He looks a little lost and I feel the same way but focus on what I do understand. We’re getting closer to Johnny’s—to more crystal—and the idea takes over my mind. Shrugging off his confusion, Tristan opens the front door and starts to step outside, but he quickly slams to a stop and I end up running into him, smacking my head against the back of his.
I clutch my nose and stumble back. “Jesus, Tristan, a little warning next…” I trail off at the sight of Nova sitting just outside our door, leaning against the balcony railing, the sunlight and city her backdrop and she outshines them both. For the briefest moment I feel like my old self, aching to run back to grab my sketchbook and pencil and draw her. But running would hurt and I can’t draw because my hand’s all f**ked up. Plus, turning back would mean turning away from my next hit.
Nova gets to her feet, picking up the two coffees beside her, then stretches out her legs. “Hey.”
It’s such a casual word, but it doesn’t fit the environment or situation at all, and neither does she. “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, sounding like a dick, when really all I want to do is run up and hug her, let her warmth spill all over me.
Tristan steps aside and gives me a strange look, like he doesn’t understand what I’m doing.
“I came here to see you.” She holds my gaze and it throws me off, scares me, confuses me. She steps forward, looking straight at me, like Tristan doesn’t exist, like we’re the only two people in this world. When she’s right in front of me, she extends her hand and hands me a coffee. “I got this for you.”
“What about me?” Tristan asks.
“I forgot to get you one,” Nova says without looking at him. “But I’m sure you’ll live.”
Tristan makes a face and then winds around her, taking his cigarettes out of his pocket. He lights up and then rests his elbows on the railing, staring at the parking lot. “Quinton, make this quick. We gotta go.”
I’m not even sure what he means by “make this quick.” Make what quick? Make talking to her quick? Make drinking the coffee quick? Make f**king her quick…God, I wish it were that one, and for a second the crystal in my body makes me feel like that idea is okay.
Nova glances over her shoulder at Tristan and then turns around and leans in toward me. “Can I talk to you alone for a little bit?”
I shake my head, staring at the coffee, knowing I should take a sip, but I’m not thirsty and my jaw hurts. “I need to go somewhere.”
“Please,” she says. “I came all the way here to see you.”
My eyes lift to hers. “I didn’t ask you to…and if you would have told me you were planning to come here when you called, I’d have told you not to.”
“I still would have come,” she admits with a shrug. “I needed to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just something I need to do.”
I pick at the label around the coffee. “And what if I said that I’m not going to talk to you? That it’d be a waste of your time?”
“I’d say you were lying,” she replies, trying to act calm, but I can tell by the way she fidgets with the hem of her shirt that she’s uneasy. “Just like you’re pretending to be an ass**le to try to get me to walk away.”
“But I’m not going to talk to you,” I say simply, but on the inside I shudder because she’s so right it scares me how much she understands me.
“But you already are,” she retorts, and the corners of her mouth quirk. “Since we’re standing here talking right now.”
I rub the back of my neck, stiffening as I massage my tender muscles. “Nova, I’m not in the mood for this,” I say, because she’s the one thing right now standing in the way of my getting to Johnny’s house. And when I get there this—my confusion and this entire conversation—will be a vanishing thought in my mind. “Please just go away and leave me alone.”
She shakes her head. “Not until you talk to me.”
“I’m busy,” I lie, wishing she’d go, but also wishing she’d stay. Wishing I could stop thinking about Johnny’s and meth, but even thinking about not thinking about it sends my fear and anxiousness soaring.
“I only need like an hour,” she replies without missing a beat. She pauses as I deliberate what she’s asking and I can’t believe I’m even considering it. “Please,” she adds. “It’s important to me.”
Tristan’s taken an interest in our conversation and he shakes his head at me, like don’t even go there, but I want for a moment, just for a second to remember what it was like to be with her, talk to her, feel the presence of someone who cared about life and who maybe could care for me. Just an hour. Do I deserve an hour? I don’t think so, yet I want it. But at the same time I don’t because it’s an hour I have to spend away from lines of crystal, and crystal always makes it easier to think. It’s like a tug-of-war. Go. Stay. Nova. Johnny’s. Feeling. Sedation. Thinking. Silence. Meth. Meth. Meth. I want it.
“Nova, I don’t think…” I trail off as her expression falls and then I say something that surprises all three of us. “Fine, you have an hour.” But I’m not sure how much that time is going to stick. I remember all the times I talked to Nova and how lost I got in her and how time just drifted by.
She cups her hands around her coffee and nods, not smiling, not frowning, just blowing out a stressed breath. “Can you go for a drive with me? I’d rather not stand out here and talk.”
I’d rather she not be standing out here either, not just because it’s a crack house, but because I’m worried that Trace and his guys could randomly show up to make good on their threat and I’d hate myself forever if she were here when something like that went down.
I nod, even when Tristan huffs in frustration. “I think I can do that,” I tell her, but I’m not so sure.
As I start to follow her across the balcony, Tristan shoots me an irritated look and then says to me, “If you’re taking off, then I’m going back inside. I’m not going to wait around for you.”
I’m torn because I know what he means by “going back inside.” He’s going to go finish off the last of the heroin he was going to use this morning before he decided to do lines with me because he thought it’d help me feel better enough to move. “Can’t you just wait like an hour? I don’t want you mixing shit.” I say it to him all the time, because he’s always trying to overdo it, making crazy cocktails, almost eliminating that half a step he has left between life and death.