Breaking Nova (31 page)

When we reach the tent, I sit down in one of the chairs, watching the crowds, and listening to the music as it flows over the field. At one point I shut my eyes and bask in the freeness of the vocals, tapping my foot to the beat of the drum, remembering what it was like to play, when Landon would watch me with almost a smile on his face and I felt happy inside. I let the sound own me, take me over, and pull me back in a direction I was running away from.

Tristan sits down beside me, and he instantly starts smoking something that smells strange and makes the air just a little bit hotter. The longer it goes on, the more droopy his eyes get, and the more he looks like he’s going to sink into the ground and vanish from the world.

I don’t want to watch him. I don’t want to be here.
I want to go home.

I sit there, listening to the song, remembering what it was like when I would sit and listen to music with Landon and we’d talk about life and what we’d do when we got older, where we’d go, who we’d become. But that’s gone now, and I need to accept that.

Please, forgive me.

“If you could be anything in the world,” Landon had once asked me, “what would you be?”

“A drummer,” I’d replied easily. “How about you?” I’d thought I’d known his answer. An artist. How could he say anything else?

He’d thought about it forever and finally sighed. “I have no idea. Maybe I wouldn’t be anything. Maybe I’d just follow you around to concerts and carry your drumsticks.”

I’d laughed at the time, because it seemed so silly, but thinking about it now, I start to cry. We could have been great together. Perfect. We could have been a lot of things, but now we can’t be anything other than memories.

“Here,” Tristan says, urging the burning cigarette at me as watches the tears freely rolling down my cheeks. “You want a hit? It’ll calm you down.”

I stare at the joint and then back him. Do I want a hit? Do I want this life? Is this the road I’m choosing to go down?

I shake my head, and then get to my feet. “No thanks.” I start to back around the chair toward the tent.

“Where are you going?” he asks, with the joint positioned between his lips and smoke masking his face.

I shake my head, backing up to the tent. “I’m not sure.” I duck into the tent, grab my phone, and then climb back out. Tristan’s heading into the crowd, and I think about chasing him down and saying good-bye. I think about telling Delilah that I’m going. I think about telling Quinton I’m sorry.

But instead I head toward the road, the sun blazing at my back, the clear sky above me, focusing only on myself and the path ahead. I take it step by step, letting myself count, because that’s what I need to do for the moment, but telling myself that I’ll work on breaking the habit when I can. It’s the first time I’ve admitted aloud that it’s a habit, and it’s liberating and gives me a sense of peace, and in the end, I run.

I run all the way to the restaurant where Quinton and I had breakfast and he let me cry on his chest. By the time I reach the front door, I’m dripping in sweat and I have no idea how long it took me to get here. But I’m still breathing and my heart’s still beating.

When I enter, it’s pretty much empty. I sit down and order a coffee, and the waitress looks at me like I’ve just climbed out of a Dumpster. But she’s polite and brings me a coffee along with a piece of pie and says it’s on the house, and I wonder if she thinks I’m a homeless person.

Eating the pie, I take out my phone and call the one person I know will always be there for me. It rings three times and then she answers.

“Nova, what’s wrong?” she says, worried, and I can tell she’s been crying. “I’ve been trying to call you for the last few days, and you haven’t answered your phone.” She starts going off on a rant, but I stop her in the middle of it.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. “And I want to come home.”

She asks me a billion questions when I tell her where I am, but in the end she tells me she’s coming right now and that she loves me. We hang up and I sit in the booth staring at the trees outside, and sipping the coffee. Eventually, I take my phone out again. At first I just stare at my reflection in the screen. I look terrible. Plain and simple. Pale skin. Big, bloodshot eyes. My brown hair is matted, and there are scratches on my forehead from when I fell in the trees and a bruise on my cheek. It’s like I’ve altered into this monster over the last few months, and I’m just now noticing the change.

