This Chapter has themes surrounding mental health disorders, suicide, depression and grief.

"Hey."

Nova found Joel in the garage before dawn on Tuesday morning. He was wearing a frayed green flannel already rolled up to his elbows. Formerly worn as his Sunday best, now retired to wood work uniform. He looked exhausted. Three deep lines etched into his forehead, the skin under his eyes as grey as the flecks to his beard. Shoulders heavy from lack of sleep.

Truthfully, Nova had missed him when he was away. They found themselves cycling through distant and deeply intertwined periods, fuelled by wavering grief. He had been flooding his days with work. Physical graft to avoid his thoughts. To avoid his family.

He had taken each job offered to him, which since the passing of his wife, had increased through grace and the compassion of community. Joel had always been a skilled carpenter, even a locksmith for some. He knew how to work with his hands and earn his keep.

"You're up early." The soft bleating of an American Robin sat on the garage door echoed through the room. So quiet out, the sound of it's wings batting off dust from intertwined with the loop of it's song. Joel's voice was deep, gruff, overworked. Nova wondered if he'd even been to sleep since he returned late into the night.

"I couldn't sleep." Nova confessed. The mess in her room was becoming overwhelming. But it was the stagnancy of a perpetuating, undefinable imbalance swallowing her whole that really kept her up. "I see you're doing up the old boat."

The scent of a cigarette hit her nose before she saw the gentle smoke gyrating, beginning to dissipate from being stamped out only a moment prior. Joel was pretending he hadn't been having one, but Nova hadn't lost all sense.

It was 5:55am on the clock above the wood-bench desk.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. Nova tried to see Joel's facial expression through dim sight. The garage was only illuminated by a trivial, work bench lamp and the opaque glare of the street lights down their sloped drive.

She wondered if he had been crying. His voice hitched. "I figured... it would be good for you to have in the Spring. And it'll keep me busy over the Winter."

"It's not Winter yet." Nova stepped down from the pantry door step. Her bare feet hit the cold concrete and the shock raced up the back of her shins. She quickly moved over to Joel around the boat, keeping her wool blanket wrapped tightly to her chest.

Her feet landed on the edge of an old, woven carpet that had been in the garage so long it was practically embedded to the floor. She wriggled her toes, small specks of dirt and wood chips biting between her toes. There were four cigarette butts with their necks broken in a half sawed-off can.

"Have you slept since you got home?" Nova whispered.

"Barely." Sometimes, even after so long, Nova knew Joel struggled to look at her face. "I aint got no work on today, so I'll try again later. Don't worry about me doll, you just get yourself on back to bed."

Nova knew he'd been crying now. She could just tell. "It's decade day today. I think I'd like to stay home. Especially with my therapy session later." Nova confessed. Joel chewed the inside of his cheek. Hesitating another cigarette. "It's pep rallies and assemblies then the game. It's barely classes... I don't want to go."

Joel sighed. "You're gonna miss all this stuff and regret it one day."

"I'm going to Homecoming. On Friday."

"Are you?" Joel was shocked, mulling his head with an expression of disbelief. "Well, I'll be damned."

"And I just - couldn't sleep either." Nova was exhausted already. It was hard not slipping back into mechanisms that ran her isolation into full drive. One day off wasn't allowed to ask in the grand scheme of things. Joel would also be home, so she wouldn't be alone. "It'd be nice to try get my shit together before I have to speak to a stranger on zoom about all my problems."

"It's in person." Joel reminded her, shamelessly falling to the demand from his thoughts to light another cigarette.

"Is it?" Nova didn't know how that made her feel yet. She'd never sat face to face with anyone and genuinely spoke about her feelings. Especially not a Therapist.

"I'll drive you." Joel promised, whisking the smoke away as if it would hide what he was doing. "And yes - you can have today off. But that's it. No more skipping."

Nova felt a wave of relief wash over her.

"Thank God." She admitted out loud. When she hugged Joel, her fingers traced the rugged cotton of his over-shirt.

The subtle smell of his cologne enveloped her. The same scent her mother had fallen for. The same arms that had held her through her last years. Nova was eternally grateful for the place Joel had taken in her life. He was just an honest, southern soul who didn't realise what he had signed up for.

"Are you still wanting to go on this ski trip?" Joel held her close to him with his arms hooked at her back. The cigarette burning away, forgotten. "The one in Canada?"

Nova had forgotten about the senior ski trip. In actual fact, she had been avoiding the responsibility of making a decision. Tia was going. Ren was not. It would be a weekend of walking in Tia's shadow as she mingled with the popular girls. It meant pretending to be someone she was not.

