Chapter Fifteen | Awake

♫ Awake by Electric Guest

I wake up to mumbling and the smell of blueberry pancakes, and it transports me back to my parents' house.

My Dad, in particular, always knew Flynn, Sofia and I didn't like waking up to grey skies. Usually the weather we woke up to determined what kind of moods we started the days with, and knowing we'd have to go through the cold and the fog and the rain to get to school didn't exactly excite us.

So, he started what he called 'good mornings'. On the coldest, greyest, foggiest, ugliest days, the house would smell like pancakes and the table would be set and the stereo in the living room would blast some jazzy Norah Jones or calming Amos Lee or, if my mother hijacked it before we got downstairs, some Colbie Callait or Alicia Keys.

It's why, when I smell the pancakes and blink to see Elle's living room come into focus, I fully expect it to rain outside.

But it's sunny. Rainclouds are approaching slowly, but for now the apartment is drenched in a slow golden light, casting long, faint-blue shadows across the furniture. I pat the top of my head to fix my hair and sit upright, glancing at the kitchen.

Right around the corner, I can see Elle and Flynn stand hip to hip at the kitchen counter. They're swaying side to side as they speak quietly, in opposite directions, so that every other second their hips softly bump together.

"Maybe call Katherine and Gregory first," Flynn suggests.

I perk up at the mention of Elle and Logan's parents. For a blissful few minutes, yesterday's events completely slipped my mind. I forgot about the pills I found in Logan's bag, the note that came with them ("do better"), and later the comments on his Instagram post.

He's been gaining muscle mass and the team's been hyping him up. Now that I know what seems to be going on behind the scenes, it isn't as sweet as it is sickening.

Could it be possible to make such a switch when going from high school to college? From cafeteria king, star of the field, to victim of the team?

I can't even imagine what this must be doing to him, mentally. Them giving him those pills means they don't think he's good enough. And them convincing him to take them means he doesn't think so, either.

"She's up," Flynn announces, spotting me as he walks into the living room and places three plates of pancakes on the dinner table. "We were just about to wake you. Do you have any classes today?"

I go to sit by the window, stacking up old newspapers and pushing them aside to make place for the food. "No, I haven't planned any classes on Fridays this semester."

"Good. Eat." He sits across from me and Elle joins us a few seconds after with a few glasses and a jug of orange juice.

My hands are doing better today. I keep them in my lap for a few seconds, stretching and twisting my fingers, but there's not much more tension than usual. I feel more comfortable lifting them over the tabletop and dragging a pancake onto my plate, drizzling syrup on top.

"Thanks for letting me crash last night," I speak up.

Elle flashes me a smile. "Of course. I didn't want to send you home in the dark."

I bite down on my lip, letting my hair fall and shield my face as I push my fork into my pancake and lift it. I'm not sure if it's a question she'll want to answer this early in the morning, but it sounded like she was just talking about it with Flynn. "Have you decided on what to do? About Logan?"

She pauses— or freezes, I'm not entirely certain. "I'm meeting him tonight. He's staying over. Did you want to be there?"

"I..." the words die at my lips.

Tonight is Friday night, October thirtieth. The night of the Wilder Macarevich gala.

"Crap." I stand so quickly my chair tumbles back, knocks against the windowsill and lands upright.

Flynn and Elle look at me in shock, both wide-eyed. "What?" Flynn asks.

I frantically look around the room, moving towards the sofa and digging beneath the cushions until I've found my phone.

"I'll be right back," I say absentmindedly, throwing the words somewhere into Flynn and Elle's general direction. I click on Olivia's phone number and hold the device to my ear as I lock myself in the bathroom and take a seat on the edge of the tub.

"Nova! Oh, my God, I thought you were dead."

"Sorry." It warms my heart that she cared. Maybe she just knows me well enough to know that it's unlikely I'd be at someone's house. Logan's really my only friend on campus. "I'm with my brother and his girlfriend, I spent the night on their sofa."

"That's good. Are you ready for tonight?"

I'm already shaking my head before I respond. "No. I'm not even in the right headspace, I don't think..."

"Nova Carter," says Olivia sternly. "You are not backing out of the gala."

I run a flat hand over my knee, across my lap. I want to tell her I'm not going that far, but I'd be lying if I said the thought hasn't crossed my mind.

Would Atlas have asked me if he really knew me?

