Authors: Jessica Sorensen
“Are you okay?” The sound of Tristan’s voice slams into my chest and rips me from my daze.
I tear my eyes away from the guy and blink up at Tristan. “Huh?”
He has a small shot glass in his hand that’s topped off with a crystal clear liquid. “You look upset.” He glances over at the guy and then back at me. “Are you okay, Nova?”
I nod, snatch the shot out of his hand, and slam it back, basking in the burn. Then I set the empty glass down on the table and press my hand to my burning throat. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
Tristan’s not buying it, but he doesn’t press. We’re not good enough friends for him to press. He takes a seat in the tattered leather recliner that’s shredded to pieces. I try to keep my gaze fixed on the popped seams in the armrest, but I can’t help but glance over at the guy with honey-brown eyes, even though I don’t want to.
He sits down on the sofa to the side of me, and the blonde strategically places her ass onto his lap. She giggles as she runs her fingers over his head, but he only seems mildly interested as he retrieves a pack of cigarettes from the coffee table and pops one into his mouth.
“So did Dylan wander back there?” Tristan asks, sipping on his beer.
The guy shrugs as he cups his hand around the end of the cigarette, flicks a lighter, and the end crinkles and shrivels. “I think they went into his room, but I’m not sure.” Smoke snakes out of his lips.
“With that bitch Delilah,” the blonde says, shooting me a malicious look.
Okay, so she knows Delilah and obviously hates her, which isn’t surprising—most girls do. But why does she seem to hate me?
“Oh shit,” Tristan says, smacking his head with the heel of his hand. “I totally fucking forgot introductions.”
“We already know who she is,” the blonde sneers, glaring at me. “That’s Nova Reed.”
I have no clue what her names is, and I think Tristan can tell. “Nikki, quit being a bitch,” he says.
Nikki.
It clicks. She used to go to school with me before she dropped out. She also used to have a crush on Landon right before I started dating him at the beginning of senior year. She’s changed a lot, put on some weight in the chest area, and her hair used to be light brown, not bleached blonde.
Nikki huffs, poking her chest out as she crosses her arms, then she reclines against the guy’s chest. “Quit being an asshole,” she snaps at Tristan, and then bats her eyelashes at the guy.
The guy shifts his weight, throwing her off balance, and she slides off his lap and lands on the couch. “Sorry, but he’s my cousin and this is his house. If he says quit being a bitch to Nova”—he glances at me with a quirk at his lips and a furrow at his brows—“then quit being a bitch.”
I don’t like the way my heart leaps in my chest when he says my name or that he remembers my name when he only heard it a minute ago. I hate how I can’t seem to look away from him and find something to count, because if I could, then I could call down the storm building in my chest.
Nikki looks pissed, but she keeps her lips sealed. The guy takes a deep inhale from his cigarette as he reaches for the remote on the coffee table. Tristan gets up from the recliner and heads down the hall. It grows quiet, and the guy whose name I still don’t know picks up a remote and flips through the songs on the stereo. Nikki makes it her mission to glare at me, but I barely pay attention. All my focus is on the ghost of a memory sitting next to me. I know he’s really not Landon, but he’s chillingly comparable, even in the way he moves.
Eventually, looking at him becomes too much, and I get up and walk out of the house. I step into the cool night, place my hands on the railing, and hunch over, battling back the memories as they thrust their way to the surface, counting under my breath, doing everything I can to focus on the numbers instead of the images, but the images conclusively win.
“So if you could only paint one thing over and over again for the rest of your life, what would it be?” I hold on to the stairway railing and watch Landon sit on the bottom step and sketch the old oak tree on the hill in the backyard. “That tree?”
“I wouldn’t paint anything,” he says. His hand moves perfectly along the white sheet of paper, staining it with shades of gray and black. He pauses, glancing over his shoulder at me, with a ghost smile touching his lips. “You know how much I hate painting.”
I scrunch my nose and sink down on the step beside him. “Okay, then, what
would
you sketch?”
“If I could only sketch one thing?” he asks, and I nod. He taps the end of his pencil on his chin, leaving black smudges. “Probably you.”