I flip the camera on and clear my throat, preparing to make my final video. “I’m not really sure when I look back at these clips if they’ll mean anything to me or if I’ll even remembering anything of what happened, just like I’ll probably look back to this day and wonder why I decided to leave, other than I finally watched the video and Landon’s words spoke to me. I woke up and finally saw what things really where. I could close down all I wanted, lock who I am out, shut down all the things that happened with Landon… the good and the bad… but in the end they did happen. Just like this moment. Just like this breath I’m taking. Stuff happens. We get lost. We try to control what will happen. We give up. We do things that don’t make sense. We search for things in the wrongest of ways. We lose our way, but sometimes, if we’re really, really strong, we manage to find our way back.”

I summon a deep breath and put the phone away. Then I rest my head onto the table and quickly fall asleep as the last two months smash down on me.

Aug 20, Day 103 of Summer Break

I’ve heard about revelations before, when people’s eyes open up, and suddenly everything becomes crystal clear. I wouldn’t necessary call what I had a revelation because everything isn’t crystal clear, but I do see things in a different light, or maybe it’s just that I see the light, like the darkness I’ve kept inside me is dissolving. Looking back, it was Landon’s video that finally opened my eyes. It was painful and heartbreaking to watch, but it made me realize so many things, like how he saw me and how he wanted my forgiveness. I’d never thought to forgive him—I hadn’t even realized I was angry with him, not really, anyway. I kept holding on to him, not accepting the wholehearted truth, knowing he was gone but letting go and moving on. I was so lost and unsure of who I was, because I didn’t want to be anything without him. But watching him talk about me like that, saying I was strong, made me want to be strong, Be the person that he was talking about.

The first week at home was pure and utter hell. Everything everyone said annoyed the shit out of me, and I felt like jabbing their eyes out. I yelled at my mom. I yelled at Daniel. I yelled at the mailman because he rang the doorbell and it woke me up from my nap.

Then came the tears. There were a lot. In fact, I was pretty sure they’d never turn off. I’m not even sure why, other than it felt like I was a vampire stepping into the light for the first time, and my skin and brain were on fire and nothing seemed to take away the pain.

But then my mom and I started to talk. We talked about my dad. We talked about Landon. We talked about me. We talked about what I did. We talked and talked and talked. She got angry and I cried. She cried and I cried.

“Nova,” she said through tears. “I feel like this is all my fault. I knew when your father died… how he died… that you saw it, that it had to be hard for you, but I never forced you to talk about it with me. I only suggested it.”

“But I couldn’t talk about it with you,” I’d replied, hugging a pillow against my chest, balled up on the bed. “You were sad yourself.”

“I’m your mother,” she said, smoothing my hair away from my forehead, like I was still a little kid, and maybe at the moment to her I was. Maybe we were going back in time and doing what we should have done to begin with. “It’s my job to make sure you’re okay, even if I’m hurting.”

“I didn’t want to make you hurt more.”

“That’s not how it works. If anything we should have hurt together.”

We started to cry again, and it seem like we were never going to stop, but finally, like almost everything always eventually does, our tears faded.

It’s been over a month since I ran away from the concert, and my head is a lot clearer than it’s been in a very long time, maybe even since my dad died. It’s strange, but it took all this time for me to realize just how hazy things had gotten. Somehow, through Landon’s death, through wrangling the mourning, through life, I lost my way. I’m still working my way back from it, one baby step at a time, trying to heal myself correctly this time.

I managed to take out the sketches Landon’s parents gave to me and let myself cry without running away from them. They really were beautiful sketches, and it hurts to think that his talent doesn’t exist anymore, but I have a piece of his talent still—a piece of him—and I’ll always hold on to it. I’ve finally accepted his death, and it’s good to remember him in healthy doses. I’m learning that it’s okay. It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to admit when we need help. It’s okay to let go.

Not everything is easy and perfect, though. I still need my anxiety medication. I still find myself counting sometimes. I still get lost in memories of Landon. The key is letting it pass instead of searching for a quick Off switch. I feel it, I move with it, and then I move past it.

