Authors: Jessica Sorensen
We leave later than planned. It’s little after midnight when we pile into Tristan’s Cadillac, with our suitcases, tents, sleeping bags, and all the other shit Nova and I picked up at the store piled in the trunk. The stars are out, but it’s a little cloudy, so they look like distant dots hidden by a wispy veil. I’d sketch it because it’s one of those rare sights that should be recorded, but I’m squished between the door and Nova, who’s searching through videos on her phone.
Tristan is driving, and Dylan made Delilah sit in the backseat, even though she said it makes her carsick. He told her he didn’t give a shit, and I really don’t think he does. He wants to sit up front where it’s roomier and he can rest back and get some sleep. Nova chooses to sit by me, and I both love and hate that she did. And it really makes me want to get high, but I won’t smoke in the car. I’d never put any of their lives at risk by smoking in the car and getting everyone, including the driver, stoned.
“It smells like dirty socks,” Nova remarks, scrunching her nose as she scrolls through video clips on her phone.
Delilah giggles next to her. “It’s probably Dylan’s feet. They stink.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dylan complains from the front seat, kicking his boots up onto the dashboard. “I still have my shoes on.”
Nova’s eyes elevate from her phone and settle on me. “Is it you?”
I shake my head, confining a smile. “I still have my shoes on, too.”
“But you always have your laces undone.” She says it more as a question than a statement. Her fingers wrap securely around her phone and she hugs it against her chest.
“Because it makes it easier to slip them off,” I say, trying not to dig too deep into the fact that she noticed this minor detail about me. “And easier to put on.”
“Oh.” She glances back at her phone, but doesn’t do anything but stare at the black screen.
“It’s my feet,” Tristan shamelessly admits as he veers the car onto the desolate highway. “But if I’m stuck driving, you all are just going to have to deal with it, because I’m going to be comfortable.”
“No one made you drive,” Dylan says, cracking the window so he can smoke. “You just did.”
“Because no one else offered,” he retorts, flipping on the high beams. The road in front of us lights up, every twist and turn, and every single tree. There’s no one on the road, and it makes me apprehensive. It’s not like I haven’t been in a car since the accident, but I’m also usually high whenever I get into a vehicle. I didn’t have time to light up before we drove off, and there’s no way I’m smoking it in the car when I have other people in it. Being sober in a car painfully forces me to think about the accident and how in a blink of an eye we all could be gone.
Nova lets out an exhausted sigh as she drops her phone on the seat between Delilah and herself. “We should play a game,” she says.
“Like spin the bottle,” Tristan suggests, smiling at her in the rearview mirror.
She frowns as she tips her head down, pieces of her hair curtaining her face. “No, like I spy or something.”
“That’s the stupidest game ever,” Dylan snaps from the front seat. His head flops back against the headrest, and his hand rests on the windowsill so the cigarette ashes can blow freely outside. He’s been pretty moody lately—well, moodier than normal—which means he’s probably coming down from something a lot rougher than pot.
Delilah unfastens her seat belt, and it makes my stomach somersault as she slides forward in the seat to massage the back of Dylan’s neck. “Relax, babe,” she says, moving her fingers in circles along his neck. “Try to get some sleep.”
Dylan mutters something as he puffs on his cigarette. “This is such bullshit.”
I move my attention from them to Nova, because looking at her makes my heart calm down a little, especially since she has her seat belt on. It gives me a sense of peace, even though I don’t have my own on.
“How’s your face feeling?” I ask her, observing her enflamed cheek.
She pouts out her bottom lip as she covers her cheek with her hand. “I think it’s going to bruise, even after you put the ice on it.”
“The ice was for the swelling.” I resist the urge to put a hand on her cheek, because I need to stop touching her so much. “And it’ll probably bruise, but it’ll go away eventually.”
“I know,” she replies, disheartened. “But it hurts and I need a distraction. That’s why I wanted to play the game. Well, that and my dad and I used to play it all the time when we’d take road trips.” She sucks her lip between her teeth, looking sadder than someone whose dog just died. “Sorry, that probably makes me sound like a little kid, doesn’t it?”