Maybe it's a remnant of my friendless childhood. I fear that people have ulterior motives and I believe, whole-heartedly, that a genuine interest in me can only be fleeting or mocking. I wonder what it is that he seems to like about me so much. Is he just going off that night we met in the maze? If he is, he'll be disappointed.

When I was around fourteen years old, I first considered the limitations that came with knowing me. My homeroom teacher was planning a class trip in May, right before the end of eighth grade. His initial idea was wipe-out, like the television show. He'd typed up the letter and everything, told us how we'd have to wear clothes we didn't mind getting wet and how we'd have to purchase water shoes. He even printed pamphlets.

But one look at me changed everything. He remembered how I was excused from the sixth grade Survival field trip because I couldn't swim and the whole wipe-out thing got canceled. We ended up doing midget-golf and everyone hated it.

It extends to my family, too, even if they don't like to admit it. Vacations can't ever be kayaking and hiking and exercising because it wouldn't be fair, because I'd have to stay home and they wouldn't do that to me. It's just a shame. I feel like I stand in the way of things that could've otherwise made people happy. I force them into alternatives that're doable for me and plain boring for them.

When will Atlas Wilder run into a situation like that? One where he realizes that he needs to consider things with me, that there's no spontaneous adventures, that him carrying me on his back that night because my legs hurt was just the tip of the iceberg?

Maybe I should rephrase it: I'm not a hindrance, my disability is. I'm as much a victim of it as those around me. But then, if I weren't here, I wouldn't be holding people back so much.

"I know, I'm not. There's just some things that happened yesterday, and I don't feel like I'm in the mood for a life-changing, nerve-racking event the entire world seems to have been waiting for." I inhale and exhale shakily, stretching my legs before me and cursing them.

"You know what you need?" says Olivia, drawing out the words. "You need to get pampered. Shame you gave Atlas his credit card back on Tuesday, but we can afford to get our nails done, right?"

I can. My parents still give me a monthly allowance, the same amount I got throughout high school. I've just never actually gotten my nails done, because I tremble so much and so intensely that I always feared I'd be an inconvenience.

"It'd be my first time. I don't know what I'd get," I tell Olivia.

"I'll choose something for you. Something that matches your dress! God, I've been searching for an excuse to get my nails done forever, but my parents are always like no, Olivia, use your money to take care of yourself. As if doing things that make me feel pretty isn't taking care of myself." Olivia pauses. "Do you have time today? You wanna go?"

I hesitate and look down at my free hand. My nails are uneven as always and one of them tore a few days ago, revealing the sensitive skin beneath. I imagine myself at the gala, in a Dolce & Gabbana dress, with battered hands that catch the eye.

It's a matter of what I'm most afraid of, I think: what could very well be a horrifying experience at the nail salon, or Atlas being embarrassed to be seen with me, hiding me away and failing.

"Okay. I'll come home and get dressed, then we can go. You don't have classes on Fridays, either, right?"

"Nope. I'll see you, then! Get home safe!"

I don't end up having breakfast with Elle and Flynn. While Elle lets me use a new toothbrush she had in a bathroom cabinet and sends me home with my hair braided, Flynn has my pancakes.

I always lose my appetite when I'm nervous. I almost don't stop to think how insane it is that this is the second time I've been traveling per subway on my own, and make a mental note to buy hand sanitizer as I can't get through my day (or down the stairs) without using the dirty banisters all around the city.

Olivia leads the way to Lower Manhattan, where we find a nail salon right next to the Sara D. Roosevelt park, somewhere between first and second ave. I'm not sure if I was numb before (there's plenty I'm uncertain about when it comes to my body), but now that she's pulling the doors open I realize just how much I want to turn around and run.

"Hello!" Olivia announces cheerily as we step inside the salon.

The heavy smell of nail polish and chemicals immediately engulfs us, and it's so overwhelming I feel I might choke. I stick behind Olivia, though, as she waves a hand.

"Olivia! Finally!"

In the back of the space, with feet dunked into bowls of water, sit Olivia's friends. I recognize them from the party in the introduction week: two blonde, blue-eyed girls Olivia called Mackenzie and Ally. I think she knows them from Texas or something, or she befriended them that first day. Either way, they're here today, too.

Olivia turns to me, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "I hope you don't mind I invited them. I promised them we'd get our nails done together sometime, and they were both free today, too."

