“I hope so,” I mutter, reaching for the phone inside my pocket as it starts to ring. I think it’s going to be Quinton, wishing me luck or something, but it’s my mom.
I answer as Tristan moves the seat forward and gets out of the car. “Hey, can I call you back?” I ask her, my fingers folding around the door handle. “I’m getting ready to play in about an hour.”
“Oh, was that tonight?” She sounds distracted and a little out of it, not like her usual self. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you back later.”
“What’s wrong?” I think I know, though, without hearing the answer.
“It’s nothing. I just… call me when you’re done.”
“Mom, I can’t wait now,” I say, growing more worried by the second. “Not when you sound like something tragic just happened… does… does it have to do with Delilah?” I hold my breath, remembering when I was twelve and I had to meet her in the waiting room at the hospital right after my dad died.
She was crying when she walked through the door, frantically looking around like she was expecting my dad to walk out from one of the rooms. Then she spotted me sitting in the chair by myself and she panicked.
“Oh my God.” She rushed to me, clutching her purse. “Are you okay?” She threw her arms around me and I can remember thinking how strange that was, since after all she’d just lost her husband.
“I’m fine,” I said in an eerily calm voice. “But Mom… Dad’s gone.”
She only pulled me closer, hugging me so tightly I had to stand up out of the chair. “I know, honey. And I’m so sorry.”
I wrapped my arms around her, even more confused over her worry for me. “I’m okay, Mom, but are you?”
That set her off and she started to sob onto my shoulder. I held on to her as she nearly collapsed to the floor, telling myself that I had to be the strong one. And I was, helping out with the funeral arrangements, calling up my grandparents and telling them what had happened. I was always better at that stuff, dealing with other people’s issues instead of my own.
“Nova, I’m going to tell you something, and yes, it’s about Delilah,” my mom says, bringing me back to reality. “But I need to know you’re not alone… is Lea around?”
I glance out the window at Lea, who’s saying something to Tristan in front of the car as she bounces up and down from the cold. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She lets out a breath of relief. “Because I need to know that you’ll have someone there for you.”
“I do.” My heart tightens, death in the air. “Delilah’s mom found her, didn’t she?” I say, gripping the steering wheel, trying not to hyperventilate. “And she’s dead.”
“She’s headed down to Vegas to… God, I don’t even know how to say this.” She pauses, looking for the right words, but what she doesn’t get is that they don’t exist. I’m familiar with the routine by now and nothing she says is going to change the outcome of the situation. “She’s going down to identify a body… see if it’s Delilah’s.”
I press my lips together, feeling the numbness flow through me as I fight to shut myself down. I’ve been through this before. I know what to do. Just like I know that in a few minutes I’m going to start assessing every single thing I did wrong, like the time I walked away from that apartment and left Delilah there sobbing, strung out, and with an ass**le of a boyfriend. God, this never ends. Death. Regret. Remorse. Guilt. It’s a stupid cycle and I want it to stop.
“Do they know how she died?” I ask in an uneven voice.
“Well, they don’t even know if it’s her yet,” my mom says, keeping her voice gentle in an attempt to soothe me, but there’s an underlying ache to it, one that leads me to believe that she’s pretty sure it’s Delilah. “Nova, are you going to be okay? You’ve got that tone—the one you get before you shut down.”
“I’m fine.” I sit up and extend my hand for the door handle. “Thanks for letting me know, but I have to go get ready to play tonight.”
“Nova, I—”
I hang up on her, not wanting to talk about it anymore. I’m done talking about death. I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. Yet it keeps pushing its way into my life. And not just my life. Everyone’s, really. It haunts everyone and everything and I wish I had the power to make it go away so that no one would have to feel the ache, the cracking apart, the inability to process it because it doesn’t make any goddamned sense.
After taking so many breaths I become light-headed, I put my phone away and get out of the car. Lea immediately gives me a worried look, which makes me wonder what I look like at the moment. But before she can say anything, I head for the front door, calling over my shoulder to Lea and Tristan, “Are you guys coming?”
They quietly follow me, Lea boring a hole in my head, while Tristan seems a little oblivious. But it’s not his fault. He doesn’t know me like Lea, and I know that as soon as the night’s over, she’s going to corner me and start yammering questions. I wouldn’t even be surprised if my mom calls her and tells her what’s up, which makes me want to bail out somehow.
In fact, it’s all I can think about as Jaxon’s parents let us inside. There’s this awkward sort of exchange between Lea and Jaxon’s mom as she walks us to the garage, and Lea ends up talking to her while Tristan and I load up the trunk of the car and the backseat with my drums, my thoughts refusing to be quiet. I keep picturing scenarios of what happened and they mix with all the good memories I had of Delilah. Like the first time we actually hung out. I was sad and she made me laugh by making a joke about our English teacher having a mustache. It was the first time I’d laughed since Landon died. Then we went to college together, and while we weren’t always on the same page, things were still good. She still made me laugh. Forced me to go out into civilization once in a while. Forced me to try to live when all I wanted to do was let myself die inside.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Tristan comments as he puts my drumsticks into the backseat.
“I’m fine.” I shut the trunk and climb into the car as Lea walks out the front door, carrying a plate of cookies.
Tristan gets into the backseat and buckles his seat belt, watching me in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure? You look like you’re going to be sick.”