Chapter Nineteen | Sweet

♫ Sweet by Cigarettes After Sex

I imagine that trying to fall asleep in my body while nervous is similar to what hell is like.

I'll be lying there facing the ceiling, my body so tensed that my shoulderblades stick out to the point where it feels like they're propping me up. The feeling makes me tired. My open eyes make me tired. The tension makes me tired. But whatever I try to think about, however far I count, the sensation of being pulled a hundred different directions, on the verge of snapping (literally) won't allow me to lose consciousness.

Sometimes it makes me cry out of frustration. Actually, a lot about this being underneath my skin makes me cry. In the small bathroom of the nail salon or over a chalked sidewalk in New York City, or accompanied by Olivia's soft snores across the room.

At this point I think I subconsciously consider it to be a normal part of life. The aching, the yearning, the questioning— out of everybody I've ever met, seen, shared a space with at any point in my life, why am I the one having to live like this? Why not my siblings or a random person sleeping in the dorm across the hall? Why not the girl that pushed me to my knees when I was seven and made her friends spit on me? Why not the man calling his brother as we're waiting at the stoplight one Tuesday night, cursing his wife for having an unattractive body after she birthed their child? What did I do to deserve this? What did they do to not deserve this?

Last night was one of those nights. It rained all seven hours of me trying to fall asleep and all two hours of me having breakfast on my own and it rained on my way to professor Stew's 10am class on Monday morning. The idea of giving the presentation I've prepared has just made me want to cry with the rain. Somehow the almost-storm we've got going on feels like permission.

I sit at the front of the lecture hall, a calculated choice. On two different occassions I'll have to walk the distance between my seat and the front of the room and I need that distance to be as small as possible, so people don't get the chance to stare at my walk and I won't have to endure their looks for longer than a short minute.

I know it would've been easier if I had friends in this class, but I still don't have friends in any of my classes, so I sit alone as the space roars with conversation and laughter before class begins. I've always seen making friends sort of like a ship getting ready for departure. I know that it's a window of time in which to socialize and explore and take risks, but it seems I failed.

From the moment the year started and I met my classmates, I could tell I'd never advance to the next dock, wherever that might be. They gave me the Look every other second and slowed their speech when they addressed me, and if someone spoke over me they'd hush them and gently tell me to continue. It didn't matter if I joked or listened or made suggestions, I knew they didn't take me seriously. It was like I was speaking a different language.

Ever since then, I've had trouble making them see that I'm a normal person and not a responsibility for them to take on. But they've already decided on who I am.

I swallow ten times over. My throat is dry, but when I'm nervous I have to pee every other second, so I haven't had a drink since breakfast. On top of that, Professor Stew doesn't allow us to keep digital notes with us during presentations, so I've had to print out my lines. I'm holding them in my hands, pressed between the curves of my thumbs and the pads of my pointer fingers, everything trembling. My fingers, my breath, my knees. I'm so stressed out that even my eyelid is twitching.

"Hey, Nova." Someone lays their hand on my shoulder and I startle as I glance up.

Scarlett, a redhead six months younger than I am, is smiling down at me. It feels awkward that she's standing and I'm sitting, but she gently seems to be pushing me down when I sit up, silently telling me to stay seated.

"Are you ready for your presentation? It was a lot to prepare, huh?" Her voice is sweet and slow when she talks to me and I notice she raises her tone ever so slightly, too. It pairs well with the tilt of her head. Well, it would've, had I been a child.

"Yes, it was, I—"

"Aw, you're going to kill it, no doubt. High-five!" She holds up her palm in my face and I awkwardly touch mine to hers. I definitely did not know people still do high-fives, or maybe they save them for situations like this, along with the wink Scarlett gives me before she turns and leaves with a bright smile on her face just as Harvey Stew enters, briefcase in hand and scowl on his face.

My nerves rush back to me. The fact that people like Scarlett treat me like a child has to mean that they'll stick up for me if professor Stew decides to berate me on my terrible performance. At least, I hope so. I want to get something out of being seen like this. Something other than embarrassment.

Stew pauses in front of the room, peering at the audience through narrowed eyes. He doesn't look happier than usual, that's for sure.

The crowd quiets gradually and only when everyone's perfectly silent does he speak. "Who's going up first?"

Not a single person volunteers, of course. I can feel myself tense even more when his eyes start to glide over us. He's going to pick someone.

Usually that's something I don't mind at all. Going first means getting it over with and then catching my breath for the rest of the time, so if I couldn't convince my teachers in high school to let me give presentations seperately, I always went on first. I hoped it also meant everyone forgetting about me, my trembling limbs and my uncomfortable manner of speaking by the time class ended, when the entire ideal had sort of faded from their minds.

