Chapter Thirty-seven | Golden Haze
♫ Golden Haze  by Wild Nothing

I kind of hate to admit it, but Hyde was right. Being at home turned out to be good for me.

The holidays pass me by like a motion blur. We spend it at home with a few extended family members, just like New Years. Flynn asks me if I'm upset about missing the ball drop, but I have a few more years at NYU to get to see it happen. For now, I'm just grateful to be back in the bedroom I grew up in, closer to Logan than ever— that time at his house was the first time we had a conversation even remotely emotional.

And so, the next semester comes knocking all too soon. I return to New York with Elle, Flynn and Logan, back to my dorm.

Weinstein Hall has had a few periods of excitement, I've found. The start of the year, the end of a semester, the approach of the holidays, and now the start of a new year. As Flynn walks me to my door, we pass only open ones in my hall. Everybody seems to be rejuvinated.

"Is it always this... jolly in your dormitory?" He asks me over the music.

We reach 242 just as I shake my head. "I've learned that this place has its highlights. New year, new sense of optimism, probably."

Flynn pulls a face. He's never been an avid partier, and he definitely cannot stand it when people have too much energy around him. It makes him uneasy. "I'm so glad my dorm life is over."

"Are you moving in with Elle?"

"Yeah. Didn't I tell you?"

"Flynn, you tell me absolutely nothing about you or your life. But anyone could guess you'd move in with your girlfriend. You're practically living there, already."

He cracks a smile that has something shy about it. "Yeah, well..." he mutters.

I unlock the door and push it open. It smells a bit dusty since both Olivia and I have been gone for three weeks. I instantly open a window to let the fresh air in, while Flynn drops my bag by my bed.

"Will you be okay?" My brother asks me casually, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He doesn't quite look at me.

I nod. "Yes. And if not, I'll pester Logan, not you, so don't worry about that."

He releases a breath. "Good. You know it makes me uncomfortable when people are upset. I can do nothing to help you except refer you to someone else."

"But you know you have a gift, right?" I ask him. "You don't actively try to comfort people, but it's still comforting to be around you when I'm sad."

Flynn shifts his feet around. "That's because I'm your older brother."

"I know. You're my older brother, and it's comforting to be around you when I'm sad."

He inhales and steps forward to mess up my hair. "Alright. I'm out." But he does crack a smile when he turns and exits, waving over his shoulder without turning back. He leaves the door open.

I smile, kick off my shoes and return to the window. It doesn't crack open entirely, but I still manage to kind of push my nose through the gap and inhale the crisp air of New York.

Because it is New York. I had to be away from it for a bit to remember that I live there, and I'm somehow a part of it.

I think of going to Central Park with Atlas and Rosie, after visiting his penthouse in Upper Manhattan. And I think of Olivia taking me to get my nails done, even if it was truly an upsetting experience. I think of meeting Isla, Emmy and Philip at Hyde's first meeting, and the girls coming to fifth avenue with me. I think of being at Milo's apartment for his 'super deep study sesh', and his Italian sloppy joes, and sitting on the floor with our backs against his sofa in November.

I forgot all of it. After what happened with professor Stew, after meeting Ramona and hearing Olivia's friends, it completely escaped my mind. This is New York.

Claire said we were consciously choosing to move forward. Is that really a decision you can make? I've spent my entire life waiting to get better when I could just decide to be?

Perhaps. After all, I decided to bring Logan those cookies, and I decided to visit my old children's rehabilitation center. I could've also decided to stay in bed like I did when I was in the rut.

I inhale again. So deeply that it almost hurts. Then I move back, leaving the window open and stretching my hands inside of my sleeve. I wouldn't say that my muscles are doing good today, but the ache is minimal. That's something.

My bag sits at the foot of my bed, where Flynn dropped it earlier, waiting for me to unpack. On winter days where the sun accompanies the blistering cold, unpacking should be the least of my worries. I feel a sort of rush, even, making its way through my bones and setting them like metal rods. It isn't what excitement should feel like— dangerously bordering on the edge of painful— but I accept it, nonetheless.

The hall outside of my open door is busy, but no-one has come in. That is, until I recognize Olivia out of the corner of my eye, carrying a weekend bag over her shoulder. She halts in the doorframe, which makes me wonder if it's really her at first, but one short glance confirms it.

She thinks I'm ignoring her at first when I don't say hi and instead make a beeline for my bag. I can see her shuffle past me, to her desk. It gives me enough time to retrieve my airtight container from between my washed clothes.

It startles her when she turns back and I'm standing right in front of her, the container of cookies extended.

"It's a peace offering," I say.

She makes no move to take it, even after glancing at the container and recognizing the baked goods. "You shouldn't have," she says simply.

"But I did, so take them."

"No, I mean, you shouldn't have." In a whim, she's turned to her bag and back to me, holding a similar airtight container. "Because I made you cookies as a peace offering."

We both pull back our hands at the same time.

