"Good God, has it always been this hot here?" Delilah fans her face with her hand as she yawns. "I remember it being colder."
"I think so." I pick up a cup of iced tea on the table between us and prop up on my elbow to take a sip. "We could go in," I suggest, setting my glass down. I turn it in a circle until it's perfectly in place on the condensation ring it left behind, and then I wipe the moisture from my lips with the back of my hand and rest my head back against the chair. "We do have air-conditioning."
Delilah laughs sardonically as she reaches for the sparkly pink flask in her bag. "Yeah, right. Are you kidding me?" She pauses, examining her fiery red nails, then unscrews the lid off the flask. "No offense. I didn't mean for that to sound rude, but your mom and dad are a little overwhelming." She takes a swig from the flask and holds it out in my direction.
"Stepdad," I correct absentmindedly. I wrap my lips around the top of the flask and take a tiny swallow, then hand it back to her and close my eyes. "And they're just lonely. I'm the only child and I've been gone for almost a year."
She laughs again, but it's breezier than before. "They're seriously the most overbearing parents I know. They call you every day at school and text you a thousand times." She puts the flask back into her bag.
"They just worry about me." They didn't use to. My mom was really carefree before my dad died, and then she got concerned about how his death and seeing it affected me. Then Landon died, and now all she does is constantly worry.
"I worry about you, too," Delilah mumbles. She waits for me to say something, but I don't--I can't. Delilah knows about what happened with Landon, but we never really talk about what I saw. And that's one of the things I like about her--that she doesn't ask questions.
One...two...three...four...five...breathe...six...seven...eight...breathe... Balling my hands into fists, I fight to calm myself down, but the darkness is ascending inside me, and it will take me over if I let it and drag me down into the memory I won't remember; my last memory of Landon.
"I have a brilliant idea," she interrupts my counting. "We could go check out Dylan and Tristan's new place."
My eyes open and I slant my head to the side. My hands are on my stomach, and I can feel my pulse beating through my fingertips, inconsistent. Tracking the beats is difficult, but I try anyway. "You want to go see your ex-boyfriend's place. Seriously?"
Swinging her legs over the edge of the chair, Delilah sits up and slips her sunglasses up to the top of her head. "What? I'm totally curious what he ended up like." She presses her fingertips to the corners of her eyes, plucking out gobs of kohl eyeliner.
"Yeah, but isn't it kind of weird to show up randomly after not talking to him in like forever, especially after how bad your guys' breakup was," I say. "I mean, if Tristan hadn't stepped in, you would have probably hit Dylan."
"Yeah, probably, but that's all in the past." She chews on her thumbnail and gives me a guilt-ridden look as she smears the tanning-spray grease off her bare stomach. "Besides that's not technically accurate. We kind of talked yesterday."
Frowning, I sit up and refasten the elastic around my long, wavy brown hair, securing it in a ponytail. "Are you serious?" I ask, and when she doesn't respond, I add, "Nine months ago, when he cheated on you, you swore up and down that you'd never talk to that"--I make air quotes--"'fucking, lying, cheating bastard' again. In fact, if I remember right, it was the main reason you decided to go to college with me--because you needed a break."
"Did I say that really?" She feigns forgetfulness as she taps her finger on her chin. "Well, like everything else in my life, I've decided to have a change of heart." She reaches for the tanning spray on the table between us. "And besides, I did need a break, not just from him, but from my mom and this town, but now we're back and I figure I might as well have some fun while I'm here. College wore me out."
Delilah is the most indecisive person I've ever met. During our freshman year, she changed majors three times, dyed her hair from red, to black, then back to red again, and went through about a half a dozen boyfriends. I secretly love it, despite how much I pretend that I don't. It was what kind of drew me to her; her uncaring, nonchalant attitude, and the way she could forget things in the snap of a finger. I wish I could be the same way sometimes, and if I hang around her a lot, there are a few moments when I can get my mind on the same carefree level as hers.