“No, it makes you sound like someone who misses her dad.” I stare out the window at the lofty trees and fence lining the road, thinking about my dad back at home, all alone, living in a house packed with memories of my mom. “I spy something green,” I say. I wait for Nova to say something, but when she doesn’t, I turn my head toward her. “What? Now you don’t want to play?”
Her expression is unreadable. “No, I just didn’t think anyone would actually play a game with me.”
I shrug. “What can I say? I guess I’m a sucker for those sad, puppy-dog eyes of yours…” As soon as it slips out, I want to retract it. It’s not a friend thing to say. It’s a flirty, I’m-going-to-try-and-fuck-you-later thing to say. And I shouldn’t be flirting with her or thinking about fucking her. Plus, Tristan’s in the car and the last thing I want to do is piss him off, especially after how nice he’s been to me, all things considering.
By the look on Nova’s face, I think she knows I’m flirting with her, and I bite my tongue, wondering what the hell is going to come out of her mouth.
“The grass,” she guesses breezily, letting me off the hook.
I frown, disappointed by her answer. “That’s seriously your guess?”
“What.” She bats her eyelashes innocently at me. “It’s green.”
“Nova.” I shake my head, pretending to be severely displeased in her answer. “Your lack of creativity is alarmingly disappointing.”
“Well, not all of us our artists,” she retorts. “But if you think you’re so creative, then let’s see how good you are.” She thrums her finger on her chin as she glances around at the forest on each side of the road. “I spy something… green.” She smiles at me, amused by herself, which makes her at the moment completely and utterly the most wonderful person that’s ever existed, at least in my book.
“Did you just copy me?” I question with an arch of my brow.
She exaggeratedly presses her hand to her heart. “No way. How could I when I don’t even know what the answer was?”
“Yeah… I guess…” I focus on her, pretending like I’m trying to read her thoughts, and it makes her squirm. Maintaining an impartial expression, I give her an answer she’ll never expect. “Your eyes.”
She points a finger at me, grinning. “My eyes are blue.”
Even though my mind is resistant, I raise my hand and touch my fingertips to her temple. “Actually, they’re blue with little specks of green in them. It’s one of the first things I noticed about you.”
She presses her lips together so forcefully the skin around them turns purple. “You did?”
I nod, my guilt consuming me, and I want to retract everything I’ve ever said to her. But like I know way too well, you can’t just take stuff back. The decisions we make from the moment we definitively make them stick with us forever. Like deciding to take the responsibility of being the driver for the night, which may not seem like a big thing, but in my case, it drastically altered my life forever.
“Oh my hell,” Delilah declares, still massaging Dylan’s neck. “You two are fucking adorable.”
The color drains from Nova’s face and she rotates in the seat, looking away from me, and slumping back in the seat. If I didn’t learn about her past, I’d question why she did it, but now that I know, I understand, at least to an extent. I turn around in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest, and the car grows quiet.
Nova starts fiddling with the bands on her wrist that she wears to cover the scar. I lower my hands to my lap and drum my fingers on my knee, remembering how I felt after Lexi’s funeral, even though I’d never made it there. But the idea that she was gone, buried in the ground, made me feel helpless, and I had the intense need to turn everything off. Was that how Nova felt after her boyfriend died?
Without even knowing what I’m doing, I slide my hand across the seat and to Nova’s lap. She flinches from the initial contact and I almost expect her to jerk away. But she remains motionless and I wrap my fingers around her wrist, pressing them against the small, bumpy line on her skin, just below the bands. She rests her head back against the seat, her heart rate quickening, before returning to a steady, consistent beat. The feeling of it calms me down, because it reminds me that there’s life in the world, and that hearts do keep beating even after they break.
