s been trapped inside him for years.
“I tried to get her back in… that was actually what I was doing when the other car came around the corner.” His brows furrow as if he’s confused by the memory. “Whenever I think back to it, I just keep wishing I would have pulled over the car the moment she stuck her head out the window… but we were late and I didn’t want to get us into trouble. But we never even made it home… or Ryder and Lexi didn’t, anyway.”
“Quinton, that’s not your fault,” I say, putting my arm around him and hugging him close to me. “What happened… that was just a tragic accident.”
He looks at me, his eyes glistening with tears, so heartbreakingly beautiful it nearly knocks the wind out of me. “Accident or not, it’s something that will always haunt me.” He uncrosses his arms and turns to face me, placing his hand on my cheek. “But you make it easier to deal with it… and I want to be there for you like you’ve been there for me. It’s important to me. So please tell me what I can do, because it’s killing me seeing you like this.”
Shutting my eyes, I rest my head on his shoulder. “I actually do have a favor to ask you,” I say.
He wraps his arms around me, alleviating a small amount of pain. “You name it and it’s yours.”
Snowflakes whisk around us and sting my cheeks. “I need you to tell me you’re going to be okay if I decide to take off for a little while.”
“Where are you going?” he wonders, confused.
I open my eyes and look up at him. “Remember that project I told you about? The one my professor is working on? Well, I think I want to do it.”
He’s silent for a while, snowflakes spinning around us so thickly I can’t see any of my surroundings but him. “I think you should do it,” he finally says. “In fact, I’m going to make you do it.”
I laugh for the first time in the last few days. “Oh yeah?”
He kisses my forehead, just a light graze of his lips. “Yeah, and you want to know why?” he asks, and I nod. “Because I think it’ll make you happy, and if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you, Nova.”
“But what about you and Tristan?” I ask. “Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he says reassuringly. “Wilson has a shit-ton more houses for me to work on and he’s even been trying to talk me into going on the road to help build.”
I still worry. About him. About Tristan. About everyone in the world who is struggling. “But what about Tristan? I worry that he’s going to get into trouble.”
“Tristan will be fine,” he says, but I detect a slight bit of sadness in his voice. But before I can say anything, he turns us around so we’re facing my yard with his arm around my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll talk him into joining Habitat for Humanity and hitting the road with me and Wilson. In fact, I think it might be good for him.”
“You think he should drop out of school?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know… but it’s an option, right? To keep him busy and out of trouble.”
I want to tell him that it’s a great idea. I want to believe that everything will be okay. That we’ll go our separate ways and everything will work out in the long run. But I’d be naïve to think that, no matter what, everything will turn out perfect. All I can do is hope and start living my life.
Epilogue
Six months later…
Nova
I’m nervous as hell. Not because in just a little bit I’ll be watching the documentary I helped out on for four months straight, but because I’ll be seeing Quinton for the first time in six months.
It’s not like we haven’t talked to each other. In fact, we probably talk more than most couples. At least three times a day every day on the phone, plus we text five to six more times on top of that. Being away from him has seriously been hard, but in the end, I think it’s been good for us both. Given us time to grow. Heal. Become our own people.
Quinton’s helped build so many houses, I’ve lost track, and listening to him talk about it is really amazing. He always gets really excited, especially when he tells me about the family who’s getting the house. He loves every second of it, just like I’ve loved every second of my journey. Professor McGell, or Dusty as I call him now, decided to put me in charge of the interviews we did with people. He said I had a knack for human compassion and for the most part I think he’s right. Quinton completely agrees with him, too, but Quinton thinks highly of me no matter what I say or do, even when I think I’m being mean.
I’m hanging out in my hotel room in Idaho, my clothes scattered across the floor as I decide what to wear to the viewing of the film. I’ve actually seen it before, a few times, but the fact that it’s going out to the world makes it feel brand-new and scary as heck.
