Nova.

They go ice skating.

It was Rhett’s idea, mostly because Nova looked upset, and whenever his sister was upset, he took her to the rink. It seemed to cheer Amelia up, so he thought it might have cheered Nova up too.

“I hate him,” she says angrily, skating next to Rhett sullenly.

“Who?”

“Lisa’s boyfriend.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have to pretend you didn’t hear anything,” Nova says. “I heard them talking about you. And me.”

“Oh.”

“He’s just… He always has to be such a jerk about everything and it always has to be his way and he doesn’t treat Lisa right and he thinks it’s okay to—” She stops herself, frustrated. “I’m ranting.”

“I like it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

“They’ve been dating on and off for ages. She’ll leave him for a while, and then she’ll go running back to him and he kind of just hangs out and does whatever the hell he wants and she doesn’t even care. It’s pathetic. She says she does it because she loves him. I don’t think he loves her back, though, which is sad.”

“I’m sorry.” She gives him a small smile and tells him he shouldn’t be. “So, um… do you have a better taste in guys then?” She looks over at him and laughs, hard. He’s hilarious, and if things were a little bit different, she could see them being friends or something.

“What?”

“Do you—I mean you probably do but I thought I should, you know, ask if you have—”

“If I have a boyfriend?”

The question makes her laugh, because for a second, she thinks he’s asking for his sake and not simple curiosity. But she knows better, and he’s probably asking because he just wants to know and not because he’s actually interested in her or anything. The whole thing amuses her.

“Yeah.” He’s pink again. “I mean, you probably do because, I mean, you’re—”

“What?” she asks, smirking at him and his embarrassment. Why is he so embarrassed? She doesn’t understand. Granted, she doesn’t understand why they’re even here, together, talking, having a nice time (together) in the first place.

“Well, I mean, any guy would be lucky to have you and I’m sure your boyfriend’s that lucky guy and uh I—”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, stupid,” she deadpans, looking up at him.

“Why not?” he asks, slightly incredulous.

“Because I don’t.” She smiles as if that’s all the explanation really needed. It’s not like he needed to know why anyway, right? “I’ll race you.”

It’s not a fair race because he’s a better skater (she says so) but he goes along with it anyway because her smile’s extraordinary, braces and all. She takes off and he already knows he’s going to let her win because when she does she’ll smile at him again, that perfectly imperfect smile that’s simply infectious and wonderful and sweet.

“Slowpoke!” she calls out, turning around to stick her pink tongue out at him.

He skates sluggishly, trying to look like he’s putting in an extra effort to catch up with her. She can tell he’s probably trying to let her win, but she won’t say anything (yet) just because. She won’t let herself admit it, but she’s actually enjoying herself, despite the fact that people are staring at them. Well, mostly her, but still.

She moves lithely, laughing at him. Nova’s having fun, and he’s happy to be the one at least partly responsible.

Suddenly she’s not laughing, but someone else is.

Nova was skating along, when out of nowhere, a shoulder hit her square in the chest and knocked her down. She felt like the wind was knocked out of her. She thinks it’s probably an accident at first because of all the people there, but realizes that it wasn’t an accident at all when she sees Roslyn smirking at her.

She’s furious.

Rhett catches up to her, only to see she’s on the floor and Roslyn is there, laughing, along with her boyfriend, Noah or Nick or something like that.

“Oops,” she giggles. Nova slits her eyes at her. She’s picking herself up off the ice when Rhett reaches them. He doesn’t know what to do. “Rhett!” Roslyn exclaims, snickering. “I didn’t think I’d see you here!”

He doesn’t say anything, though he’s pretty sure that Roslyn did something to Nova. He can’t anything. He doesn’t know what to do about this. Nova simply looks at him, waiting, but realizes that he’s not going to say anything to Roslyn at all. She scolds herself for thinking he even would in the first place. She skates between them, shoving the brunette with her shoulder.

“Whoops.”



She glares at him whenever she can.

He looks miserable.

Good.

She’s madder at herself than anyone else. Why on earth would she expect him to defend her or say anything to that girl? Of course he wouldn’t. She didn’t need him to, because he wasn’t her knight in shining armor and she didn’t want him to be anyway, so why was she so mad?

She feels like she’s disappointed, but by what? He hadn’t defended her before. He didn’t say anything when his friends carried out their daily abuse. He wouldn’t defend her in front of Roslyn either, right? What was she expecting? Nothing had changed between them on Saturday.