“I can’t believe you bought me these,” I say, staring in disbelief at the pink drums set up in front of me. Landon and I are in my garage, and the door is shut to lock out the icy air, the snow, and the outside world. It’s my birthday and I came out here with him, thinking he was going to drive me somewhere, but instead, there are wonderful, girly drums.
“Do you like them?” he asks, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks really worried, like I’m actually going to hate getting pink drums.
I spread my arms out to the side. “Of course. They’re pink drums.”
A fleeting smile sneaks through, and for a second the brown in his eyes almost looks golden. “Good, because I was worried you wouldn’t.”
I press my hands together, circling around the drums, bouncing with excitement. “Why? You know I’ve always wanted my own set. It gets so annoying using the school’s, especially because all the guys think it’s a guy’s instrument and that I shouldn’t be playing with them.”
“They’re just jealous.” He drops down in a camping chair by the steps. His hair is damp from walking over to my house during the snowstorm, and his cheeks are a little flushed from the cold. He has a black hooded jacket on with the sleeves rolled up, and there’s a ring of murky water around the bottom of his jeans. “Go ahead, Nova Reed, show me what you got.”
I sit down in the stool and pick up the sticks. “But you already know what I’ve got. You’ve heard me play like a thousand times.”
“Yeah, for a crowded room.” He relaxes back in the chair. “But I want you to play just for me.”
I air-jam for a moment. “What do you want me to play?”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want. Make it mean something, though.”
I hate it when he says that, because he’s the kind of person who’s always looking deeper into things than a normal person, like me. I search my brain for the perfect song, but each one has a flaw, is either too fast or too slow, or I can’t play it as good as I want to just yet. Finally I decide just to play my own song, one that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since the day he first kissed me.
“Okay, I have one, but you have to promise not to laugh at me.”
“Why would I laugh?”
“Because I made it up,” I say. “And it’s probably not very good.”
“I’m sure it is,” he assures me. “Besides, I would never laugh at you.” He’s no longer joking, and I love him so much for it. I want to tell him right there that I love him, even though I’ve known for a while, but like always, I chicken out.
Sighing to myself, I elevate the sticks above my head, pretending like I’m going to slam them down and make a lot of noise, but when I touch them to the drums, I hit soft, but with meaning and purpose. I start playing the song, getting more into it the longer I play. At one point I shut my eyes and let my hands lead the way, getting lost in the beat, getting swept away to another world while I think up lyrics in my head and whisper them under my breath. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I’d died for a moment and left my body peacefully.
But then the song ends, and the moment of peace floats away and is replaced by nervousness. I open my eyes and realize that the camping chair is empty. I glance to my left and then my right, panicking when I don’t see him anywhere.
“Was I that bad?” I wonder aloud, frowning at the sticks in my hand.
“No, it was perfect.” The sound of his voice right over my shoulder causes me to jump.
I spin around in the chair, dropping the drumsticks, and pressing my hand over my racing heart. “Shit, you scared me.”
He doesn’t laugh at me, nor does he smile. He simply studies me with a perplexed, somewhat astonished look. “That was beautiful,” he conclusively says and traces his fingers across my cheekbone. “Happy birthday, Nova,” he whispers.
My eyelids flutter shut as his hand travels down my jawline, to my neck, to the collar of my shirt. He tugs it down a little and slips his fingers inside my bra as he lays me back against the drums. My head bumps against the cymbal, but I’m too consumed by his thumb grazing my nipple to care about the ringing in my ears.
He moves his mouth toward mine. “Nova… I…” He struggles to say something and I force my eyelids open, despite my body’s protest. Our gazes lock, and for a second I think he’s going to break up with me because he looks terrified and conflicted and completely torn apart on the inside.
“I love you,” he whispers.
I swear to God time stops.
“I love you, too,” I say with zero hesitation.
He starts to smile but it quickly fades, and then his lips connect with mine. He kisses me, caresses my body, drinks me in until my head becomes so cloudy I can barely remember my name. It’s the perfect birthday. One I know I’ll remember forever, because the guy I want to be with forever finally said he loves me.