I open the door and step straight into 2006. The walls are painted a soft lilac, plastered with posters—Fleetwood Mac, Beyoncé, Avril Lavigne, The Calling, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, and of course, Christina Aguilera. Glow-in-the-dark stars scatter across the ceiling like a homemade galaxy. The windowsill overflows with seedlings, little bursts of green stretching toward the light. Towers of books and CDs lean precariously beside the nightstand, while a glitter-stickered stereo claims the desk as its throne. A shoe rack spills over with boots in every color. By the window, two mismatched footstools—one pink, one green—wait as if for a conversation that was never finished.
This is not just a room. It’s her universe. Her essence.
Nova sits cross-legged on the bed, her little dog Fleur curled on her lap, while she keeps her eyes fixed on her laptop.
“I swear I’ll help you as soon as I finish this episode... Oh. Hey.” Her voice is sadder than I expected.
I slip the headphones from around my neck and drop them on her cluttered desk, then step closer.
“I’m sorry I called you,” she murmurs.
Her cheeks are streaked with mascara, her eyeshadow smudged. She wears striped cotton shorts and an Edward Cullen T-shirt—one of the endless shirts she prints herself with her obsessions. When we were sixteen, she gave me one with Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker inside a pink heart, and the caption was:No one’s ever seen Vincent Cooper and Peter Parker in the same room!She made one for herself too. Typical Nova.
A sneeze escapes me suddenly, and she bursts into laughter, the tension breaking. The gap between her front teeth shows, making her look more radiant than ever.
“Cheers,” she teases.
I grin. Fleur leaps off her lap and circles me. I set the gifts on her nightstand.
“Are these for me?”
I nod. “May I?”
She shifts, making space and I sit. Fleur hops up beside me as I scratch her fur while Nova’s eyes stay glued to her laptop.
“What are you watching?”
“The Greatest Showmanin French.”
She gestures for me to sit closer. I do, glancing at the unsubtitled screen. I can’t help laughing. “Why?”
“Because I have to learn French.”
“You? Learn French fromThe Greatest Showman? You’ve always hated French.”
Aurora once told me Nova spent every French class folding origami animals to give to her at the end of class.
“I still hate it.”
I pull out the small cactus I brought, handing it to her as a distraction. Her eyes cloud even darker.
A Million Dreamsbegins to play, and I feel both of us being pulled into a tide of memories. Thousands of them, flooding back all at once.
The first time we watchedThe Greatest Showmantogether at the cinema, her fingers sneaking into mine in the dark theater.
The weeks afterward, when I sat at the piano and forced myself to learn that song—every chord, every delicate note—just so I could play it for her. The way her face lit up the first time she recognized the melody under my fingertips, her smile trembling as though she couldn’t quite believe it.
And then the afternoons that followed, entire hours spent teaching her how to play it, her clumsy fingers tripping over the keys, both of us dissolving into laughter. Sometimes we’d give up completely, our lips finding each other instead, kisses spillinginto the music until we forgot which part we were supposed to be practicing.
“Then why learn?”
She sighs, taking the pot. She pauses the movie, digs into her drawer, and pulls out a sheet of glitter stickers, decorating the vase. “I think I’ll call it Lucy.”
“LikeLucy Pevensie?”
She nods, placing the cactus on the sill. “Thanks.”
“Nova...”