Olivia heaves a sigh and averts her eyes. "I should've cleared it up right when it happened, but I never said anything bad about you to my friends, Nova," she emphasizes as she looks up again, her eyes wide. "I really just discussed everything with them at the beginning of the year. They're super boy-crazy ever since college started, so they just brought up dating and disabilities and how they wondered what that's like. I never really knew what to say to them. I didn't even realize it was an odd conversation to have about someone you don't know, until they asked you about it that day. And after you'd left, I was feeling too guilty and embarrassed to explain and apologize to you..."

I shift on my feet. "I understand. I really do. I mean, it surprised me to get those questions out of the blue," I say, adding a slightly awkward laugh at the end. "But I know it makes sense to have them. I was never mad at you. It just added onto how I was already feeling, which was... not good. At the time."

"It was a shitty way to ask," Olivia states. "Even if you understood then or understand now. It's not like you've never been open to have conversations about your disability. It shouldn't have happened in the way it did. So, I'd still like to apologize." Once again, she extends her airtight container. I take it this time, as I hand her mine.

"I accept your apology. Thank you."

Olivia's eyes start to water.

"Are you going to cry?"

She starts waving her hand by her face as if to dry her eyes. "This is just so sweet, and I hate how we left everything before the break. I'm so glad we're good."

"I forgot how many emotions you have," I say. I put her container on her desk and step towards her, opening my arms. "I'll give you one hug—"

She's already embracing me before I can properly finish that sentence, tight arms around my body. When she pulls back, she keeps her hands on my upper arms and her eyes locked on mine as if she has something extremely important to tell me.

"Do you want to go out somewhere? It's cold, but the skies are blue."

The suggestion, as simple as it is, sets everything as it should be set. Olivia's eyes are still watery, but her hands are warm even through my layers of clothing. Being with her reminds me of how exciting everything once was, before it came crashing down on me the way it did.

Her eyes are as hopeful as Logan's were back in Addenfield, after he told me he was quitting the wrestling team. There's no going back to the introduction week, I know, but there is the opportunity to embrace them both tightly the way I needed to (but didn't) then.

I grip Olivia back, squeezing her within my grip. "Is it okay if I invite another friend of mine, too?"

"Yes! Invite anyone you'd like! I'm treating everyone to drinks. We'll take the cookies, too."

We leave our bags, not yet unpacked, and return outside with a new excitement and our airtight containers. When we're halfway to Logan's dormitory, Brittany Hall, Olivia decides we should get ice cream (despite the winter cold) to dip our cookies into, and that's how the three of us end up walking down the sidewalk of University Plaza with each an ice cream cone in our hands.

"Should we find someplace to sit down?" asks Olivia, seeing me struggle with my cone.

My fingers won't quite wrap around it, and I'm scared of squeezing too hard. With every step I take, the pressure in my hands slightly increases. At least it's cold enough so that I won't have to worry about the ice cream melting on my skin while I try to do something as simple as holding onto it.

"Here," Logan pipes up from my other side. He reaches out as he puts his sorbet to his mouth and takes the container of cookies from my hand. "That should be better."

I half-feel like their child, walking in the middle with shaky hands (easily mistaken for excited hands) around a waffle cone. It even goes as far as to momentarily engulf me in embarrassment, telling me to hide or leave, but I try to push those thoughts away. It's a sunny day and we made up and I'm in New York City.

"Let's sit over there," I suggest, pointing at a random bench across the street.

Logan and Olivia don't protest and instead move with me to sit down. A cookie container lands on each side of me, the tops removed. I follow their example and grip the cone (tight, but not too tight) one finger at a time with one stubborn hand, while I use the other to take a cookie and swirl it through my ice cream.

"Did you guys miss it?" Olivia asks unexpectedly as we peer across the street. "New York?"

Logans hums shortly before he answers. "I just need to redefine this entire city for myself. My first semester sucked. I don't feel like I've gotten to know it like I would've if it... hadn't sucked."

"Me, too," Olivia sighs, biting into her ice cream and wincing right after. She quickly brings a cookie to her mouth as if it'll combat her brainfreeze.

"We should see it as a test-run, the first semester," I suggest to the both of them.

"You're one to talk," Logan teases. He doesn't elaborate any further. He only gives me a look that tells me he hasn't quite understood how difficult my first semester has been. I don't even know if I've ever told him.

Olivia jumps to my rescue. "I mean, to be fair, Nova gained and lost an important relationship all in the first half of this year. That must have taken its toll on her."

"Among other things," I emphasize, before what she said actually sinks in. "And I didn't lose Milo. He's just elsewhere."

But saying it, I notice, feels a little awkward. Anyone could tell it's only a half-truth, tainted by doubt. If it was up to Milo or me, 'losing' wouldn't be the word to use. But it's not like I completely have him, either. I catch glimpses of him, and he tries calling me often, but that's what happens when you move across the world, into a different timezone. You start living past each other a little, until a little inevitably grows into a lot.