"What have you two been talking about?" I wonder, plucking a piece of grass off my leg. "And please don't tell me it's getting back together, because I don't want to see you get crushed like that again."
Her smile shines as she tucks strands of her red hair behind her heavily studded ears, then she removes the lid from the tanning spray. "What is with you and Dylan? He's always put you on edge."
"Because he's sketchy. And he cheated on you."
"He's not sketchy...he's mysterious. And he was drunk when he cheated."
"Delilah, you deserve better than that."
She narrows her eyes at me as she spritzes her legs with tanning spray. "I'm not better than him, Nova. I've done supercrappy things, hurt people. I've made mistakes--we all have."
I stab my nails into the palms of my hands, thinking of all the mistakes I made and their consequences. "Yes, you are better. All he's ever done is cheat on you and deal drugs."
She slaps her hand on her knee. "Hey, he doesn't deal anymore. He stopped dealing a year ago." She clicks the cap back onto the tanning spray and tosses it into her bag.
I sigh, push my sunglasses up over my head, and massage my temples. "So what has he been up to for a year?" I lower my hands and blink against the sunlight.
She shrugs, and then her lips expand to a grin as she grabs my hand and stands, tugging me to my feet. "How about we go change out of our swimsuits, head over to his place, and find out?" When I open my mouth to protest, she adds, "It'd be a good distraction for the day."
"I'm not really looking for a distraction, though."
"Well, then you could go over and see Tristan." She bites back an amused smirk. "Maybe reheat things."
I glare at her. "We hooked up one time and that's because I was drunk and..." Vulnerable. I'd actually been really drunk, and my thoughts had been all over the place because of an unexpected visit from Landon's parents that morning. They'd wanted to give me some of his sketches, which they'd found in a trunk upstairs--sketches of me. I'd barely been able to take them without crying, and then I'd run off, looking to get drunk and forget about the drawings, Landon, and the pain of him leaving. Tristan, Dylan's best friend--and roommate--was the first guy I came across after way, way too many Coronas and shots. I started making out with him without even saying hello.
He was the first guy I'd made out with since Landon, and I spent the entire night afterward crying and rocking on the bathroom floor, counting the cracks in the tile and trying to get myself to calm down and stop feeling guilty for kissing someone else, because Landon was gone and he took a part of me with him--at least that was what it feels like. What's left of me is a hollow shell full of denial and tangled with confusion. I have no idea who I am anymore. I really don't. And I'm not sure if I want to know or not.
"Oh come on, Nova." She releases my hand and claps her hands in front of her. "Please, can we just go and try to have some fun?"
I sigh, defeated, and nod, knowing that the true feelings of why I don't want to go over there lie more in the fact that I hate new places than anything else. Unfamiliar situations put me on edge, because I hate the unknown. It reminds me just how much the unknown controls everything, and my counting can sometimes get a little out of hand. But I don't want to argue anymore with Delilah, either, because then my anxiety will get me worked up and the counting will, too. Either way, I know I'm going to have a head full of numbers. At least if I go with Delilah, then I can keep an eye on her and maybe she'll end up happy. And really, that's all I can ask for. For everyone to be happy. But as I all too painfully know, you can't force someone to be happy, no matter how muc
h you wish you could.
Chapter 2
Quinton
I ask myself the same question every day: Why me? Why did I survive? And every day I get the same response: I don't know. Deep down, I know there really isn't an answer, yet I keep asking the same question, hoping that maybe one day someone will give me a hand and give me a clear answer. But my head is always foggy, and answers always come to me in harsh, jagged responses: regardless of why I survived, it was my fault, and I should be the one buried under the ground, locked in a box, below a marked stone. Two people died because of me that day. Two people I cared about. And even though the guy I barely know miraculously lived, he could have very easily died, and his death would have been my fault, too.
All my fault.
"Thanks for letting me stay here, man," I say for the thousandth time. I can tell my cousin Tristan is getting a little irritated by how many times I've said it, but I can't seem to stop. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him to help out the most hated member of our family. The one who destroyed lives and split apart a family. But I needed to leave, despite how much I didn't want to; something that became clear when my dad finally spoke to me after over a year of near silence.
