He curses and throws the light bulb on the floor, where it shatters. “Dammit!” he shouts, his sneakers crunching against the broken glass as he starts to pace the length of the floor. “I thought I was going to score with that find.”

Outside, the sky is graying. We’ve been here for a while—too long. “Let’s just take what we got and go. The last thing we want to do is get busted and be on someone else’s shit list.”

Tristan glares at me, the look fueled by his craving for his next hit, but gives in and stuffs the bag into his pocket. “Fine, but I’m only selling one of these bags and I’m going to go find someone who will trade me a bag of this for what I’m craving.”

“We need the money,” I remind him, following him to the piece of plastic tacked to the doorframe on the back of the house. “And besides, I hate when you do that shit.”

“Okay, Mom.” He rolls his eyes as he ducks and squeezes through the plastic, stepping outside.

“I’m just trying to look out for you.” I lower my head and wiggle through after him, putting the bag away in my pocket as we cut across the backyard, taking a short cut over a fence to our apartment.

He keeps walking, zigzagging around sagebrush, but he shoots me a quick perplexed look from over his shoulder. “You know, you’ve always been kind of weird with the whole heroin thing, but you’ve gotten a little more preachy the last week and I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t just a coincidence that it started happening a lot more when Nova showed up.” There’s insinuation in his eyes as he turns around and walks backward across the sandy backyard toward the space of desert behind it.

“It’s not because of her.” I maneuver around a cactus, eyeing our building in the distance, wanting to get back so we can stop talking and just do some crystal.

“It would make sense if it was.” He whirls around in the sand and walks forward. “That her goody-two-shoes act would wear on you since you’ve been spending time together…I can see it affecting you.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know…you’re just different.” He shrugs. “Less determined to give up on life because you want her and wanting her means being around to have her.”

I tensely massage the back of my neck as we reach the border of our parking lot. “I don’t want her. She’s just determined to come around.”

“You want her just as much as you did last summer. It’s why you’ve continued to draw her even after you two hadn’t seen each other for almost a year and why you were flipping out the other day when I went out with her,” he says determinedly. “You’re just fighting your want a little harder right now for whatever reason.”

I want to disagree with him again, but the lie gets stuck in my throat, because I do want Nova. A lot. “Want and deserve are two different things.” I draw my hood off, the sun and heat bearing down on me. “Just because you want something doesn’t mean you get to have it. Trust me…” I start to get worked up, thinking about how much I want Lexi and Ryder to be alive, how I’d die over and over again if they could be alive right now. “Besides, Nova’s too good for me and I don’t deserve her, so this entire conversation doesn’t even matter…” I kick at the rocks as I trudge along, my chin tipped down. “Nothing fucking matters anymore.”

He grows quiet for a while, reaching for the cigarettes in his pocket. “You know, I’ve often wondered what you saw the day you died that would make you feel like you don’t deserve anything.”

“I saw nothing, other than that I had to come back because some idiot doctor thought he’d save a worthless life,” I say, sounding harsher than I’d planned.

“Jesus, relax.” He surrenders, holding his hands in front of him, pulling a whoops face, knowing he’s pushed the wrong button.

I shake my head. “And besides, me dying has nothing to do with why I think I don’t deserve anything. It’s because two other people died.”

He starts to slow down and this strange look crosses his face. He opens his mouth and he looks like he’s struggling to say something super meaningful that could potentially free me from this internal misery. I’m not even sure what he could say that could do that and perhaps there isn’t anything. Perhaps I’m just hoping there’s something.

He never does say anything, instead offering me a cigarette. But the strange thing is, for the briefest moment, I saw something—felt something. Hope that perhaps something could change how I feel.

I have no idea where the hell the feeling stemmed from, whether I’ve done too many drugs for one day, or if Nova’s getting into my head even more than I realized. And the truly terrifying part is, part of me wants to go back to her, start answering the door, keep letting her get to me.

Let the hope build.

But the other part of me wants to shatter the possibility into a thousand pieces and keep heading to a young death, let myself rot away quickly until I finally stop breathing forever like I should have done two years ago.

