I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. I’m just worried about you and I have no idea how to go about this. I have no idea what I’m doing.

“Are you sure?” he asks again and I remember all the times last summer when he asked the same thing.

“Yeah, but it’s been really nice talking to you.” I open my eyes, trying to think of something epic to say, but I just can’t get there. “Would it be okay if I called you again?”

He wavers. “I guess, but I don’t have a phone.”

“That’s okay…I can call Delilah’s. Just make sure to mention to her that you want to talk to me the next time I call or else I don’t think she’ll let me talk to you.”

“Okay, I will,” he says, but I don’t think he means it. “Take care of yourself, Nova.”

“I will.” I feel like a part of my heart has died the moment he hangs up the phone. The line goes dead and it reminds me of the sound of a flat line after a heart stops beating, desperate to be revived. And I want to do that for him. Help him. Revive him.

I feel so helpless, just like I did with Landon.

I know I have to do something, but I’m not sure what exactly. What way is the right way or if there even is a right way. This isn’t some story or fairy tale where I’ll set out on this mission to save someone and after a long, exhausting battle we’ll reach our happily ever after. I actually don’t believe in happily ever afters. They’re sappy in my opinion and super unrealistic.

But what I do believe in is not giving up on something that I feel passionate about. And I feel passionate about helping people. I’ve been doing it on the phone for months now, at the suicide hotline I work at. I talk with people. I try to help them see that they’re not alone. That there are other people in the world who have felt the same way and they’ve survived.

That things may seem really shitty sometimes, dark, bleak, and hopeless, like being stuck in a dark hole with no light, and no hope of ever getting out. But that’s never the case. There is hope. There is light. There is a way to get back to a life where you can smile and laugh and feel weightless. No, it’s not easy, and the hardest part is actually seeing it from that angle, but it exists. I know this for a fact, because I’ve been in that dark place where smiling seems so hard and giving up seems so easy and now I smile every day and it’s the lightest feeling.

Maybe it’s because I understand this that I do what I do next. Maybe it’s because I can smile and see the light—see that hope exists for Quinton. Or maybe it’s because I want to save him, like I couldn’t save Landon or even my dad. For whatever reason, I march out to the living room where Lea and Jaxon are sitting on the sofa and say four words that change the entire course of my summer.

“I’m going to Vegas,” I announce and my voice quivers and pours out all my nervousness in it. I feel nauseous and like I’m going to pass out, which makes the situation even realer. “Now who wants to come with me?” It’s a desperate measure, but I’m desperate and it’s the only thing I can think of to do.

Lea glances at Jaxon, who looks completely lost. “Vegas?” he questions. He’s got his arm draped around her, but he looks tense. “Really?”

I nod, collecting my bag and laptop off the sofa. “I got his address and he’s living in Vegas, so that’s where I’m going…as soon as I get the rest of the apartment packed up and my finals turned in, I’m hitting the road.”

“Nova…” Lea struggles with something to say as Jaxon moves his arm away from her. “I know you want to help people, but this isn’t like working on the suicide hotline. It’s more complicated…and maybe even dangerous.”

“More complicated than helping Quinton realize life’s worth living?” I inquire, hugging my laptop to my chest.

“Yeah, because you’re going to be doing it in the crazy world Quinton is now living in,” she states with apprehension, scooting forward on the sofa. “And that’s not the same as doing it from the safety of a hotline.”

“Lea, I’m doing this,” I say determinedly. “I need to do this, not just to help Quinton, but for myself…this could be my second chance.”

I’ve talked to Lea enough that she gets what I’m saying. Plus, she knows what it’s like to lose someone, so she might even understand the need to save people from themselves.

Lea looks at Jaxon again and then gets to her feet and walks over to me. “Nova, I know you want to save him and everything, but do you really think you can without, you know”—she leans in and lowers her voice—“getting back into drugs yourself?”

I drape the handle of my bag over my shoulder. “Lea, I wouldn’t go if I didn’t think I could…and when I got better, I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever again live with regrets.” I tap my finger against the inside of her wrist, across her tattoo. “No regrets, right?” I don’t tell her about the other part—how I want to help him because I wasn’t able to save Landon or my dad—because I’m not sure what she’d say.

Her stressed expression softens. “All right, but I’m coming with you to keep an eye on you.” She raises her pinkie. “And you have to swear that if I tell you that you’re getting in over your head, you’ll listen and back off.”