But Harvey Stew is not the kind of professor who provides a safe environment for things like that. I've learned that it's wiser to wait, see how he treats others before me, and then adjust my plans based on it. At this point, his class feels more like a psychology course than a writing course, considering the way he needs to be observed and prodded before I know how to act and be around him.

Today, though, I don't seem to have a choice. Professor Stew's eyes (narrowed to slits behind his glasses) land on me, and he makes a vague gesture before sitting down a few seats over, unpacking his papers with a deep, troubled sigh.

It takes me a few seconds to realize what's happening, but when I do, I can feel the trembling increase in every inch of my body. My paper cracks and crumples within my grip and the room is still so quiet that the noise almost seems to echo.

I push myself out of my seat, keeping my back to the room as I let my shaky knees guide me to the front of the space. Every step feels weighed, as if someone's pushing my feet down, resisting wildly when I try to walk. I'm aware of the slow pace, but I don't have enough control over my legs to speed up.

There's no table or bookstand, so I have to rely on my hands to keep my script steady. A student to my left controls the smartboard behind me and I can tell he's pulled up my slides by the way the tiles of the floor reflect the stark white of my PowerPoint presentation.

And then everyone waits. Their eyes on me, their bodies unmoving in their seats. I'm overly aware of the way the right corner of my lower lip twitches, as if it's trying to rip away from my face, and the way my shoulders feel tight and strained. It's distracting to feel my nerves and the way they manifest themselves in my stance.

The silence itself is deafening, but what's even worse is the way my uneven breaths cut through it. I can even feel my heart beating in my head, drumming against my skull. I don't count how long I wait, but it feels like it's been too many seconds, so before I can think too much about it, I start speaking.

"M-My name is Nova Carter." I realize I'm looking at the floor, and on top of that I forgot to breathe—or my breath just caught halfway because of my nerves. There's a single string of tension, a tight line, spanning from my shoulder to my thumb underneath my skin. The sound of someone shifting in the audience startles me and my thumbs press down until the paper crumples and the last letters of my lines fold down, out of view.

Claire always had advice on how to speak (slowly, calmly, focus on the words) but nobody has ever told me how to breathe. It's just one of those things people see as normal. You don't tell someone how to blink, either, it just happens. At least, it should.

For the first few years of my life I went to speech therapy because I had trouble swallowing and pronouncing letters like H and G, and it helped. But when I find myself speaking to people and I realize that not only can they hear me, but they can also see the way I pronounce my words and articulate, it sometimes gets to the point where I forget I've ever been to speech therapy at all. My words will feel warped and heavy in my mouth, my muscles pulling and protesting, and I shut myself up.

Maybe that's part of the reason why I hate presentations. I have to get through it even if the words get mixed up and poisoned, and even if I can feel the distortion so deep within my face muscles that it might seep into my bloodstream. It's humiliating. Each part of it on its own, and all of it collectively, as I stand here in front of dozens of people and the very strict and angry professor having to grade me for it (or, despite of it).

I swallow in an attempt to push the lump in my throat down, but it feels too physical. Every second feels like it's stretched out, pinched and pulled.

Just when I open my mouth again, the door to the auditorium swings open, and the audience's attention shifts away from me.

For a moment, the realization that something removed their intent focus on me allows me to breathe. I exhale, not caring about the level of visibility of it (shoulders sagging, mouth forming an 'o') and then try to recollect myself. I check if they're watching me (they still aren't) and use the opportunity to fix my grip on the papers I'm holding.

But they aren't looking at me when I'm finished with that, either. Whispers start at the very back, two girls nearly bumping heads with their eyes wide, and travel down the seats until even professor Stew seems distracted.

I raise my head, slowly shifting my gaze from the lecture hall to the door.

Atlas Wilder is the first to walk in.

He does so nonchalantly, eyes half-open and hands deep in the pockets of his black jeans. He's wearing a black button-up with some subtle print on it, the top-two buttons left open to reveal a sparkling, silver necklace hanging against his chest. He's left his curls wild today, but they're still glistening and they still suit him well. He doesn't seem to mind the attention, and neither do the boys that follow him in.

Milo and Maxwell must've made up sometime ago, at the unveiling or maybe sooner. Either way, they're alongside each other again, following after Atlas and being proper enough to shut the door behind them once they're inside. I don't know if they planned it, but they don't look at me. The three of them step right up to professor Stew who, either consciously or absentmindedly, backs up into his seat as they close in on him.