Chapter 10

May 23, day eight of summer break


Nova

Time is starting to blur together. Every day is the same. It’s been four days since I’ve seen or talked to Quinton and I feel like I’m going to explode from the lack of moving forward. I’m trying to keep my plummeting mood hidden from Lea and my mom, but it’s hard when they can both read me like an open book.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come to lunch with us?” Lea asks as she collects her purse from the computer desk in the guest room. It’s the weekend and she and her uncle are going out to get something to eat. “I might go shopping afterward.”

I shake my head as I lie down on the bed and drape my arm over my head. “I’m really tired. I think I might just take a nap.”

“You’re probably tired because you keep waking up in the middle of the night,” she says. “You’re a freaking restless sleeper lately.”

Because I keep dreaming of the dead and the soon-to-be-dead if I can’t figure out a way to help Quinton. “Yeah, I know…I have a lot on my mind.”

She looks at me suspiciously, like she can read through my life; like she knows that really, once she leaves, I’m going to go over to Quinton’s for the second time today and see if I can get someone to answer. “Nova, I know you’ve been watching Landon’s video.”

I’m not sure how to respond and thankfully, I don’t have to because her uncle peeks into the room, interrupting us.

“You girls about ready?” he asks. He’s an average-height man, with thinning hair and welcoming eyes. The kind of person who looks friendly, and he is. He’s usually wearing business attire when I see him, but today he’s wearing jeans and an old red T-shirt.

“Nova’s not coming with us,” Lea says, slipping the handle of her purse over her shoulder. “She’s tired.” She gives me a look that lets me know I’m going to get a lecture when she gets home.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he says, stepping into the room. “I was going to take you to Baker and Nancy’s. I hear they have excellent steak.”

“Maybe next time,” I tell him. “I really think I need to get caught up on some sleep.”

“Well, if you change your mind, call Lea and you can meet us,” he says, backing toward the doorway.

“All right, sounds good,” I say, then roll over and rest my head against the pillow.

I hear Lea’s uncle say something to Lea as they leave and it sounds an awful lot like “Are you sure she’s okay? She looks really down.” I can’t help but wonder just how down in the dumps I look, if a stranger can notice this.

A few minutes later the house gets quiet. The air conditioning clicks on. The sun glistens through the window. I’m starting to like the quiet because it eliminates all the worried looks and questions I keep getting. If I had my way, I’d avoid talking to my mom until I could pull my shit together, but like she’s read my mind, my phone suddenly rings and I know without even looking who it has to be.

I probably wouldn’t answer it, but she might have information about Quinton’s dad, so I reach over to the nightstand and pick up my phone.

“Hello,” I say, rolling onto my back and staring up at the ceiling.

“You sound tired,” my mom says worriedly. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

I wonder if she’s been talking to Lea about my lack of sleep or, worse, if Lea’s told her about my watching Landon’s video, although I’m guessing it’d probably be the first thing my mom would ask me about if she knew.

“Yeah, but I think it’s the time change.” It’s a lame excuse, since the time change is only an hour and I’ve actually already gotten used to it.

“Well, make sure you get enough rest.” She gives a heavyhearted sigh. “And make sure you’re not overdoing it.”

“Okay, I will.” I feel the lie burn inside my chest. “So have you heard anything from Quinton’s dad?”

“Yeah…” She’s reluctant and I know whatever happened is bad. “It didn’t go very well.”

“What happened?” I ask, sitting up in the bed.

“I just don’t know if this is going to work,” she says. “If he’ll do anything to help his son.”

“Why not?” I get so upset I nearly yell.

“Honey, I think this might be deeper than we realize,” she says in the gentle motherly tone she uses when she knows I’m on the verge of cracking open. “I mean, I only talked to him for a few minutes, but I got the impression there’s a lot of problems there. Not just between the two of them but with Quinton, and that his dad would rather avoid the problem.”

“I know he has problems,” I drag my butt off the bed and look around the room for my purse. “That’s why I’m here trying to help him.”