Why would she think something had?

It’s all so absurd.



She’s upset.

She doesn’t know why.

Well, she does.

She just doesn’t want to admit it yet.

So she’ll just glare at him because he’s just like everybody else and she shouldn’t expect him to be different. Even if she was hoping he kind of was. She vainly held onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t like his friends and that he was different and kind and friendly and wonderful. He let her down, but she’ll never say that out loud because she doesn’t hope in anyone, and the one time she did, this is what happened.

It’s stupid.

The whole thing is stupid and mundane.



“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.”

She hangs up before she can hear him say anything else, because she believed in him once and she wasn’t about to forget what happened last time.



She can’t scrub the ugliness away. She tries. She tries hard, so hard, but she simply can’t. It’s seeped into her skin. Her hair hangs limply. Her body is tender and raw and the scratchy towel—Lisa ran out of fabric softener—doesn’t help much. She wants to cry.

She does.

She just wants him to feel the way she does, to see her the way she sees him, but he won’t, not then, not ever, and she has to accept it. She doesn’t want to. She leans against the door and weeps because it’s not fair, none of it is fair and she doesn’t know why it has to happen like this, why she has to feel like this and why any of it is happening at all.

It’s all so ridiculous.

Life isn’t fair and she knows it isn’t, but for once, just this once, she wishes it were.



He finds her in the library during lunch.

She can’t stand to look at him anymore, simply because she’s let herself like him and he doesn’t feel like that and he never will. She thought that things might just be different this time around, but they aren’t. It’s upsetting.

In any event, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t look at her.

He does.

A lot.

She’s so sad she could cry.

She does. Every day in both English and Calculus, she asks to be excused and spends half the period crying in the last bathroom stall with her arms wrapped around her knees, bunched up so no one sees her. It’s not just about Rhett, it’s about everything, about Lisa and this school and the people there and their taunts and dance and life and she’s just so stressed out.

She can’t stand any of it anymore.

She feels pathetic and cliché and can’t stop pining. That’s the part that sickens her the most.



He sits down and Nova refuses to look up, to even acknowledge him, mostly because she’s upset and annoyed and she knows if she looks at him, she’ll say it and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t even want to talk to him.

“I’m sorry.”

Nova hides behind her Calculus book, trying hard not to look at him.

“I don’t believe you,” she mumbles. She can’t. She wants to, but she won’t let herself, because she just can’t. It’s already ridiculous enough that she’s crying because of him more than once a day, kind of, and it’ll only be more ridiculous that after all that sadness, she’d believe him. Again.

“I just—it’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not. What’s so complicated about it? I embarrass you, obviously. I get it. You should leave,” she said quietly, turning a page.

“That’s not it, Nova, I just—”

“Just what?” she asks, cutting him off.

“She shouldn’t have done that.” He looks like he’s pleading, and any other day, perhaps before what happened at the rink, she would have strung him along before eventually caving in. But she’s too angry, at herself and at him and at everyone else, to think about doing something like that.

“Please go away, Rhett.”

“I don’t know why you’re so mad at me—”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You are so.”

“What part of leave don’t you understand?” she snaps, looking up at him for once. She shuts her book suddenly, shoves her notebooks into her bag as she gets up. “You’re so spineless,” she whispers in his ear before leaving for good.



“Five, six, seven, eight!” Miss Flora, Nova’s instructor calls out from her piano, starting to play. She goes through the routine emotionlessly, mostly because she’s thinking about Rhett.

Again.

Alvin, her dance partner, tries to lift her up but Nova, who isn’t paying attention, isn’t ready for it and the whole thing throws everybody off. Miss Flora sighs.

“Stop! Just stop,” she says, standing up, walking towards her. “Are you alright? Why are you so off today?” she asks her, hands on her hips.

“I’m sorry. I got distracted. It won’t happen again.” She looks at Nova for a minute or so with a small scowl, but doesn’t push it.

“From the top,” she says dismissively, sitting down at her piano.

She feels ill.



There’s a note waiting under her copy of Hamlet when she comes back from the bathroom.

I really need to talk to you.
Wanna get some coffee or something?
My treat?

She almost smiles. Instead, because she knows he’s watching her—like he always is—she crumples it up and throws it away. She’s annoyed. Annoyed with him for just not giving up already. Annoyed with herself for still caring.



