And part of me wishes I never had to open my eyes again. Part of me wishes I could stay just like this. Forever. Just he and I. Just contentment. The easiness. It makes me want to create more moments like this. I just need to find a way for him to let me.

After we’re done dancing, we climb back on the hood and chat a little more. He seems to unwind as time goes by and I’m guessing that he’s reached a sort of peaceful balance in his high, one I remember well because it’s what drew me to drugs in the first place. Then it starts to get late, the noise dying down so severely it seems like the city has gone to sleep.

I yawn, stretching out my arms as I stare up at the stars. “It’s so late.”

“I know. We should probably get back,” he says, sitting up and hopping off the hood. “It’s late and I hate the thought of you being around here at night and driving back to wherever you’re staying.”

I slide toward the edge of the hood and he helps me down by taking my hand. “I’ll be okay. Lea’s uncle lives in a pretty good area.”

“Still, I worry about you.” He seems uncomfortable saying it.

“All right, I’ll drop you off and get home then.”

He nods and lets go of my hand. Then I take him home and give him a kiss on the cheek before he gets out of the car.

“Nova,” he says before he climbs out, his back turned to me, his feet out of the car and on the ground. “I wish you’d stop coming here.”

My heart sinks in my chest. For a moment I thought I saw promise that things might change between us—that he’d stop fighting me so much. “You really want me to stop.”

It takes him a few seconds to answer. “What I want doesn’t matter…what’s right does.”

“It’s not wrong for me to see you.” I nervously fiddle with the keychain dangling from the ignition. “And I’m not ready to stop seeing you…are you ready to stop seeing me?”

His head lowers, but he still doesn’t look at me. “I can’t answer that right now.”

“Well, then, let’s stop talking about it until you do,” I say, and he starts to get out of the car without saying a word. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He pauses as he’s closing the door. “Yeah…I guess so.”

It’s not much, but it’s enough to lift me a little bit out of my slump. “Bye, Quinton. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He doesn’t say anything and shuts the door. Then he goes back up to his place and I wait until he’s inside before I take out my phone and angle it at my face.

There’s very little light, but I can still make out my outline on the screen, which is enough. “So I got this idea tonight,” I tell the camera. “It might be stupid, but it’s all I got. It’s called fun. And I’m not talking about getting-drunk-and-partying type of fun. That’s the last thing Quinton and I need. I’m talking about the plain, easy kind of fun. The dancing, music, laughing, playful, peaceful kind of fun…the kind we shared tonight. It seemed to help him relax, not putting pressure on him, pretending that we were just two people hanging out…and I can pretend as long as it can get me somewhere…I just hope I can keep getting to him…keep learning about him…understand him.” I pause, biting my lip as a guy walks out of Quinton’s apartment, strolls up to the railing, and stares down at my car. He flicks his cigarette over the edge and then rests his arms on top of the railing. The light over the door hits his back, making it hard to see his face, but it sort of looks like Dylan. If that’s the case then it’s time for me to go, before he ruins my vaguely decent night.

I shut the recording off and toss my phone aside, feeling a little bit lighter as I drive away. I just pray to God that when I return tomorrow morning, the Quinton I had toward the end of tonight is still thriving.

Chapter 11

Quinton

May 26, day eleven of summer break

I’m changing and I don’t like it. I’m feeling things and I don’t like it. My self-destruction plan is becoming complicated and I don’t like it. I don’t like anything at the moment, yet I keep doing the same things over and over again. Keep seeing Nova. Letting her affect me—change me.

But I can’t seem to help it.

Dancing with her was…well, it was amazing. Touching her like that—kissing her like that—it should be forbidden, especially after making her cry like I did. I made a silent vow to myself the second Nova dropped me off that day when we were on the roof and I showed her one of the ugliest sides of myself and made her cry. I vowed I’d never hurt her again and that I’d stay away from her, but I suck at the last part.

I don’t know how to shut it off—turn away from her—without feeling like I’m going insane. She’s taking me over, almost as potent as the drugs, but unlike with drugs, I’m very conflicted about my emotions. The last time I felt something was at that concert and I ultimately made a choice to shut myself down, not let myself have Nova, not drag her down. Not feel anything. Create my own prison. But Nova seems to know how to get through the bars and pull me out like she did last summer. And the emotions I tried to kill with drugs have burst to the surface again. Sometimes I think I should embrace them. Sometimes I think I should run from them. Sometimes it makes me angry and I worry I’ll fly off the handle one of these times and say something to hurt her again.

Fortunately that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve seen Nova every day for the last four days and managed not to flip out and make her cry, but that’s partially because I always make sure I’m at the perfect high whenever she comes around. Her visits are starting to become a routine. Like today. I wake up at around noon or one, get my morning boost, get dressed, and then wait around and draw until she shows up. I almost get excited knowing she’ll be here to see me. All of this stuff seems good, but there’s one huge problem. The more time I spend with her, the guiltier I feel about Lexi. Like I’m leaving her behind to rot in her grave, deciding that I should live instead of putting myself back into the grave I should have been put in with her.

I’m not sure what the hell is wrong with me. What kind of person would just move on from the girlfriend he killed? So I try to fight it—my feelings for Nova—but she consumes my thoughts, takes over my life, even my drawings. I’m actually drawing a picture of her when she shows up today. It’s one of her sitting on the edge of the roof where we chatted that day I yelled at her. The perfection I saw as she looked at me and I explained my love for the scene below. It’s an amazing drawing that makes me sad to see, that I’ve gotten to that place where I can put so much effort into drawing another girl.

The last thing I want is for Nova to see it, so when she enters my room I quickly shut my sketchbook. “Hey,” I say, tossing it aside onto the mattress.