I’m wrapped in a towel, my damp hair running down my back, when I hear a knock at the door. Grinning, I step over the pile of dresses I was deciding among and pad over to the door. I peer out the peephole and my grin expands as I open the door.
Quinton smiles back and then his honey-brown eyes widen as soon as he takes in the towel. “Wow, you’re getting straight to the point. Aren’t ya?”
I laugh, then grab his arm and yank him inside, kicking the door shut behind me. Then I turn around and take him in: his scruffy jaw, his short brown hair, his faded jeans and black T-shirt that look like they’ve seen a wash or two or twenty-five. He looks like a person who’s worked hard, which is good because, he says, the harder he works the better he feels. So he must be feeling pretty damn good right now.
“You look amazing,” he says after a minute or two goes by of us just staring at each other. I’ve been worried that after six months apart, just talking on the phone, being together is going to be awkward.
I tuck a wet lock of hair behind my ear, chewing nervously on my bottom lip. “So do you… you look manly.”
He snorts a laugh and then he’s moving in to kiss me. “God, I’ve missed you,” he says, and then his lips brush against mine.
He pulls a nah face as he hops off the bench into the snow. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” I get to my feet and trample through the snow after him as he heads for the gate. “Because you can talk to me if it does.”
He shakes his head, walking backward so he’s facing me, with his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat. “I’m fine with you and Nova being together. You’re better for her anyway.” He spins on his heels, walking forward and kicking the snow.
I’m baffled as I hurry after him, because I’m not better for her. She just chose to be with me, despite how much I don’t deserve her. “I’m not better than you in any way, shape, or form.”
“Yeah, you kind of are,” he says simply. “And besides, I don’t think I’m going to be with anyone for a very long time.”
“What do you mean?”
He’s quiet for a while, flicking his cigarette ashes into the snow as we reach the gate, where he pauses and faces me. “You know, after I got clean again, I looked at it as a second chance.” He opens the gate and then walks through it, turning his back toward me as he continues. “I mean, I f**king nearly died, for Christ’s sake, and so I should be grateful I’m alive.”
“Aren’t you?” I ask, closing the gate behind me.
“I was.” He stares out at the icy road as we walk up the side of it. “Until a couple of weeks ago when I found out I have hepatitis C.”
I freeze in place, stunned beyond comprehension. “What?”
He shrugs as if he didn’t just say something major and life-changing, eyes ahead, refusing to look at me. “Yeah, I feel like it’s some kind of cosmic joke. Keep me alive just so I can find out I have some stupid disease that might complicate my life depending on how things go”
I don’t know much about the disease, but I know enough to know that he probably got it from shooting up. It doesn’t really matter, though, how he got it. All that matters is his life is changed forever. “Tell me what I can do.” I lean forward and catch his eye. “What do you need?”
“There’s not much that you can do for me. You and I both know that.” He reaches for his pack of cigarettes, thinking. “Just take good care of Nova, if you end up with her.” He opens his pack and pops a cigarette into his mouth. “She’s one of the good ones—you’re f**king lucky to have her.” He offers me a cigarette and I take it.
I pull my lighter from my pocket, still stunned beyond words at what he just told me. All that time we spent in the drug world and I was able to walk away from it, while it’s going to haunt him forever. It feels so f**ked up.
“The roles should be reversed,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You should be healthy and with Nova and I should be the one who…” I can’t even say it.
“It doesn’t really matter,” he replies, flicking his lighter and lighting the cigarette. “You’re the healthy one. You’re the one Nova wants. You’re a lucky SOB, so be grateful and take it.”
He’s right. I am lucky. Lucky to be standing here healthy and sober after everything I’ve done. Lucky to be alive with all the death in the world, when so many people aren’t. Lucky I got to spend the time that I did with someone as amazing as Nova. And I make a silent vow right now to take my second chance and do something good with it. To change my life. Start doing things that matter. Stop being afraid and tell Nova I love her. Stop holding on to the past. It’s time to start moving forward.
