rain ✧ lrh

8. wouldn't miss it for the world

heyyy i tried something different and added a few photos to this chapter so be prepared to be attacked with good photos of luke & the boys ur welcome

Everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes that reason is clear, blatantly obvious, like a diamond glittering in the sunlight. Sometimes that reason isn't so easily determined. Sometimes you're left in the dark until you can't handle it anymore, until a blonde body with a lip ring shows up from the edge of the light and makes you think oh shit, this is it.

For Nova, she didn't expect the events of her day to lead her to where she was.

She had started the day almost as usual, without Luke for breakfast. He had told her he had a morning skate the day before, so she knew the spot where he'd look at her and bite the ring in his lip to hold in a smile would be vacant. After the silence of her breakfast, she went to her class and tried her hardest to not fall asleep - something that was getting harder and harder to do because she was having trouble falling asleep without thinking about Luke.

And then she found herself in the student center, tapping her foot against the linoleum floor as she waited to be called back. In the mix of the first few weeks of first sophomore year, Nova had forgotten to accept her work study job and eventually, she realized she had too much time on her hands. She had run out of cash awhile ago, and the food at Ruth's diner was going to lead to her gaining the freshmen fifteen again, which was something she didn't think her mental health could handle.

So she was waiting, dreading the conversation in which she was ultimately going to find out that there were no jobs left to take and she'd have to live the rest of her days off of the bags of microwave popcorn she had in her dorm (which she was more than willing to do, she had had weeks her freshmen year when she was afraid to walk to the dining hall and had eaten popcorn for every meal).

She watched a student exit the office and she sat up in her seat, waiting for the junior sitting at the front desk to look up from the textbook that seemed to be depleting her energy every second she spent reading it. She didn't want to interrupt her, to ask if she could go in now, because frankly, she was afraid that she might be annoyed with her, and Nova despised confrontation in any capacity. She shifted in her seat, attempting to get the front desk worker's attention; nothing. She coughed loudly; nothing. She dropped a pencil, dropped her phone, dropped her entire backpack, before she stood up and walked over.

"Can I- Sorry," She smiled sheepishly as the worker looked up at her, "Can I go in now?"

The worker rolled her eyes, "Yeah, sorry. You should be good to go."

Nova nodded and attempted to rid her cheeks of their redness before stepping into the office.

She knocked on the open door as an act of politeness, "Hey, I need to talk about a job placement for this semester?"

The woman inside looked up from her computer, "Ms. Montgomery! It's very good to see you!"

Mrs. Tipekt had always been nice enough to Nova. When she had come in crying her freshman year over not being able to afford to survive because of how high her tuition was, Mrs. Tipekt was able to get a payment plan that lessened Nova's amount of mental breakdowns per week.

Nova took a seat across from the desk and Mrs. Tipekt smiled politely, "How is your father doing?" She continued to type on her keyboard without looking down, her long nails making an inexcusably distracting noise. Nova tried her hardest not to roll her eyes. That was the one thing she hated about the officials at her school; they all knew about her father's accident and used it as a conversation point, as if it was something Nova enjoyed talking about all the time, like she didn't remember the day that it happened clear as day.