Page 68 of Searching for Nova

“Well, for one, you don’t have scrawny kid arms anymore.” She laughs. “You were so skinny back then.”

“I was growing. It was hard to eat enough to keep up with how fast I was growing.”

“You did grow a lot that year. You passed me in height.”

“Which pissed you off.”

She looks back at me, smiling. “I still beat you up for taking my tanker truck.”

“Which was technically mine.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. That lady from church gave it to me.”

“Oh. Shit. That’s right.” She turns back to the front, leaning her head back on my chest. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve forgiven you.” I lean down and kiss her forehead. As soon as I do it, I realize it’s something a boyfriend would do. I guess a friend could too, but it didn’t feel like a friend move. It felt like we were dating. Shit. I hope that didn’t scare her off. She’s not saying anything, but she’s not getting up either.

“What do you think of that one?” She points straight ahead to a sculpture that doesn’t really look like anything. It’s just overlapping pieces of metal.

“It’s not my favorite.”

“I kind of like it.”

“Why?”

“Because you can make it be whatever you want.”

“I think that’s why I don’t like it. I like it when things make sense.”

“That must be hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wanting things to make sense? Hardly anything makes sense.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah it is.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“No. Tell me. What doesn’t make sense?”

She sighs. “My life. Having to live with Ted. Having a guy say he likes me when he really doesn’t.”

“What guy? Who are you talking about?”

She gazes down at the circular sculpture. “Mateo.”

I wait for her to tell me more, thinking she might finally be ready to open up to me about what happened tonight. I’m guessing it has to do with this Mateo guy. “What did he do?”

Even before she tells me, I already want to kill him. Was he the reason she was crying tonight? He’s going to be crying too after I punch his fucking face in.

“He didn’t do anything,” she says in a quiet voice. “We had an agreement. I just didn’t want to keep doing it. So he ended it.”

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