"I hadn't thought about it." Nova knew she'd missed the deadline anyway.

"Well, I sent the cheque at the start of the year. The teacher called me yesterday. Cartwright. You know your- counsellor."

"He's not my counsellor." Nova softly laughed, amused at the motion that the man knew what to say ever. Their embrace slipped, and the cigarette found it's way back to Joel's mouth.

"He asked if you still wanna go." Joel smiled kindly, hidden by his gruff beard, she could still see his cheeks lift and his eyes glint. He knew he'd done a good deed. Nova knew deep down, he knew, she wanted to go. "So I said I'd check."

Nova took a deep breath and clutched her necklace pendant in one hand. Again, tightening the blanket to her body as she gazed out in the empty road. "I'll go."

Joel took a deep breath of his cigarette and pressed play on the radio.

Nova took the small triumph of a permitted school day skipped with purpose. The cat trilled when he was hoisted from his crater of socks. He stretched into the hallway, unbothered by her heaviness, unburdened by memory. His body a warm, vibrating complaint. Nova envied his inability to grieve.

Nova pieced her room up into sections to try and manage the mess, just as she did as a kid.

Section 1: Old clothes, dirty socks, dirty thongs, 3 empty mugs and a cereal bowl with dried Cinnamon Crunch stuck to the sides.

Section 2: The desk. The desk that she hadn't seen the surface of in three months. Loose change. Hair grips. Lip liner smears. Filter tips. Balls of hair ripped from brushes. Hair bobbles. An old toothbrush head. 18 different tops piled on the chair. Anything and every bit if small, tat that Nova didn't have a place for in her room - went on the growing pile that was her desk. A quiet monument to indecision. A purgatory of loose, random shit.

Section 3: Wardrobe. Overflowing. The sliding doors were forced open, jaws locked wide, incapable of closing. Old clothes that didn't fit anymore. A pile of washing so high it would be considered a hazard.

Section 5: This was the floor, covered in towels, empty incense packets and tampon wrappers. Cat hair and dust crammed into the carpet. Also more hair grips. More hair bobbles.

Nova took each part as gracefully and patiently with herself as she could. Her room was still laced with memories. Items that smelt like her. Felt like her. Were her. Are her. Nova just kept going. Fuelled by caffeine and determination. It was time. Old photos were scattered across the floor, faces frozen mid-laugh, mid-life. At the bottom of the pile on the desk chair lay her mother's clothes.

Nova felt the familiar swell of anger rise as she moved her sentimental items to organised homes, tucked away and out of sight. Angry that her mother was gone. Angry that the world had kept moving. Angry that part of her still wanted things: sunlight, clean sheets, a reason to leave the house. Another part of her wanted none of it. Wanted stillness. Oblivion. To be untouched by wanting at all. But instinct persisted, irritating and loyal. It nudged her forward, whispered that cleaning a room was not the same as moving on. It was just movement.

She picked up a sock. Then another.

Nova finished her room just as Joel came up for a sleep. He gazed across her room with a veiled expression of impression as he entered. The guilt from his decision to maintain her isolation from school subdued by the satisfaction that she wasn't sleeping in squalor any longer.

Her peace lily now stood tall and glistening on the stool he had built for her, leaves stretched and glossy as if it, too, approved. The carpet was clear, no clothes, no grit, no cat hair clinging stubbornly to the corners. The room breathed differently now. It no longer was choking.

Nova stood displayed in her room for a while, checking in circles if she missed anything. In her leopard print snood that was in dire need of a boil cycle, hair knotted in several places and cuticles bleeding from stress. Proud of her accomplishment, a dishevelled centre piece.

Joel's snores bled through the bedroom wall as the day wore on, a steady, unconscious sound that filled the house. Nova sat perched on the edge of her bed, hands idle in her lap, unsure what to do with herself once her room was tidy. There was a hollow that followed accomplishment. A space where purpose had been, now echoing. Empty.

She reached for her phone.

Ren and Tia had messaged.

Where are you?

You okay?

Nova stared at the screen for a moment, then placed the phone back down, face-first, as though hiding it might eliminate the expectation of a response. Explaining herself felt impossible.

Her skin began to itch, too tight against her bones, as though her body didn't quite belong to her anymore. Restlessness crept in, familiar and insistent. She pulled on her shoes and took herself outside.

