“Look,” he starts, taking a step onto the stairs. “About what happened—”

I shake my head, holding my hand up, and cutting him off. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. I’m just headed back to school and I wanted to say good-bye and to make sure that you understood something.”

His forehead creases as he steps down another stair. “Okay…”

I’ve been preparing what I was going to say to him for a couple of weeks, when I realized what I needed—wanted. But standing here in front of him, it’s hard. But I’m going to do it.

“I know I’ve been kind of screwed up,” I say, tipping my chin up to meet his eyes. “And I still am kind of screwed up and trying to figure out everything that happened over the summer… It feels kind of like a daze, you know.” I pause. “But I’m glad I met you… you kind of made me realize a lot of stuff.”

He scratches his head, glancing around like he has no idea what the hell is going on. “Nova, I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“I’m not really saying anything,” I explain the best way I know how. But in the end, I don’t know if it makes sense, because nothing about us made sense, except for the fact that we were falling together. “Other than good-bye.”

His expression softens and he steps in front of me. He looks me over, from head to toe, like he’s trying to decipher who I am. “You look good,” he finally says. “Different, but good.”

“I feel good,” I say, and for once it feels like the truth. “And different.”

He sighs and I release a breath, then suddenly we’re hugging each other. He’s a little resistant, his muscles stiff, but I help him out, wrapping my arms firmly around him. Closing my eyes, I breathe him in, unsure if I’ll ever see him again, but hoping. Maybe. One day. When I’m in a different place.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “For everything.”

I shake my head with my cheek pressed against his chest. “You don’t need to be sorry. Everything I did was my choice.”

“Still—”

“Still nothing,” I say. “Nothing was your fault.”

He stills, his pulse thudding inside his chest. We hold on to each other, until my arms grow heavy and then I know it’s time to go, otherwise I might not. I pull back first and offer a smile as I back away to the car.

“If you’re ever in Idaho, look me up,” I say, waving as I reach the gate.

He nods, but it doesn’t look like he thinks he’ll see me again. “Okay, I will.”

“And take care of yourself,” I tell him, which seems like a really silly, cliché thing to say, but it’s all I can say right now. If I said meaningful things, like that I care for him, loved kissing him, that my heart aches that I’m leaving him, that I wish it were another time in our lives when we met so we could be together, then it’d be harder to leave. Because even though it’s hard, I need to go and heal.

He smiles, but it’s forced, unreal, sad, and I want to cry for him. “Yeah, you too.” He watches me all the way to the car and when I’m about to climb in, he calls out, “So you finally decided to drive the car.”

I swallow hard, nod, and open the gate. “Yeah, it seemed like it was time.”

Nodding, he lets out a breath, and starts toward the door. “Take care of yourself, Nova, like the car.” A touch of a smile appears on his face.

“I will,” I return his smile, and then I climb into the car and back away, gripping the steering wheel as I watch him slip further away.

He watches me until I’m just about out of sight, then he turns around and walks into the house. And I keep driving. I’m ready. Moving forward, I’m ready to start moving on.

Quinton

I’m happy for her. She looks good. More than good. She looks happy. It’s amazing to see, and it makes me wonder how she got to that place after everything, but I don’t want to ask her, fearing I’ll ruin it for her.

After she took off from the concert, I knew we’d never be anything. It was good she ran away, and I made sure to keep my distance, even though it hurt not to see her. I miss the sound of her rare laugh, her smile, her random thoughts, her love for music, her smell, the way she feels. But she’s better off without me.

I watch her drive away, knowing I’ll never see her again. I wish I could have kissed her one last time, a real kiss, one that wasn’t diluted by drugs and guilt. But I know it’s not possible, and when she drives out of my sight, I head back to the reality of my life.

Dylan has a bunch of customers over, although only half of them end up paying, the others pretending like they’re just sampling his stuff. It’s part of my life now. He makes the arrangements, Tristan and I deliver for him, and then we get high, pass out, and start the whole process of falling all over again. The viscous, repetitive circle of my life. But I don’t deserve anything more.

“Are you going to fucking go with us?” Dylan asks, as I head back toward the curtain. He’s sitting on the couch with Delilah, but she’s passed out on his lap, and he’s flirting with another girl.

I nod, drawing the curtain back. “Yeah, I just got to put a shirt on.”

“You should keep it off,” some girl yells from the kitchen. She’s smoking on a joint, and I think her name is Candy or Kitty or something. Honestly, it could be Brenda. I really don’t remember her other than I slept with her a few times and we shared a few lines, then talked about shit that doesn’t matter, even though we pretended it did.