"I think it's time for you to move out," he'd said, eyeing my lazy ass sprawled out on the bed as music played in the background. I was sketching something that looked like an owl in a tree, but my vision was a little blurred, so I couldn't quite tell for sure. "You're nineteen years old and getting too old to live at home."
I was high out of my mind, and I had a hard time focusing on anything except how slow his lips were moving. "Okay."
He studied me from the doorway and I could tell he was disappointed in what he saw. I was no longer his son, but a washed-up druggie who lay around all day wasting his life, ruining everything he'd worked so hard to achieve. All that time spent in high school, getting good grades, winning art fairs, working hard to get scholarships, was exchanged for a new goal: getting high. He didn't try to understand why I needed drugs--that without them, I'd be worse off--and I never wanted him to. It wasn't like we'd had a good relationship before the accident. My mom had died in childbirth, and even though he never said it, I sometimes wonder if he blamed me for killing her when she brought me into this world.
Finally, he'd left, and the conversation was over. The next morning, when my head had cleared a little, I realized I actually had to find a place to live in order to move out. I didn't have a job at the moment, due to the fact I failed a random drug test at the last job, and I had a bad track record of getting fired. Not knowing what else to do, I'd called up Tristan. We used to be friends when we were younger...before everything happened...before I killed Ryder, his sister. I felt like a dick for calling him, but I remembered him being nice, and he even talked to me after the funeral, even though his parents no longer would. He seemed reluctant, but he agreed, and a couple of days later I packed up my shit, bought a ticket, and headed for my temporary new home.
"Dude, for the millionth time, you're good, so stop thanking me." Tristan picks up the last box out of the trunk of his car.
"Are you sure, though?" I ask again, because it never really seems like I can ask enough. "I mean, with me staying here, especially after...everything."
"I told you on the phone that I was." He shifts his weight, moving the box to his free arm, and then scratches the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Look, I'm good, okay? You can stay here until you can get your feet on the ground or whatever...I'm not going to just let you live out on the streets. Ryder wouldn't have wanted that, either." He almost chokes on her name and then clears his throat a thousand times.
I'm not sure I agree with him. Ryder and I were never that close, but I'm not going to bring that up, considering things have already gotten really awkward and I've only been here for like five minutes.
"Yeah, but what about your parents?" I ask. His parents insist that the accident was my fault and that I should have been driving more safely. They told me that I ruined their family, killed their daughter.
"What about them?" His voice is a little tight.
"Won't they be pissed when they find out I'm living with you?"
He slams the trunk down. "How are they going to find out? They never talk to me. In fact they've pretty much disowned me and my lifestyle." I start to protest, but he cuts me off. "Look, you're good. They never stop by. I barely talk to them. So can you please just chill out and enjoy your new home?" He heads for the gate and I follow. "I do have to say, though, that it probably would have been better if you drove out here. Now you're stranded if you want to go anywhere."
"It's better that way." I adjust the handle of the bag over my shoulder and we walk toward a single-wide trailer. The siding is falling off, one of the windows is covered with a piece of plywood, and the lawn is nonexistent; instead there's a layer of gravel, then a fence, followed by more gravel. It's a total crack house, but that's okay. This is the kind of place where I belong, in a place no one wants to admit exists, just like they don't want to admit I exist.
"You know there's no bus here, right?" He steps onto the stairway, and it wobbles underneath his feet. "It's a freaking small-ass town."
"That's okay." I follow him with my thumb hitched under the handle of my bag. "I'll just walk everywhere."
He laughs, shifting the box to one arm so he can open the screen door. "Okay, if you say so." He steps inside the house, and I catch the screen door with my foot, grab the handle, and hold the door open as I maneuver my way inside.
The first thing I notice is the smell; smoky but with a seasoned kick to it that burns the back of my throat. It's familiar, and suddenly I feel right at home. My eyes sweep the room and I spot the joint burning in the ashtray on a cracked coffee table.
