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 dealin
g 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."
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 fuck 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 m
y 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 fuck 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 fucking girlfriend and cousin--Tristan's sister--I took their lives. And everyone fucking 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.