I ignore her and go back to my pathetic little room that reminds me of what I’ve become. I put a shirt on and slip on some shoes. Then I pick up my sketchbook, glancing at the last picture I’ll ever draw. It was created from memory, images I hate but needed to get out. Each line is heavy, like I was trying to cut through the paper with my pencil. It’s of Lexi and me lying side by side in the field beside the accident. We’re holding hands and bleeding out together—dying together. It’s perfect. It’s real. And it’s where I’ll always belong.

I let out a deep breath, shut the sketchbook, and tuck it away in a box next to the dresser. I’m about to walk out of my room, when Tristan walks in carrying a mirror with a white line of powder running across it and a razor in his hand. My hands instantly itch to hold it, my mouth salivating to taste it.

“You’re going to need this,” he says, urging it at me. His eyes are pretty much popping out of his head, and his nose is a little red and running. “We have a long night ahead of us.”

I snatch the mirror and immediately take what he offers me, not because I need to stay awake, but because I want it. Need it. It’s embedded into my skin, my blood, my veins, my thoughts, my dreams. It’s my life.

It owns me now.

Once it hits the back of my throat, all the doors in my head slam shut and any good left in me is locked behind them.

Epilogue

Nine months later…

May 9, 7 days before Summer Break

Nova

I’m supposed to be packing up the last of my stuff in my apartment, getting ready to head home for summer, while I work on the last of my finals, but I’ve taken a break to pound on my drums. I do it almost every day now, and I’m finding therapeutic.

“Do you mind! The neighbors are going to call the landlord again if you keep it up!” My friend and roommate, Lea, calls out. I bang on the drums a little harder, teasing her, and she rolls her eyes and laughs. “Fine, be a bitch.”

I laugh, hitting one more note, and then set the drumsticks down. I’m sweating and panting, but I feel so alive inside. Catching my breath, I climb off the stool and head over to a half-packed box on my bed. It’s strange to be going back home, since the last time I was there I was in such a different place than I am now. But it’ll be good to see my mom again and even Daniel, granola bars and all.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take this with you?” My friend Lea asks as she holds up an old band poster of Chevelle.

I nod, tucking the last of my CDs away into a box on my bed. “Yeah, it’s all torn and ripped.”

She rolls her heavily lined eyes and drops it into the trash can next to the shelf. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want,” I tell her, clicking my computer on as I sit down on the floor in front of it.

I met Lea at one of the meetings I’d been attending for people who have lost loved ones to suicide. Lea lost her dad when she was about twelve, strangely around the same time as I lost my dad. That was our initial conversation starter, but we hit it off really quickly, and it’s nice to have someone I can openly talk to about my feelings of Landon’s suicide; the hurt, the anger, the guilt, the feeling of being lost and confused. She’s felt the same things too, only she handled it in a different, healthier way.

In the beginning stages of our friendship, she gave me hope that I could move on, and now she’s just there for me. We’ve been friends for about six months now, and it’s a good friendship, one not based on drunken outings, heavy drugs, drifting. We share a lot of things in common, like a love for music and a good documentary. She plays guitar and her boyfriend sings. They’re fun to hang out with, and we all volunteer to help out at the local suicide hotline. It’s nice to do something good. Help people. We also laugh. A lot.

I’ve even been on a few dates, but haven’t really felt the spark or connection with anyone. That’s okay, though. I have time. And it’s nice to know that I do.

Not everything is always easy though. There are dark moments, when I get overwhelmed, and I start to count and crave the silent solitude that I experienced last summer. But it always passes. And it’s happening less frequently. I know what I want in life. I want happiness. I want hope. I want a life. And that’s important. I consider myself lucky for being able to get where I am. It’s not easy and not everyone makes it. Some people stay in the dark and some people leave it a different, more permanent way, while I managed to step into the light again.

“Are you still working on that?” she asks, gathering her long black hair into a side ponytail. She’s wearing an old T-shirt with “Music Rocks my World” written on the back, and a pair of denim shorts. She’s tall and has a few tattoos. Each one means something to her, and every time I see one of them, it always makes me wonder about Quinton’s tattoos. “You know it’s due in four days.”

“I know.” I move the curser to the videos folder on the home screen. I’ve watched the videos time and time again, and it’s scary watching how much I changed over the course of two and a half months. In the end, I barely looked like me, and I never want to go back to that place again. “I think I might end up taking a zero on it, though.”

I really want to use the clips for the final, even if it means showing the world what I was once because I feel like it’s important for people to see. And there’s one video I really want to use; the one I made of Quinton. I watch it all the time, wondering what he’s doing, thinking. It feels like I’m finally in a point in my life where I can talk to him again.