Lea raises her head from the stack of papers on her lap, the one she’s been reading pretty much the entire drive, trying to figure out the best way to approach a drug user even though I tried to tell her papers she printed out from a random website won’t necessarily help her understand everything, just some things. “I already told you I was like a thousand times.”
“I know.” I tuck strands of hair behind my ear. “But I feel like this is all my fault.”
She shakes her head and returns her focus to the papers. “What happened between Jaxon and me has been a long time coming.”
“But I love you two together,” I say, pulling my sunglasses over my eyes. “It hurts that you broke up.”
“We were going to break up anyway,” she replies, sifting through the papers. “We’ve been talking about it for weeks. We want two different things…he wants commitment and he kept talking about moving in and getting engaged and me…I don’t even know what I want and until I do, I’m not committing to anything.”
I can’t help but think of the things I wanted from Landon, commitment and a future, and how he would never fully commit to either, which makes me wonder how long he thought about leaving this world.
I stare at the road ahead, which is lined by the desert and cacti. “It still hurts to think about it—you guys seemed like soul mates.”
“I don’t believe in soul mates.” She clears her throat multiple times like she’s fighting back tears. “But it hurts me, too, and I don’t feel like talking about it, otherwise I’ll start crying. Then you’ll start crying and I don’t want to have to pull over so we can have a bawling fest, so can we please drop it for now?”
I continue to drive down the road, trying to focus on getting us to Vegas, instead of thinking about Quinton and Lea and Jaxon, or how upset my mom’s going to be because I’m not coming straight home, but I think about it all. Lea and I don’t speak for a while and when I pull into the gas station just off an exit ramp to gas up, I finally decide to call my mother and tell her what’s going on. I’ve been avoiding the call, knowing she’ll worry, but I don’t want to keep things from her. Plus, she thinks I’m on my way home.
“I’m going to call my mom,” I tell Lea and then hand her my wallet out of my bag. “Can you put the gas in and pay?”
She puts the papers in the backseat. “Of course.” She takes the wallet from me and hops out of the car as I dial my mom’s number and roll down the window because without the engine on there’s no air conditioning and it’s hotter than heck.
My mom picks up after two rings and her voice is elated, like she’s super happy to hear from me. “I was just going to call you,” she says. “To see when you were headed home.”
“Oh.” I grip the steering wheel, nervous, my palms sweating. “Yeah, about that…I’m not coming straight home.”
“What do you mean?” She sounds hurt.
“I mean…” I trail off, clearing my throat. “Look, Mom, don’t flip out, but I need to go to Vegas for a few weeks.”
“Vegas?” she asks, now worried. “Why would you go there?”
“Because…I need to help a friend.”
“What friend?” she asks, but by her disapproving tone, I think she already knows, especially since she knows I’ve been looking for him, not to help him or anything, but to get him to sign the release form for my video project.
I release a breath that’s cramming up my airway. “You remember that guy Quinton that I told you about?”
She’s quiet for quite a while and when she speaks, she’s wary. “Yeah, the one you spent time with last summer, right?”
“Yeah, that’s the one…well, I’m going to see him.” I hold my breath, waiting for her reaction—waiting for her to yell at me not to go.
She pauses again and I can hear her breathing heavily on the other end. “Why?”
“Because he needs my help.” I’m surprised she’s not freaking out more.
“With what?” She’s not connecting the dots.
“With…with getting better,” I explain evasively.
“Nova, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says quickly as it clicks in her head what I’m implying—what Quinton needs help with. I told her enough about last summer that she knows about him, but what she doesn’t know is about the car accident. So I tell her the details of the crash quickly as Lea heads in to pay for the gas. I make sure to tell her everything important, what he went through, how I feel about helping him—how important this is to me. When I finish, my mom’s silent and I’m anxious about how she’s going to react.
“So Lea’s with you?” she finally asks. My mom likes Lea a lot. I brought her home for Christmas last year and my mom spent a lot of time talking with her and hasn’t been able to stop beaming about her since.
I stare at the gas station window, where I can see Lea at the counter paying. “She is.”
“How long are you going to be down there?” she asks and I’m surprised she’s even made it this far without fighting it more.
“I’m not sure yet…it all sort of depends.”
“On what?”
“On how bad he is,” I say, wiping my sweaty palms on the sides of my shorts.
“Nova…I don’t think it’s such a good idea…” She searches for the right words, panic seeping in, afraid she’s going to lose her daughter again. “I mean, you barely got over this kind of stuff yourself and I’m worried that it’ll be too easy for you to fall back into that stuff.”
“Mom, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be,” I assure her. “And I have Lea here to keep an eye on me and you know how good she is at that stuff.”
She sighs heavy-heartedly. “I’m still worried and I don’t think I can just let you go.”
“I’m worried, too, but about Quinton,” I tell her. “Mom, he doesn’t have anyone else to help him, at least from what I know. And if you get really worried, you can come down and check up on me. It’s only like an eight-hour drive, but I promise I’ll be okay.”
“You’d let me check up on you?” she asks, astounded.
“Yeah, because I know there’s going to be nothing to check up on,” I say. “I’m going to be okay. I can do this—I want to help him. And I need to, not just for him…but for me…this is just something I have to do, whether you like it or not.” I hate adding the last part, but it needs to be done to get my point across that she can’t talk me out of this.