Nova's Dawning
Chapter 16

When I had awoke on Wednesday morning, everything had seemed so... foggy. I could barely remember the previous events and I groggily stumbled into the kitchen, searching for some form of coffee.

“Good morning, Star. Nice to see you alive.” Sam said to me.

“Alive? What time is it?” I asked, emptying the coffee maker and putting in a new filter.

“Almost noon. On Wednesday.” She waited for my reply.

I fell to the floor. “What?!” I clutched the coffee grounds to my chest and looked up at her with tears in my eyes. I figured I would be down for a while, but this was a lot. “What about class?”

Sam laughed and helped me up. “Don’t worry about it, Star. Mic Rits is totally cool about it since I explained everything. I’ve got the assignments and we can go work on them together on Violet, until you have to go to work at two, and then at seven you have to go meet your mentor. Also, your mentor is willing to move your Thursday practice to Friday, she told Osiris you’ll need a day in between the sessions.”

I nodded, concerned, but then I realized he wasn’t present.

“Is Osiris working on Violet?” I asked.

“I would guess so. I haven’t seen him, but I only woke up a couple of minutes ago.” I noticed that her hair was unkempt like mine and her eyes were slightly red, just as mine were.

“I’m going to shower, and then whenever you’re ready we can head out, that way you make it to work on time.” She opened the fridge, took a bite out of a block of cheese, and then made her way into the bathroom.

I chose a light breakfast, just an egg on toast, and then I got ready for a long day.

Sam and I stopped for additional coffee on the way to Violet and when we pulled up to her immaculate beauty, she was getting a haunting makeover. Her build was filling in as the familiar black and white colors of a once forgotten ocean liner, the Titanic. She didn’t look exactly like the old iron maiden, but with the paint job it was a scary image that sent shivers up my spine.

“I bet that was the Dean’s idea.” said Sam as we showed our ID’s to get in.

We made our way into the computer lab, which was very close to the library. It barely took an hour to finish the assignment, and I sat there with a little under an hour of free time. We stepped out of the dark room and towards the lobby.

“Maybe I can go replace Osiris.” I said to Sam, and she looked away nervously. “What? What’s with that face?”

“Uh, well. I just don’t think you want to go see him right now...” She wasn’t looking at me.

“And, why not, Sam?” I asked, getting ever so close to her. Awkward physical contact made Sam very uncomfortable. I felt bad using it against her, but I was starting to get worried about Osiris.

“Stop, stop! Okay! He... he seemed really mad at you... And I would hate for you guys to fight. You guys are my rock.” I laughed, trying to hide my stress.

“I doubt he’s really mad at me, trust me honey, we are fine. I’m going to go replace him now, and I’ll prove it to you.” I got up and started walking, not even looking back at Sam as I sped through the hallways. I had roughly forty-five minutes now. I searched in his usual spots, but he wasn’t there, and by the time I made it back to the area with the library I only had fifteen minutes left. I found him sitting at a bench not too close to the library, but not that far either. I could see in his face the anger he had for me, but I didn’t know why. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I made a move towards him. He stood up, the anger filled his face until he saw me crying, and then it dropped.

“Baby, don’t cry.” He pulled me into his arms.

“I’m sorry. Tell me what I did wrong, so I can fix it. I never want you to look at me like that again.” I buried my face into his shoulder, and he rubbed my back.

“No, I’m sorry baby, I should have just talked to you. I just...” He held me at arm’s length, his eyes filled with love, but most of all worry, “I can’t think about losing you. I feel so useless so I try my best to just make sure you aren’t in those situations, and yet you go running back in there! I love you and I love that you want to help our friends, but I don’t want to watch you tear yourself apart.”

He pulled me in for a hug, the pain in his voice and on his face was real.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to not help people. What else do you expect of me?” I wiped my face off on his sleeve.

“To not put yourself in comas! To not kill yourself! And I know that’s a lot since your power takes so much from you... I just want you safe, because I love you more than anything.” He kissed my head, and I hugged him tight.

“I’ll do better, ok? And you have to talk to me... alright?” I kissed his cheek.

“Okay. You should get to work... before you’re late. I’ll see you afterwards, ok?” He kissed my forehead and then finally my lips.

We parted ways and I made it to work just in time. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. They were having me work the go backs, and for a big library, it was kind of hard. I spent thirty minutes trying to replace one book, and for some it was like multiple books a minute. My stack was thankfully getting smaller and smaller and as my shift was on its last leg. I found myself with two books, both in the same group. I found it very fast, because familiarizing myself with the areas was my number one goal, however, when I got there, I could hear giggling, familiar giggling.

“So... I guess this is your idea of a lunch date... after four and in a library.”

A deep voice chuckled, “I’m not very traditional.”

“I can tell.”

By then I realized it was Thea and Jack, and I found it almost impossible to turn away.

“Thank you.” she said.

“What for?” he replied, probably just as confused as me.

“Well, you really did save me. I could have floated away, and been consumed...” I heard her move her hair back, like she always does, and I heard some crunches as if they were eating.

The librarian in me wanted to crash the party, but the friend in me said that Thea deserved her explanation.

