When I reach the top of the stairs, I veer down the hallway, walking to the end of it to my room. I enter gradually, knowing that when I get in there a lot of stuff I’ve been running from is going to emerge. I thought about asking my dad to clean everything out for me: the photos, my drawings, anything related to the past. But my therapist said it might be good for me to do it because it could be the start of giving myself closure. I hope he’s right. I hope he’s right about a lot of things, otherwise I’m going to break apart.
I hold on to the doorknob for probably about ten minutes before I get the courage to turn it and open the door. As I enter and step over the threshold, I want to run away. I’d forgotten how many pictures I had of Lexi on the walls. Not just ones I drew. Actually photos of her laughing, smiling, hugging me. The ones I’m in with her, I look so happy, so different, so free. So unfamiliar. Less scarred. I don’t even know who that person is anymore or if I’ll ever be him again.
There’s also a few pictures of my mother, ones my grandmother gave me before she passed away. Some of them were taken when my dad and mom first married, and I even have one from when she was pregnant with me, her last few months alive before she’d pass away bringing me into this world. The only pictures of her and me together. She looks a lot like me: brown hair and the same brown eyes. I was told a lot by my grandmother that we shared the same smile, but I haven’t smiled for real in ages so I’m not sure if it still looks like hers.
I manage to get a smile on my mouth as I look at a photo of her giving an exaggerated grin to the camera. It makes me feel kind of happy, which makes me sad that I’m supposed to take them down. It’s what I’ve been taught over the last few months, let go of the past. But I need just a few more minutes with them.
After I take each one in, breathing through the immense amount of emotional pain crushing me, I drop my bag onto the floor and wander over to a stack of sketches on my dresser. I lost my most recent drawings when the apartment burned down, and this is pretty much all that’s left. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. One thing’s for sure, I’m glad I don’t have any of my self-portraits. In fact, I hope I never have to see myself look the way I did two months ago. I remember when I first looked in the mirror right after I got to rehab. Skeletal. The walking dead. That’s what I looked like.
There’s a mirror on the wall to the side of me and I step up to it. I look so different now, my skin has more color to it, my brown eyes aren’t bloodshot or dazed. My cheeks are filled out instead of sunken in, my arms are lean, my whole body more in shape. My brown hair is cropped short and my face is shaven. I look alive instead of like a ghost. I look like someone I used to know and am afraid to be again. I look like Quinton.
I swallow hard and turn away from my reflection and back toward my sketches. I fan through a few of the top ones, which turn out to be of Lexi. I remember how much I used to draw her, even after she died. But during the last few months of tumbling toward rock bottom, I started drawing someone else. A person I haven’t seen in two months or talked to. Nova Reed. I haven’t talked to her since I got on a plane to go to rehab. I wrote her a few times, but then never sent the letters, too afraid to tell her everything I have to say, too terrified to express emotions I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to deal with just yet. She tried to call me a few times at the facility, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. A month ago she wrote me a letter and it’s in the back of my notebook, waiting to be opened. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do it. Face her. Be forced to let her go if that’s what she wants. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. After everything that I put her through—having to visit me in that shithole I called home, my mood swings, the drug dealers threatening her.
Blowing out a heavy sigh, I get my notebook and a pencil out of my bag, then flop down on the bed. I open the notebook up to a clean sheet of paper and decide which I want to do more, write or draw. They’re both therapeutic, although I’m way better at drawing. After some debating, I put the pencil to the paper and start drawing. I know where it’s headed the moment I form the first line. I lost all my drawings of Nova when the apartment burned down. Not a single one remains. It’s like the memory of her is gone. But I don’t want it to be gone—I don’t want her to be gone. I want to remember her. How good she was to me. How she made me feel alive, even when I fought it. How I’m pretty sure I love her, but I’m still trying to figure that out for sure, just like I’m trying to figure out everything else, like where I belong in this world and if I belong in this world. Everyone keeps telling me yes—that I belong here. That what happened in the accident wasn’t my fault. That yes, I was driving too fast, but the other car was, too, and took the turn too wide. And that Lexi shouldn’t have been hanging out the window. And I want to believe that’s true, that perhaps it wasn’t my fault entirely. That’s the difference between now and a couple of months ago, but it’s hard to let go of something I’ve been clutching for the last two years—my guilt. I need to find a reason to let it go and to make life worth living in such a way that I don’t have to dope my body up just to make it through the day.
I need something to live for, but at the moment I’m not sure what the hell that is or if it even exists.
Chapter 2
Nova
“I sometimes sit in the quad and watch the people walk by. It probably sounds creepy but it’s not. I’m just observing. Human nature. What people do. How they act. But it’s more than that. If I look close enough, I can sometimes tell when someone is going through something painful. Maybe a breakup. Perhaps they just lost their job. Or maybe they’ve lost a loved one. Perhaps they’re suffering in silence, lost in a sea of questions, of what-ifs. Pain. Loss. Remorse.” I shift in the bench that’s centered in the quad yard as my back starts to hurt. I’ve been sitting out here for hours, recording myself, watching the people walk by. What I really want to do is run out there and stop each one. Ask them their story. Listen. Hear it. If they need consoling, I could do it. In fact, that’s what I want to do. Be able to help people. I just wish I could somehow figure out a way to do it through filming.
“Death. It’s around more than people realize. Because no one ever wants to talk about it or hear about it. It’s too sad. Too painful. Too hard. The list of reasons is endless.” The wind gusts up from behind me, causing leaves to circle around my head and strands of my hair to veil my face. The fall air gets chilly in Idaho during this time of year and I forgot to bring my jacket.