Chapter 18 Nova
NOVA
GET OUT AND GO
My feet bounce with nerves, and anticipation leaves me with a stomach in turmoil. Neither of which are sensations I particularly enjoy. But I wait outside the bank at the fifteen-minute mark, my purse straps slung over one arm and my back pressed to the brick wall.
Fifteen minutes, though Lincoln said he’d be ten.
Or maybe I mentioned ten, expecting him to drop everything and meet my demands.
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and moisten it, even as a gusty breeze flitters along Main Street and dries it out again immediately after.
Just when I’m tempted to tap my nails against the bank’s exterior and risk destroying them, Lincoln barrels into an empty parking slot in his rental and cuts the engine with a sharp wrench of his keys.
Unsnapping his belt—like he knows if he doesn’t hurry, I might lose my nerve and run away—he slides out of the car and slams the door in the time I take to inhale just once.
Stalking my way, he tugs me in, his hand on the back of my head, and my face slamming into his chest. His shirt mops up my tears, and his hug hides the sound of my hitching breath.
“Sorry.” He rubs my back in slow, soothing circles, his lips hovering by my ear. “I hurried. I’m sorry I took longer than I meant to.”
“It’s okay.” I won’t cry. I won’t panic. I refuse to lose my shit and look more like a fool than I already am. Instead, I inhale the scent of his aftershave, and with it, the tang of motor oil I love so much. “I’m not gonna cry.”
Chuckling, he leans back and swipes the pads of his thumbs beneath my eyes to mop up my teary mess. “Okay.”
“No, really.” I set my hands on his stomach and nudge him back just far enough that I can stand on my own two feet. Then I broaden my shoulders and lift my chin. Pretending to be proud, in my experience, comes with a hundred percent success rate of looking the part.
Sort of.
Not really.
“People will start avoiding me soon if I don’t stop this craziness.
” Curiosity battles with dread, but I turn toward the lawyer’s office and watch the sidewalk as we move.
“I’ll become that weird lady who makes people uncomfortable.
Eventually, everyone will stop inviting me places, and then they’ll cross the street if they see me coming.
I’ll go down in history as that weird, scary, old spinster who terrifies children. ”
“You’re allowed to be emotional.” He extends his hand, palm side up.
But he doesn’t force our connection. He doesn’t snatch my hand like some others might.
He simply waits. When I accept, twining our fingers together, the worry in his eyes softens to something much nicer.
“You’ve just gone through the most traumatic event of your life. ”
“Which is why you won’t sleep with me.” I snicker. “Seems so odd that I’m the one grieving, and you won’t make me happy when I ask.”
“Seems so odd that you annoy the shit out of me with that nonsense, and I don’t just do the damn thing I wanna do,” he tosses right back, his jaw clenching. “I assure you, Nova Nichols. I want to. I’m just trying really fucking hard not to make things worse.”
“Uh-huh.” I cuddle into his arm, if only to hide my watery smile. “I’ve heard this before.”
“Never in the history of ever have I tried so hard not to get laid,” he groans. “My denial is like a disease eating away at my bones. Every time I say no, I grow weaker.”
“Sounds like we know the cure, then.” I tug him left and push the legal office doors open, stepping into air-conditioned cool and a lobby that clearly represents the oodles of money these people make from grieving clients.
A water feature. A standing desk. Abercrombie and Aberdeen in giant lettering on a sparkling white wall.
I keep hold of Lincoln’s hand, but I steer us toward the desk and smile at the woman on the other side. “Nova Nichols. I’m here to see Jodie.”
“Of course.” She doesn’t even make us sit and wait.
Striding to the end of her long desk and gesturing for us to follow, she stalks along a wide hallway in a skirt suit with a dangerously high split in the back and high heels not all that different from the kind I wore out two nights ago.
“Ms. Aberdeen is finishing up a meeting right now. But she said to let you into the boardroom, where you’ll find your belongings.
” Stopping at a door with a number three prominently displayed in gold, she slips a key into the lock and pushes the heavy wood open.
Finally, she steps out of the way and gestures us inside.
“I placed your belongings in here personally, Ms. Nichols, approximately twenty minutes ago. After which point, I locked the door. No one has come in or out in all that time.”
