The light was off in her room.
She only knew this because when she woke up at three in the morning she could barely see the wall in front of her. If she could've seen, the first thing she would've noticed would have been the line of drool connecting her lip to her textbook.
She had fallen asleep while doing her homework.
She couldn't even remember what she was working on. Only that it was boring enough for her to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable chair in the entire world. It wasn't like it was a rare occurrence for her, as her disastrous level of procrastination usually prohibited her from getting a good night's sleep anyway. Old habits are hard to break. Procrastination wasn't even a habit at this point, it was practically a personality trait for her.
She had come home for the weekend to visit her family; which meant her father, Patrick, and her, Nova, sitting on the couch eating popcorn out of the bag while her stepmother, Elizabeth, spent most of her days at work. Nova didn't actually mind being home; she knew her dad didn't like to be alone and she also knew that his accident had hindered his ability to work, so she came around as often as she could.
It wasn't that hard, considering she went to school just over an hour away. She'd probably live at home if she wasn't placed under constant scrutiny by her stepmother for adamantly refusing to abide by the new health regiments she adopted every other week (she always claimed it was for her father. Nova had seen the way her father cringed when he ate her food. She was pretty sure it was a torture mechanism).
This weekend was one of her first ones at home for the semester. It was mid-September and it was still nice enough for their family walks in the morning - but judging by the sound of the rain knocking on Nova's window like it was impatiently waiting for an invitation inside, they wouldn't be going outside when everyone woke up.
She wiped the line of drool from her mouth with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, an old and faded - and seemingly unidentifiable hockey team logo completely invisible in the darkness of Nova's room. She still hadn't turned the light back on. She stared into the darkness for a few seconds, almost as if trying to decipher a secret code in the silence. She sat up in her chair. Slid back down. Had an internal debate on whether or not it was worth it to go back to sleep or try to be productive again. Ultimately, she chose sleep, walked across her wood floor, and sprawled out into the nook that her bed resided in.
Her family lived in what seemed like a bungalow. It was fine, nothing special, with a porch outside and two bedrooms on the ground level (one of them was converted into Elizabeth's workspace. What she did, Nova never really figured out). Nova's bed was the only room upstairs. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs that led to her "attic," as she called it, but she loved her room. It stretched out long, a rectangle instead of the simplicity of a typical square room. Across from the stairs, there was an extra space between her walls where two pillars stood, and behind them was Nova's bed, in a seemingly random aperture that it was just large enough to fit in. Her father had put a television on the pillars in front of her bed, but it was rarely turned on; she liked to watch movies with her dad downstairs. When she lived here in high school, she always swore that the room was too big for her and that it wasn't necessary for her to have so much space. After living in a college dorm for a year, though, she began to finally appreciate the size.
She laid with her head on her pillow below the glass of her window and stared up at her ceiling. It was Sunday now, which meant by the time she fell asleep, woke back up for the day, and rewatched Dumb and Dumber with her dad, she'd be on her way back to Indiana. Her eyes could barely stay open, but she could feel her body heating to an uncomfortable temperature and she refused to fall asleep sweaty.
So she did something only a completely sane person would do; she peeled off her sweatshirt, kicked off her leggings, and folded them at the edge of her bed. She then stood up, walked across the cold wood floor, and opened up her dresser as quietly as could. Rummaged through some old clothes that didn't make it to school with her. And she found her mother's old shirt - the one she had bought at DisneyWorld the last time they went. It had three holes in the front, each of a various size in a different location; one near the hem, another near the neckline, and a bigger one off centered on the ribcage. The bright blue color was fading, but somehow she could still smell her mom on it. She pulled the piece of fabric over her head, pulled it down, and promptly walked back to her bed nook where she collapsed and immediately drifted off to sleep.