She’s all smiles, two cups of coffee in her hands as she materializes in my doorway, wearing a blue dress that shows off her legs, her hair done up so I can see the freckles on her face and shoulders. “So I have a plan for today.” She sticks out her hand, offering me a cup of coffee, looking so happy even though there’s a mirror on my floor that’s coated in white residue, like she can see past all that stuff, like how I’ve treated her in the past, like the scar on my chest that marks the terrible thing I did.

I take the coffee from her. “Who let you into the apartment?” I ask, stretching my arms above my head and blinking a few times to hydrate my eyes. I did a line about a couple of hours ago, so I’m good right now, but not overflowing with adrenaline.

Her upbeat attitude sinks. “Dylan.”

My arms fall to my sides. “He didn’t say anything to you, did he?”

She shrugs, picking at the edge of the coffee lid. “It’s not really what he said, so much as how he stared at me for about a minute before he let me into the house…Delilah was passed out on the sofa and he made a smartass remark about liking her better that way. I think he likes getting to me…and I hate seeing Delilah like that.”

Of course she does, because she worries too much about everyone. “I’m sorry,” I say, wanting to wring Dylan’s neck. He’s been acting like a dick more and more every day, insisting we need to move out. Tristan and I actually sneaked into his room and searched it for the gun, but I think he keeps it on him all the time. I’m a little worried about where this all might be headed and the last thing I want is for Nova to get involved. “I don’t think you should come up here anymore.”

She quickly shakes her head, her eyes widening. “No, I can handle creepy Dylan…Just please don’t make me stop seeing you.”

“I didn’t mean stop coming to see me,” I correct her and take a small sip of the coffee. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the fancy Starbucks kind and it tastes better than I remember. “I just meant that maybe you shouldn’t come up to the house anymore. We can just meet in your car.”

“But how will you know when I show up?”

“We can set a time.”

“But you say you have a hard time keeping track of time.” She drinks her coffee as she waits for me to respond.

If I do, I’m pretty much making a commitment to see her—to keep seeing her. Go against everything I feel inside me, which I might be able to do if I can keep the right amount of drugs in my system, the balance that keeps me stable—functioning. “I’ll try my best to be out there every day by noon.” It’s the best that I can do.

“That sounds good to me.” Her perfect lips curve up into a small but portrait-worthy smile. “So do you want to hear my plans for the day?”

I rotate the cup in my hands. “Sure.”

Her smile brightens as she sits down on the mattress beside me and I tense as her body heat flows over me. “We’re going to have a fun day of not talking about our problems and not arguing,” she says.

I tense at the word “fun.” The night of the accident, Lexi wanted to have fun. Although Nova and Lexi aren’t alike at all. In fact, Nova’s probably talking about calm, carefree fun, while Lexi always loved impulsive and dangerous. “I don’t think I can have fun.”

She bumps her shoulder against mine, smiling. “Of course you can.”

I suck in a slow breath through my nose, telling myself to be calm. “No, I can’t.”

Her forehead creases. “Why not?”

“Because I just can’t.”

“Quinton, please just tell me,” she pleads. “Otherwise I’ll go crazy trying to figure out why…like I always had to do with Landon.”

Shit, she’s making this hard. She played the dead boyfriend card. Plus, she’s staring at me and her eyes are so big and beautiful they nearly swallow me whole.

“My girlfriend…Lexi asked to have fun the last time…” Tears sting at my eyes and I tip my head back to stop them from falling out. The water stain is right above me, which used to annoy me all the time, but oddly, for the last few days it’s stopped dripping, although the stain itself has grown. “The night she died.” I lower my head when I get myself together and look at her.

She’s quiet as she chews her bottom lip, her hands on the tops of her legs, her fingers delving into her skin. At first I think she’s uncomfortable, but then I realize her eyes are watering and she’s fighting not to cry. “Landon never wanted to have fun.” Her voice is so soft when she says it but lacks so much emotion, like she feels hollow. It nearly kills me to hear the emptiness in her voice. It’s a weak spot—she’s a weak spot.

Tristan was right. She does change me. I’m just not sure if it’s for the better or the worse, because I have a hard time dealing with the emotions she summons out of me, the feelings she manages to pull out of me, even through the layers of drugs.

I cover her hand with mine and she stiffens. My heart leaps inside my chest and nearly strangles me as desire pours through me—the desire to make her happy. I blow out a breath as I realize where my thoughts are headed. “What kind of fun were you thinking of for today?”

She perks up, the tears in her eyes receding. “Go out to the city. Ride some roller coasters. Laugh. Have fun.” She says it like it’s the easiest thing to do in the world.

I scrunch up my nose. “I’m not sure I even remember how to do that, unless I’m tweaked out, but I don’t think that’s part of the fun you’re referring to.”

“No, it’s not.” She flinches as I say it, wounded by my words. “And I’m going to show you how to without being high,” she says, letting it go as she holds out her hand like she wants me to take it.

“You know I’m high right now, right?” I hate to say it, but it’s the truth and I don’t like lying to her.

“I know, but maybe you could try not to do anything while we’re out.” I can see the nervousness in her eyes, the fear of rejection. I picture her crying in the car and how I never want to be the cause of that again, so I take her hand.

“I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise you anything,” I tell her straightforwardly, not trying to hurt her, but she needs to know where I stand. That despite the fact that I’m changing in other ways, I have no intention of quitting. That I’m just toning it down while she’s here to visit me. That if I were sober, I probably couldn’t even be around her because the memories of Lexi would drown all the air out of me instead of part of it. That I’d have to feel every emotional sting, feel what it’s like to live, breathe, let my heart beat exactly how a normal heart should. Let go of Lexi and choose to live.