He motions to me to drive forward. “Get going and I’ll guide you there.” He winks at me. “Just relax. You can trust me, Nova.”

Even though every single part of me screams that I can’t, I force myself to drive forward, letting him guide me, hoping I’m not going to do something stupid and make a wrong turn. Because one wrong turn can lead to a lot of damage.

Quinton

Dylan’s been acting strange lately, even though we managed to pay him back with some money we stole from a house the other night. He seems more violent and erratic than he has in the past. I think all the smack is starting to screw with his head a little bit, so I don’t like it when I walk out and he’s paying so much attention to Nova. I shouldn’t have left her out there alone, but the moment I saw her, my heart leaped in my chest, way too excited to see her. Such a wrong reaction and I had to go back and get enough crystal for a hit or two if I need it, if I get to feeling too much while I’m out with her.

I’m actually probably way too high to be doing anything, yet somehow I find myself out and about. It’s like one minute I’m back in my room, absorbing as much intoxicating crystal as I can, feeling my heart rate speed up to the point where I feel like I’m flying—feel like I could do anything, and then suddenly I’m driving in the car with Nova, flirting with her like we’re on a date.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Yet at the same time I’m perfectly content with being stupid—with being near her, because I’m soaring.

High.

Confused.

After I get her away from the apartment and Dylan, I tell her to drive and she does, trusting me, which she shouldn’t, yet it pleases me in the most fucked-up way possible. By the time we’re pulling up to the building, I can tell I’m going to mess this up badly. I can feel it, yet I’m too spun out of my mind to care.

“So this is where you wanted to take me?” Nova asks, with a baffled look on her face at the sight of the dated motel that I found one day when Tristan and I were looking for a place to crash after we got caught shoplifting and had to find a quick place to hide. The thing is I’m still not even sure if we were ever being chased or if paranoia set in.

I take off my seat belt because she always makes me wear it whenever I’m in the car with her. “Yeah. I know it looks a little sketchy, but we’ll be okay,” I tell her, and when she still looks skeptical, I add, “Trust me, Nova.” My thoughts laugh at me, deep down knowing I’m not trustworthy, but it’s like I can’t get my emotions to link with my thoughts and my thoughts to link with my mouth, so I’m just saying stuff, cruising through the motions without thinking of the consequences.

She swallows hard, but then unbuckles her seat belt, and we get out of the car. I meet her around the front and I don’t know why but I slip my arm around her waist and again I don’t know why, but for some reason she lets me. It’s so hard being near her when I feel this pull toward her, yet I also feel this push away from her, driven by my guilt.

“You seem in a really good mood today,” she notes, glancing up at me with those gorgeous eyes that I’ve been sketching every day despite the battle of my inner thoughts.

I shrug and pull my hand away, giving in to the push and the guilt. “I’m just in a normal mood.”

She doesn’t say anything else as she follows me through the door that’s marked as an exit. She instantly stiffens as she steps into the dust and the darkness and the debris on the floor. The walls are caving in and there’s spray paint on the wall and I get her reluctance, but at the same time I know she’ll appreciate why I brought her here.

“Just follow me.” I slip my fingers through hers, surrendering to the pull. “I promise when we get to the top, it’ll be worth it.”

Her eyes widen as she angles her chin back and looks up at the hole in the ceiling that stretches through five floors. “Is it safe to get to the top?”

“Of course,” I say, but I’m not really sure. “Just follow where I walk.”

She nods and then moves to the side when I do, tracking my footsteps, clutching my hand, her skin damp. It briefly registers through her nervous touch that she’s trusting me to keep her safe and so when I reach the place where Tristan and I climbed up through the holes in the walls to get to the top, I instead go to the right to the stairway, because it’s safer.

“So this place used to be an old hotel?” she asks as she takes calculated steps, making sure to stay close to the wall.

I put my hand on the wall as the stairs creak below our feet. “I think so. At least that’s what the sign said outside. I’m guessing, though, that it was probably a casino, too, since most of the hotels here are.”

She glances at an open room that still has orange shag carpet and brightly painted yellow walls with a rainbow pattern down them. “Yeah, they even have slot machines in the gas stations. It’s weird and noisy. Plus, everyone’s always smoking,” she says, and when I pause, she quickly adds, “It doesn’t bother me, but my friend Lea can’t stand the smell of cigarettes.”

I start walking again. It’s amazing how a single sentence can remind me just how far apart we are, even if part of me doesn’t want us to be that way. “Is Lea the girl who was with you the first day you showed up at my place?”

She nods with her head tipped down, hair veiling her face, her attention focused on the floor as she chews her lip, and all I can think is how perfect she is and how much I want to draw her. As soon as the thought surfaces, it makes me feel like I’m cheating on Lexi, thinking about doing that with someone else, and I seriously almost turn around and bail out, wishing I could go back to my room and do more lines.

“I met her at the beginning of the school year,” Nova continues as she sidesteps a large chunk of Sheetrock. “She came up to me and introduced herself when I went to this center for people who’ve lost a loved one to suicide.”

I look over my shoulder at her. “She’s lost someone, too?”

“Her dad,” Nova explains as she holds on to my hand and the fingers of her other hand wrap around my arm. “Even though it’s not quite the same as what I went through, we really connected, sort of like I did with you for a while there.”

I stop walking, moving, breathing. Time stops. She ends up nearly running into me, stumbling over her feet, but catches herself by jabbing her fingertips deeper into my arm and putting her hand on the wall beside us.

She grips my arm as she stares up at me. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean you connected with me?” I ask, my voice coming out a little sharper than I planned.

