“I don’t know what it was.” I try not to look at the pipe and remember how I felt when the smoke first hit my lungs, but it’s hard not to stare at something so wonderful yet potent. “Delilah, why did you lie to me when I asked you if you were smoking weed again?”

“I just didn’t think you’d be cool with it. You always seemed like you weren’t, or at least you acted like you didn’t want to try it,” she says, shrugging. “Besides, I didn’t technically lie. I hadn’t been doing it since I left for school… I just started up again.”

“Why, though?”

“Why did you do it the other day?” There’s accusation in her eyes, like I have no right to be talking about this with her. And she’s right. I really don’t. The truth of the matter is I did smoke weed the other day, and for a few moments I’d actually felt content and soundless on the inside, something I haven’t felt in a long time.

“So do you want to smoke a bowl or not?” she asks with a slight impatience in her tone.

I wonder what she’d do if I said no. “What about my mom? She’s home… what if she comes in here?”

“Actually, she just left,” she says, setting the pipe down on her lap. “But if you don’t want me to, then I won’t.”

“Won’t she smell it, though? When she comes back?” I ask, staring at the pipe. I can almost feel the burn of the weed just from looking at it, along with the brief contentment that followed afterward, and I’m surprised how much my mind craves it.

“We’ll, turn the fan on and spray some air freshener around or something,” she replies. “Besides, you’re nineteen. What the hell is she going to do if she catches you? Ground you to your room?”

I honestly could picture my mom trying to rationalize it as me mourning and let me off the hook, because she does that a lot, like when I got really drunk and threw up on the kitchen floor, and she found me the next morning passed out beside my vomit.

“It okay, Nova,” she’d said, helping me to my feet. “We… we all make mistakes when we hurt, but we need to find a way for you to deal.” She kept saying we like it was her and me going through it together, like we did with my dad. But not this time. This time it was just me.

“If you want to smoke it, you can,” I tell Delilah, selecting a picture of Landon and me lying on our backs in the grass from the seemingly endless stack. I was holding the camera and held it above us to snap the shot. I’m laughing in it and Landon looks like he wants to be anywhere else but getting his picture taken. If I remember right, though, he was particularly irritated that day with everything.

I keep sorting through the pictures while Delilah turns on the ceiling fan, relaxes against the headboard of my twin bed, and starts smoking the weed. Smoke fills the room quickly, moving lazily around my face, and the air stinks like some sort of pungent weed burning in a field.

“You two look really beautiful together,” she says, leaning forward and examining the photos closely.

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble, because honestly I always believed Landon was out of my league in the looks department.

“You look happy,” she remarks. “I’ve never seen you that happy.”

“Do you need anything to eat or something?” I try for a subject change.

She shakes her head and takes another hit, and her lips pucker as she blows out a cloud of smoke. “Do you ever think you’ll love someone again?” she asks, and I frown at her. “What? I’m just curious.”

“You’ve never been curious before.” Which is why I love hanging out with you.

“I know, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wonder.” She sighs and sucks in another drag from the pipe.

I try to stay focused on the photos, but the room’s getting cloudier, along with my head. Eventually she places the pipe and lighter on my nightstand and lies down, staring at the ceiling.

“So my mom had this guy over the other day,” she divulges. “And he grabbed my ass.”

My head whips up from the photo. “What?”

She nods, without looking at me. “Yeah, but it’s how it’s always been, ever since, you know—” she points at her chest “—these bad boys came into the picture.”

Delilah rarely talks about her mom, but from what I’ve picked up, she works for a “service” that helps men with their problems. I’m not sure if it’s an escort service or a phone chat service or what, and I’ve never met her mom, because Delilah’s never taken me over to her house before.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“As okay as I’ve always been,” she replies emotionlessly.

She reaches for the pipe and puts it to her mouth, holding the lighter above it as her eyes remain on the ceiling. I look at the large quantity of photos on my bed, then press my fingers to the bottom of my eyes, my head pounding from the smoke and the emotions flowing through my body. From the outside, these pictures create a life spent together, and I wonder what I would be doing if Landon was still around. If I would be somewhere else, with a future ahead of me, with him. Or would I have ended up in this exact place, getting high and trying to find out who the hell I am without Landon? Maybe we wouldn’t have lasted and I’d have ended up crushed by a breakup instead of his death. Maybe I was destined to get to the exact moment. Maybe this is where I really belong. Perhaps he really knew this was how I would turn out, and that was why it was so easy for him to leave me behind.

Delilah starts coughing as smoke rings around her face. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” She offers me the pipe.