Nova wandered down to the lake at the bottom of the house. It lay cradled by trees preparing to shed, their leaves already dulling, already letting go. She perched on the edge of the rocks and watched the water sit impossibly still. Every so often, a walleye would rise and kiss the surface, sending ripples outward, small disturbances that travelled farther than expected. On the opposite bank, a pelican stood alert among tall reeds waiting to be cut back, patient and unmoving.

She often wished she had grown up here.

Instead, there had been city apartments. Thin walls. Sirens. Her mother working back-to-back jobs, always exhausted, always promising that one day things would be different.

Nova felt the familiar stab of guilt that she got to live this life longer than her mother ever had. That she remained, while Isla didn't.

The whole reason they were here was Isla. Her mother had loved nature, loved the idea of settling somewhere quiet, somewhere small. This place had been her dream. Nova wondered if the land knew that. If it remembered who it had been meant for.

When Joel awoke, he maintained the promise and drove Nova to therapy. It was in a council building in the town centre. One she had walked past a thousand times but never bothered to read the sign. Joel waited in the diner opposite and took his book. Promising her he would wait the hour until she was done, and then they could order sushi for dinner.

Inside, the reception room was quiet, furnished with teal sofas and oversized monstera plants stretching toward the light. An elevator sat beside the front desk. Nova eyed it sceptically before scanning the room, checking faces out of habit, half-expecting to recognise someone. She didn't. That was a relief she hadn't anticipated.

"Hi. I'm here for a 3:30 meeting." Nova said, unsure how to actually say it.

The woman behind the desk smiled gently. "Do you know who you're seeing today, young lady?"

"No. My dad booked it..." Nova said. It was easier to lie sometimes. Easier than oversharing the complexities of her family.

"Name?"

"Nova Whitney. 9/4/2000."

The receptionist typed, nodded. "Okay... Nova. Ah—there you are. Take a seat. Eve will come down and find you in a moment."

Eve.

Nova sat, hands clasped tightly together, thumbs worrying at her already-raw cuticles. Her chest felt tight, not panic, exactly, but something close she knew all too well. Anticipation. Resistance. Grief bristling at the idea of being spoken aloud.
Nova hadn't preplanned any words, or set herself any boundaries. Whenever she had though about the lead up to this session, her mind would just go blank.

Eve was short, with jet-black hair cut into sharp bangs. Red-rimmed glasses framed her eyes, and fine lines creased her cheeks when she smiled. She looked like someone who listened for a living.

"Nova?" She said gently.

Nova stood. And followed her upstairs.

The stairwell was narrow and quiet, lit by fluorescent bulbs that hummed faintly overhead. Nova counted the steps without meaning to, her body already bracing for the right room.

The room Eve led her into was small. Too intentional. Nova didn't like the setup.

"I hate the setup." Nova said, the words escaping before she could soften them.

Two chairs sat directly opposite each other in the centre of the room, confrontational in their symmetry. A long white desk lined the east wall, buried beneath neat stacks of paperwork. A sterile bookcase clung to the back wall, books arranged more for appearances than comfort. It felt sterile. The air so warm and stifling.

"Okay." Eve smiled, amused by her brashness.

"Sorry." Nova meant it. "I didn't mean to be rude." Her anger was always louder than her manners.

"Don't be sorry. Do you want to sit on the sofa's in my office?" Eve asked, clearly perplexed at the right next action. No-one had ever declared their hatred for the therapy space before.

They entered the next room. It was tan walls, with more plants and soft corners. It was far nicer than the counsellors office at school. She took a moment to look around. The office was warmer than the other room. A plant leaned toward the window. A mug sat half-empty on a side table, ringed with old tea stains. Proof of someone else's ordinary life continuing between appointments.

Nova sat on the sofa. The sofa was soft. Nova sank into it anyway, back stiff like a trust fall, hands returning to fold tight in her lap. Even if she hated it, she would keep that to herself now. She'd already used up her honesty for the moment.

"So." Eve began, settling into the chair opposite and crossing her arms loosely over the clipboard resting on her knee. "I'm Eve."

Nova nodded, unsure what was expected of her in return. Introductions felt strange when the person already knew your name, your date of birth, the reason you were here. But you knew nothing about the other person. Leaving and finding her route back became near impossible.

"Nova." She introduced herself.

"Is this your first time in therapy?"

"Didn't Joel tell you?"

"Well." Eve smiled. "I want to ask you these things too."

"Oh." Of course. "Yeah - I mean no. It's not. My first ones were off the back end of mass flu hysteria so, I did them on zoom." She shrugged. "Very personal... very pixelated."

"Same concepts apply, except no screens." Eve's voice was warm, soft, a little southern too. "Anything you say stays with me. And will be less pixelated."

