Nova followed Mr Cartwright into his office.

Mr. Cartwright was old but not so old that he worried anyone when he made decisions. He had been the schools counsellor for many years and probably would never retire unless the school board forced him. He had thin white wispy hair, he drank peppermint tea and his wife had the biggest Mickey Mouse merchandise collection in North America; not that he knew anyone knew. Nova on the other hans always thought of it every time she saw him.

"How's your first morning back been?" He introduced the conversation gently.

His office was bright, soft pastels with two high windows that looked across the football ground. Nova could see the team doing training through the thin shutters, up and down, students ran drills, carrying their shoulders as though their heads were too heavy. "First mornings are always the hardest. It's like the gym - getting there is the worst part."

Nova cast her eyes across the plethora of mismatched, framed certificates hung from the wall behind his balding head. A bulletin board of college posters, singing praise of local universities and the scholarships they offer. Some sang cliche lines promoting mental health. Motivational quotes meant to inspire change.

'Storms don't last forever' printed on a stock photo of a grey, rippling ocean.

'Pray to have eyes to see God's hand in your life and in the world around you'

'Feeling overwhelmed? Mosiah 4:27'
'Angry? 3 Nephi 12:24.'

"Nova?"

Nova snapped her eyes back down to Mr Cartwright. He had his fingers laced together, gazing at her curiously. She peered through bloodshot, crystal blue eyes at the hot steam swirling out of his mug. The small, faded face of a familiar Star Wars Character printed on the side stared back at her with it's hands together. Yoda Best Mormon.

"Unpleasant." Nova forced a fake smile.

Nova knew this conversation was coming. It was written all over his face that he was hesitating the jaded script he knew off by heart.

"That's perfectly normal... perhaps a slow start is best, but you'll be back to a routine in no time. Are you going to run track again this year?" He grinned. The faint sound of a shrill whistle drew her eyes back to the field outside. It was a bright morning. The sun cut across the grass, glistening and gyrating under the last of what summer offered.

Nova nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat when he sharply turned the mug to face towards himself. She knew it was his job to push her towards good things. It wasn't his job to be her therapist or to actually, truly care. It was all numbers. Statistics. His job description.

"That's good. I'm sure this year will be blessed."

"I hope so." Nova sank a little deeper into her chair, chewing the inside of her lip. Her ass was starting to get numb from the wood already.

"Look. We know about your problems with attendance last year and we completely understand that this year may look somewhat similar in that sense. The thing that you're dealing with isn't normal for a girl you're age and we understand that here."

Nova watched his hands fumble with his mug. 'normal?' So much for the mental health awareness grey ocean bullshit.

Nova wondered if things ever got easier, or whether people just learned to deal with them so others coild t see. She wondered whether the counsellor of thirty years would ever get his words right. Whether he had ever lost someone like this. Because everyone acted like they hadn't. Like the feeling was so far away to them.

They could barely look at it, only acknowledge it for a moment. Nova kept experiencing transcendent moments of clarity that no-one was really, ever truly present. The mind was almost always away. When it returned for a moment, it looked around the room and wondered whether anyone understood. Like, really, truly understood.

"But this is your senior year, and its imperative that you do attend your classes and you pass your finals. We want to see you go off to college and I'm sure Isla would too..."

"I understand." Nova agreed, just wanting the conversation to be over. Her mothers name stung, it was a flavour she had grown to hate.

"If something comes up and your family needs you, just do what you did last year and keep us updated. There are also things in place for you if you ever need someone to talk to or discuss how you feel with. If you want a place to come, just use the lounge next door, no-one ever goes in there, only at lunch sometimes, but it's open to you during any period. If you think about skipping, come talk to me first, maybe we can put you up in there to do your work?"

"Thank you, sir. But that won't be necessary." Nova muttered. She chewed aimlessly at the side of her long broken nails, each one more misshaped than the last.

"Have you thought about college next year?" He wondered politely, opening an empty folder slowly on the desk only to gently close it. Clearly the morning lessons didn't apply to her either of them.

Nova had thought about College but not for a while. "I'd still like to go to New York."

"Anywhere in mind?"

"A few." She brushed off. Thankful, Nova knew he had realised and chose to drop the topic. After all it was the student guidance counsellors job to shove college application preparation down seniors throats all year. She wondered where he was in his mind right now.

"If you ever need anything, Nova. You know where me and Ursula are." He said more seriously, referring to himself out of the confines of the school. To him and his cracked out Disney wife. "It's not easy to lose a mother so young."

"Thank you." Nova twisted her palms round the outside of the chair, sweating in her zip up wool lined jacket from the excessive radiators. "I should get to class. Thank you for being understanding."