I can't really say I'm not okay with it now, even though I feel the words translated into tension. I'm already outside of my comfort zone by being here, and having two girls I don't know watch me tremble and shake and doubt myself won't physically relax me. If anything, it'll make my pain worse.

"It's fine," I tell Olivia with a tight smile. I fold my hands together as she nods and leads us to the front desk elegantly, and try not to look nervous and inexperienced as I follow her.

Getting my nails done has always been something feminine I felt I couldn't really do back home. Sofia and my mother always tried to convince me that nail technicians saw all kinds of people on a daily basis and wouldn't be bothered by my constant trembling, but I know from experience that people (especially strangers) are rarely as open-minded as you'd hope they'd be, which is a lesson I've been cursed to learn from a young age.

I especially struggled with things like that when I was sixteen. From the outside, I think it's easy for people to assume that it's a choice I'm making. It's a choice to keep my face bare and my nails plain, my hair in buns and messy ponytails and my clothing casual. From a logical standpoint, it's just a matter of taste.

But I never wanted to be like this. I want acrylics like Sofia and hooped earrings and winged eyeliner, the classiest and prettiest hairstyles. I want to radiate elegance. I'd never choose to be the way I am now, but I don't have that choice. I can't do my makeup or put in earrings, I've always wanted hair that was easier to deal with but my mother never 'believed' in that sort of stuff, I wear clothes based on accessibility instead of fashion. Overall, I just feel like none of it is a choice I'm making. It's a state of being I don't control.

Over the years I've tried looking for alternatives— I've cut my hair and gotten my eyebrows done and let Sofia paint my nails— but it's never sustainable. After a week or two I'm back to zero. Back to being a version of myself that feels like it represents all my incapabilities, like it showcases them for everyone to see, look at how imperfect I am, look at how difficult even looking pretty is for me.

Every time I try something new (like this, standing in this nail salon with Olivia), I find myself hoping that it's the start of something. But it always ends up in disappointment. I've learned not to hold onto too much hope, so it'll stop hurting my feelings every time.

Olivia leans the weight of her body against the counter as she scans the rows of nail polish. "She wants like, a deep green color. Sort of dark." She gestures to me.

The woman behind the counter draws a finger over the little bottles and then pulls out the right one, a glittery forest green. "It's gel polish, which lasts longer than regular nail polish. Do you want fake nails with that? We have various shapes and length options."

I shoot Olivia a nervous look. I've never had long, fake nails before and if I can already tear myself open with chipped ones, they'd probably be a disaster waiting to happen.

"Just the polish is fine," I say, nodding my head.

The woman flags someone down and then points me towards a table, pushing the gel polish in my hand. "He'll help you," she says.

My hands are sweaty. I clench the bottle of polish so tightly that it slips around and switch hands to wipe each on my pants. A younger man is waiting at the table the woman directed me to, earbuds in his ears and a face mask pulled up to cover his nose and mouth.

I smile nervously at him as I sit and his eyes narrow ever so slightly, which could be because of a smile I'm not seeing or because he's scrutinizing me already. In search of any kind of reassurance, I look over at Olivia, who's approached her friends in the meantime and stands with her back to me.

"Hand?"

I look back. The nail technician is peering at me with his eyebrows raised as he holds out a hand.

"Oh, sorry," I mutter. It takes a bit of effort to lift a hand, and a lot more to unfold it and place it in his. I try to keep still as he clutches it and adjusts his seating, then places a nail file against my pinky finger.

I don't know what to focus on. I try to put the focus on what he's doing, but notice it doesn't relieve any tension in my body. I twist my head left and right, stare at Olivia's hair, but all I can really think of is that I can't back out now, and he's getting closer to my thumb, I'll have to twist my arm somehow, and my left hand will be even worse than this.

Though I know that the perpetual tension I experience in my body isn't under my control, I try to redirect it. I strain the muscles in my thigh, bite my tongue, but it doesn't help.

He reaches my thumb and tries to twist my hand sideways, but it won't really budge. Over his mask, his eyes meet mine, but I can't read them.

"I-I'm spastic," I say pathetically. I'm so tensed that I can't even remember the lines I rehearsed with Claire, and I'm so embarrassed that the words are barely louder than a whisper.

Either he doesn't hear me or he's just not responding, but I feel too miserable to say it again.

His grip tightens on my hand as he tugs again, but this time I turn my hand myself. I look outside the window, biting down on the insides of my cheeks as I try not to feel what's happening.

