Nova and Quinton: No Regrets (10 page)

“I wish I would have followed her earlier,” I tell him. “She just came home with her hair drenched and she says she has no idea why.”

“Maybe she went swimming?” he suggests. “That seems logical, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, maybe.” I lie back down on my bed and prop my feet up on the wall. “But she didn’t have her bathing suit on. And besides, if she had gone swimming, wouldn’t she have just said so?”

“Maybe she doesn’t want you to know.” He pauses, considering the possibilities. “Because she’s dating her swimming instructor and she doesn’t think you’ll approve of him. Or maybe you are right. Maybe she’s having an affair with a professor and the only place they can meet is in the swimming pool after hours where they can have sex in the water.”

I suddenly get a picture of the time Quinton and I almost had sex in the water. I was confused at the time and was glad he backed out, but now… well, thinking about having sex with him in general gets my skin burning and makes my stomach somersault.

But I try my best to pretend the word “sex” coming out of his mouth doesn’t have any effect on me. “You sound so scandalous. Has that older lady that you’ve been helping out been making you watch soap operas again?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Why? Is it starting to show?”

“Yeah, kind of,” I reply. “How is Mrs. Bellington doing?”

“Good. Although her family put her in a nursing home the other day clear across town so it’s really hard for me to visit her,” he says, then pauses. “You know, she kind of reminds me of you.”

“A seventy-year-old woman reminds you of me.” I frown, taken aback a little. “Wow, I feel kind of stupid right now.”

“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s a compliment. And besides, she reminds me of you because of some of the stories she’s told me about when she was younger.”

I relax a little. “Like what?”

“Like how she spent time in the Peace Corps.”

“I’ve never been in the Peace Corps, though.”

“Yeah, but I could easily see you being a volunteer, going around, trying to help the world,” he says, his mood lightening. “Spreading Nova peace everywhere.”

“Is that really how you see me?” I wonder, feeling a little uncomfortable with how much he actually might
see
me—more than Landon, maybe. “As a do-gooder?”

“In the best way possible.” His tone is much more upbeat than it was a few minutes ago. “You’re a good person, Nova Reed. Too good to be talking to me, probably, but I don’t want to stop you.”

“No way,” I argue defensively. “You’re perfect for me.” I shake my head at my cheesiness. I’m one step away from Jerry Maguiring it like Tristan did the other day. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it sounded.”

“It’s okay. You can call it payback for me being cheesy earlier, but I think I’m just a little on emotional overload between this phone chat and our text conversation earlier. You’re giving me a high dose of the feel-goods and I’m starting to get really nervous about how I’m feeling right now. It’s freaking the shit out of me.” He stops talking and if I listen really closely I can hear the scratching of a pencil across paper. I wonder if he’s drawing and, if he is, what he’s drawing a picture of. “So would you mind if we call it a night and go to the song?”

We started the song thing a week ago, when Quinton asked me for some good ones to listen to. Instead of telling him, I turned some on for him. Every night since then, I’ve picked out a song and we’ve listened to it together before I hung up.

Honestly, I’m not really ready to stop talking, but if that’s what he needs then I’ll give it to him. So I get up from my bed and go over to my dresser to turn on my iPod. “Sounds good, but what kind of one do you want for tonight? Happy? Sad? Angsty?”

“How about a mellow, relaxing one?” he requests. “Because I think I need to chillax a little.”

“Hmm…” I consider my options, then scroll to one that I hope will relax him. “Okay, you ready?” I ask, with my finger hovering over the play button.

“Yep, hit me with your best shot.” He laughs at his own joke, since the other night I picked “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar.

“Hey, no recapping the previous night’s song choice.” I press play. Moments later, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” comes on. I crank up the volume and stay near the speakers so he can hear it.

He’s quiet, absorbing the guitar solo until it gets to the lyrics, then he finally says, “Excellent choice, although I’ve heard it before.”

“Yeah, I figured, but is that a bad thing?”

“Nah. In fact, I like that I have. Usually you’re so music-superior over me, but now I feel like we’re equals.”

“That’s because I’ve taught you well, young grasshopper,” I joke, turning up the volume a notch.