"Wait." He cleared his throat. "I've taken the liberty of changing your timetable slightly, there's some free periods at the end of the day so you can leave a bit early, ok? Just don't let your friends catch wind. And I've set you up with Coach today at 2pm. He knows about everything. Just go- try... and see if we can put you down for Track & Field this year. If not, we'll check back next week."

"I understand." Nova smiled, grateful for the special treatment.

...

"First day back is always so tiring." Ren dragged her feet through the gravel as they left school, her books slung loose against her lower stomach.

The day had gone slow, and Nova had spent most of the day disassociating out the window, stressed about running until she actually came to it. The whole day she fought with her strength to make it to the field, and the small buzz at the back of her chest was enough to make her feel a bit better about the coming year. The old Nova was still in there.

Making the track team had been more of a challenge that year than expected. Running was both exercise and solace to Nova but had deteriorated much like her other passions had since her mothers death. She just made the class by the skin of her teeth, and partially out of pity she suspected.

It was fortunate that skill ran deep through her bones, because Nova had not ran a second during that Summer. In fact, it was the most she had ever sat still in her whole life. Coach had already decided to let her back in the class before she'd arrived. There was no way they were going to tell the girl with the dead mum 'no'.

Nova had several friends, but the most significant in her life were Tia and Ren. They had been friends their whole lives, but Nova and Ren had always been closer.

Tia had so many friends in so many different social corners, but she always circled back to their trio at the end of the day like a safety blanket. Tia was book smart, popular and found it hard to be alone. She was always on the phone, face-time, or talking to someone. She had to sleep with headphones on, asmr of people talking or she'd stir all night. Her favourite snacks had to be mint based and she always had to know the songs on every new album she liked the day they came out. Tia was nice, just not very kind.

Ren on the other hand liked her peace and quiet. She had always drank 6 coffees a day and wanted to get the lift over the stairs any day. She loved Frank Ocean and never missed a day of school, even if that meant being late because she had to do her makeup again. She liked to throw her toys out of the prom once a month, and definitely didn't understand how to process her emotions. Ren was like Nova, not from money and a broken home. Ren was kind, just not very nice.

Over the summer it seemed as though Anthony had wound his way into their small circle through compatibility.

Anthony was somewhere between popular and outcast. He wasn't your typical senior lad, he didn't care about social media, he didn't have a passion for anything in particular, he didn't even really chase after girls. Anthony wasn't exceptional at school but he wasn't awful either. He rarely showed up, but he always passed his classes. And yet, he was always present somewhere in some sort of chaos. Chaos followed him everywhere. It always had.

Ever since Anthony was a kid, people looked down on his family. A lot of the reasons were fuelled by fear, or pity, or a gratefulness that their lives hadn't played out the same way. Anthony had done what he could to get by, and was forced to grow up too young. Each mistake he made weighed heavily on his conscious. He was someone who needed Mr Cartwright more than anyone else.

"Can we go get an espresso martini or something?" Ren was still complaining as they approached Tia's car.

"And where do you suppose we're gonna get served round these parts then?" Tia swung open her car door, peering down at her short friends. "You also have never had an espresso martini... you're 17... you been watching too much Sex and the City again?"

"You don't need to a bitch all the time." Ren glared, her heart racing from embarrassment that Tia was right. She also, sometimes, struggled to take a joke.

"Hey!" Anthony interrupted them before they could all talk.

"No room in the car." Tia fired immediately.

"Yeah maybe if your fat ass was in the back seat. Good job I'm going in there." He threw his bag in before anyone could argue. Nova was discretely quite pleased. He tended to separate their incessant bitching at one another and bring them all back down to earth.

"I've seen your cousin has been held back a year." Tia didn't beat around the bush, looking him up and down with a twinge of judgement. "Can't even pass Junior year can he, thought daddy was a doctor?"

Anthony's entire demeanour changed, he went from bubbly to stoic in less than a second.

He looked at Tia with an annoyed glare at her words. He gazed at the three girls staring up at him, all equally curious for different reasons.  Nova recalled her encounter with him earlier that day. Irrelevant until that moment, but she had heard whispers all day. Tia had brought it up three times, but no-one could give a straight answer. The popular girls had already latched attention onto him, and it was clear he could feel the pressure from his anxious demeanour at lunch. He just sat with the football boys, but sat opposite end to Anthony.

""Harry?" Anthony sighed. "Yeah... I know."

"You ever gonna tell us why he was off school last year? Or is it still a big mystery that means he has to resit an entire year." Tia wanted to know so bad. Secrets held weight at school, and passing them round was one of the highest payments for chaotic irrationality.

"Sometimes, Tia. People's lives happen, and they have to resit." He explained bluntly. "Like Jace Janet... he's like... 23 now and still can't pass final year."

