Page 23 of Searching for Nova

“I’m looking for Nova,” I say to the waitress cleaning tables.

“I think she’s in the back.”

“I’m right here,” Nova says, racing up to me.

I instantly smile when I see her. I still can’t believe it’s really her. That she’s standing right in front me.

“Could we go outside a minute?” she asks.

I already know what she’s going to say. She’s going to try to back out of our date. I know it’s not a date, but whatever it is, she’s going to tell me she can’t do it, or changed her mind.

We go out the door to the crumbling sidewalk just outside the diner.

“You’re cancelling on me,” I say.

She looks away. “It’s just that I have a lot to do when I get home and—”

“Sorry, but no.”

“What?” she says, confused.

“I don’t accept you cancelling. I had to rearrange my entire day to make this happen. I’m not leaving.”

“You rearranged your day?” she asks in a skeptical tone. “What did you rearrange?”

“Everything. I don’t have much free time. My school assigns a lot of homework, so there’s that, and then I spend an hour or two at the gym.”

Her gaze drops to my body, then snaps back to my face. “Why do you work out so much?”

“Because I have to. I’m just saying, I have a lot going on.”

“If you’re that busy, we should skip this. I don’t want to take up all your time.”

I set my hands on her shoulders and look in her eyes. “You’re not getting it. I rearranged my schedule because I wanted to, because I wanted to see you. I don’t care what we do or where we go. I just want to spend time with you. So please, don’t cancel on me.”

She smiles a little. “I never said I was going to cancel.”

I take a step back. “You were.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.”

“You knew me when we were five. You don’t know me now.”

“Maybe not, but if I had to guess, I’d say you’re still stubborn as hell and that you still run when you’re scared.”

“I never ran away,” she says, defensively. “Sometimes I felt like I wanted to, but I never did.”

“That’s not the kind of running away I’m talking about.”

She stares back at me, like she’s not sure what I mean.

“Go get your stuff and let’s go.” I glance behind her at the diner. “Do I need to go in there with you? Make sure you don’t run off?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

When she comes back outside, I’m waiting by the Jeep. I go up to her to take her backpack.

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