The murmers quiet when Atlas halts, standing over professor Stew. "Hey, Stew," he nods, voice deep as ever, and I think I can hear someone gasp. "Sorry we're entering late. Do you mind if we join you today?"

"W-Why?" Stew stammers. He clears his throat and finally raises from his seat, but Atlas doesn't move from where he's standing to give him space. When Stew notices, he takes a step back, eyes flicking around nervously. "I mean, for what reason?"

"Her."

Milo's the one to point at straight at me and Atlas and Maxwell confirm his statement by sending friendly, knowing smiles my way.

This prompts the entire lecture hall to remember I'm still there, my PowerPoint presentation ready behind me, my knees set like metal rods, my hands clutching the paper in my grip and my eyes wide, undoubtedly.

I don't even know if I should do anything. Nod? Say hello? I've already introduced myself.

"We'll leave after her presentation," Atlas continues. "You don't mind three extra audience members here to respectfully support their friend, do you, professor?"

He seems to have a certain authority over professor Stew, but then, his father's a world-famous billionaire who I'm sure pulls plenty of strings within not only this city but this very school. Even if the Wilders wouldn't ethically abuse their power to accommodate someone like me, I'm sure Stew doesn't feel like he's in a position to decline little, innocent requests like this.

He wordlessly gestures to the empty seats in the front row, coincidentally those next to my seat.

The crowd grows visibly excited to see them take their seats, but not before Milo looks at me once more and then jogs over. For a second I think he's going to talk to me, but he walks past me to the wall to retrieve a bookstand on wheels and park it directly in front of me, so I can put down the papers that are currently crumpling in my fists.

I look up at him, not knowing whether to thank him or launch into my presentation, but he leans in slightly before I can make a decision, calmth evident in the slow, smooth way he moves even though the entire room's watching us.

"Show 'em what you've got, Supernova," he says, playfully stern as the corner of his mouth quirks up, then joins Maxwell and Atlas in the audience.

I know what they're doing and it makes me want to burst into tears again. The backs of their heads are now far more interesting than I am and the number of eyes on me has decreased significantly. Even Stew doesn't seem as angry and critical as before. He keeps crossing and uncrossing his legs, shifting in his seat, his eyes moving between my presentation and the boys a few seats over.

My eyes lock with Atlas'. He subtly nods at me, a grin pulling at his lips, and the sight of it calms me down ever so slightly.

I launch into my presentation with a bit more ease after that, although ease may not be the right word. At least I can focus on the words and my bullet points knowing that most people in this room are far more interested in the guys than they are in my presentation.

Initially, Writing 101 (officially called 'Writing as Exploration', but they changed the name early in the year and everyone stuck to Writing 101 because it was less of a mouth full) only required us to turn in papers at the end of the semester, but somehow Stew took us being hesitant to raise hands in his class as us being 'underdeveloped' when it came to public speaking, so he spoke with the department heads and then these presentations were announced.

It came as a shock, to say the least. We were already expected to turn in at least four different versions of the same paper to prove that we had the critical analytic skills required of us, and now Stew was making us put together an entire presentation on our finds and process on top of that.

At least the fact that the presentation's about something I've been working on for the entirety of the semester means that I know what I'm talking about, and as long as I remember my bullet points (initial idea, first draft, first round of feedback, second draft, et cetera) I should be able to put together a coherent story on the spot, should I forget the lines I rehearsed.

I've never been nervous around Milo and I still don't know Maxwell that well, but Atlas is a whole other story. It surprises me that I can speak and breathe at the same time. Maybe it's the fact that he's so much older and so much more mature than I am, but as he sits there watching me, a soft smile on his lips, I find myself wanting to keep looking at him. He's not just listening, he's interested.

When my presentation finally ends and I practically exhale the last word, the three boys on the front row clap the loudest.

I don't know if Stew's the kind of professor to immediately give feedback, but I rush back to my seat before I can find out. My muscles feel like they're melting like snow in the sun when I'm finally sitting.

"Are you alive?" Milo teases, leaning forward in his seat to look at me.

"Barely," I tell him, offering him a relieved smile.

Atlas, who's sitting between us, puts his hand on Milo's head and pulls him back up before turning to me. "You really did kill it. What are you doing after this? We'll get you a celebratory lunch if you're not busy."

"I have nothing going on. But don't you guys? I'd think after the unveiling you'd be swarmed in work. Or media attention, at least."

Maxwell pops his head in, nodding his head to the rows behind us. "Both. There are at least eight different phone cameras on us right now."

I glance over my shoulder and the guys are definitely getting recorded. Nobody's making an effort to hide it, either. One guy's even pushing his head up, into the frame, as he attempts to take a selfie with Atlas, Milo and Maxwell in the background.