And I don’t have to move past it alone. I’ve been going to a group where people can talk about loss, specifically related to suicide. It helps to hear stories, to know I’m not the only one to wonder so much that it nearly cracked my head open. I plan on going to one when I’m back at school. I’ve also finally picked a major. Film. I’m still not one hundred percent sure if I want to stick with it, but it’s a start to working on some of my goals or at least setting them. I also might do a minor in music, but I’m taking it one step at a time now. I’m focusing on moving forward and slowly accepting the past, getting better, and trying to create a future. And I know I’ll be able to because I want to. And just like my dad told me once: if you want something bad enough, anything’s possible.

I haven’t talked to Quinton since I left. Delilah stopped by my house a few times, but we’re no longer on the same page, and I’m not strong enough to bring her up with me, nor can I fall with her. She’s not going back to school, something she disclosed during her third visit.

“I’m happy here,” she’d said while we sat on the living room couch. My mom wouldn’t let us go into my room, afraid of what we’d do behind closed doors, and I was okay with that. I’m afraid of closed doors, too.

“I don’t think you should stay,” I’d said, noting how thin she was starting to look. “There’s nothing here, really.”

“There’s Dylan. And my life,” she replied snippily. “And that matters to me.”

Her pupils were wide and shiny, and she had this funny smell to her. She’s also chopped her hair off and her skin was a little pallid. I could tell she was on something, and that the person sitting in front of me was not the Delilah I met back in high school. This was her alter ego. A darker side of her. A reflection in a cracked mirror.

“Okay,” I said, knowing I had to let her go, but it was hard. “But if you change your mind, I leave on Friday and you can come with me.”

“I won’t.” She got up from the couch, left my house, and I haven’t seen her since.

“Are you sure you just don’t want to stay home for a semester?” My mom asks, carrying out the last of the boxes, the one that carries my drumsticks. I’m taking the pink drums back to school with me, even though I haven’t played them again yet. I’m planning on it, though, when it feels right.

“Are you seriously trying to talk me into dropping out of school?” I joke, tossing a section of my drums onto the leather backseat of the cherry-red Nova. I’m driving it back to school, which is scary, but it’s one of my goals. Besides, it’s what my dad wanted.

She sighs, pushing the trunk closed. “No, but I worry.” She walks up to me, with her arms crossed, like she’s resisting the urge to grab me and haul me back into the house. “I feel like I just got you back and now you’re leaving me again.”

I hug her, and I mean really hug her, without fear or restraint. “I know, but it’s a good thing, Mom. It’s… it’s my way of moving on.”

“I know, Nova,” she hugs me tightly to the point that I can barely breathe. “And I’m proud of you for admitting everything to me. Whether you think so or not, you’re a brave person.” She pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “Not many people can admit they’re heading down the wrong path.”

“But doesn’t it kind of make me weak for even going down the path?” I ask, blinking against the bright sunlight, refusing to shield my eyes from it.

She shakes her head. “We all do stuff that isn’t great. You’ve been through a lot… a lot more than most. And the important thing is you pulled yourself out of it.” Tears start to bubble up in the corners of her blue eyes. “I’m just glad to have my daughter back.”

Not completely, but I’m working on it, and that’s the important part.
“I love you too, Mom.”

She embraces me in a hug, and it’s hard to get her to let me go, but ultimately she does and I get into the car, and she heads into the house. I take a deep breath, buckle my seat belt, and then reach for my phone in my pocket.

I hold the phone up to my eye level and then hit Record.

“In a sense it kind of seems like I’m starting over, like it’s freshman year again.” I roll my eyes, but then smile, and it’s a real smile, not the fake, plastic ones I’ve been using for the last year. “Because I was so out of it last year, I could barely comprehend what was going on. But now I’m ready to embrace what lies ahead of me instead of drifting through it. I don’t want to drift. That broken, lost, wandering, searching-for-something-that-will-never-exist-again Nova is not who I want to be. And while I don’t know exactly who I am, the important part is that I’m focusing on discovering it in a healthy way.”

I smile, and it brightens up the whole screen. “Hopefully the next video I make, I’ll have more.” I pause, taking a deep breath. “Now I just need to make one more stop, because if I’ve learned anything, good-byes are important, even if they’re scary and awkward. Always, always, say good-bye.”