"Thought so." Nova knew the drill.

"So, what made you want to come back to therapy? Is it your choice?"

"Partially." Nova confessed, hesitating. "Not really, but I see the rationality to it."

"Good." Eve smiled, nodding in admiration that Nova was emotionally intelligent enough to know that. Nova resented her presumptive admiration.

"I'm grieving. I'm not depressed." Nova sat back on the sofa, her palms pressed together between her knees. "I know how my mind works. I know all about counselling... how my thoughts hold me back. I understand that, I don't think I need to be here."

"I see." Eve nodded. "Guess I've got my work cut out for me."

Nova huffed a quiet laugh and smiled. "You're welcome."

"How has school been? Have you been attending?" Eve asked, readying her pen to write some more.

"Yeah." Nova said. Not a technical lie.

"Has it been okay?"

"It's my final year." Nova began. "So not really."

"Have you been struggling to focus?"

"You could say that." Nova scoffed. For multiple reasons. She shifted on the sofa, gaze drifting to the plant by the window before coming back. "I go to Columbia." She added, nodding once. Anchoring back to her focus before distractions creeped it. "It's not Catholic or Mormon or Jewish. It's mixed religion." She paused, searching for the right words. "It's intense. Structured. Lots of expectations of students, but they are very easy on me."

Eve nodded, inviting her to continue without pressing.

"Everyone's very... certain." Nova said finally. "About who they are. Where they're going." Her fingers pressed together harder. "I don't feel like that anymore. I've kind of forgotten what my interests are..."

The room stayed quiet, the kind of quiet that waited rather than judged.

"I went to Columbia." Eve smiled. Nova raised her eyebrows, not in shock, just mild surprise. Hardly anyone ever left this town. It was the kind of place people stayed. Generational wealth woven neatly into a strong sense of community, quiet respect between religions, councilmen who'd known one another their whole lives. It wasn't the worst place to grow up in the US. Comfortable. Contained.

"Nice." She had no desire to discuss the school right now, but she understood the purpose of it. Small talk. Familiar ground. Eve was trying to make her feel normal, comfortable enough to open up, without shining a spotlight on the grief sitting in the corner of the room waiting to scream.

"Don't worry though. We have no affiliation with the school. I won't be telling them anything." Eve smiled. "I was just curious you know. We get a lot of folk from different backgrounds through here. I thought it might be best to ask."

Nova nodded, her gaze drifting around the room. "Is this private or...?" Joel hadn't gone into the details, and suddenly that omission mattered.

"Yes." Eve said, without hesitation.

"Damn, Joel..." Nova muttered under her breath. "Must be a fortune."

Eve didn't respond. Just watched quietly as Nova pressed her palms into the sides of the sofa, grounding herself, anchoring to something solid.

"He should be in this seat." Nova said suddenly. "He should be spending this money on himself. Not me."

Eve's voice stayed gentle. "Why do you say that?"

"Because he lost my mum too." Nova said. The words came faster now, as though once spoken they demanded to keep going. "And he needs this more than I do. He cries more than me. He doesn't sleep. He just works, works, works, works. He doesn't see his friends anymore."
Her jaw tightened. "He must smoke fifty a day. He thinks Maggie and I don't know, but his flannels always stink of tobacco." A memory flickered. Smoke drifting through her back-facing window in the middle of the night, thin and ghostlike. She could smell it in the room with her. "He's always just... putting me first. Before everything else." She hesitated. "Even Maggie, sometimes."

The room stayed still, holding her words without trying to tidy them up.

Nova swallowed, suddenly aware of the ache behind her ribs, not just grief, but responsibility. The heavy, misplaced belief that she should be the one coping better. That she should be fine, so he wouldn't have to be. The guilt of the pressure put on Joel. The pressure that he must feel to put all the pieces back together.

Eve paused, collecting her thoughts as she watched Nova explain. "So, your carer is your step-father?"

"Correct." Nova shrugged. "My mum and him they married five years ago. I live with him and his daughter now. From an ex-girlfriend, or something. I don't know... she's not around either. She lives in Tampa or something."

"Oh." Eve smiled sympathetically, writing it down. "That must be confusing for you."

"It was always just me and my mom." Nova nodded.

"Do you want to tell me about your mom?" Eve asked, and the room fell silent. "You don't need to tell me anything until you're ready."

"Well." Nova sighed. This is why she was there. "Depends... what do you want to know?"

"What was her name?"