“Did you seriously just quote
Kung Fu
?” He’s stunned.

“Yeah, so what? I’m cool like that.” I plop down on my bed on my back, bouncing a little before settling and returning my feet to the wall and tapping them to the beat of the music.

“You know what? You seriously might be the coolest person I’ve ever met, Nova Reed.”

“And vice versa, Quinton Carter.” I lean over and pick up my drumsticks from my nightstand. Then I start drumming them on my legs to the beat as we listen to the song together.

When it gets to the chorus, he tells me, “This song makes me think of you.”

I stop tapping the drumsticks and set them aside. “How so?”

“I don’t know… the lyrics just make me want to see you.”

I rotate to my side, trying not to grin. “That’s secretly why I picked it. So that you’d want me to come out there and see you.”

“I don’t think I’m ready for that.” He seems irritated with himself. “I’m sorry, Nova. I wish I was, but I’m afraid. Not just of how it’ll feel or if I’ll be able to handle it, but of what it’ll mean for us. And what we’ve got now is so great at the moment. I just don’t want to ruin that.”

It stings a little, but I let it go, because he’s only being honest. “That’s okay. We’ll see each other one day, right?”

“Yeah, one day.” But he doesn’t sound that committed, which seems somewhat strange. I mean, we’ve been spending all this time on the phone, and it felt like we were headed somewhere, but maybe this is how he plans on things being. Maybe he can only talk to me when there’s a few-hundred-mile barrier between us.

We don’t really say much after that and when the song’s over, we say good-bye and hang up. It’s about eleven o’clock, not extremely late, but at the same time, all I want to do is go to bed.

After getting into my pajamas, I decide that before I go to sleep I’ll make a recording. I do it lying on my back, with the camera above me, the good one my mom gave me, because the clarity is always better. Plus, it’s right there on my nightstand.

After I hit record, leaving the iPod on so there’s music in the background, I sort of just lie there for a while. I wonder, if anyone actually watches this, if they’ll think I’m nuts. Probably. But maybe that could be my point. Maybe one day I’ll put every video I’ve ever made together and title it
Diary of an Erratic, Over-Thinking, Do-Gooder Madwoman
. Definitely not a life-changing video.

I summon a deep breath and pull myself together before I speak to the camera. “You know, a while ago I kept having that dream about Quinton jumping off the cliff. I think it was my subconscious letting out its fear of him falling back into drugs again. The dream stopped, thankfully, after I started talking to him regularly, and I can hear the clearness in his voice—the soberness. But now I’ve started having these weird dreams where he’s standing on one side of a long stretch of land and I’m on the other and we’re just waving to each other. When I first started having it, I wondered if it was a representation of us reuniting soon, but now I’m starting to speculate if it really just means that we’re going to remain long-distance friends forever. If maybe we’ll never move forward in our relationship.” I press my lips together, gathering my thoughts. “You know, when I first met Quinton, I was in a strange place. One filled with confusion and memories of Landon. Stuck in the past and I didn’t know what I wanted for my future. Then there was this summer where all of my thoughts were consumed by the urge to save Quinton… which I didn’t really do, but he’s getting better and that was the whole point of going to Vegas. Now I really don’t have too much to think about other than if Quinton’s doing well, so I can feel my future out there, flashing before me, like a stupid neon sign that’s reminding me that I’m going to have to go somewhere with my life. And I’m not talking about career-wise. I’ve already got sort of a map for that with college and my part-time job at the photography shop. And while it’s in no way what I want to do with the rest of my life, I know that I want to do one of two things. One, make a career of helping people, like I hope I’m doing when I help at the suicide hotline, or two, do something in film, which is why I’ve been taking film classes… although I wish I could just get the balls to take a break and go help with the documentary…”

I daze off momentarily, thinking about how many people I know who have stories to tell. Then I blink back at the camera. “But anyway, that’s not the point of this recording. The point is that I’m headed somewhere with my career, but when it comes to relationships, I’m not headed anywhere. I haven’t gone out on a date since the end of my sophomore year. I’m twenty, veering toward twenty-one, and I’m still a virgin, which is just plain weird. I almost got there with Landon once, but I waited too long and then he was gone. And then I was going to let Quinton take my virginity when I was high out of my mind, but he was too good of a guy to take advantage of me.” I recollect the time in the lake, when he nearly slipped inside me, but then backed out and left me there. It was the moment the memory I’d been suppressing finally broke through. The moment I remembered finding Landon hanging from his ceiling by a noose.