“Lea, you don’t have to—”

She cuts me off, waving her pinkie at me. “I want to. Besides, I have relatives in Vegas that we can probably stay with.”

As much as I don’t like her sacrificing anything for me, I know accepting is the right thing to do. I’m going to need help and I do want her to come with me.

“Okay then.” I hook pinkies with her. “I promise, but are you sure you can come with me? What about Wyoming?” I lower my voice, leaning in, worried I’m going to cause a fight between her and Jaxon. “Or Illinois.”

She sighs, then unhooks her pinkie from mine and turns to Jaxon. “How about we make a compromise and go to Vegas for the summer?”

He frowns, his eyes filling with hurt and annoyance. “Why would we go to Vegas when we couldn’t even agree to stay here together?” He lets out a frustrated breath, then gets to his feet. “I can’t believe this.” He pauses, growing angrier. “You know what, I actually can. This is so like you, when it comes to making any sort of commitment with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lea asks, sounding slightly irritated.

“It means that you’d rather do anything else than commit to me.” He storms across the living room. “You’ve been making excuse after excuse not to be with me this summer, so I’m going to make it really easy for you. I’m done.” He holds up his hands as he backs out the front door, then spins around and slams the door behind him. A stack of boxes tips over in the foyer and I hear the sound of breaking glass.

“He doesn’t mean that.” Lea tells me as she backs up toward the front door, but she looks a little worried.

“Maybe I should go to Vegas myself,” I say. “I don’t want to cause problems between you two.”

“No, I’m going…just keep packing while I go talk to him.” She spins around and hurries around the tipped-over boxes and after Jaxon, leaving me alone in the apartment.

Reality sinks in and it’s heavy and packed with pressure. I grow nervous. About myself, about Quinton, what he’ll look like, what he’ll act like. I worry about the world I’m walking back into and if I’ll do everything right. Will I mess this up?

“No, I can do this,” I say with determination, hoping with every single part of me that I’m right. That this time I can do things right.

Chapter 3

May 16, day one of summer break


Quinton

My ceiling has a drip in it. Well, several to be exact. And I’m not even sure where the hell the water is coming from. I live in the desert and it rarely rains. Yet the ceiling is dripping like a fucking leaky shower head. Maybe it’s coming from the apartment above. It could have a leak in the pipes or maybe the neighbors left the bathtub on and water is flowing out all over the floor and seeping into my bedroom ceiling. I could go upstairs and see, but there’s no point. The whole reason for moving to this shithole apartment in the first place was that no one would bother us and in return we wouldn’t bother them. Silence. That’s the name of the game among the people who live in my apartment complex, because almost everyone is doing something illegal.

There’s music playing from an old stereo I found on the sidewalk, because ever since the concert, for some reason, the sound of music calms me just a little. I’ve been lying flat on my back on the mattress for God knows how long, analyzing the drops of water as they fall from above and land around me, on me, everywhere, and I can almost picture myself falling with them, never to go upward again.

My arms are tucked under my head and I’m motionless on the outside, but on the inside my mind is running a million miles a minute, all thoughts focused on the water, the way it drips, moves, how I want to drink it because I’m thirsty, yet I’m not drinking and I don’t want to get up to get a drink. And it’s sort of become a project for me—not to think of anything else. Because if I do, I know where my mind is going to go and it can’t go there, because then my feelings will go there and I’ll be breaking my promise.

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t not think about her. Beautiful Nova Reed who shouldn’t even know me, yet she does…or did. I thought she’d outgrown her time with me and my loser ass, but then she called. After nine months, to chat about that video I made back when there was a ray of light left in my life. Nova was the light and I was stuck in the shadows all the time except for a few moments when she touched me, kissed me, let me touch her, and I couldn’t avoid her light, if that makes any sense. Actually, it probably doesn’t. My head is in this really weird place, where I’m high but the drips of crystal in the back of my throat are becoming few and far between. I’m fading, crashing toward a rocky bottom, and the sharp rocks are going to hurt if I don’t get wings and fly again. I’m going to shatter. Break into a thousand shards of glass and metal. Like a car wreck. Like the fucking wreck that I caused, twisted and broken—unfixable. Like Lexi and Ryder. Unfixable because of me. Shit. I need to stop thinking.