Nova.

The first time she talks about her thing with Rhett—what is it, anyway?—it’s with his sister. In Nova’s defense, Amelia was the one who brought it up first and Amelia doesn’t know who she is (to Rhett, anyway) so it doesn’t really matter, right?

Nova’s on the floor, stretching out her legs after practice, reaching for her toes when Amelia sighs heavily. She glances over at her, wondering what’s bothering her. Amelia blows her hair out of her face, sullen.

“What?”

“It’s my brother.” Nova freezes and wants to look at Amelia in alarm, but refrains, and instead hums in response, looking in the other direction. “You remember him, don’t you? He’s, like, all awkward and lanky and lame and stuff?”

Nova laughs a little and nods.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Yeah, well, he has a girlfriend now.” Nova tries not to smile. “And he won’t tell me who she is. None of his friends know either.”

“Maybe it’s a secret,” she suggests lightly.

“But why? I think he really likes her, so why keep her a secret?”

“Maybe, you know, they uh…want to take it slow?” She shrugs, looking down at the floor as she starts stretching again. A part of her is happy that Rhett’s making an effort to keep his mouth shut, but at the same time, she wishes they could just tell people. She knows they can’t, but she wants to all the same. “I-I mean, what if it doesn’t work out and they told all their friends that they were in this wonderful relationship and then they break up?” Amelia frowns. “Maybe it’s just a fling?”

“Rhett doesn’t have flings,” Amelia answers confidently.

“You never know.” Amelia looks at Nova as she stretches out her back, sighing. She narrows her eyes, crossing her arms across her chest.

Nova doesn’t hope it’s a fling, but it probably is, so she should enjoy it while it lasts. Amelia doesn’t know her brother as well as she thinks she does, it seems.

“You know who she is, don’t you?”

“We move in different circles…so, no. Sorry.” Amelia sighs again, resting her head on her fist with mild discontent. Nova hops up to her feet, grabbing her things. “I have to get going.”

“Wait!” Amelia calls out, scrambling after her. “Nova!” Nova stops in the hallway, leaning against the stark white wall. “So, there’s this party this weekend, and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t think so,” she tells Amelia, walking down the stairs with her. Amelia frowns.

“C’mon! It’ll be a blast.” Nova shrugs, shaking her head as she makes a face. “Would you come shopping with me, at least?”

“I don’t know…” she trails off, playing with the ends of her scarf. “I mean—”

“C’mon!” she whines, tugging on Nova’s hand. “It’ll be so much fun!” They walk out and there’s a gust of cold wind and snow. Nova shivers and shoves her hands in her pockets, rushing down the stone steps with Amelia.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Do you want a ride?” Amelia asks, looking at Nova with concern as she piles her hair into her hat. She starts saying no, but Amelia’s already yelling across the street at Rhett, who’s buying some coffee from a street vendor, hollering about how they have to give Nova a ride. Nova feels her face burn as people stare at them, mostly in repulsion and disgust. She’s used to it, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother her or hurt her feelings any less. Amelia, of course, is oblivious to Nova’s discomfort.

They make their way across the perpetually busy street. Amelia repeats her question and her brother shrugs, mumbling a casual, “Sure.”

“You remember Rhett, right?” Amelia asks once they’re settled in the car. She takes the back seat because she wants to stretch and she doesn’t like the front much anyway. That leaves Nova and Rhett together in the front, glancing at each other from the corners of their eyes with secretive smiles.

“I think so, yeah. Hi,” she replies, looking over at him. “I’m Nova.”

“I remember.”

“You guys don’t have to do this, you know,” she says, turning around to face Amelia in the back seat. “I can walk home—”

“It’s freezing outside!” Amelia exclaims. “You can’t walk in this kind of weather. Are you crazy?”

She did it before she met Rhett and Amelia, and she could probably keep on doing it. It hadn’t killed her yet, and the exercise was good for her anyway.

“I live kind of far, though and—”

“So? Rhett will just drop me off first, won’t you?” she coos, leaning over, pinching his cheek, giggling. He laughs, swatting her hand away.

“Yeah. Just tell me where to go.”

It’s a charade, all of it, but Nova would be lying if she said she didn’t like it a little.



Nova isn’t a big fan of Dante.

Everyone knows that.

When Lisa breaks the news about her tying the knot with him in a week, she doesn’t know what to say. Lisa looks so happy and she knows it would be mean-spirited and selfish to tell her it won’t work out, but she knows it won’t. She mumbles a quiet, “Congratulations,” under her breath because she doesn’t have anything nice to say and she really doesn’t want to be the one to burst Lisa’s bubble.

Lisa hasn’t looked this happy in a long time.

Seeing as she wants them to be “one big happy family”, she’s making Dante get a house a couple of streets away in what Nova likes to call ‘ghetto-burbia,’ seeing as the only real difference between her neighborhood and that one is that the one she’s moving to has more houses instead of apartment buildings and a bit more gang violence, but Lisa overlooks the last bit. She’s too busy being happy and bubbly and packing up all their meager belongings.

Nova packs up her things because Lisa makes her, not because she wants to. She doesn’t want to move into that new house with Dante and Lisa and whoever else decides to tag along for the ride. It’s going to be one party after another and a bunch of drama and fuss that Nova really doesn’t want or need in her life. Dante has decided to let his brother to come over to help out. He’s kind of around Nova’s age but not really and he’s kind of nice.

His name is Drake.



Drake is sitting on the bare frame of Nova’s bed—the mattress is in the moving van outside, sandwiched between the old couch, armchair, and her dresser. He’s tossing a small bean bag between his hands as Nova tapes up her boxes. He offered to help. She doesn’t like Drake because she doesn’t like Dante (guilt by association, oh well) so she would much rather do it all by herself. She’d move her things out herself, but she’s not strong enough and there’s much too much for her to do alone anyway.