“But I think the really strange thing is that I don’t even think about dating. I’ve been asked out a couple of times this year but declined. I used to do this because I was still hanging on to my love for Landon, but now… well, I think it’s because my feelings are caught up in someone else… and sometimes I have to wonder if I’m in love with Quinton, but I’m not sure where that’s going to get me since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t love me back. Yeah, I know he cares for me, but love… I’m not sure. And what really scares me is, what if he never does?”

December 9, day forty-one in the real world

My support group’s okay, I guess. For the most part, I just sit by myself in the back and listen to everyone talk. Although Wilson, the guy who’s in charge of the meetings, has cornered me a few times and asked me to share my story. I told him I wasn’t ready, though. That I’ve only been out for a month—well, forty-one days to be exact—and I’m not ready to share what’s going on inside me yet, not even with myself, let alone a whole roomful of people. He told me he gets it and I actually believe that he does, considering what he’s been through. What’s surprising to me is how normal he seems, despite what happened. Like right now. I’m listening to him talk about the accident and his guilt over it and it’s the strangest thing to me because, for starters, he can talk about it sober. And also because he doesn’t look like he’s going to break down.

“You know, I remember right after, I was sitting in the hospital, getting a few cuts stitched up, which was pretty much the only thing I had from the accident.” He sounds calm, but I can see it in his eyes, the remorse, existing, yet it’s not eating away at him, like it feels like it’s doing with me. “And I kept thinking, why me? Why did I survive?” He adjusts his tie, something he always does whenever he’s speaking. I think he might even wear the tie for the sole purpose of having it to fidget with. “Why couldn’t I have been the one to die in the car accident instead of the other way around?” He pauses there, loosening the tie as he glances around at the ten to twelve people sitting in the fold-up chairs, staring at him. All different ages, heights, weights. Male. Female. So different, yet we all share the same thing. Guilt.

He starts to pace the room, taking short, slow strides, even though his legs are long, like he wants to take his time. He’s thirty-five years old and told me the other day that the accident happened almost ten years ago. Ten years on March seventeenth, to be exact, which is his birthday. I thought it was totally fucked up when he told me that, that something like that happened on his birthday, and he replied that it would be fucked up no matter what day it happened on.

He suddenly stops pacing and faces the group. His choked-up demeanor has changed into one of what looks like anger. “For the longest time I kept asking myself, why me? And there were a lot of people who were asking the same thing, especially the children and the grandchildren of the people I killed when I ran the red light. They blamed me—still do. And I don’t blame them. It’s my fault. I know that, and for the longest time I thought I had to suffer for it. Pay for what I did.” He crosses his arms, the anger switching to passion. “And you know what, I should… pay for it, but not by having a pity party for myself.” He shakes his head. “But let me tell you, I did have a pity party. A huge one, where I jacked up my body with about every drug I could think of, and you know what? It made me feel better, and I guess that was the most fucked-up part of it all—that I was feeling good. Getting high, while people hurt because they lost a loved one, all because I couldn’t put down the damn phone while I was driving.” He pauses, lowering his head, and I think he might be crying.

A few people in the crowd nod, like they totally get what he’s saying. Understand. I should. It’s a story similar to mine, although my distraction wasn’t a phone, it was Lexi sticking her head out the window. The distraction that led me to drive carelessly. Still, I should have just pulled over.

I’m not understanding, though. Not yet, but I feel something change inside me. Lighten. I’m not sure what it is.

He raises his head back up and I’m surprised there aren’t tears in his eyes. “It took me years to figure out something. Years of drugs to finally realize one simple thing. That it’s not about numbing the pain, but accepting it and doing something with it. Doing something good to make up for the bad.” He starts walking back and forth across the front of the room again. “Doing something that helps people, instead of wasting away because I feel sorry for myself. Because I made a shit decision at the wrong moment and changed everything.” He glances at the people in the room, like he’s speaking to each one. “Make a difference. Make good in the world. You’ll be surprised how much easier dealing with your guilt is.”

