Page 58 of Game Changer

At the top, I start down the long hall.

I find the room with the closed door. “Nova.”

There’s no answer.

“Come on, I know you’re in there.”

Still nothing.

I reach for the handle and push the door wide to find a bedroom. She’s nowhere in sight, but there’s a sketchpad on the desk. I flip it open.

On top is a drawing of me playing basketball.

Then another.

Another.

It’s a punch in the gut. Not only that she’s been drawing me with a wild intensity bordering on obsession, but that they’re drawn so intimately. In these drawings, there’s none of the hopelessness I feel.

I look up, scanning the room until my attention lands on a closed door.

A closet or bathroom.

“These drawings are really good,” I call through the door.

Maybe I can get her talking, to lower her defenses and tell me what the hell is going on.

There’s no answer.

I’m not used to getting the run around.

“Sure, I’m a little surprised I’m wearing clothes in these, but there must be another sketchpad somewhere…”

I hear the click of Nova unlocking the door.

Her face is at the crack, flushed.

She leans her temple against the door. “I’m not Mari. I’m not organized and put together. But I’m not a mess.”

“I know you’re not.”

Her eyes are tinged with red, and I want to hit whoever made her cry.

“For a long time after my parents died, I couldn’t draw. Starting up again was hard.”

“How’d it feel when you did?”

“Like home.” She blinks up at me, her lashes dark and damp.

I step closer, nudge the door open another inch. “Basketball used to feel like home for me. It doesn’t anymore.”

Her fingers tighten on the wood. “How does it feel?”

This, right here, is dangerous. I’m crossing a threshold I didn’t realize I was at. If I give words to the dark emotions colliding in my chest, I’ll unleash something I can’t put back.

“Like I’m drowning,” I say. “Like I’m seconds from sinking to the bottom of the ocean and all I can do is postpone the inevitable.”

Her blue eyes bore into mine so deeply I swear she can see everything I’m feeling.

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