To think that this morning I was so glad. I thought my hands were doing better than yesterday. What if this just never dissolves?

I sit like that the entire time, clenching the muscles in my legs so that it hopefully relieves the tension in my hands. Even as he finishes filing my nails and then moves onto drilling them, going down each of my ten fingers. I realize he's just prepping. When he'll paint my nails, he can't afford to make mistakes or it'll take that much longer. Though, he wouldn't be the one making the mistakes. I would.

"We'll soak the nails now," he tells me. He draws closer a small bowl full of some kind of chemical fluid I don't know the name of and lifts my hands over it. "Just put it in," he then instructs, as if it's nothing.

I find myself frowning. Both of my hands are bundled up into fists, my thumbs in particular held tightly against my palm. I try hard to relax them so I can slide my hands into the liquid, but all my efforts result in is pain. I've held tension in my thighs in an effort to release tension from my hands, but now it's working against me as my legs start to cramp. Usually pain is something fast, some physical thing shooting through my body, but it's slow now. Like something's alive right underneath the surface of my skin, and it's expanding against my muscles and bones, wildly trashing around until I feel the only thing that'll relieve me of it is if I burst open, a bloody mess all over this nail salon and its poor technicians I forced myself upon today.

I cannot unfold my hands.

Even with intent focusing, they're completely stuck and won't budge. The only option left is to dunk them into the bowls like this and avoid the nail technician's eyes as I do. As long as my nails are submerged, it should be fine. I don't know who I'm convincing with those words, but it's not me.

I drop my folded hands into the bowl and stare at them as they tremble, biting my lips and shifting in my seat. I don't think I've ever been this uncomfortable, not just with myself but with the situation, a stranger's eyes on me. I'm being so difficult. I'm eighteen and I'm being so difficult.

Usually in moments like this, I find some comfort in knowing that it's just a fleeting moment. If I go to grab a piece of paper in a room full of people and my fingers won't hold onto a single sheet, at least I know that in just a few moments I'll be back in my seat, hidden away again. If I walk into a room late and everyone's eyes are on me and my limbs and the way I don't know how to relax my lips, at least they'll refocus on the lecture after they've looked and forget about my spastic, awkward tendencies. And if my mouth trembles and jerks to the side when I tell a story, at least I can stop talking when my sentence is finished, just shut up forever.

But this is different. My hands are trembling and my legs are aching and I can't unfold my hands, and he hasn't even started to paint my nails. I try to find the good bits in people most times, even if it's just a nod that says 'it's okay', even if it's a smile that is more pitying than reassuring and offends me, I try to look for a sign that tells me I'm not the worst person ever for being like this— but this guy doesn't give me any signs. I don't see reassurance or even pity in the way he looks at my hands, I just see misunderstanding. I just see impatience.

That's how it goes for at least another forty minutes. At times he has to forcefully pull at my fingers and squeeze them between his to keep them still. I try to look anywhere but him, I try to swallow and relax, but I don't know why that's still something I tend to try to do. I can't relax. It's a lesson I've been taught throughout the entirety of my life, I'm always tensed and trembling and tightened up from within, so the fact that my first instinct is to try and relax anyway seems more cruel than perseverant. It's pathetic that I still disappoint myself that way.

By the time my nails are finished and the technician tells me I can go and wash my hands, I have such a big lump in my throat that I feel I might throw up. My legs are so heavily affected by the tension that I wobble when I stand, and I walk past Olivia and her friends with such big strides that I think if I abruptly stopped walking I'd fall over.

Maybe it's misplaced, but I feel angry at her. All I really needed was someone to look to, but I think she forgot I was even here all this time. I feel heavy, and my body hurts, and I'm embarrassed.

I lock myself in the bathroom and sit on top of the toilet seat, pressing my palms to my eyes.

"Don't cry," I scold myself, swallowing again and again. "Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry."

Normal girls don't cry after they get their nails done. I've wanted to do this forever, and if my mom was here she'd say it's not a big deal, that I've probably taught that nail technician a lesson today.

But what about me?

I've always been a lesson for people to learn. Growing up, people told me all the time how much I taught them about life and compassion and fairness and about inclusivity. But that's the funny thing, kind of. It's always about them.