He stops there and people start asking him questions. I stay quiet, though, getting stuck in my own head as a revelation hits me. Is that what I’m doing? Feeling sorry for myself? As I rewind through all my shit decisions over the last two years, I come to the painful conclusion that maybe I am. I mean, I haven’t done anything good to make up for the lives I’ve taken. I’ve just slowly walked toward death myself, determined to die because it seemed so much easier than dealing with all the aching inside.

The more I analyze this, the more freaked out I get. I’m not sure what’s worse, just letting myself drown in my guilt or seeing some sort of lighter side, like I’m starting to. I’m not even sure I’m ready to deal with it, and by the time the meeting ends, I’m ready to run the hell out of that church and go find someone to buy from so I can pump my body up with meth and focus on the adrenaline rush of that instead of the positive adrenaline I’m feeling.

But Wilson cuts me off at the doorway, stepping in front of me, appearing pretty much out of nowhere. “Hey, is the room on fire or something?”

I stop in front of him and give him a quizzical look. “What?”

He chuckles as he leans over and collects a Styrofoam cup from the table beside the doorway. “You were leaving so fast, I thought maybe you saw a fire.” He pauses like he’s actually waiting for me to answer the question. “But by the confused look you’re giving me, I’m guessing no to the fire, right?” Again, he waits for me to respond.

I slowly shake my head. “No… no fire.”

“So then what’s up with the rush exit?” he asks, reaching for the coffeepot. “Did my speech freak you out or something?”

I’m about to tell him no, but he seems like the kind of person who would call me out on my lie, so I warily nod. “Yeah, sort of, I guess.”

He pours the coffee into the cup before returning it to the coffee maker. “Yeah, I tend to do that sometimes when I get really intense.” He reaches for a packet of sugar. “It seems like the more speeches I give, the more passionate I get, but I think it’s because I become more and more determined to try and help people like you and me see things in a different light.”

I glance around at the few people in the room, feeling out of place. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“You seem uneasy.” He studies me as he rips the packet of sugar open with his teeth. “If I’m remembering right, Greg made you come to these meetings?”

“Yeah, he did.”

He smiles to himself as he pours the sugar into his coffee, then tosses the packet into the garbage before grabbing a stirrer. “He’s a pushy son of a bitch, isn’t he?”

I nearly smile. “Yeah, sort of, but he’s not that bad.”

“Nah, he’s not bad at all.” He walks out the door and toward the steps that lead upstairs. The meeting room is actually located in the basement of a church, of all things. I’m not really a fan of going into the church. In fact, I feel like I’m being judged the moment I step over the threshold, whether by church members or God, I’m not sure, especially since I’m not really sure I believe in God.

“In fact, he actually helped me a lot by pushing me,” Wilson continues as he jogs up the stairs.

“Really?” I ask with doubt, grasping the railing as I walk up.

He pauses in the middle of the stairway, glancing over his shoulder at me with a curious look on his face. “How long have you been seeing him?”

“A few weeks.”

He nods, like he understands something. “You’re a newbie, then.” He starts up the stairs again. “Give it time. It’ll get better.”

I’m not sure if I’m completely buying his getting-better speech. “How long does it usually take?” I ask as we step out into the pew area and turn for the exit doors to our left, which have wreaths on them. Christmas cheer everywhere and yet I feel so bummed out.

“Take for what?” he asks, stirring his coffee, which I know is stale because I tried it the first time I came to one of these meetings and nearly threw up from the nasty taste.

“I don’t know.” I scratch the back of my neck, loitering in front of the doorway as the support group people leave the church. “To get rid of the weight on my shoulders… the guilt.” I’m not even sure why I’m asking, because that would mean I believe it’s possible. And I don’t. Not really, anyway. But Wilson seems so easy to talk to, maybe because I know he once felt the same way I’m feeling.

He briefly stares at me before he takes a sip of the coffee, then stares up at the front of the church, where there’s a lectern, rows of chairs, and a stained glass window that rays of sunlight shine through. “To be honest, it doesn’t ever go away.” He returns his attention to me. “Like I said today, it’s always there, but you just got to learn how to deal with it and make your life good enough that good covers up the dark part of you.”