I stick out my tongue, but my heart dances. I’ve often wondered what it would be like if he really did like me, if he kissed me, if he were my boyfriend instead of just my friend. “You so would not. If you were to actually pick a person, which I doubt you would, you’d probably pick someone like Karisa Harris.”
He wavers. “I have to admit, she does have a nice rack.”
I slap his arm, pretending to be offended, even though I’m used to it. We’ve been friends for four years, and he’s a seventeen-year-old guy. Being a pervert is kind of a given. “That’s so gross,” I say.
When he rolls his tongue to hold back his laughter, I swat his arm again, and his laughter slips through. Landon rarely laughs, so even though he’s irritating me, I let it go and laugh with him, because the sound of it makes it hard to stay angry. Eventually he quiets down and licks his lips, almost licking the charcoal off.
Shaking my head, I reach forward, place my thumb on one of the smudges right by his lips, and rub it away, trying to ignore the intensity in his gaze as he watches me. “You always have this stuff on you, even when you’re not sketching,” I remark as I pull my hand away. But he stops me with a touch of his fingers. I freeze as he wraps his hand over mine, and my heart starts to flutter inside my chest.
“I’ve been thinking.” He brings my hand back to his mouth. “About trying something,” he whispers against my palm.
“Oh yeah.” My voice cracks and I can’t stop staring at his lips.
He nods, without taking his eyes off me. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while…” He takes a deep breath and then lets it out, seeming uneasy. “About kissing you.”
My pulse quickens as he pauses, like he’s waiting for me to say something, but my throat is thick with my nerves and I can’t get my lips to form words. I’ve never kissed a guy before, and Landon isn’t just a guy. He’s my best friend. Even though I’ve thought about it many times, I’ve also thought about what it would be like to lose him. He’s the only one who keeps me connected to the world ever since my dad died. Without him, I don’t know what I’d be, or if I’d be anything.
I start to protest, but then he shuts his eyes, and my doubts temporarily wash away from the feel of his lips against the palm of my hand. He kisses it gradually, like he’s savoring the moment—and knowing Landon, he probably is. He moves his lips down to my wrist and he does the same thing there, only this time he slips out his tongue and I bite down on my lip as I shudder. My eyes close on their own accord, and I hold my breath in anticipation, waiting for him to kiss me. I wait. And wait, but nothing happens.
“Nova,” he says in a low, husky voice. “Open your eyes.”
I obey, marginally disappointed because I really thought he was going to kiss me.
His honey-brown eyes are smoldering cinders in the fiery sunlight. His lips part and then he seals them together again, eyeing my mouth before sighing. “I wasn’t lying,” he says, looking back at the tree as he puts the tip of his pencil back to the paper. “I could spend hours—even days—sketching you. It would be perfect.” He delicately touches the corner of my eye with his fingertips, before pulling back, the uneasiness in his eyes amplifying. “Especially those.”
I don’t know what to say to him, so I keep my lips fastened, watching him as he tucks his head down and wisps of his hair fall into his eyes. His hand starts moving again, tracing the lines of the massive leafless tree in the distance. The uneasiness quickly erases from his expression as he falls into his peace with his art, and I get lost in my thoughts of why he didn’t kiss me and why he looked so sad when he was about to.
I start to dry-heave as the burn of the alcohol forces its way back up my throat. Leaning over the railing, I gag until my stomach is empty, my abdominal muscles are throbbing, and the gravel below is drenched in my vomit. Wiping my mouth off with the back of my hand, I turn around and sink down onto the deck. Hugging my knees to my chest, I recline against the railing and angle my head back, looking up at the stars shining vibrantly against the charcoaled sky. I start counting them, one by one, and my mind and body start to relax.
I remain that way until the front door to the trailer swings open and then slams shut. Tearing my gaze away from the night, I look over at the door, hoping it’ll be Delilah and I can get the hell out of here. But it’s just Nikki.
She looks livid, her face red as she stomps down the stairs toward the gravel driveway. “Fuck you… and fuck your stupid art.”
The door opens again and the guy with honey-brown eyes walks out with an unlit cigarette stuck between his lips. Standing at the top of the stairs, he cups his hands around the end of the cigarette, lighting it while Nikki slips off one of her fluorescent pink stilettos.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” she cries and then chucks her shoe at him.
