Chapter 18 - Nova
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“I'm so grateful you came, Nova. I know it was to keep Mother at bay, but I really appreciate it. She's so suffocating. We don't even want half of the things she's suggesting. She booked a horse, Nova, a horse! What the hell are we meant to do with a horse at cocktail hour?”
The strain in Lizzy's voice is evident as she explains how overbearing our mother has been. It's a weird thing to accept your place in a family as the black sheep, but it's more than that. She physically won't be in the same room as me, so when Lizzy said Mother was coming to stay with her for two months and it was a non-negotiable, I was happy to step in and be the reason that it couldn't happen.
I've been here almost a week and everything has run smoothly. No big outings, home-cooked meals and unlimited time with my sister. Phillip is here too but he just fades into the background. I wish Ace was here though. It's my first trip away without him and despite it being to see my sister, I feel grounded when he's with me. I still managed to accomplish it all with only one mild panic attack. Something that I spent alot of time in therapy to try and get on top of. Coping strategies, EMDR and meditation are just a few of the things that have left me feeling somewhat normal as I navigate day-to-day life. I'm barely triggered these days but I saw the same car that my uncle had while driving on the highway. It set me off for a short while but I managed to pull over and calm my breathing until it was just a blip in the background.
“I'm always happy to come and see you both,”
I say, reaching across the kitchen island and holding onto her hand. “I’m glad we’re able to do this at all because if she had her way we never would've reconnected.”
Her eyes shine with unspilt tears and I know everything that happened affected Lizzy as well. It wasn't just me who was held captive all those years. Our experiences might have been different but we were both still trapped.
“I’ll never forgive her for that, you know. She knows not to push me on the topic but everything else is fair game as far as she's concerned. How she could ever think you would do that ... with him of all people. He groomed you, Nova. I’m so sorry I never did anything to stop him.”
Her words are broken as the guilt she feels for something she had no control of, spills over.
“You were a kid Liz. We were so sheltered that someone else should have seen it. We weren't to know what he was doing and the havoc it would cause. That it did cause. It's not your fault,”
I say, closing the distance between us and wrapping her in a hug.
Lizzy and I are polar opposites in every way. She's tall, I’m short. My hair is light, while hers is black. Her confidence is unwavering, whereas mine is a performance I have mastered so well, that I sometimes forget it's merely a mask I wear for everyone else. Everyone else but Ace.
He seems to be this grounding force, and I'm so scared that if I act on these feelings with him, all the ways I'm still broken will push him away. Some days I want him so badly that I'm almost prepared to throw it all to the universe and just climb him like a ladder and kiss the hell out of him. But then, as usual, reality comes crashing down and my insecurities spill over.
I don’t know how to kiss, I don’t even know if I understand what kissing someone feels like. The only example of it was cruel and violent. And then there's every other thing I had to endure, waiting in the shadows ready to jump out when I least expect it. I don’t know if I will be triggered if I try something and I don’t know if it will change everything about our relationship. I’m unsure how to take the next step with him, without ruining everything, and to be honest, I'm not sure he even wants to.
I think he likes me?
He looks after me, dances with me when we’re being silly and makes me breakfast so he doesn't have to force himself through my cooking.
He is everything I want in a person, but also he's more. He's patient, he's protective ... he's kind. He lets me feel like a normal woman who hasn't been tainted by the evils that lurk out there. He lets me be unequivocally me, and I love him for that.