Nova
The funeral was harder than I thought. I cried more than I wanted. Delilah’s mother was a wreck, barely able to walk into the church without falling down. My mom cried, too, and so did Quinton a few times. I hated seeing him so sad and I’d subtly tried to talk him out of coming, even though I wanted him there with me. But he came anyway and I think I might have fallen in love with him a little bit more because I knew how hard it had to be for him.
While I was there, I heard whispers among the people who attended the funeral. There were rumors of Delilah’s having being beaten. Raped. Some even said that Delilah’s mother was lying about her being shot and that she’d simply OD’d. But Quinton, Tristan, and I have our own theory. We saw how Dylan was with her—they knew he had a gun, which is what we told the police. Whether her death will ever be solved, I don’t know. But regardless, it’s a tragic story, one that I wish would never happen again.
After it’s all over, I can feel that familiar burn inside me, the one that wants to do something instead of sitting around and watching all the bad that surrounds me. I realize I need a change. Need to do the things I want to do in life and stop worrying about the what-ifs. Life’s too short to constantly be worrying about everything that could go wrong. And it’s time to start chasing my dream of helping people instead of thinking about it so much. But I wonder if I can do it. Give up school. My friends. My band. My job. Quinton.
This is what I’m thinking about as Quinton walks up the path to my house, bundled in his coat, his nose and cheeks reddened from the cold. I’ve been sitting in the porch swing for about an hour, chilled to the bone, yet I can’t seem to bring myself to go inside, frozen in place until I make the decision about which path I’m going to take in life.
“Hey,” he says as he reaches the steps. “How are you doing?” He shakes his head as he trots up the stairs, removing his hands from his pockets. “Never mind. Stupid question.”
“No, it’s not a stupid question,” I say as he takes a seat beside me and the swing sways beneath us. “I should talk about how I feel, and I feel like shit.”
He places a hand on top of mine as he rocks the swing back and forth. “Tell me what I can do to make you feel better. I want to make you feel better.”
“Build me a time machine,” I say with a sigh. “So I can go back and pull her out of that house.”
“Nova, you can’t torture yourself over this,” he says in an uneven voice, gripping my hand. “Trust me. It’ll ruin you.”
“I already feel ruined.”
“But this isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is.” I shake my head, sliding away from him. “You don’t get it. I knew Dylan was wrong for her since they first started dating a few years ago. Knew that he probably was abusive to her, and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“You can’t stop everything,” he says. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make it any easier not to feel guilty.” I watch snowflakes swirl down from the sky and dance around us.
“I get that.” His voice softens, but I feel him stiffen beside me. There’s this long pause when it feels like maybe I should say something, but ultimately he’s the one to start talking. “That night… the night of the accident… Lexi was sitting up in the window of the car.” He pulls his hand away from my leg and folds his arms, staring straight ahead. “She was kind of crazy like that. Always pushing her limits and being way too adventurous.”
I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think he’s ever talked about this aloud before and I fear that if I speak at all, I might ruin this moment for him as he lets out what’s been trapped inside him for years.
“I tried to get her back in… that was actually what I was doing when the other car came around the corner.” His brows furrow as if he’s confused by the memory. “Whenever I think back to it, I just keep wishing I would have pulled over the car the moment she stuck her head out the window… but we were late and I didn’t want to get us into trouble. But we never even made it home… or Ryder and Lexi didn’t, anyway.”
“Quinton, that’s not your fault,” I say, putting my arm around him and hugging him close to me. “What happened… that was just a tragic accident.”
He looks at me, his eyes glistening with tears, so heartbreakingly beautiful it nearly knocks the wind out of me. “Accident or not, it’s something that will always haunt me.” He uncrosses his arms and turns to face me, placing his hand on my cheek. “But you make it easier to deal with it… and I want to be there for you like you’ve been there for me. It’s important to me. So please tell me what I can do, because it’s killing me seeing you like this.”
Shutting my eyes, I rest my head on his shoulder. “I actually do have a favor to ask you,” I say.
