When she closes the door, I fall back into bed, grinning like an idiot. How did I get this lucky?
I grab the TV remote, but her phone rings. I glance at the screen:Mom.
Rage flares in me. She’s been hounding Nova for money she doesn’t have, guilt-tripping and tormenting her.
I know I shouldn’t interfere, but I can’t just sit here and watch anymore.
She’s only seventeen and has never worked a day in her life. Until a few months ago, she lived with her parents and her brother. She wasn’t flipping through every newspaper or magazine looking for an after-school job, or counting the allowance money she’d saved over the years just to buy a bouquet of flowers to take to that bastard of a father at the cemetery and pay for her lunch at school so she wouldn’t have toask her grandmother for money. She’s never had an easy life, but at least back then she had Asher, and we lived across the street from each other.
She used to come over every night. Now that she’s moved in with her grandmother, it’s so much harder for us to spend nights together, and I know she can’t sleep because of the nightmares.
I just wish her mother would leave her alone and call only to let Asher talk to her. I don’t know what kind of crazy ideas she’s putting in that kid’s head, but I swear I’ll do everything in my power to take custody away from that woman. I’ll move heaven and earth to bring Nova and Asher back together under the same roof, the way it used to be.
I pick up the call, hoping Nova’s stalling the pizza guy with her usual story about how Italians invented pizza, and I bring the phone to my ear.
I sigh and answer the call. “Nova’s in the bathroom. What do you want now, more money?”
Her cold voice oozes through. “Ah, you. Tell that little slut I need one hundred and fifty for shoes for her brother. By Wednesday.”
I clench my jaw. My pulse pounds. “Listen, Mrs. Marshall. Hate me all you want—I don’t care. Think I’ll ruin your daughter’s life, think I’m the devil, fine. But leave her the hell alone. She’s seventeen. Seventeen! Do you even remember what that felt like? She’s just a kid. She’s even younger than you were when you got pregnant! Stop tormenting her. Stop asking her for money she doesn’t have. Let her breathe, or I swear I’ll call the police. And custody of Asher? You’ll lose him.”
Silence. Then the call cuts.
I stare at her phone, the lock screen photo of her and Asher twisting the knife deeper. I think I fucked up.
The door opens. Nova steps in with the pizza, sodas, napkins, and my eye drops. “Did you mis—” She freezes. “What’s wrong?”
She sets everything down and sits beside me. I sigh and hand her the phone. “Your mother called and I answered. I was mean to her.”
Her eyes flicker. “How mean?”
“Not even one-twentieth of how mean she’s been to you.”
She exhales, pops open her soda, and takes a sip. “Just... don’t answer for me anymore, okay? She’ll just change her number.”
I nod, guilt gnawing me. “Sorry.”
She bumps my shoulder. “It’s okay, Cooper. I think she deserved to hear whatever you told her at least once in her life. And anyway, she won’t disappear as long as she needs money. I know her.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Vincent Cooper
PAST (2018)
"A guitar is a lot like life, it can be strummed gently or you can play it furiously, either way, all the resonance is temporary."
Jason Edward Shiffman
“Are you sure about this idea, V? Maybe she’s not in the right place to handle it right now.”
“It’s Nova.” I chuckle, settling the box carefully on the passenger seat of Steven’s car. “She could take care of a cobra with two broken legs if she wanted to.”
Inside the box, a tiny dachshund puppy shifts, making soft noises. We’d just left the pound—adopting her in Nova’s name. She’s only a few months old. Her mother died after giving birth, and nobody wanted to take her.
I’ve been thinking about this for months. After everything that happened last week with Nova’s mother, I realized it wastime. If anyone needs the unconditional love of a puppy, it’s her. Animals have always been her anchor. Percy and Daisy are her therapy when everything else crashes down and this little one could help heal her too.
And she’s dreamed of having a puppy of her own forever. Today, I get to give her that wish.