Tristan drops the box on the floor, steps over it and strides up to the ashtray. "You good with this?" He picks up the joint and pinches it in between his fingers. "I can't remember if you're cool or not."
It's not really a question. It's more of a warning that I have to be cool with it if I'm going to live here. I let the handle of the bag slide down my arm and it falls to the floor. "I used to not be." I used to care about things--I used to think that doing the right thing would make me a good person. "But now I'm good."
His eyebrows knit at my vague answer and I reach for the joint. As soon as it's in my hand and the poisonous yet intoxicating smoke starts to snake up to my face, I instantly feel at ease again. The calm only amplifies as I put it to my lips and take a deep drag. I trap it in my chest, allowing the smoke to burn at the back of my throat, saturate my lungs, and singe my heart away. It's what I want--what I need--because I don't deserve anything more. I part my lips and release the smoke into the already tainted air, feeling lighter than I have since I got on that god damn plane.
"Holy fucking shit, look what the dog drug in." Dylan, Tristan's roommate, walks out from behind a curtain at the back of the room, laughing, and a blonde girl trails at his heels. I've only met him a couple of times during the few visits my dad and I made to Maple Grove to visit Tristan's parents. He looks different--rougher--a shaved head, multiple tattoos on his arms, and he used to be a lot stockier, but I'm guessing the weight loss is from the drugs.
"Hi, Quinton." The blonde waves her hand, then winds around Dylan and moves toward me. She keeps her arms tight to her side, pressing them against her chest, so her tits nearly pop out of her top. She seems to know me, yet I have no fucking clue who she is. "It's been a long time."
I'm racking my brain for some sort of memory that has her in it, but the weed has totally put a haze in my head, putting me right where I want to be--numb and obliviously stupid.
When she reaches me, she glides her palm up my chest and leans in, pressing her tits against me. "The last time I saw you, you were a scrawny twelve year-old with braces and glasses, but good God you've changed." She traces a path from my chest to my stomach. "You're totally smoking hot now."
"Oh, it's Nikki, right?" I'm remembering so
mething about her...a time when we were kids and the whole neighborhood decided to play baseball. But it's nothing more than a distant memory I'd rather forget. It reminds me too much of what was and what will never be again. "You've..." I scroll up her body, which I can pretty much see all of. "Changed."
She takes it as a compliment, even though I didn't mean it that way. "Thanks." She smiles and shimmies her hips. "I always try to look my best."
I still have the joint in my hand and I take another hit, trapping it in until my lungs feel like they're going to explode, then I free the smoke from my mouth and ash the joint on the already singed brown carpet. I hand it to Tristan, allowing the numbness to leach into my body. "Where should I put my stuff?" I ask him.
Dylan hitches a finger over at the hallway. "There's a room at the back of the hall. It's a little small, but it's got a bed and shit."
I collect my bag and move around Nikki, heading for the hall. "I'll take whatever's easiest on everyone."
Dylan nods his head at the hallway and then says to Nikki, "Nikki, why don't you show Quinton where the room is?"
"Absolutely." She flashes an exaggerated smile at me and snatches the joint from Tristan's hand. She wraps her lips around the end, inhales, and then lets it out. She hands it back to him and then saunters in front of me so I can watch her ass as she struts down the hallway.
"Are you two dating?" I ask glancing back and forth between Nikki and Dylan.
Nikki rolls her eyes. "Um, no."
Dylan departs for the small, cluttered kitchen in the corner of the house. "I don't really date," he points out with a nonchalant shrug as he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Besides, I have an old girlfriend of mine coming over tonight."
"Delilah?" Tristan asks as he flops down on the couch, and Dylan nods. "Is Nova back, too? Is she coming over with her?"
"Nova?" I question. "Is that like her car?"
Tristan shakes his head and laughs. "No, it's a girl, you dipshit."
"Interesting name," I say, curious what a girl who's named after my favorite car would be like, but it doesn't really matter. None of it does. I'll never date again, never feel for anyone.