He wraps his arms around me, alleviating a small amount of pain. “You name it and it’s yours.”
Snowflakes whisk around us and sting my cheeks. “I need you to tell me you’re going to be okay if I decide to take off for a little while.”
“Where are you going?” he wonders, confused.
I open my eyes and look up at him. “Remember that project I told you about? The one my professor is working on? Well, I think I want to do it.”
He’s silent for a while, snowflakes spinning around us so thickly I can’t see any of my surroundings but him. “I think you should do it,” he finally says. “In fact, I’m going to make you do it.”
I laugh for the first time in the last few days. “Oh yeah?”
He kisses my forehead, just a light graze of his lips. “Yeah, and you want to know why?” he asks, and I nod. “Because I think it’ll make you happy, and if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you, Nova.”
“But what about you and Tristan?” I ask. “Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he says reassuringly. “Wilson has a shit-ton more houses for me to work on and he’s even been trying to talk me into going on the road to help build.”
I still worry. About him. About Tristan. About everyone in the world who is struggling. “But what about Tristan? I worry that he’s going to get into trouble.”
“Tristan will be fine,” he says, but I detect a slight bit of sadness in his voice. But before I can say anything, he turns us around so we’re facing my yard with his arm around my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll talk him into joining Habitat for Humanity and hitting the road with me and Wilson. In fact, I think it might be good for him.”
“You think he should drop out of school?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know… but it’s an option, right? To keep him busy and out of trouble.”
I want to tell him that it’s a great idea. I want to believe that everything will be okay. That we’ll go our separate ways and everything will work out in the long run. But I’d be naïve to think that, no matter what, everything will turn out perfect. All I can do is hope and start living my life.
Epilogue
Six months later…
Nova
I’m nervous as hell. Not because in just a little bit I’ll be watching the documentary I helped out on for four months straight, but because I’ll be seeing Quinton for the first time in six months.
It’s not like we haven’t talked to each other. In fact, we probably talk more than most couples. At least three times a day every day on the phone, plus we text five to six more times on top of that. Being away from him has seriously been hard, but in the end, I think it’s been good for us both. Given us time to grow. Heal. Become our own people.
Quinton’s helped build so many houses, I’ve lost track, and listening to him talk about it is really amazing. He always gets really excited, especially when he tells me about the family who’s getting the house. He loves every second of it, just like I’ve loved every second of my journey. Professor McGell, or Dusty as I call him now, decided to put me in charge of the interviews we did with people. He said I had a knack for human compassion and for the most part I think he’s right. Quinton completely agrees with him, too, but Quinton thinks highly of me no matter what I say or do, even when I think I’m being mean.
I’m hanging out in my hotel room in Idaho, my clothes scattered across the floor as I decide what to wear to the viewing of the film. I’ve actually seen it before, a few times, but the fact that it’s going out to the world makes it feel brand-new and scary as heck.
I’m wrapped in a towel, my damp hair running down my back, when I hear a knock at the door. Grinning, I step over the pile of dresses I was deciding among and pad over to the door. I peer out the peephole and my grin expands as I open the door.
Quinton smiles back and then his honey-brown eyes widen as soon as he takes in the towel. “Wow, you’re getting straight to the point. Aren’t ya?”
I laugh, then grab his arm and yank him inside, kicking the door shut behind me. Then I turn around and take him in: his scruffy jaw, his short brown hair, his faded jeans and black T-shirt that look like they’ve seen a wash or two or twenty-five. He looks like a person who’s worked hard, which is good because, he says, the harder he works the better he feels. So he must be feeling pretty damn good right now.
“You look amazing,” he says after a minute or two goes by of us just staring at each other. I’ve been worried that after six months apart, just talking on the phone, being together is going to be awkward.
I tuck a wet lock of hair behind my ear, chewing nervously on my bottom lip. “So do you… you look manly.”
He snorts a laugh and then he’s moving in to kiss me. “God, I’ve missed you,” he says, and then his lips brush against mine.
