She’s quiet for a while and I wonder if my tweaker rambling has frightened her off, but when I open my eyes she looks relaxed as she observes me, turned just at the right angle so the blue sky and sunlight are her only background and her hair is dancing around her face in the gentle breeze. A strand of her hair falls from behind her ear and lands near her chest and I remember what it was like to touch her there, feel her, do whatever I wanted with her.

Beautiful. That’s the word that pops into my head and for a fleeting moment I just want to hold her and for her to hold me and for me to not have to think about Lexi and Ryder and what I did to them.

“You paint a beautiful picture,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “It makes me want to live in this place.”

“Well, it might not exist,” I utter quietly. “I was just making up what I see.”

“You should draw what you see sometimes,” she suggests with a faint smile at her lips. “I bet it would turn out beautiful.”

“I’m just rambling,” I mutter. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”

Intensity burns in her eyes. “You’d be surprised what your words can mean to someone.”

“I never say anything important,” I state truthfully. “Everything I do or say gets forgotten quickly.”

“That’s not true…you said a lot of stuff to me last summer that meant something. Like when you told me I was too good to be doing drugs.”

“That’s because you were—are.”

“Everyone is,” she insists, scooting closer to me. “But you were the one to actually say it aloud.”

“It still doesn’t mean that what I said mattered,” I argue, wanting to inch away from her, but I can’t seem to find the willpower to do so. “You just remember it because it happened during an intense part of your life.”

She studies me momentarily and then looks back down at the scenery below us. “Do you remember the pond?” she asks.

That question hits me straight in the heart and makes it slam inside my chest. “How could I forget?” I say, grinding my teeth. “It wasn’t one of my finer moments.”

Her attention whips back to me. “Are you kidding me?” she asks in shock, which seems so out of place that I have to look up at her to see if she’s being real or joking.

“No…I’m being serious,” I tell her, fighting the emotions buried inside me—the guilt I feel for leaving her that day. “I should have never left you there like that. I was—am such a douche.”

She gapes at me like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “You are not in any way, shape, or form a douche for leaving me there. You pretty much saved me from doing something I’d always regret and that probably would have kept me in that dark place a hell of a lot longer.” She says it with so much passion, like she’s been thinking about this a lot, and I don’t know what to say to her, so instead I stare silently at the ground. Finally she places her hand on my face and cups my cheek, forcing me to look at her. “You helped me so, so much, whether you want to believe it or not.”

Emotions I’ve worked hard to bury clutch at my heart and it hurts like needles are lodged in my skin, all connected to my guilt. “I didn’t do anything but watch you do stuff you shouldn’t.”

“And you kept reminding me that I shouldn’t—you kept trying to make me see what I was doing.”

“But I didn’t stop you.”

“Because you couldn’t.” She traces her fingers across my scruffy jawline. “You were—are still—obviously going through some stuff and you did the only thing you could for me at the time. You kept me out of getting into too much trouble, you listened to me ramble, and you didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability when a lot of guys would have.”

“A lot of guys would have kicked you out of the house in the first place, before you did anything,” I snap. “Just because I didn’t f**k you when you were sad doesn’t make me a good guy.”

She flinches but then composes herself, slanting closer to me, her hand firmly in place on my cheek. “Yes, it does. It makes you a great guy.”

The more she says this, the angrier I get, and the sharper the needles become. She needs to stop saying good things about me. I’m not good. I’m a terrible person and she needs to accept that just like I have and everyone else has.

“No it doesn’t.” I lean into her, our breaths mixing and creating heat, eyes so close I can see her pupils dilating.

She nods, whispering, “Yes, it does, and I’m going to think that no matter what you say.”

I want her to shut up, be afraid of me, so I don’t have to feel the emotions she’s triggering. All the work I did today, all the shit I shoved up my nose so I wouldn’t have to think the thoughts racing through my head, and now she’s saying shit that’s making me think them anyway.

I’m not a good guy. I deserve nothing. I deserve to be rotting under the ground. I deserve pain. I deserve to suffer, not sit here with her, being touched by her, loving being touched by her.

“Quinton, I’m sick of this,” my dad says. “It’s time for you to move out…I don’t want you around anymore. Not when you’re like this.”

“Nova, stop talking about shit you don’t get,” I growl, and it should scare her, yet it seems to fuel her with determination.

“But I do get it,” she snaps, equally harshly, and I swear to God it seems like she leans in, too, giving in to the pull like me. Our foreheads touch and I can smell the scent of her, vanilla mixed with a hint of perfume. “I do get how much it hurts.” She pounds her hand against her chest. “How much you think about all the other paths your life could have taken if you would have just done this or that. I get how much you want to forget about it all. How much you hate yourself for not doing things that would make it so they were still here!” She shouts at the end, her eyes massive, her breathing ragged, and my body is trembling from the emotion emitting from her and being absorbed into my skin, like I can connect with everything she’s going through.

We’re so close that our legs are touching and there’s only a sliver of space between our lips. I could kiss her, but I’m too pissed off. At her. At myself. But dear God I want to kiss her, just to get a small taste of the life flowing off her, to feel her, breathe in her warm scent. It’s an amazing feeling, like for a moment she’s become more powerful than the meth.

But then she says, “You and I are so alike.”

That makes me jerk back and her hand falls from my face. “No we’re not and don’t ever say that again.” I swing my legs back over to the roof and get to my feet, bumping into one of the signs. “We’re not the same, Nova. Not even close.”

She rushes after me and cuts me off halfway to the door with her arms out to the sides. “Yes, we are. We were both using drugs and this life to escape our feelings—the stuff that happened to us. The terrible stuff that happened to us.”