I try to think of a reason why I shouldn’t do it, but again I can’t find one. So I take a hit, both terrified and relieved that I do it because it’s still so unknown yet vaguely familiar and brings me so much quiet. I couldn’t even count to ten if I wanted to, and my thoughts are just a haze in my head. We lie on my bed, talking about music and classes and the time I barfed my guts out in the campus garbage cans after I downed nearly a half a bottle of tequila.

My mom eventually comes home, and we hurry and spray perfume everywhere and throw open all the windows. She sticks her head inside to check on me and asks if we want anything to eat. She either doesn’t notice the smell or doesn’t want to admit she does. Or she’s just letting me off the hook again.

“I have cookie dough,” she tells Delilah when Delilah asks for cookie dough ice cream. Her tone is clipped and she seems very uncomfortable. My mom’s never been a fan of Delilah or her reputation around town, but she’ll never say anything rude directly to Delilah. It’s not the kind of person she is.

“That works,” Delilah says, swiveling in the computer chair as she pretends like she’s been looking through my CD collection.

“And what about you, Nova,” my mom asks me, looking a little bit upset. I wonder if she can smell the weed or see it in my eyes. Does she know what I was just doing? “Do you want anything to snack on? You can come help me cook dinner if you want. I’m making your favorite.”

“What is my favorite?” I ask. Delilah laughs, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. I really don’t know anymore what my favorite food or color or even song is.

“Fettucine alfredo,” my mom says, and her blue eyes look like they’re watering up.

Feeling a ping of guilt, I gesture at the photos on my bed. “I’m going through these right now. Sorry.”

She sighs, heartbroken, and I feel my heart crack, but the numbness from smoking instantly seals it up, and then I can’t feel anything at all. She backs out of the room and leaves us alone in our dazed stupidity and all I can think is: Where do I go from here?

The only answer I get is silence.

Chapter 10

July 27, Day 69 of Summer Break

Nova

I’ve been getting lost a lot lately. Not only from my counting and thoughts of Landon, but also because I’ve been spending a lot of time with Delilah and doing and smoking things I shouldn’t, and I keep doing it because honestly it makes me feel better, at least for a moment, until it’s passed through my system, and then it feels like I’m impatiently waiting around for the next better moment to come around again.

I still stick to my morning routine, though, counting the seconds it takes for the sun to rise over the hill, then I get out of bed and take a shower. I always spend my five minutes in front of the computer staring at Landon’s video file. I haven’t come close to clicking on it again, and I’m thankful for it. I don’t think my mind could handle another panic attack over it or handle actually clicking on it and watching it. I only stare at it, letting my mind know it’s there—letting me know he’s there.

Delilah was over here about an hour ago, yammering about the concert, while we shared a joint, something we’ve been doing a lot. She’s been pushing me to go for the last two weeks and I keep declining, because: (a) I’m afraid of what memories will surface, because Landon and I used to go to concerts all the time; and (b) I’m terrified of being around Quinton. I avoided him since our awkward kiss, and I’m nervous about what he’ll say when I see him again and what I’ll say too because deep down I know I’m not one hundred percent seeing him as him.

It’s stifling today, but I’m outside anyway, in my cutoffs and a really thin purple tank top with my hair pulled up. I smell a little like smoke mixed with the scent of the perfume I used to try and cover up the stench of the weed stuck in the fabric of my clothes and in my hair. I’m sitting on the swing that’s on the front porch of my little one-story home, counting every single time it moves back and forth, trying to air my hair and clothes out. Just diagonal is a large oak tree that holds one of my most genuine, life-changing memories. It’s centered in the middle of the green grass that lines the front of the two-story house that Dylan used to live in. I have my foot under me and the swing rocks back and forth.

“All right, Nova, we’re heading out,” my mom says as she walks out the front door. She has a purse on her shoulder, the car keys in her hand. She’s wearing slacks and a satin top, and her hair is in a bun.

I remember when she was with my dad, and her hair was long with tangled waves and tiny braids throughout it. She would wear long, flowing dresses, and she reminded me so much of a hippie, all love, peace, and happiness. I miss those days; the ones where she’d laugh freely and her smile would brighten up her face. She’s a different person now, and although I don’t doubt that she’s truly happy, I wonder about the difference between her happiness when she was with my dad versus her happiness with Daniel. She’s more of a controlled happy now. She finds different things funny, and in a sense she’s a different person, one who’s harder to talk to.

I wave at her as Daniel walks out the door wearing a polo shirt and black slacks. He’s pulling a suitcase behind him and has a granola bar in his hand. “If you need anything, call us,” he says, stepping down the stairs, dragging the suitcase along with him. They’re going to a resort for the weekend to celebrate their four-year anniversary, but I can tell my mom is hesitant to go and leave me behind. She’s been talking about canceling it for the last week, pretending like she’s too busy.