And now I’m crashing. Hard. And ruining that beautiful day Nova tried to create.

By the time we arrive at my place, I’m sweating, panting, my hands split open where I stabbed my nails into them, and I can’t feel my mouth from grinding my jaw. I feel like shit but there’s only one thing that’s going to make it go away and I concentrate on that: the small plastic bag hidden under my mattress. The single thing that makes life bearable, makes the confusion bearable.

But the tension coiling inside me tightens when I notice a black Cadillac in the parking lot and a large man standing outside it, leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette. It looks like the car that pulled up when I got jumped and the man smoking looks like Donny, the guy who beat the shit out of me. It’s only been six days since Trace made a threat, but for some reason I’m not surprised they’re early.

Shit, Tristan.

“Thanks for hanging out with me,” I say quickly, grabbing the door handle. My thoughts are going haywire as a bunch of thoughts surface at once. I hope it’s not Trace that’s here. I hope Tristan’s not in trouble. I hope no one’s found my stash. The last thought is so selfish, yet I can’t control it. My addiction controls me at the moment.

“Wait, what’s wrong?” Nova asks, noticing my sudden jumpiness. She tracks my gaze to the car and Donny, her forehead creasing. “Who is that guy?”

“No one,” I say, my fingers fumbling to get the seat belt undone.

“But you seem nervous,” she replies, looking at me concernedly. “Does this have anything to do with that Trace guy?”

I hate that she knows enough about my drug life that she knows who Trace is. “Everything’s fine, Nova. You just need to go.” I don’t make eye contact with her as I climb out of the car. When I go to shut the door, she calls out my name, making me pause, briefly pulling me back to her.

“Quinton, wait, I can tell something’s wrong,” she says with a plea in her tone. “So just tell me.”

“Nova, let it go,” I say, lowering my head to look into the car at her. “You can’t be here right now. It’s too dangerous.”

“It is about that Trace guy, isn’t it? Tristan didn’t pay him back in time?” She worriedly flicks a glance over at Donny. “Jesus, Quinton, this is bad.”

“I know it is,” I say, looking at Donny, who’s taken notice of us and turned in our direction. He has his weapon of choice in his hand. A tire iron, and my body aches as I remember what it felt like to be beat by it.

“Do you need to borrow money?” she asks as I look back at her. “Because I have like fifty dollars on me if you need it.”

God dammit, Nova and her sweetness. It’s killing me because she just needs to stop caring and leave. “Fifty dollars isn’t going to do any good and I already said I don’t want you involved in this.” I shut the door, hoping it’ll end there.

But she gets out of the car and shouts over the roof, “But I want to help you.”

“God dammit, Nova!” I shout as Donny starts to stroll toward us with a smirk on his face. I panic. Not because I’m worried anything’s going to happen to me. It’s all about Nova. “Get back in the f**king car!” I yell at her from over the roof.

Donny pats the tire iron against the palm of his hand like he did the first time he beat the shit out of me, but he’s not looking at me, but at Nova. This is so f**king bad. And all my fault.

“Trace wants to see you,” he calls out as he approaches us, his black boots scraping the dirt.

My muscles wind into painful, guilty knots, connected to Nova. I think of Roy and what Trace did to his girlfriend, how he raped her. I have to get her out of here. Now. She should never have been here to begin with. I should never have let her into my life like this. What the hell was I thinking?

I hurry around the front of the car, startling Nova by how quickly I arrive on the other side, right in front of her. I grab her arms roughly and yank her to me, our bodies crashing together. “Please, if you care about me at all, you’ll get in the car and drive away. Right now,” I whisper in her ear.

She clutches my arm and I can hear how fast her heart is beating. “What’s that guy going to do you?”

“Nothing,” I say, lying to her and myself. “He’s just here to get Trace’s money.”

“But do you have it?”

“Part of it,” I say, which is the truth. Tristan and I have managed to collect half of what we owe Trace.

“Is that enough for him to leave you alone?”

“Yeah, for a little while,” I lie, but it’s the right thing to do, because if I don’t lie she’s not going to leave. I hear the sound of Donny’s boots crunching close behind us and I know he’s getting closer. “Just get in the car.” I kiss her cheek, pleading. “And go home.”

She holds her breath for a moment and then nods. I relax as she pulls away and turns for the door, but then I feel the presence of Donny behind me and I immediately tense. Just having someone like him so close to Nova is enough to make me feel like I’m going to lose it.

“You need to go inside,” Donny says from right behind me. “Trace wants to talk to you. He’s up in your apartment with your lovely little friend that got you into this mess.”

Nova’s eyes dart over my shoulder and widen. I quickly turn around and step in front of her, blocking her from his view. “I’m headed up there now.” I glance over my shoulder and tell Nova, “Go.”

“No, you should bring the girl,” Donny says. He purposefully moves the bottom of his shirt up a little and I see something tucked in the front of his pants, sparkling silver. A gun. He’s got a f**king gun and he wants Nova to come with us.

It hits me all at once. Hard. The entire situation—how much bigger this is than I realized. And Nova is here to witness it. Just the idea of something happening to her nearly crushes the air out of my chest. I don’t even want to think about it—can’t think about it. Yet images press their way into my head, like shrapnel. I can picture myself back on the side of the road, lying beside Lexi, covered in her blood, only it’s not Lexi’s eyes staring up at me, but Nova’s bluish-green ones. And again I’m the one who hurt the girl I love…shit, it that what this means? Does this fear of losing Nova mean that I love her? The revelation makes me hate myself more than I already did. Hate myself for being here. For allowing myself to feel this way toward another girl. God dammit, why did I let myself keep breathing, keep living, feeling, loving? Lexi’s dead and I might be falling in love with someone? This is how I repay her for crashing the car that night and killing her? I break my promise to her and forget her enough that I let myself feel love for Nova? I let Nova take her place?