It might just be an effort they're making to make me feel better about myself. One I should appreciate, even. Sometimes I just wish people would recognize how much this sucks for me instead of how inspirational this is to them. Sometimes I just wish someone would tell me that all of this is bullshit, and it's terrible, and they're sorry. Not in a pitying, poor-thing kind of way, but in an angry type of way. Some way that encompasses my own frustration and anger, and how unfair this all is, but I can't expect that from people when they're on the outside. They'll never get how I just need someone to be angry with me.

I pull my sleeve over my hand and tuck it between my fingers and palm before I wipe at my eyes and nose. My lips are still trembling and my cheeks are sticky. When I look in the small mirror that hangs over the little sink, my eyes and nose and lips are red. I wet some toilet paper and press it to my face to get rid of the blotchiness, and try not to cry again as I remember I'll have to pay for this god-awful experience, too.

When I look mildly presentable, I wash my hands like I was instructed to and return to the salon.

"Oh, Nova, you're done?" Olivia, who notices me emerge from the hallway, asks. She's still sitting with Mackenzie and Ally in a massage chair, her feet being tended to.

I glance at her fingernails, that are still bare, and nod. "I'm going home," I say shortly.

I half-expect her to protest, but instead she nods her head.

"Yeah, I'll be at least another hour. See you at the dorms, then?"

I nod back at her and go to pull my coat back on, struggling to slip my debitcard from my wallet. Paying is a lot easier, luckily for me. I'm too eager to leave, so I drop the loose card and my wallet into my bag separately and then push my way out into the cold late October air, where I move quickly to get away from the salon.

I don't pass Washington Square Park to get back to Weinstein Hall. Instead, I pull my coat tighter around me (my hands being too bad today to button it up for warmth) and sit on the nearest bench, where I pull out my phone and dial my mom's phone number.

She picks up on the second ring.

"Nova!"

Her voice is warm. I never really got that when I was younger and I didn't used to have the vocabulary to describe it, but now I know that my mother's voice feels like entering the house during the colder months. Stepping inside to shake snow off of your boots and unwind a scarf, wet from the snow, to tuck it between the radiator and the wall. Like going into the kitchen and cradling a mug of something warm and sweet.

Perhaps it's just the familiarity of it and everyone thinks their mother's voice feels like coming home. But now, sitting in the cold with some heavy weight on my chest, I realize how much I needed it. Her voice.

"Are you okay? What's happening?"

I haven't even said anything yet and she can already tell something's up.

"Nothing," I find myself saying, leaning back against the bench. "I—uh, I just went and got my nails done." I look down at the glittery green on my hands, catching in the light, and try to push out the emotions and the heaviness of my sucky experience.

"Really? How was it?" Mom asks. I can hear a door shut on her end of the line and the faint jingle of what I assume is Texas' collar. She probably just came back from walking him. I can't even count how many times she and I took that golden retriever out, circled the neighborhood and then let him run up and down the beach until he tired himself out.

"It was..." I trail off.

I don't want to upset her. I don't want to plague her with what just happened and make her believe that I'm miserable in college when she's already concerned about her youngest being so far away.

"It was good, mom. And it looks really pretty."

She exhales, a sigh of relief. "See, baby? All those years of worrying, and for what? I told you, people aren't as scary and inconsiderate as you always make them out to be."

My mom's always been idealistic, but I think I needed that from her. Even now, I want to believe in the world she thinks I live in. A world that's as pretty and beautiful and considerate of me as it has been for her these past few years. Where my nails are just pretty, and that's all.

"So, what's the occasion? Or did you just want to do something nice for yourself?"

"I have a gala tonight," I tell her.

"A gala?" She repeats. "That sounds so fancy. They do that kind of stuff at NYU?"

I perk up at her reaction. "No, it's not a school thing," I say. "There's this guy I met, Atlas, and his Dad..."

I find that telling my mom about the good things that happened to me lately helps alleviate my pain. Or maybe it's just her. The familiarity of her, and her voice and her reactions.

It's easy to forget now that I'm so far away, but I need the comfort my family brings me. There's no place on earth where I feel as accepted, as good, as with my parents and siblings. The rest of my life feels like I'm spilling over and cleaning myself up, with no end to either, but even on this bench in a foreign city, even when I'm alone with only my Mom's voice, I feel like I can just tell a story and listen to hers. Crack a joke and relax. Sit back and just be.

I wish forever could feel like that moment.

You have two push notifications.