“So, how do you like goin’ to school with all those white kids?” She looks up at him, knitting her eyebrows.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Nova frowns, glancing at him warily.

“It’s pretty okay. The classes are smaller. Lunches are pretty decent too. I don’t have to share my locker with anybody.” She shrugs, going back to her boxes. “It’s alright, I guess.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Like do they poke fun at me or whatever?” She laughs and lies through a breezy response about how everybody gets along with each other and how they’re all just a big happy group of students who love and adore each other. She refuses to talk about how things are actually going, because she knows Lisa will yank her out of that school before she can say, “Please don’t.” And then there’s Rhett.

He’s wonderful and he makes it all worth it.

“I don’t believe you.”

“What?”

“I don’t.” Nova’s silent, because she doesn’t really care if he believes her or not because he’s just some kid who’s helping her move out and that’s that. And he’s related to Dante, so she knows not to take anything he says seriously. “Don’t you miss your old school? Where’d you go again?”

“MLK,” she answers stiffly.

“I go to Carver.”

“I see.” Nova turns over the box, ripping off piece of grey duct tape from an old roll she found in the moving van, taping the edges of the box together. “I don’t really miss it.”

“Why?”

“Really?” She sighs, blowing her hair out of her face. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or whatever, but I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I didn’t have many friends there.” He laughs.

“It’s prob’ly ’cause you’re so uptight.”

“Am not!”

“Are too! Look at you, all tense and what not already.” He snickers. She makes a face and crosses her arms across her chest, annoyed.

“I’m not tense.”

“Yeah, but you’re pretty cute, though.”

She laughs a little despite herself because she wants to be mad and so on, but she really can’t be, because he called her cute and what girl doesn’t like that? And it’s not like it actually means anything because she has Rhett and their…thing.

Drake smiles.

“See! Look at that. Got a nice smile there,” he says and she looks down and feels her face burn as she murmurs a soft thank you and asks him if he can take her boxes down to the moving van (please).



“Do you think I’m uptight?” she asks Rhett the afternoon before Lisa and Dante’s (un)holy union. They’re sitting in a diner booth. Some people stare at them, but she’s trying to ignore it because she doesn’t want to start acting like a blubbering five year old. Especially on this side of town. Rhett, on the other hand, has yet to come to terms with it and is rather uncomfortable. He tries to ignore it, but Nova sees it on his face anyway. They don’t say anything about it. He looks up from his food, laughing.

“What?”

“I am, aren’t I?” she exclaims, covering her mouth with her hand. He laughs again, setting down his fork.

“What? No, Nova. Who said that?”

“Some…kid I know,” she says, the corners of her mouth falling a little as she explains the whole ‘moving on up’ (Lisa’s words) thing and how Drake’s taking it upon himself to help her out. “Am I really?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings. It’s okay to say yes.”

“You’re Nova and I’m Rhett. That’s who we are. We’re not ‘uptight’ or ‘weird’ or whatever. We’re just people. I’m me and you’re just you.”

Nova could melt.



The newlyweds plan to head out to some bar or whatever to celebrate their nuptials. Nova doesn’t plan on going because it’s going to be stupid and she can’t go anyway because she’s too young and actually looks her age, unlike other girls her age, who look like they’re at least five years older than they really are. She wants to go ‘home’—which is mostly boxes and furniture with sheets over them.

It’s still pretty early in the day.

It’s not even noon yet, so she takes a train to the new neighborhood with Drake, who spends the ride trying to get Nova to talk to him. She doesn’t want to because she’s tired and mad and kind of just wants to be with Rhett instead of Drake. She would text him—he was probably just sitting down for Calculus right now—and ask him to meet her at the new house after class, but Drake won’t leave her alone and she’s pretty sure if he figured out who she was texting he won’t let it go, so she’s pretty much just stuck with him.

Unfortunately.

The snow is starting to melt and the day has heated up (slightly) so she walks with her scarf undone and her hat off—her way of living recklessly, of course—with Drake. They walk into the house with quiet sighs. He’s moving in too—of course—and his things are the newest additions to the already cluttered living room. Nova likes the house, a little, but she’s too busy sulking to admit it.

She makes Drake take her boxes up to her room, then starts settling in while he starts asking her questions again. This time, he’s sitting on the hardwood floor and she’s sitting on her bed, pulling her books out of the box for her shelf.

“So…” he trails off.

“So?” Nova asks, glancing at him.

“Lisa and Dante are going out tonight.”

“Obviously.” She walks over him with her armfuls of books, putting them on the shelf slowly. “What’s your point?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve gotta throw a party.” She drops her copy of Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, surprised and taken off guard.

“A party?” she asks in disbelief.

“Yeah, like I call some of my friends and you call some of yours—”

“I don’t have very many,” she mumbles, picking up her book and putting it in its rightful spot.

“Yeah, you do. You got me, don’t you?” She rolls her eyes at him. “Anyway, so some of my friends call their friends and they come over and we have a good time. Duh.”

“I know what a party is, stupid.” She sticks her tongue out at him, annoyed.

“So, are we throwin’ one or what?”

“A what? A party? No, Drake,” she says firmly. “We just got here.”

“C’mon!” he whines, laughing. “Live a little!”

“We haven’t even settled in yet,” she says, looking at him pointedly.

“I’ll that care of that—”

“And the house is a mess—”

“I’ll clean it.”

“Fine,” Nova sighs, shaking her head. “Just a couple of people, okay?”