In the end, it all comes down to one thing: I was driving too fast. I knew that. And I wasn’t watching the road when I should have been. Lexi saw it first. That the turn was too sharp and I was going too fast. She screamed. I swerved. There was a crunch as we collided with another car. And then just like that, everything that once existed, lives, breaths, heartbeats, were gone. And I was left with blood on my hands.

Finally, after what seems like hours, I make back to the tent. The muddy field is drying in the sun, shriveling and cracking. I search for Dylan, and when I can’t find him, I look for Tristan. I find him smoking on a tailgate with a group of guys and girls who I’ve never met but he seems to know. When he sees me approaching, he hops off the tailgate, his forehead immediately creasing as he takes in the reckless state I’m in, my eyes bulging, my clothes and hair soaked with water and sweat, shuddering from head to toe with fear, desire, and need.

“What the fuck’s wrong?” he says with a joint pinched in his finger.

“I need something hard,” I say.

“Why?” he asks. “What’s wrong? Why do you look so upset?”

“Nothing’s wrong, and I won’t look upset once I get something hard.” It’s all I need to say. There’s only one thing that matters to druggies, and that’s getting high. Tristan may dither consciously for a second, but when it all comes down to it, drugs always conquer.

He nods his head at one of the larger tents near the edge of the tent area. “Come on.” He hands the joint to some girl with long, wavy black hair and crooked teeth. Her breasts are popping out of her black sleeveless dress and she’s looking me over, her mouth salivating to get a taste. I think later, when I’m numb. But Nova’s blue eyes and freckled face overlap the thought, and guilt creeps inside me. I tell my guilt to shut the fuck up. Because I’m already guilty of a lot of other terrible things, worse than hooking up with some random girl.

“Hurry,” I tell Tristan, my mind wanting, seeking, needing solitude. Now.

He nods, and I practically make him run toward the tent. When we reach it, we duck right in as if we both belong there. And we do. I do.

There are these greasy, cracked-out-looking guys inside and a girl with her top off, smoking what looks like a joint in the corner. But I know it’s not a joint by the dazed look on her face. She’s gone. Hollowed out by the toxic smoke. Whoever she was before all of this only exists in a locked box inside her head, and she probably can’t even remember how to get it open. This place doesn’t even exist to her, and I want to be where she is because I don’t want to feel it anymore, everything that comes with living after everything is lost. I want to leave. I want to escape.

Really, what I want to do is die.

“We need a hit,” Tristan tells a guy with a ponytail sitting in the middle of the tent with his shirt unbuttoned and his shoes off. He hands him some money and I keep staring at the girl, watching her drift further and further away from reality, right where I want to be. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Nonexistent.

When she turns her head in my direction, she smiles, but there’s nothing behind it and I’m envious of her. I want what she has. I want.

Nothing.

The guy takes the money from Tristan and then takes the joint from the girl, who groggily rolls on her side, her arms flopped out in front of her. She keeps blinking her eyes, until there’s nothing left but large massive pupils that are glazed over and bare.

Empty.

“It’s the best around,” the guy says, handing it to Tristan, like it matters, like if it wasn’t we’d take our money back and go somewhere else.

Tristan nods and puts the joint to his lips. Taking a long hit, his pupils instantly dilate, his breathing quiets and evens out, and he relaxes back on his elbows, handing the joint to me. I don’t give myself time to think, because thinking leads me to places I don’t belong. And where I belong is here.

My hands shake uncontrollably as I put up to my lips, suck in a breath, as everyone in the tent lies down on the floor, some moving their hands above their hands and others not moving at all. Then smoke crashes into my lungs, saturates, and completely sucks out the good in me, and suddenly everything stops.

Dies.

Chapter 18

Nova

I cry until my eyes are swollen shut, remaining there for hours, and then somehow I manage to get my clothes on and climb down the rocks. Nighttime has arrived, the sky pitch-black, and the only thing I have to lead the way is the sound of the music and shouting and the small amount of stage light making it through the trees. I try not to think about how he left me like that, but it’s all I can think about. He left me. Landon left me. Quinton left me. My dad left me. Even I left me, in a sense.

It feels like I’m never going to make it through the trees, and I’m not even sure if I want to. Maybe I’ll just lay down in the dark and stay perfectly still. When I stumble over a rock and fall to the ground, I can’t seem to get up. I lie in the dirt, staring up at the night sky, counting the stars that form the constellation Cassiopeia, trying to settle myself down. But nothing is helping. Nothing. And I feel the memory prickling up against my mind, like rusty, bent, and crooked nails.

His skin looks like snow and his eyes are open, like he’s looking at something, like he’s still there, but the lights have turned off inside his eyes. I fall to the ground, wanting to forget everything, wanting to forget that Landon is hanging from the ceiling and that he’s written the word good-bye on the wall and that I don’t even know who he was writing to. I want to forget this moment, but how can I forget it? It’s not real. How could it be? Because he can’t be dead. It’s impossible. He wouldn’t leave me. He loved me.