“Last summer,” she says timidly. “That time we spent together—I thought we sort of connected. Not like in a hey-we’re-best-friends way, but…” She releases my arm to drag her fingers through her hair. She must have gotten dust on her hand from touching the wall because the movement leaves a streak of it in her hair. “But I could talk to you about stuff that I wasn’t able to talk to anyone else about. Stuff about my dad and Landon.”

I reach up and brush my hand across her hair, trying to get the dust off her head, and I hate how excited my heart gets when her breathing speeds up, all from me touching her. “Nova, I’m pretty sure that was the weed that let you talk openly like that, not me.”

She shakes her head, her tongue slipping out of her mouth to wet her dry lips, and all I want to do is back her into the wall, pick her up, and devour her. But the wall would probably crumble under the slightest pressure and I’m not sure we’d survive the fall.

“I don’t think that’s what it was,” she says. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

My face contorts with confusion. “How?”

She motions me forward. “Just get us to somewhere where the floor doesn’t feel like it’s going to give out and I’ll tell you.”

I’m not sure what she’s up to, but I’m curious, so I start up the stairs again, holding her hand, guiding her around the holes in the floor, trying to focus on the bigger picture of all this, but I can only see three steps ahead.

When we reach the top of the stairway, I open the door and sunlight spills over us like warm water. Stepping to the side, I hold the door ajar and let Nova through.

She steps out into the sunlight, glancing around at the massive signs on the rooftop. Ones that I’m guessing used to belong to casinos that are closed down now. Some are made up of light bulbs and others are just painted. Some are cracked, others are warped, and they all sort of create this maze.

“Wow…” She pauses as she takes in everything. “There are no words. This is amazing.” She glances at me, her big eyes making me feel like I’m falling into her. Part of me wishes that were really happening, but I think I’m tripping out.

“Yeah, it is,” I agree, nodding, then point to a stack of bricks near a large VIVA LAS VEGAS sign. “Can you go get one of those bricks? Because if the door shuts, we’re locked up here.”

She pulls a wary face, but then zigzags around the signs, ducking and maneuvering around them as she crosses the length of the roof and picks up a brick. I try not to smile at how much she struggles to carry it, either because it’s too heavy for her or because she doesn’t want to get dirty. She sets it down in front of the door and I gently let the door go, holding on to it until I know the brick is going to hold. Then I hop over a smaller sign that’s fallen over in the way and head over to the ledge of the roof and climb up onto. I sit down, hanging my legs over the side. Nova doesn’t follow me right away, so I pat the spot next to me and tell her to come over without looking at her, wondering just how much she trusts me. I secretly wish she’d just run away, but at the same time I want to hear what she has to say—why she thinks we connected last summer.

Of course she sits down because she’s sweet and innocent and sees some sort of good inside me. I honestly don’t get it, because whenever I look into a mirror, which isn’t that often, all I can see is a skeleton, the remains of a once-good person, who ruined everything and who will always ruin everything. Kind of like the view in front of me of old buildings, stores, houses, that I can tell used to be beautiful before things changed—life changed—and they were all forgotten, lost like the sand in the wind, left to crumple in the shadows of the city, the area no one wants to see, yet I prefer it.

“You think you’re not good enough,” she says, situating herself beside me, her legs dangling over the edge. “But you are.”

“What?” My head snaps in her direction as I try to rewind and see if maybe I was really thinking my thoughts aloud.

“When you’re in that dark place,” she says. “At least that’s how it was for me. It was almost like I thought I didn’t deserve to be happy.”

I relax a little, understanding that she’s just thinking aloud. “And that’s why you did drugs?” I ask.

She shrugs. “One of the reasons. But honestly there were many…like that fact that I wasn’t dealing with my boyfriend’s death…what are your reasons?”

She expresses herself so easily and I’m not sure how to respond. There’s no way I can explain to her why I do it—all the dark reasons. “Why would you think I even have a reason?” I ask. “Maybe I just do it because it feels good.”

“Does it feel good?” There’s a challenge in her eyes that makes me fear what she’s going to say after I answer.

“Sometimes, yes,” I tell her straightforwardly. “I mean, I don’t know how it was for you, but it helps me forget stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” she asks interestedly as she tucks her hands under her legs.

“Stuff I’ve done.” I pop my neck and then crack my jaw. “But why are we talking about this?”

She plays with a loose strand of her hair, twirling it around her finger as she gets lost in her thoughts, staring down at the abandoned stores and houses five stories below us. “Is this why you brought me here? To show me the view?” she wonders, eluding my question.

I look her over, wondering what’s going on in her head. Is she seeing the same view as me? Does she find it repulsive? Or can she still see what it used to be? “Yeah, I stumbled across it once and I liked it.” I tear my eyes off her and focus on the view. “It’s like Vegas used to be out here, before all the madness took the city over.”

“Was it ever not full of madness?” she asks, pointing over her shoulder at the city gleaming against the sunlight and stretching toward the hazy sky. “Because every time I think of Vegas, I can only see that.”

I shrug, swinging my feet back and forth. “I’m not sure, but I can picture it, even if it’s not true.” I put my hand up and motion at a cluster of single-story homes kitty-corner to our right. “Imagine, just a bunch of normal houses, no casinos, no people packing the sidewalks. Everything is painted in warm colors, the grass is green, the fences straight. Trees grow in the yards, bright flowers surround the houses, and people are just hanging around outside and taking life slow.” I point to the left at an oddly shaped stucco building with old signs hanging on the side. “Imagine the stores and shopping areas were like that, instead of crammed so close together, all carrying the same overpriced souvenirs. Imagine the quiet, ordinary, simple life. A place that’s not busy and where your thoughts don’t have to race to keep up with it.” I shut my eyes and savor the scent of freedom in the air. “Imagine breathing again.”