Nova Rae Montgomery was twenty years old. She lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the better part of her life. After her mother died when she was only four, Nova's father packed their lives up from their old Illinois lives and somehow ended up in Michigan, where he managed one of the local casinos and eventually met her stepmom. Nova was eleven when they married and she was twelve when they moved out of their small home into a new place, a place where they could start a new family - but it never happened. Elizabeth suffered from a miscarriage in her first trimester, and it sent both of Nova's parents into a frenzied state of depression. They both started to work more, leaving Nova home alone at the age of fourteen to fend for herself.
Eventually, she figured it out and embraced the loneliness - learned to cook, clean, learned to fill the silence of the house with music and sports on the television.
When she was sixteen and working at a local bookstore in town, things shifted dramatically. There was a shooting at her father's casino. He was in the hospital for months. Miraculously, he survived a bullet to the head. The doctors called it a miracle, but Nova knew it was just her dad. A part of him never recovered; some words became harder to pronounce, movements became more labored, and Nova was given the room upstairs so her father no longer had to walk up the stairs.
He never lost his love for movies. It was the one thing that he never grew tired of. And because he loved them, Nova learned to love them, too. She quit her bookstore job to spend time with father, and when she wasn't with him, she was pouring her heart and soul into school - which eventually paid off, because she was accepted at the University of Notre Dame for visual communication design.
From there, it was the typical story; became best friends with her roommate and eventually met someone in her eight am class after she spilled hot chocolate on his shirt (yes, hot chocolate. Nova hated coffee). Ruth Williams was a small East Asian girl that was quiet and timid for the first few weeks of college, so it took Nova completely by surprise when her bouts of dry humor and sarcasm began one night while the two of them ordered pizza and watched television alone in their dorm.
"I wish they'd shut the hell up," she'd said, regarding the obnoxiously loud laughter echoing from down the hall. Freshmen year, they'd gotten stuck with a miserable dorm floor. A mix of alcoholics and stoners that seemed to never go to sleep.
"We could go join them?" Nova had suggested, surprised that the words had slipped from her mouth, "I mean, if you want to."
"I'd rather rot in hell. Besides, I snuck some stuff from home, anyways," She slipped some wine coolers from her backpack and revealed them to Nova, an offer of friendship.
Nova took one gladly. They weren't cold and they weren't enough to get them drunk, but they enjoyed feeling like adults; living on their own, drinking, and laughing the night away.
Ashton was a different story. Ruth was almost completely sure Nova and him were destined to get married.
Nova cursed herself for getting stuck with an eight am intro to marketing class, and it didn't make it better that midwest winters were practically a revised version of hell. She had made herself some hot chocolate before she left and decided to take it with her when she walked across campus. And then she got to class, sat down with her drink, and promptly knocked it over as she was reaching into her bag, sending it soaring into Ashton Irwin's lap. Him being him, he wasn't mad at all - more or less embarrassed over the unwanted attention. He was cute; skinny and lanky with curly brown hair that almost dipped into his eyes. But he looked at Nova with tired and seemingly sad eyes and for some reason, she felt obligated to chase him down after class had concluded and he had rushed out without a word.
"Hey! I'm really sorry about your shirt!" She said, trailing behind him as she attempted to tangle her scarf against her neck.
"Hm? O-Okay. It really wasn't a big deal," His eyes darted from her to the ground and back up to the sidewalk, "It's an old shirt. Probably needed a wash anyway," He smiled grimly and tried to hide the brown stain with his coat.
"Do you want to run and get some food with me? I'll pay. It's the least I can do."
"I really can't, I have stuff to do."
Nova managed to keep her pace behind him, focusing on the prints his shoes left in the snow. She felt a strange surge of determination.
"Stuff more important than eating? I doubt it. Let's go."
"Well, yeah, actually. I have to-"
"Come eat with me? Yes, you do."
"Why are you trying to force me to eat with you? You just spilled hot chocolate all over me. Maybe I'd like to go take a shower."
"So? Maybe I want to take you to eat so I can spill more stuff on you."
"I don't want to eat with you."