“Dark part?” I pretend like I have no idea what he’s talking about, when I do, way, way too fucking well.

He gives me a knowing smile, like he understands this. “You just got out of rehab, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Since when? Since I did drugs?”

He shakes his head and pats the shoulder of the arm where the tattoos are hidden under the sleeve of my jacket. “Since the accident.”

I swear the ink burns, scorching hot, my whole body igniting. “Two and a half years.”

He grips my shoulder. “Give it time. I promise it’ll get easier.”

“How much time?” I ask, stepping aside as a woman with gray hair whisks between us and through the door.

He reflects on what I said and I think he’s going to give me an estimated time frame, but then he says, “Have you ever volunteered for Habitat for Humanity before? Or any other organization like it?”

“Huh?” I’m thrown off by the abrupt subject change. “No, well, I mean I’ve been helping down at the homeless shelter and spending time with the elderly people in our community… why?”

He gives me another pat on the shoulder and it’s starting to annoy me but I can’t figure out why. I think it’s because I’m not really used to people touching me and because his pats seem to be an attempt to convey compassion. “Can you meet me tomorrow at six?” he asks.

“Maybe… I mean, yeah, but why?”

“Because I want to show you something.”

“If it’s about building a house, then you should know that I’m working for a painting contractor right now so I’m already sort of doing that.”

“Habitat for Humanity is a little different.” He says it with passion, removing his hand from my arm and balling it into a fist in front of him. “Imagine, building a home for someone who really needs it.” He reaches for the door and pushes it open, letting a cool breeze in. “There’s a whole world out there, Quinton. Full of people who need help and full of people who don’t want to take the time to offer help. But you and I—we see time differently. We get how important it is and how everything we do in this life matters. Good and bad. So it’s important that we spend a hell of a lot of time doing good.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I still don’t know if I’m completely on board with his speech and I think he can tell, but he refuses to give up.

“Meet me tomorrow at six at this house I’m working on,” he says, stepping out the door. “And I’ll show you.”

“Six in the morning?” I ask, and he nods. “Okay, but I have to be to be at therapy by noon.”

“That’s plenty of time.” His lips tip up into a smile and I follow him, letting the door bang shut behind me. It’s a breezy, clear day, the grass covered with frost and browned leaves.

“For what?” I ask, drawing the hood of my coat over my head.

He walks toward the grass, which is shaded by trees. “For me to show you how wonderful life can be.”

I honestly wonder if he’s on crack or something with his positivity. He doesn’t look like he’s tweaking out, though, so I don’t really think that’s the case.

After I agree to meet him, he gives me an address and his phone number, then promises me a life-changing morning. I don’t believe him, although part of me wants to. Wants to believe that one day I can walk around as happy as he is, living a drug-free life without feeling like I’m fighting not to sink into the ground.

* * *

Later that day, after I’ve gone and talked to Greg, who thinks it’s a great idea to go with Wilson tomorrow, and spent a few hours at work, I go home to a half-packed house. My father’s left me a voice mail, saying he has a meeting tonight so I should eat dinner without him. As I heat up last night’s frozen lasagna leftovers, the quietness of the house and the boxes start to get to me. I can’t believe this is happening. He’s really going to move and I’m not ready for it. I don’t want change. I want fucking stability. I want to be able to walk around and feel good like Wilson seems able to do. Jesus, I really do. Now whether I really believe that can happen, I’m not sure. But I’d like to find out.

When the microwave buzzes, I take the lasagna out and go upstairs to my room to eat it. As I sit on my bed, surrounded by the drawings and photos of Lexi, my thoughts drift to her. I can’t help but think of all the times we spent in here. We’d kiss and touch each other, laugh, and sometimes Lexi would even cry if she was having a bad day. I’d listen to her vent and try to comfort her as much as I could. I’d sometimes talk to her, too, but not a lot.

I take out my notebook, feeling the need to write as my emotions surface, connecting to my emotions, to Lexi, the accident, myself, because that’s what Greg’s been telling me I need to do.