“Okay.” I attempt to ignore the box on the table in the middle of the room, though it may as well be a giant neon sign with confetti cannons on the side and creepy doll music piping from hidden speakers.
Ignoring it is impossible.
“It’s all yours now.” Smiling and backing away, Tegan’s gaze flickers from me to Lincoln.
“The room is yours until you’re done. Open your parcel here, if you wish, or take it away.
It’s entirely up to you.” Closing the door, she flips the locks, the ominous click-clack bouncing through a room that could send a person into a spiral of claustrophobia if they’re not careful.
Lincoln releases my hand and wanders across to the table. “Are you going to open it?” He doesn’t touch the box. He doesn’t so much as breathe on it. Instead, he stands tall, then crouches, leans one way, and then another.
“It’s a brown box.” I set my purse on the floor by the door and link my fingers together behind my back.
Like Lincoln, I suppose, I’m not quite brave enough to touch it yet.
“A foot tall,” I guesstimate. “A foot deep. The same, wide.” I nibble on the inside of my cheek and look from the box to the man who towers over it. “What do you think it could be?”
“I have literally no clue.” He straightens again and frowns. “I hope it’s not a human head.”
I purse my lips. “Really?”
He chokes out a soft laugh. “I’m sorry. This is really fucking stressful, Nova! Just open it. Put yourself out of misery.”
“What if it’s something dumb like a football or a pile of magazines or a box of rocks, all so he could annoy me one last time?
” I amble closer and pull out the chair at the head of the table.
I don’t sit—yet—but I may need to, so I prepare for a soft landing.
“What if it’s silly, so then I’ll feel like an idiot for hoping for something more meaningful? ”
“Then he’ll have provided you with one last moment of silliness. Doing his brotherly duty, even after he passed.”
“And what if it’s not silly? What if it’s a letter that says a million wonderful things that’ll haunt me for the rest of my life? Like how he loved me and lived to protect me. Maybe it’ll say how he’s so horribly sorry he’s gone, and that if he could change things, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Is that not what you wish for, too?” He comes to a stop on my left, his aftershave a merciful reprieve from the clamp squeezing my lungs closed.
But when I remain facing the box, he takes my arms and forces me around, warming my skin with his stroking palms. “You wish everything was different, Nova. You wish he were here. How does a letter saying that change anything?”
“Because it can’t be changed.” Tears well in my eyes, blurring my vision and leaving me weak.
“Because there’s an understanding, right?
About how, once we die, we’re in a better place.
We feel peace, and nothing hurts, and blah blah blah.
But if he wrote about how he’s supposed to still be here, how he’s mad and sad and feels ripped off, because it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, then that imagined peace is out the window.
Which just leaves him, where? On the side of the fricken road, dead and bleeding and sad and not accepting that this happened to him.
Peace implies Heaven, but non-acceptance means he’s stuck in purgatory. ”
He rubs my arms, harder now, creating friction as tears stream down my cheeks.
“If he must be gone, then the least I can hope for is that he’s at peace.
Whatever’s in that box might shatter that illusion, and it’s the illusion that helps me get through another day.
Because he’s not just my brother, Linc. He’s my twin.
He’s my other half.” I exhale a shuddering breath.
“Mere mortals can’t live with only half of themselves. ”
“Hey.” He drags me in and wraps his arms around my back, crushing me against his chest and sliding his hand into my hair. “Come on, baby. Take a breath.”
“Death comes for everybody. But when it’s not fair, it’s just…
” I try to shake my head. “It’s not fair!
And those left behind are forced to process that horrible reality.
But there’s just me,” I sob. “I’m the only one left.
So, I have to carry it alone, and I’m not even a whole person, Linc.
I’m half a person, carrying a load others would crumble under. ”
“Because you’re brave.” He presses a kiss to the crown of my head.
“Because you’re strong.” Another. “Because you’re whole, amazing, and beautiful, Nova.
” He cups my face in his hands and squeezes until my cheeks push into my vision.
“You’re not a half, babe. You’re whole. And he was whole.
And together, you made something really special.
That doesn’t mean your loss is any less, or that your heart isn’t aching, or that your pain isn’t real.
But he wouldn’t wish half-ness on you, any more than you’d wish it upon him if the tables were turned. ”
“But—”