"Doesn't this freak you out?" I ask, turning back before I accidentally end up on someone's Twitter.

"I actually look splendid from every angle, so I don't really mind," Milo says, tipping his head up. I can see him flex the muscles in his jaw.

Both Atlas and Maxwell roll their eyes, but I can laugh at that.

"You get used to it," Atlas then answers for the three of them. "And so far it hasn't done any harm. So, we just mind our business and eventually they go back to theirs."

I fight the urge to glance back again, just to see if he's right and people are indeed over the initial shock. "Still. I don't think I could ever live like this," I tell them.

It's supposed to be somewhat of a compliment about the way they're handling it, but something in Atlas' face wavers and falls, and we turn to the front as the next person gets ready to present.

It wasn't really relevant before, because the guys were relatively anonymous despite their fathers' fame, but I wonder now what all this means for us. If I keep hanging out with them, around them, will that eventually strip me of my anonimity? I'm already anxious about being too loud on the phone in public. I don't think I could ever be fine with reaching that level of being known, hanging around famous billionaires.

Part of me wanted to curse the heavens when I got my NYU acceptance letter. Not because I was ungrateful or changed my mind about wanting to go, but because it all felt like a waste. An amazing spot at an amazing university, wasted on a version of myself that had spent her entire life being the embodiment of wrongness and would continue to do so until she did die, a version of myself that had barely lived and wouldn't be able to in the future, a version of myself I didn't want to be or burden anyone with.

In that moment I actively recall what I felt then. That happiness, laced with a bittersweet taste. Every time something good happens to me, I can't help but feel like it's a waste—not that I want it to be taken from me and given to someone else, I'm just not worthy of it. Not like this. Not in this body, not in this life.

Reincarnation doesn't really align with the beliefs I was brought up with, yet it's what I always circle back to.

After class, I reunite with Atlas, Maxwell and Milo in front of my building. They left shortly after my presentation ended, as they had their own classes to attend, but now they're back again with their hips against the side of the building and each at least one to-go cup in their hands.

Atlas is the first to spot me walking up to them. He has sunglasses perched on his nose, a shiny black to match his outfit of the day, and like this morning he's not carrying a bookbag or anything. I wonder how he takes notes, or if he just listens to the lecturer and then leaves like a notably unrealistic movie character.

"There you are. Here. To celebrate." He cracks a smile and then extends a hand. I realize he's handing me one of the to-go cups he's carrying, made of a flimsy off-white paper with an even flimsier brown sleeve around it to combat the heat of whatever's inside.

It's a stupid thing to panic over, I know. I also know my tumbler's in my bookbag, empty and easy to hold, but Atlas is smiling at me, waiting until I take it, knowing I'll embarrass him if I don't.

Some part of me knows I can ask him— or Milo, who I'm a bit closer with— to pour the contents of my sworn enemy (the squeezable cup) into my tumbler, but in the moment it feels stupid. How hard can it be to just hold something? To compute the strength of my grip in my head as I hold it, balance between too-tight and too-loose as I walk, and simultaneously perk my ears to catch any sudden noise before it can scare me, somehow.

His eyes burn into me and now Milo and Maxwell are advancing on us, too. Before I can think straight, I've taken the paper cup from him.

Maxwell's the first to talk. "How do you feel, now that it's officially behind you?" He asks me.

The three of them start to walk. I look down at my cup, semi-panicked, and press it to my coat to steady it as I follow, my knees trembling like leaves.

"Um." My fingertips slide past the paper sleeve, onto the hot white of the cup, and I switch my attention to my other hand and the way it clenches without my permission. I can't unfold it to hold the cup properly (my left hand has always been infinitely worse than my right when it comes to listening to what I want), so I end up sort of shoving it underneath the cup, so that it's positioned between my chest and the sides of my knuckles. "Y-Yeah, great," I say, absentmindedly. In the corner of my eye, their footsteps grow larger and the distance between us seems to increase.

Milo says something about Atlas, but I'm too distracted to know what. Once again, I curl my fingers around the cup, taking a deep breath as I stare intently at my fingers. "Relax," I mumble. "This is fine."

I'm not really sure what triggers it.

The guys are already several feet ahead of me and all I can really do is close my eyes and take it as the hot beverage (well, it's hot chocolate, apparently) spews from the cup, launching the lid into the air and then somewhere around me on the pavement. I can't tell where, because the hot chocolate is all over my face and I'm scared that if I open my eyes, it'll seep into my eyeballs and permanently blind me.