“Thea, you saved MY life. Let’s not get that mixed up. I don’t deserve the way you’ve treated me, especially with the way that I treated you. I had no right...” Although I couldn’t see his facial expressions, his voice sounded honest.

“You know, Jack, the funny thing is, if you’d have been nice enough, for maybe all of five minutes, and just asked if you could capture some spirits, I would have let you. I would have put that barrier down for you.” I could tell she probably wasn’t looking at him, because the embarrassment in her voice was thick.

“Thea...”

“I appreciate it.” she said, I only wished I could have been able to see through walls instead of see the future.

“Look, Thea... I guess I should give you an explanation... Look at this.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Wow.” she said. I tried to refrain from making any noise, because I wanted to see how this went down.

“Long ago, I met this girl, Jill. She was young, aspiring, she had so much drive and motivation. She inspired me, and she said that I inspired her.” As he spoke his tone darkened, which worried me on the outcome of this story. “She... well she was different. She was passionate, and fierce, and everyone in our school either wanted to be her or be with her.... I was the lucky one that got to be with her... I thought everything would work out. She was so pretty, and intellectual. When everything first started to happen, her confidence was so intriguing and contagious, I just wanted nothing more than to spend every second of every day with her.”

His voice held a long-forgotten excitement, and I thought that I heard Thea sniff.

“I’m sorry Thea. I can stop?” But I knew she would be shaking her head. She wasn’t a quitter, or one to give in even if she was emotionally distraught.

“Like I said, everything was great... was. Things... got weird. I would replace her staring at me, bug eyed from across a room, or she’d leave strange notes in my locker and in my backpack.”

“Strange how?” she asked, her sadness completely gone.

“They said things like ‘you will never leave me’ or ‘forever isn’t enough for me’ and you know maybe to some guys, that’s considered cute, but to me it was creepy, and low and behold, Jill hated the way I felt about it. I told her, nicely, that I didn’t want them anymore. It wasn’t like I was breaking up with her, I just said, ‘Honey, I would prefer you show me you love me a different way than the notes.’ and she flipped her shit. She was throwing paperwork, my equipment, but I stayed.”

“Because you loved her?” Thea asked, concerned.

“No, because I was afraid, she would hurt herself, and let me tell you that’s a horrible feeling, but there was one thing she did that was unforgivable, and it was the last straw.”

“What happened?” I could feel Thea on the edge of her seat, just like I was on the edge of mine.

“Well, it started off as a rumor, you know? I kept hearing whispers, until finally a friend of mine confronted me and I had to admit that I didn’t know anything. So, I walked up to her and straight up asked her, ‘Jill, are you pregnant?’ She was going around telling everyone she was. I wanted doctor’s proof, so I told her to make an appointment and she refused, telling me how ’doctors could hurt the baby.’” I tried not to laugh, but Thea’s giggle made it very hard. “I know, right? So eventually I just broke up with her, because I knew that she was lying, and a friend of hers told me she had lied about being on birth control, and I was just at my wits end... I was so devastated dude... and then...”

I knew Thea was probably comforting him, because that’s how she was, even though it was most likely very painful for her. “What happened, Jack?”

“Well you see... afterwards, I mourned, because not only had our relationship ended, but a lot of my friends were seeing me differently, some people I had known for years were avoiding me and ignoring me. So, one day, I was at home, working on one of my cameras, just cleaning it, you know? I get a text from her, and she says she wants to skype, and I figured it would be okay because maybe she’ll apologize. I still cared for her, and I wanted us on good terms. When she answers the call, she had a belt around her neck...”

Thea gasped kind of loudly, and there was a pause, and I remembered that we were in the library, and I was technically at work.

“What did you do?”

“I talked to her. I asked her to take the belt off and just talk to me, and she started reading all these old letters I wrote to her, about how much I loved her. It was a long conversation, and we both cried a lot...”

At that second the library’s main clock rang with the sound of the 6 o’clock chime.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been so weird Thea, but that’s why. I’m just not looking for anything. Not now. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you for explaining your past to me, but-.” The clock chimed loudly again. “We should go.”

I quietly stuck the books on the shelf and bolted before they could make their way to the other side of the aisle. When I got back my replacement was giving me strange looks but I grabbed my stuff and clocked out. I nearly slammed into Osiris on the way out.

“Woah, woah, baby. Where are you running off, too?”

“Oh, I uh, was just really excited to see you! Hi!” I hugged him tightly, and he chuckled.

I didn’t want to tell him about Jack’s story, because it wasn’t my story to tell, but it was another thing on my mind, concerning me.

“Are you ready for your training tonight? Michy said you guys are going over something new tonight.”

I pulled away from him and we started walking towards the exit, “Yeah, we are going over the present the next two weeks, but I’m hoping it’s easier than the past.”

“Well she insisted that you would need a day in between your lessons, something about something.” I laughed.

“Something about something, huh?” He nodded and went to kiss my cheeks, but I turned my face so that he got my lips.

“Have I told you that I love you today?” He asked, and I nodded. I held his hand as we left, worried about what lay ahead of us.