I’m so angry at myself that I almost forget the situation until Trace’s guy rams the tire iron against Nova’s beautiful car, scraping the cherry-red paint.

“Get in the f**king house!” he shouts, his calm demeanor suddenly gone, uncontrollable rage in his eyes.

I shove all my feelings aside and sober right up. I’m very aware of Nova’s presence. Very aware that everything I do for the next few minutes is going to matter, unlike the last few years of my life. But once I fix this—get her out of here—everything can be over and nothing can matter again.

“I’m going in the house,” I tell him calmly, folding my fingers inward and digging my fingernails into my palms as I glance down at the gun. If I have to, I’ll go for him, if it means she’ll have time to get away. “But she’s going to leave.”

He laughs at me. “Like hell she is.” He steps forward and reaches to my side, trying to get to Nova, and I don’t even think. I just smack his hand out of the way. His eyes flicker with fury and his hand starts to lift, not in my direction, but in Nova’s. He’s going to hit Nova and it’s going to be all my f**king fault. I’m going to destroy the girl I love again. I’m such a f**king screw-up again.

I need to do something to get her away from this. I rack my brain, looking for an answer. I remember how he took the drugs out of my pocket and I see the rings of red around his nostrils that are rings of gold at the moment. I could bribe this guy with drugs, but I doubt what I have in my room’s going to make him happy.

I need something bigger.

Something that will make him forget about everything, even if it’s for a minute or two, enough time for Nova to get away.

“I know where Dylan keeps his stash and he has a couple of ounces and if you let her go, I’ll show you where it is,” I blurt out, which is a total lie, but it’s all I can think of at the moment. It’s a viable lie, too. Dylan’s a dealer and he has a large stash—somewhere. But I have no clue where he keeps it, whether it’s even in the house or how much he has. It doesn’t matter, though. All I’m looking for is getting him away from Nova and then letting whatever’s going to happen happen. Let him beat me. Hurt me. Kill me. I don’t care, just as long as I know she’s safe.

The guy pauses, the tire iron still lifted. “How do I know you’re not full of shit?”

I shrug, pretending to be calm, despite the panic inside me. “You’ll just have to come with me and see. If I’m lying, then you’ll still get to kick my ass, like you were planning on anyway.” Just let her go. Please just let her go. “But if I’m not, then you could have the stash for yourself. No one would have to know.” It’s like tempting a dog with a bone. As a drug addict, I understand that the need—want—is more powerful than anything else.

The guy seems wary, but then gives in, lowering the tire iron. “Let’s go then,” he says and starts toward the house, all the anger leaving his body. Part of me thinks he was only going after Nova to f**k with my head. Still, she’s free to go and that’s all that matters.

I start to follow him, but Nova grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Quinton, don’t go,” she says. I don’t even look at her, shaking her hand off me and moving forward. But she relentlessly enfolds my arm again.

I shoot her a cold look from over my shoulder, knowing that the only thing that matters at the moment is getting her into the car. “Get in your car and go.” My voice is low.

Her eyes are filled with horror. “Quinton, I—”

“Get in your f**king car and go, Nova!” I shout venomously. “Leave, like I’ve been telling you to do from the start!”

She starts to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks, and I want to comfort her, but I know it’ll make things worse if I do.

“I’ll be fine,” I say in a low voice. “I’m going to go pay this guy back and then everything’s going to be fine.” I feel like such a dick for lying to her, but I’m doing what I have to to get her away from this.

“But how will I know if you’re okay?” she asks, glancing at the guy.

“I still have your number and I’ll call you later,” I tell her, touching my back pocket, where the piece of paper with the phone number on it rests inside my wallet. “I promise.” Another lie, but I don’t feel bad because I can see in her eyes that it works.

She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the mouth. I barely kiss her back, even though I desperately want to. But I make myself hold on to the image of Lexi, like I should have been doing the entire time—make myself suffer for loving Nova and putting her into this mess.

Everything is all my fault.

“This is all your fault,” Ryder’s dad says to me while her mother sobs in the background. “Dammit, you shouldn’t have been driving that car so damn fast.”

My dad stands in the background, watching him yell at me, letting him vent, because everything he says is right. It is my fault. I was driving too fast. “Why couldn’t you have just driven slower?” he asks, and then he starts to cry, sorrow haunting his face, and even though I want to cry, I don’t because I don’t deserve to. I don’t get to hurt like they’re hurting, because I put the hurt there.

I caused this.

As Nova drives away, I feel strangely calm, sedated, dead inside. I turn to Donny, who’s waiting for me just a few strides away. I could run, out into the desert or down the street. But then I’d be bailing out on Tristan. I’ve already f**ked up on paying Lexi back for killing her, the last thing I need to do is f**k up on paying Ryder back.

So I follow Donny upstairs, listening to him ramble about what he’ll do if I mess this up. Maybe if I weren’t crashing so badly, I’d feel the pain of what lies ahead for me a little bit more. I’m only half focused on it, the need to get a hit or two taking up the other part of my mind. But when I step inside the apartment, reality sort of just crashes over me, like a violent waterfall. The entire place is trashed, even more than it normally is. There’s broken glass all over the floor, holes in the walls, the table in the kitchen has been tipped over, along with the sofas, like someone went on a rampage.

I can also hear loud crying in one of the back rooms and a lot of banging. It sounds like someone is being tortured.

I glance at Donny, who’s still got his tire iron out. “Where’s Tristan?”

A sly grin curves up on his face. “I’ll tell you just as soon as you show me where the drugs are.”

More violent water crashes over me because I think they’ve already done something to Tristan. The water’s about to push me down, bury me alive. Yet I somehow keep walking, keep breathing, keep living this piece-of-shit life.