Moments like those, squeezing a cup with a drink or dropping it or tripping over nothing at all, always seem to last forever on their own. It's an odd phenomenon, I've always thought. When I began reading at three years old I learned to describe it like a scene in a book that an author stretched out until it covered three pages at minimum. Like the moment defies time. Like for the one split second in which it happens, all my senses are heightened and I'm somehow using a hundred percent of my brain just to experience every embarrassing aspect of it.

The moment after feels more like a photograph. Even in memories of occurences like this very one, I can always sort of recall one image of the split second I realize what has happened. Introduction week, the lemonade on the hardwood flooring, or age sixteen, accompanying Logan and a few of his friends to the movie theater, sitting in iced tea after it had fell onto my lap and seeped into the red, plush seat.

Today, the photograph is the sight of my hands and the way the white cup, empty and lid-less, sits crumpled up within my grip. I could almost paint it with this image as a reference. I feel like I've been looking down, shocked and with my face burning (due to the drink or my embarrassment or both) for six years.

Finally, when the sound of the street returns to me again, I turn on my feet. Usually that's an action that topples me over, but today I'm spared. I release the cup with my right hand (my left hand may squeeze that empty cup all it wants now) and wipe at my face with its sleeve, but it's no use. My coat's all ruined, as are the sleeves of my shirt underneath, so it feels like I'm just spreading the hot chocolate on my face around.

"Nova, what happened?"

I can feel my chest tighten up, physically. It's frustrating how I can't have just one second of being in control, ever. Even now my body has to remind me how shameful that was, what a stupid decision I've made, how everyone will look at me now...

In the corner of my eye, a hand— I don't know whose— picks up the fallen lid and offers it to me. My feet are standing in a brown puddle, so very obviously my drink. Before the person can take another step and see my face, I mutter something about the bathroom and stalk off so quickly that I think if I stopped I'd definitely fall.

I refuse to look into the mirror when I arrive at the ladies' restrooms at my lecture hall. Instead, I toss the ruined cup somewhere in the general direction of the trash and lock myself in a stall. I didn't realize how heavily I've been breathing (I'm inhaling chocolate with every breath), but I'm too disheveled to care. My bookbag drops on the dirty floor and I shrug off my coat, careful not to let the pockets hover over the toilet for my phone and keys to drop in. Then I sit, take toiletpaper, and wipe at my face.

My hands are shaking.

That's something you eventually stop noticing when it's been a standard practice since birth. But now, especially, it's bothering me. They're shaking as I rip off the toilet paper and dab at my face, fold it in half and dab again. And they're shaking when I retrieve my buzzing phone from my coat pocket.

I exit the chat, not knowing what to say, and open Milo's instead.

I inhale sharply, knowing he's probably literally on the other side of the door, and start to gather my things again. It's still humiliating, even in front of Milo who I might be good friends with, but still don't want to see me this way.

I've learned that people's perceptions of me change quickly after events like this. I can only imagine their brains must actively recall the memory whenever they look at me from that moment onward. Sometimes, when something particularly memorable happens, it just melts into someone's definition of you, and I don't have any control over that. It wouldn't matter if it didn't also (very much) affected the way they treat me and how isolated I feel as a result.

Because of this, part of me does feel nervous exiting the restroom after I've washed my hands, but Milo stayed true to his word and is waiting right outside, wordlessly taking my bundled-up coat from my hands and swinging my bookbag over his own shoulder.

"It's my turn now?" He asks.

I look up from where I was wiping my hands on my jeans. "What?"

The faintest hint of a smile (pitying or amused, it's too fleeting to tell) appears on his face, then he steps forward without any warning and pulls me flush to his chest, burying me in his embrace as his arms slip around me.

"W-What are you doing?" I ask, my voice muffled.

"The other day I was watching some new Netflix show with Kaitlyn," he starts, confusing me even more. "There was this typical bad boy character, you know? Tattoos, motorcycle, dark hair, angry expression on his face. He was being a jerk the entire episode. Then Kaitlyn just said, 'I wonder if he gets enough hugs'. I was like, huh? She just continued saying that sometimes she looks at people and can just tell they don't get held enough. In a serious way. Where someone just kind of... holds your body for you, and all the weight of it. And they gently rock you back and forth. And you don't have to look anywhere or think about anything or worry about anything. You can just let yourself be hugged. Close your eyes and take a breath."

I swallow feverishly. My nose is pressed against him so I can't really breathe properly, but the moment — him rocking me back and forth like he said, his hand on the back of my head, his other hand tight around me — is too gentle to rip away from. I hesitate before bringing my hands up and around him.

"It's okay," he insists as he places his chin on top of my head.

I blink and blink and blink until my eyes stop burning.

"It's okay," he says again.

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