He blows out a breath of smoke as the shoe flies by his head, but he doesn’t even flinch. Nikki stomps her bare foot on the ground as the guy steps back and bends down to collect her shoe. He walks to the top of the stairs and extends the stiletto out to her and she snatches it from him.
“I’ll never hook up with you again,” she spits, wiggling her foot into her shoe as she stumbles to the side in the loose gravel. “You’re ridiculous… you’re like a…” She gets her foot into the stiletto and she stands upright. “Do you even feel anything at all?” She folds her arms and taps her foot as she waits for him to respond.
He takes a long drag, his chest rising and falling as he releases the smoke out in front of his face. “Not really,” he says with a frown, brushing his thumb along the bottom of the cigarette. Ashes scatter all over the ground.
She clenches her fists, lets out a frustrated scream, and then she storms off for her car, her hair whipping across her shoulder as she whirls. He watches her car backs away, then he rests his arms on the railing and stares off into the darkness of the trailer park.
The longer he stands there, the more I wonder if he even realizes I’m sitting here. Should I just get up and leave? Stay put until he goes back in? I’m starting to get nervous, my palms beginning to sweat, because I can’t make a decision.
“So did your parents really name you after the car?” he unexpectedly says without looking at me.
It takes me a moment to answer. “My dad had one when I was born. He loved it and he loved me, so he thought the name was fitting.”
He nods, then turns around and reclines against the railing, slanting his head to look at me. “Does he still have the car?”
I begin to shake my head but then halt, contemplating how to respond. “Well, it’s parked in the garage at my mom’s house, but it’s not his anymore.” I summon a breath as he gives me a confused look and even though I don’t want to, I add, “He died six years ago. He left the car to me, but I don’t know… I’d feel weird driving it.” I have no idea why I’m telling him this. I never talk to people about my father, except for Landon and sometimes the camera.
“I get it,” he states. This look crosses his face; sadness, mixed with anger, tinted with shame. “Sorry about Nikki. She’s just pissed off at me about… well, I honestly can’t fucking remember.” He gazes off, looking lost, and I notice how red and bloodshot his eyes are. He’s probably stoned and by morning he probably won’t remember any of this. Or me. Strangely, that thought makes me a little depressed.
“You don’t need to apologize for her.” I place my feet underneath me and stand up, dusting the dirt off the back of my legs. “It’s not your fault. Nikki is always kind of bitchy, if I’m remembering right.”
A smile starts to form at his lips, but it dissolves by the time I take my next breath. “Well, that’s nice to know. That it’s not just me that unleashes it from her.”
I relax back against the railing and prop my elbows against the wood. There are only the steps between us, but he seems really far away from me. “How do you know her? You don’t live here, right?”
He shakes his head as he puts the cigarette into his mouth and takes a drag. “I’m just here for the summer. Tristan’s my cousin, and I need a place to crash. He stepped up.” Smoke eases from his lips as he shrugs with a miserable look on his face.
“Tristan’s nice,” I say, shuffling my toes back and forth in front of me. “I’ve known him since I was a kid.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy.” He frowns at the ground, his brow puckered. “He can totally look past stuff, you know.” He lets out a faltering exhale, and when he looks up at me I nearly fall down. It’s too much. He looks so much like him, and I don’t know what to do. My heart feels like it’s rupturing open again. I want to run, hide, and not go through this again, but I also what to take the pain away from him, like I couldn’t do the first time around.
“What’s your name?” I ask, taking a tentative step toward him, knowing that by asking I’m pushing the door open a little.
“Oh, sorry,” he apologizes, extending his hand. His palm is covered with smudged charcoal. “It’s Quinton.”
I half-expected him to say Landon. My fingers tremble as I place my hand into his, but once I come into contact with him, I find myself feeling calm for the first time in a year. “It’s nice to meet you, Quinton.”
“And it’s nice to meet you, Nova-like-the-car.” A small trace of a smile appears at his lips again as he wraps his long fingers around mine and his skin is warm. I don’t like that it is because the last time I touched Landon’s skin it was ice-cold, and it painfully reminds me that Quinton’s not him, that he’s just someone who looks like him, and not even that. He’s just someone who carries anguish and torture inside, like Landon did.