She’s sitting in the booth, sipping stark black coffee—he doesn’t know how she can drink it and not want to throw up—as she regards him. They’re silent.

She drums her fingers on the table, looking all stoic and serious again. He misses the smile and the laugh and the gleam in her eye and the way she looks when she’s happy. He blames himself.

“I’m not mad at you,” she finally says. They’ve been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes. He smiles. “Don’t start getting ideas, okay? I’m mad at myself.” She doesn’t want to say anything about it, but she has to, because maybe if he knows he’ll understand why she’s been so offbeat lately he’ll finally start leaving her alone. He frowns.

“Why?”

“I want things I shouldn’t, that I can’t have and that I know I can’t have. I thought I could get it this time but I couldn’t and it was just so stupid of me to think I could, so…yeah. I just really thought things would work out this time.”

“What would work out?”

“It’s complicated,” she mocks, sipping her coffee again. She looks down again, playing with the handle on her mug. “It’s my fault, though. So, yeah…that’s that. What did you want to tell me?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” She narrows her eyes at him. She didn’t come all the way down here solely for the coffee. She wanted to get in, hear Rhett out, probably cut him down to size, and leave, not play some silly cat and mouse game.

“I’m not in the mood for your games, Rhett.” Her voice is cold.

“It’s not a game. If you’re not mad at me, then it doesn’t matter.” He leans his head on his hand. “What can’t you have?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she scowls, sipping her coffee. “It’s stupid.”

“Why?”

“Because I shouldn’t want it,” she explains.

“Why?”

“Why do you keep asking me?”

“I wanna know.” He says this simply, as if that’s all the reason he needs. Nova isn’t having that. If this were really all that simple, they wouldn’t be here right now. But since it isn’t, they are, so she’s not backing down that easily.

“For what?”

“Just do.”

“Is this going to help you feel better? Are you thinking, gee, I can’t stand up for her or anything or be a decent human being for five seconds, so let me just pretend I give a crap for a minute and see what happens? Huh?” She shakes her head, annoyed. “I’m not nearly as stupid as you might think I am.” He makes a face.

"I don't think you're stupid." She looks nonplussed. "It’s not going to help me feel better, either. It’ll probably make me feel worse, to be honest. I want to know anyway."

They’re silent again. She regards him, trying to figure out if he’s being honest or just fooling around. She decides he’s being honest, but that doesn’t change what happened with Roslyn. She realizes, somewhere in the back of her mind, that even if they ever were to have something between them, things like that would happen and he probably wouldn’t say anything at all.

She’s not sure if it bothers her very much yet.

“Can we get out of here?” she asks after quiet contemplation. “It’s too warm.”

She actually wants to change the subject. She doesn’t want to think about Roslyn and Rhett and her feelings. It’ll just make her more upset. Despite her wanting to tell him, now that she actually can, she’s scared. She’s never really had to tell anybody that before. It’s awkward.

Nova’s had a bit of an interesting experience with guys. It usually turned out that the guy she liked ended up not being even remotely interested in her, or sometimes ended up not being the person she thought they were. She had learned not to expect much from guys.

And then Rhett came along and screwed it all up.

They leave and start walking up the sidewalk, going down a barren side street.

“I don’t know why I want it so badly. I don’t know why I can’t just let it go. I don’t know why it has to be like this. I mean, I do know, but I just… I don’t know. I was expecting something else.”

“From who?”

Nova’s quiet for a couple of minutes.

“You.” She sighs. “I don’t—I’m not…I just …I thought I liked you. I mean, I do, but you don’t like me, and for some reason, I thought you might have, but it’s kind of obvious you don’t. I feel stupid,” she admits quietly. He smiles. “What?” Nova is simply mortified and doesn’t understand at all why on earth he would be smiling unless he enjoys her embarrassment, which means that he’s probably a total creep that she was obviously wrong about, as per usual. “What?”

“Nothing.” He laughs.

“What?!” she exclaims, trying not to laugh. She does anyway, just because he’s laughing and it makes her laugh. “Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny!”

“It’s not, it’s just…ironic.” He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Why?”

“I didn’t think you liked me either.”

“What?”

“I like you, Nova. I thought you knew.”

This is different, and new, and she wants to be mad, but she can’t be because he’s Rhett and he’s a boy that likes her back, for once. It’s all so contradictory. She looks at him with a small smile, biting her lip.

“I like you too.”