Nova and Quinton: No Regrets (Nova #3)(5)
Author: Jessica Sorensen

Shivering, I get to my feet and collect my bag. After putting my camera away, I start back to the apartment, picking up the pace when I realize how late it is and that I should have been home already. Today is actually a very big and important day. Not because I have a calculus test or had to turn in one of my mini video clips for my film class. Nope. Today is important because Quinton was released from the drug facility. It’s not information I learned directly from him. Sadly, I haven’t even spoken to him since the day he got on the plane with his father and headed back to Seattle to get help. But I have other sources to get me information. Tristan sources, to be exact.

Tristan is Quinton’s cousin and he just happens to be my roommate. They talk occasionally on the phone and I think he hears stuff from his parents, but that’s mainly negative stuff, since Tristan’s parents still blame Quinton for the car accident that killed their daughter, Ryder. It’s a messed-up situation, but I don’t think it’s ever going to change. Tristan agrees. He told me once that he doesn’t believe his parents will ever let their blame go, that they have to hold on to it in order to live each day, no matter how f**ked up it is. But thankfully, Tristan is a good guy and tries to make up for it by being Quinton’s friend and forgiving him.

Forgiveness. If only more people could do it. Then maybe there’d be less pain in the world.

When I walk into the house, it smells of vanilla, the scent flowing from a candle burning on the kitchen countertop. There’s a stack of magazines by the front door, along with the mail. And Tristan is sitting on the sofa, staring at his phone as if it’s the enemy.

“Hey,” I say, dropping my bag to the floor. “Are you ready to call him?”

“I feel like a narc,” Tristan gripes as I plop down on the sofa beside him.

I give him a friendly pat on his leg. “But I assure you, you’re not.”

He narrows his eyes at me, pretending he’s mad, but I know him enough now to know he’s not. Just a little annoyed. “But I sort of am, seeing as how I’m calling him, but only so I can get information for you.”

“But you want to know too,” I remind him, grabbing a handful of Skittles out of the candy bowl on the coffee table. “What he’s going to do—if he’s okay. If he needs anything now that he’s out.”

“Yeah, but I’m not even sure he’ll talk to me since he barely would in rehab,” he says as I pour the Skittles into my mouth.

I stop chewing and pull a pouty face and clasp my hands in front of me. “Pretty please.”

He shakes his head and then swipes his finger across the screen. “Fine, but I’m only doing this because you let me live here and because your pouty faces are ridiculously hard to say no to.”

“You don’t owe me for living here,” I say reassuringly. “And you pay rent, so this apartment is as much yours as it is mine.”

“But you take care of me,” he says as he pushes buttons on his phone. “And keep me out of trouble.”

“And you’re such a good boy about it.” I pat his head like he’s a dog, although he’s much cuter than a dog. His blond hair, blue eyes, and smile make him seem like he belongs in a boy band, all perfect and charming. But his past is dark. Haunted. Full of mistakes and addiction, something he struggles with every day.

“I’m not a dog, Nova.” He gives me a dirty look for the head pat and then gets up from the sofa with the phone pressed to his ear, rounding the coffee table and heading toward the hallway.

“Hey, where are you going?” I call out after him, slanting over the arm of the chair and peering down the hallway at him.

“To talk in private,” he says, disappearing into his room. “Because your excessive staring is driving me crazy.” Seconds later, his bedroom door shuts.

I sit back and retrieve my cell phone from my pocket. I’ve been making recordings of myself for a year and a half now and it’s sort of become a habit whenever I’ve got a lot of clutter in my head, like I do right now. For me it’s like writing in a diary, even though I also use some of the stuff for film class. Although it didn’t originally start out like that. I first started doing it during a rough time in my life, about a year after my boyfriend Landon killed himself. He’d made a recording right before he did it and for some reason making recordings myself made me feel closer to him. Eventually I learned to let it go—the need to still connect with him.

I sit up straight on the sofa and press the button that flips the screen at myself, and my image pops up on the screen. My long brown hair runs to my shoulders and my green eyes stare back at me. My skin has a healthy glow to it and freckles dot my nose. I’m not the most beautiful girl in the world, but I look decent when I’m sober and my system is clean, which it has been for a year now.

After I get the right angle, I clear my throat and start recording. “Tristan can be so serious sometimes, at least when he’s doing stuff he doesn’t want to do. Not at all the same person I knew two months ago or even two years ago. He’s been sober for over three months now and living with me and Lea, my best friend for over a year. It’s good that he’s more serious though because it seems to be keeping him out of trouble. He goes to work at the coffee shop a mile away from the house and attends the university and stays away from parties. I can tell there’s times when he’d rather be out doing something fun than sitting in the house eating pizza with Lea and me, but he always stays, which to me means at the moment everything is okay, at least I hope it is. And I hope it is for Quinton. I wish I knew. Something… anything about him, but he won’t talk to me and never wrote me back when I sent him a letter a month ago. I’m not sure if he’s mad at me, but Tristan assures me he’s not. That he probably feels guilty over putting me through what he did, but I don’t want that for him. He has enough guilt as it is and I’m okay now. I really am. Healthy. Happy. And moving forward.”

I click off the camera, and then I get up and start doing the dishes as a way to keep myself busy. Part of me wants to revert to my habit of counting because I’m anxious right now, but the urge is nowhere near what it used to be. In fact, it’s been sort of silent for the last couple of months. I think maybe that’s because I’ve managed to stay so busy with school, my job at a photography studio, and of course my band.

Yeah, I’m in a band called Ashes & Dust. Jaxon, Lea’s ex-boyfriend, is the singer, the bassist’s name is Spalding and the guitarist is Nikko. I’m the only chick and Lea always makes jokes about how lucky I am, but it’s awkward because things with Jaxon and her didn’t end well. Sometimes things even get uncomfortable between Jaxon and me, whenever Lea’s name is mentioned. Still, it’s awesome that I get to play my drums and I wish I could do it all the time. Life would be so much less complicated if I could.