"Isla." Nova felt the bite of tears already. Sudden and sharp. Looking at her self from the outside in. Still juggling complicated perceptions of disbelief. Disbelief that this was her life now. "She died of cancer."

Eve nodded. "Losing a mother so young is a very confusing experience, Nova."

"As everyone keeps reminding me."

"When we lose loved ones to cancer, we can feel like we've lost control. We spend a lot of time already grieving the person before they pass. It can lead to some pretty intense and unhelpful feelings."

"It completely changed me." Nova confessed. "I don't even recognise who the fuck I am at the moment. It just... it just opened a lot of fucked up doors. The way I view things, how I see the world. How I see existence." The room fell silent. "But I tidied my room today." Nova scoffed.

"Are you spending a lot of time feeling really low?" Nova chewed the inside of her cheek. She swore to her self and Joel she'd put as much into therapy as she could. She'd be as honest as possible. Truthfully, for her it was nice to talk about it without people feeling awkward or worrying about upsetting anyone. "Do you ever feel like... disappearing?"

"I don't want to kill myself to be with her, no." Nova put bluntly. "If that's what you're asking. No."

Eve wasn't phased by the comment. "I just want to know about the ways you cope. You seem like a very head strong young woman, mature. You know why you're here. You clearly know yourself." Nova had never been told that by anyone. "I'm sure you already know the reason why I'm asking these questions too."

"To understand my emotions."

"So I can figure out what will help." Eve explained further.

The silence fell between them as Nova thought of a way to explain how she was feeling. Not something that was always quantifiable to words.

"I read a relatable quote not long ago - " Nova began; quietly suspicious of the vulnerability of saying it. "A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean. Some boats eventually floated ashore. Some drift further out." Nova paused, unsure what to say next. "But- the thing about that is - You still never get off the boat." Nova added, her words sharp. "So sometimes, it just feels like - what's the point in trying to? Just to sit on the shore and I can't even put my toes in the sand?"

Eve took a deep breath. "Our moods fluctuate with grief, Nova. One moment, we can feel consumed, swallowed by it, wanting to throw ourselves over and drown in it. And sometimes, we want to be as far as physically possible away from it but we can't be. Avoidance doesn't remove the thought. Or as you would put it - drifting further out."

"I don't really wallow anymore." Nova lied. She took a moment to reflect, scoffing at the fact she had just said that. "I mean - I do I guess. Just not like before. After she died, you know... as people came to visit, and help Joel, his family came. Our neighbours, friends of friends, I just didn't come out and see anyone. I couldn't bare it. I'm still not great socially."

Eve just listened. The pause allowed Nova to understand she was meant to keep going.

"Sometimes meeting people, or even spending time with people... it just makes me so angry." Nova sighed. "I just feel really angry, a lot of the time. When people have small problems or complain about things going on in their life it makes me so angry, you know? That's kind of why Joel wants me to come."

Eve just nodded. Nova knew she was letting her speak.

"We fall out a lot. Me and Joel." Nova took a step back from exploring her emotions. "We bicker. You know, over pointless shit, and we wind each other up. He just makes me so mad sometimes, and I don't know why? He's literally..." Nova trailed off, the guilt snapped her tongue in two for feeling this way about him. For a moment she paused. "All I'm saying is. He wants me to come here to deal with the feelings, but nothing's gonna change if he doesn't. Were still gonna fight."

"We can't stop the way we feel about things - things pass or they will never go away. With grief, it's more about well. To steady the boat - so to say. It's about how we deal with the emotions and how we speak to ourselves, that's what limits the suffering we grant ourselves in life."

Nova nodded again.

"So. How do you cope?"

"I just told her I don't."

Nova slumped into the passenger seat as Joel drove them home, one leg tucked beneath her, eyes fixed on the street sliding past. Rain began to spit softly against the window, evening settling over the busy town centre.

Joel's book's mark had moved a 1/3 down the pages of his latest read, chucked on the dash. This week he was reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The mellow sound of a shaky radio played a low bassline of old country as the car rumbled softly along each road.

"So she's going to send me some workbooks to do before our next session, and we're going to do like, DBT or something? It's all about mindfulness and all that crap. But she wants me to work through my day to day feelings and articulate the things I do to cope."

"It aint crap." Joel reminded her. "Okay? This lady is highly recommended."

"She was nice." Nova admitted. "She definitely reads books."

"Alright." Joel smiled.

"I guess. I cope by not coping." Nova whispered. "It's just - what you do, right?"

"That's how it seems to be." Joel nodded, hand tightening on the steering wheel. "That's all you got sometimes."