"Either way," Olivia continues, not quite dismissively, but obviously not wanting to get too deep into it. "It's been tough for us all. I don't really know how to continue."

"Is there even any other way to continue than just going with the flow?" Logan asks.

"I thought I was going with the flow. Didn't work." Olivia snorts.

"Maybe it's just about being intentional with it," I say. "I think 'going with the flow' sort of suggests that there's nothing you must do, when a big part of doing better is actively trying to do better. You have to fill in what that looks like yourself."

Olivia grunts, throwing her head back. "Life's too hard. Someone needs to do this for me."

"You'll do it for you," I suggest.

She hums briefly.

On my other side, Logan reaches over me to try another cookie. "Where'd this optimism of yours come from, Nov?"

"I don't know," I say. "I got sick of harboring the opposite."

Olivia nods. "I fully believe negativity is something physical. If you hold onto a certain feeling for long enough, it eventually takes on a shape inside of your body."

"Maybe I held onto a negative feeling when I wasn't even born," I think aloud, looking down at my hands.

Before I can feel too much, Olivia nudges me and says, "Don't be ridiculous. How are you going to blame yourself when you weren't even born yet?"

"It's a thing she does," Logan says to her. "Nova has this thing where she always finds a way to blame her younger self."

"That's not true," I protest.

"It's true. You keep thinking you're inconveniencing everybody. Doesn't matter whether you were four or fifteen. You always talk so negatively about yourself and you fully believe it all, too."

Olivia raises a finger, as if she just made an important discovery. "Negativity!" She calls out. "Gotta quit that!"

"You know what my Mom told me when I was over for the holidays?" Logan says, readjusting himself on the bench. "She said, life is a conjunction of beliefs. When you believe something with full conviction, it becomes truth."

"I've heard that before. It didn't work on me on the scale it was presented to me on," I say carefully.

"Which was?"

"My disability," I snort. Silence commences. I look down at my hands again. "My Mom used to say that if I just prayed enough... believed enough... I'd be healed. At some point, instead of telling me bedtime stories, she lied in bed with me and showed me YouTube videos of those big churches where someone would stand from their wheelchair and walk around on the spot. Or of someone waking up from a coma after the service prayed for them. She said the same thing for years. I wasn't enough of a believer to be healed by God."

"I didn't know your parents were religious," Olivia says.

"They're very religious, conservative Christians," I tell her. "Me, not so much. Maybe that is why."

"Is that why you think that way?" Logan asks.

"What?"

"I mean, what I said earlier. That you always think you're inconveniencing everybody."

"I don't know what to believe," I say. "Whether it's because I'm not enough of a believer or God just doesn't want to heal me or whatever. My disability persists. I'm convinced it will outlive me. What else can I do except try to deal with it now? I've already spent so many years trying to do the exact opposite. If I'm not seeing results, maybe I'm looking for the wrong results."

Olivia sighs heavily. "But that's the hard part. Not knowing what results you should be aiming for."

Logan hums. "That's why Miley Cyrus said it's the climb."

Olivia and I burst out laughing over our slow-melting ice cream. "And she was so right about it, too."

I pull my knees to my chest, balancing my feet on the edge of the bench.

"If you don't mind me asking..." Olivia trails off. "What's left of your religious upbringing? Wouldn't telling a child they're not doing enough for God to heal them do a lot of damage? You don't seem damaged to me."

"Thanks." I chuckle. "I don't know. I've found that I'm unable to not believe in God. I just feel like I must rediscover religion all together. Not just to see it as something separate from my parents, but to redefine it for myself, too."

Logan, who has finished his ice cream, swaps spots with the container of cookies and scoots closer to me, throwing an arm around my shoulders.

I expect him to say something, but he doesn't. He just grabs another cookie and throws it into his mouth, chewing in my ear. It's hilariously characteristic for him. I lean into him.

But then, unexpectedly, he says, "You're not damaged to me, either." And after a moment of hesitation, he adds, "And if God truly decides to 'heal' kids or take away their suffering based on whether they love Him and believe in Him enough, I don't think that's a God that even deserves a child's hope."

Olivia nods. "None of us deserve the blame. Not as babies, not as toddlers, not as teenagers, not even now."

We sit on that bench for another few hours, until the sun starts to set and we realize that all three of us still have bags to unpack and classes to prepare for.

And from there, times starts to move a little bit faster again. Not in a sleeping-all-day kind of way. In a way where I'm able to rebuild a semi-familiar routine. Scheduling my classes at ten instead of eight. Going back to Hyde's meetings on Mondays. Catching glimpses of Milo online— Milo at a museum, Milo in Rome, Milo's photos for his photography class— and my stomach churning every time.

It's not so much going with the flow, because as Olivia said, that didn't work before. I find that I have to be intentional about seeing Logan. I even have to be intentional about seeing Flynn and calling Sofia. I have to be intentional when it comes to wearing my leg braces and using the metal straws and eating enough.

It's not going with the flow. It's swimming against the tide.

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