"What happened?" Nova asked quickly, interrupting his unnecessary piece of information.

Ant began to get irritated, it was clear. He put his hands up, feigning ignorance at the situation. But the girls could see right through it. "- I don't even know the full story... our parents don't really talk."

"Aren't your dad's brothers?" Ren said as though the notion of communication was so simple. The car park was beginning to fill up with other students, and Anthony could see the queue out onto the road was getting larger. He started tapping his foot in annoyance.

"Yeah and his dad's a rich Doctor and mine's a dead junkie... so. "Shall we go? I'm fucking starving. I need a nap and a joint."

Anthony slammed the door of Tia's car after climbing inside in a strop.

...

"There's some waitressing jobs going at the clubhouse."

The solid lump of lasagne slipped onto her plate with a loud splash. Nova grimaced, poking the cheese coated top that was a bleak charcoal colour with her fork. Maggie's face was symmetrical to her sisters, ripping off a piece of garlic bread instead. Much to their fathers dismay, they both looked at him with disgusted expressions.

"What makes you think I'll be any good at cooking if this is what I have to look up to?" Nova said through raised eyebrows at Joel, who was hovering with his own dish of dismantled pasta. A similar expression on his own face. The lasagne had been overcooked, having been forgotten while he paid attention to finishing the  housework.

"You'd be a waitress for the events. They need staff at the weekends too. Aint nobody wants you to cook." He explained, taking a seat opposite the pair of them on his normal chair. His own dinner in front of him was neither appetising or edible. Nova and her sister shot each other an ironic look at his statement about her cooking.

"I don't want to work for uptight rats serving lobster and truffle jam to rich assholes all day." Nova flicked a piece of soggy onion that was hanging out the foundations of her dinner. With a roll of her eyes, she sat back in her chair. Peering at her sister who was still staring longingly at the burnt food on her plate. Refusing to touch it. "Maggie had her first school shooting drill today on her first day."

Maggie's head pulled up but her shoulders stayed shrunken. She was extremely deflated after her first day. Exhausted from socialising and taking so much information in. Joel dug his fork into the corner of his dinner, grumbling something under his breath before speaking. "Suppose after that one in Parkland they're worried."

Nova stared at her sisters weary expression. "They do drills every year. But... This year was a lot more serious than last year."

"We had to hide under the tables..." Maggie couldn't of looked any more put off by her food. Joel poked at his own horrific creation, sighing loudly when he realised neither of them were going to eat it. Even Stormy was relaxing in her bed, sleeping through the stench of dinner.

"Don't worry, darling. Aint nobody round here got it in 'em to do that."

"You don't know that." Nova shrugged and Joel looked at her with fury in his eye. "Don't lie to her-"

"Nova." Joel chastised. They both awkwardly looked back at Maggie who was gawping at them both. "You're gonna be fine sweetheart. Let's not talk about this."

"You have to look for the signs anyway." Nova explained slowly, dangling a chunk of soggy pasta off her fork. "No point getting painkillers when you can prevent the headache."

"I think it's a little more complex than a headache..." Maggie uttered, looking back down to the middle of the table.

"Biggest school shooting in America since Columbine. 17 dead..." Nova carried on. Joel looked at her with annoyance, his tongue in his cheek. "Just what the news said..."

"What's Columbine?" Maggie asked innocently, not sure if she pronounced it properly.

"Nothing." Joel growled, turning his attention to Nova. "Nova, I put your name down for that job and I spoke to the owner, he's giving you your first shift Saturday." Joel suddenly burst from his seat, grabbing Maggie's untouched plate to drop on top of his.

"What! Why?" Nova slammed her fist against the table, still clutching her fork. "I'm going to Anthony's in Friday. I plan on being social, you know, like you've asked me to do?"

"Because you're eighteen, Nova. You need a goddamn job. You can also go to your friends Friday and still work a shift. It ain't rocket science." Joel said loudly, his voice booming over hers. "It'll be good for you. You can start saving up some money for college." He paused for a moment with his back to the girls. "We all have to keep going. We can't just let this feeling win and dictate power over our failures. Isla would want you to do that job, go to College. Have a normal life."

"I'm not going to College..." Nova mumbled angrily, looking away from him in disbelief. "I'm not doing it. You can't make me."

"All you have to do is serve tables and help clean up." Joel told her seriously. "There's loads of nice folk that work at the club and it's only now and then so you can still see your friends. You're going. You aint spoilt."

Nova groaned loudly into her hands. "This is a sick joke." Dramatically slamming her cutlery down before dropping her forehead into the dead space in front of her.

"If you shut your mouth and take the job I'll order us a Chinese."

Maggie looked at her sister with pleading eyes. "I don't have much choice do I?"