Knowing that what I’m seeing has to be wrong, I get to my feet and my foot is bleeding and my heart is thrashing in my chest. I’m losing control and my thoughts pile up in my head like bricks upon bricks upon bricks like they’re building a wall around my mind, only the wall is crooked and split…

I get up from the ground and run, trying to get away from the memory, the bushes and branches slicing my palms open, and I try to keep track of my footsteps, how many I’m taking, where I’m going, but the memory catches up with me anyway…

I climb onto his bed, my hands shaking as I reach for the rope, because I know that if I can get him down, he’ll be okay. He has to be okay. Because I can’t picture my life without him. Without him I am nothing. I have no one. Nothing. Everything that makes me me belongs to Landon, and without him I’m nothing but a shadow of a person with no substance. And I can’t be a shadow.

I lean over the side, extending my arm as far as it will go until my fingers brush the coarse rope, and dig my nails into the knot, trying to loosen it. My fingers are trembling and my heart is as unsteady as my thoughts, like nothing inside me will connect. My arm keeps brushing his skin, and he feels so cold and unreal, and it doesn’t make any sense because the Landon I know is warm and thriving, breathing, has a pulse. This isn’t him. It can’t be.

I’ve lost all control, and I can barely acknowledge what I’m doing. What I’m seeing. And this stupid song is playing in the background over and over again and the lyrics and sound are embedding into my head. I want it out. Because I don’t need to remember this. It’s not real. It can’t be.

It can’t be.

The knot is too tight, and my fingers scrape open and bleed all over the threads of the rope, my hands, some even drips down my arm. But I keep trying, refusing to give up, because he’s not gone. He just needs help. He wouldn’t leave me. He loves me…

I stumble into the field and run across it, the dewy grass hissing at my legs and my bare feet scuff up dirt. I forgot to put on my shoes. I need to go back. No, I need to keep going forward. I need to keep running, moving, breathing.

I need to keep holding on to Landon.

I keep working on the rope until my arms grow tired and I can’t feel my fingers or my heart—or anything. I lose track of time and where I am, and suddenly the sun is blinding and I realize that time is still moving, catching up with me as Landon’s mom walks in and starts crying and screaming hysterically. Moments later his body comes down, and more hysteria builds. She manages to call an ambulance, and eventually the paramedics and police show up. They start asking me all these questions, and everyone is crying and watching as they examine me and dope me up on sedatives. But I can’t say anything, because I can’t remember—won’t remember. How could I when I don’t even know who I am anymore? The Nova I was is dead.

I stumble onto the tent area, dodging around the people, and pushing my way through the crowd. Everyone is staring at me and there are so many people. Some laugh at me, others step away, there are a few guys that grab at me, telling me profane things while they cop a feel. I hit at them, shout, but this only seems to encourage them, and for a second I can feel them dragging me down and I realize how alone I really am. That no one around here cares. That I’m just another lost soul that’s lost her way, only I’m suddenly wanting to find my way back.

“Nova, no matter what happens, you’ll never be alone in this world,” my dad had said to me once. I’d gone through a weird phase where I wore different-colored socks and refused to comb my hair and no one wanted to be my friend. “You’ll always have your mother and me.”

But I’m alone now. By choice.

A guy grabs my ass and prods his fingers into my arm, saying, “Hey, sweetheart, slow down and try to relax. Don’t be in such a hurry. Have some fun. I can show you some fun.” He starts to jerk me forward, toward the people flocking to the stage, and so many people look out of it that I doubt that anyone will hear me if I scream. He keeps dragging me further into the darkness and I know if I keep going, things are going to end up bad. I knee him in the thigh and then stab my nails into his skin.

“Let me go!” I scream. He staggers back, his feet scuffing the dirt as he comes back at me, looking pissed off, and he slaps me across the face hard. I choke on the impact and the blinding pain radiating across my cheek as I cup my face with my hand.

The guy swings his arm around to hit me again, but I run. I run and run and run, even when my legs feel like there disconnecting from my body. Then I spot the purple tent. Delilah and Dylan are in front of it and they say something to me, but I have no idea what and I don’t care. I run straight for my tent and collapse onto the sleeping bag, clutching my head as tears burn my eyes and streak my cheeks.

I want it out of my head. This moment. Every moment. I want it gone. I want to be gone. From the life I fell into. This place. But how the hell can I escape it when I can’t even remember getting here? It’s like I’ve lost track of the last year or maybe all the years. I want to go back when skipping in the rain was fun and all it took was ice cream to make me happy.

I just want simplicity. Direction. Understanding.

I want… I don’t even know what I want. My head starts to race as I realize the painful truth of the revelation. I am lost. Broken. Searching for something that doesn’t exist. What Landon did may never make sense because he’s the only one who truly understands why he did it.