I shake my head, my buzz flying away in the wind like loose powder. “You have no idea what the f**k you’re talking about,” I say, looking away from her. “You did weed for like what? A couple of months. Weed’s nothing, Nova.” I encounter her gaze. “You have no idea how dark stuff can get.” I pause, rage erupting inside me, and for a moment I think about saying it aloud. What I did. How I killed my girlfriend and cousin—the entire story about how I killed two people, so hopefully she’ll realize the full extent of it and leave me.

She swallows hard, but manages to keep her voice even. “So what? Just because I haven’t done anything harder, doesn’t mean I don’t get things—don’t get death. I get what you’re going through.”

“No, you don’t.” I get in her face, hoping to scare her back, but she stands firm. “You lost your boyfriend because he chose to leave. I crashed a goddamned car and killed my f**king girlfriend and cousin—Tristan’s sister—I took their lives. And everyone f**king hates me for it.” I wait for the disgust in her eyes to appear, the disgust I’ve seen countless times, whenever anyone hears my story.

But she completely blindsides me and looks at me with sympathy. “Everyone doesn’t hate you. How could they, when it was an accident?” She stands firm and her voice is loud but it cracks. She’s not even shocked. Yeah, I told her I killed some people but I didn’t tell her who, yet it seems like she already knew. “I know it wasn’t your fault…I read the newspaper article.”

Suddenly it makes sense that there was no shock factor for her. She already knew about my messed-up, twisted past, what happened that night. How I was responsible for two people’s deaths. She probably even knows I died.

Something about the idea of her digging up my past elicits a dark and sinister feeling inside me. It makes me furious and not I-just-need-to-get-another-hit furious. She was the only one who didn’t fully know my story and now she does—now she knows what I am, down to the very last details.

“The newspaper doesn’t know jack f**king shit. Yeah, maybe the police report said it wasn’t entirely my fault, but ask f**king anyone.” I cup my hand over my upper arm, because I swear to God I’m feeling the pain again of when I put the tattoos there, sharp pricks, the burn, the pain I deserve—I deserve so much more. “Ryder’s parents, Lexi’s parents. You can even ask my father and they’ll all tell you that it was my fault…he even blames me for my mother’s death…” I trail off, losing my voice, as I remember all the silence between my father and me—how, growing up, I could always feel the distance between us, because every time he looked at me, he probably thought about how my mother died bringing me into this world. It makes me realize just how long I’ve felt this blame, just not as bluntly. “They’ll all tell you I’m a piece of shit that should be f**king dead instead of everyone else.” I’m on the verge of tears. But they’re tears of rage more than anything and I need to find a way to get them to stop. Find a way to get Nova to stop looking at me like I’m an injured dog that she just kicked and gave more pain to. Find a way for her to stop pitying me and get on the same page as everyone else.

I know what I do next is so f**ked up there are no words to describe it, yet I can’t find the will to care inside my junkie body, which only sees life from delusional angles created by substances that let me see things how I want to. So I reach into my pocket and take out a plastic bag.

“You want to see how alike we are?” I say, opening the bag, watching her and her reaction. “You want to see what you’re trying to save?”

She tries to remain calm, but I catch the flicker of fear in her eyes and I think, There you go. Be afraid. Finally. I dip my finger into the powder, coating it with just enough to give me a bump, and then I put my finger up to my nose. I expect her to look away, but she doesn’t. Her gaze is relentless, confused, disgusted, curious. All sorts of messed-up shit. And it should be enough for me to put the stuff away, because I’ve obviously gotten my point across, but now that it’s out, I want it. So I breathe it in like it’s heaven, or a make-believe version anyway. Once it crashes against the back of my throat, it makes hurting Nova the slightest bit easier, and when she walks away, I feel twistedly satisfied, like I accomplished something, when I didn’t. I haven’t accomplished anything in a very long time. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter. None of this does. And when I walk back to my place—because I’m sure she’s going to leave my sorry ass—I’ll take hit after hit and barely remember or feel anything at all. At least not in a way that matters.

Nova

I have to walk away while we’re on the roof because it’s too hard to watch and he follows me down, staying a ways behind. I think he thinks I’m going to leave him because as soon as we step outside, he starts off toward this back area that leads to a stretch of desert, instead of toward my car.

“Where are you going?” I call out, taking my keys out of my pocket.

He stops just short of where the asphalt shifts to dirt and glances over his shoulder at me. “I thought I was walking home.”

I shake my head, backing up to the car. “Quinton, I can give you a ride.”

A puzzled look crosses his face. “Even after what I did—even after I yelled at you? Even after what I just said…?” He trails off, like his emotions are getting the best of him again.

I need to make sure to do my best to keep him calm, because he seems pretty irrational right now and with drugs in his system, things could get ugly—even more than they are. “Nothing you said on the roof affects our relationship. Things are still the same. Although I wish they were different—better. Now would you please get in the car? It’s hot as heck out here and I don’t want you walking in the heat.”

He sniffs a few times, rubbing his nose, as he glances in the direction he was heading and then at my car. “Okay…yeah. I’ll get in the car.”

A small weight lifts from my shoulders as he climbs inside, but it’s back by the time we’re back to his place and he hops out before I even get the car to a full stop and without saying good-bye. I hate when people don’t say good-bye, yet it happens all the time and sometimes I don’t see them ever again.

I’m worried about never seeing Quinton again.

I start to drive back to Lea’s uncle’s house but I can feel a meltdown coming on as I keep picturing Quinton on the roof, shoving that stuff up his nose. Finally I have to vent, get it off my chest before I explode, so I pull the car into a gas station parking lot and take out my phone. Aiming the camera at myself, I hit record.