"And you probably didn't want to sit through a whole lecture with hot chocolate on you. But look where we are now."
"Because you're a clumsy jerk."
Nova feigned a gasp, "How dare you!"
A hint of a smile played on his lips, "I'll see you Wednesday, hot chocolate girl." and he walked through the doors to his dorm before she could protest.
On Wednesday she came into class with an extra hot chocolate and offered it to him with a smile, "I'm not a jerk, you know," she said, sitting in the seat next to him.
"But you won't deny the clumsy part?" He replied, smiling a thanks to her as he took the hot chocolate from her hands.
She ignored him. "I really would like to hang out, though."
He sipped his hot chocolate from his chair and shook his head, "This hot chocolate tastes a lot better than it felt on my flesh the other day."
And then they laughed together.
After days of careful introductions and more laughs, Ashton told her that his girlfriend of four years broke up with him the morning of the hot chocolate incident. If it hadn't have been for the hot chocolate induced shower he took, he probably would have spent the day wallowing in self-pity. He began to join Nova and Ruth for every meal after that.
_________
Nova woke up in the morning to thunder. She sighed heavily and pulled the covers over her shoulders, trying to will herself back to sleep. She didn't want to drive all the way back to school in the rain. Her car - if you could even call it that - was on its last wheel. The brakes were almost nonexistent, her music was barely drowning out the sounds of the sputtering engine, and her air conditioning had been broken for over a year.
Accepting defeat, she sat up and slumped her shoulders, her long light brown hair an identifiable mess before even taking a glance in the mirror. She looked out at her room beyond the two pillars in front of her bed and stared blankly at her desk against the wall. Her textbook was still open and there were papers spread messily around the area. Her phone would be somewhere underneath the wreckage.
She clamored out of her bed and limped over to the scene of her injury; the uncomfortable chair that undoubtedly made her back scream in pain. Nova sifted through her papers, shoved them into the open page of her book and slammed it shut, picking up her phone from the side of her desk. Ashton and Ruth hadn't texted her yet. No doubt they had spent their weekend hiding in Nova's dorm day drinking and ignoring their homework.
r u telling me i have to drive my shitty car in the rain?? sos
She sent her text to her friends and slid her phone onto the charger, making a mental note to herself to remember to bring the cord back to campus with her.
She brushed through her hair and applied the smallest amount of makeup she could get away with; her stepmother hated when she wore makeup. She accused her of trying to 'mask her true beauty.' Nova wanted to tell her she thought that that was bullshit, but she held her tongue. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, a plain black one that starkly contrasted the color of her hair, and glanced at herself in the mirror.
Nova definitely wasn't unattractive, but she didn't consider herself to be beautiful, either. Her eyes were a confusing shade of green; sometimes brighter and sometimes nearly blue. Her stomach wasn't flat, but she wasn't chubby either. She was somewhere in between. Her brown hair stopped before her chest (which she always secretly wished was bigger), and she hated her nose - she always thought it was too small for her face. Today, she chose to stick with her glasses instead of putting in contacts. Her step mom had tried to force her to be trendy last year when she came home for Christmas break and forced her to get thick and clear rimmed glasses. Nova didn't mind them, but she always felt like she didn't fit the trend as well as Elizabeth hoped she would.
When she walked downstairs and opened the door, her dad was already sitting on the couch.
"Hey, Dad," She smiled at him, walking past him into the kitchen. He grumbled a response and she asked, "Have you eaten yet?"
She knew the answer was yes. Elizabeth probably force-fed him a stale rice cake before she retreated into her office to work. She poured herself a bowl of Cheerios and plopped down onto the couch next to him. He smiled at her, "Hey, Nova."
Between hurried bites of cereal she asked, "What movie this morning?"
Her father opened his mouth to respond, but the sound of a door swinging open interrupted his thoughts. Elizabeth strode out of her office, her short brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Nova stared into her cereal bowl with a more intense focus. Elizabeth pretended not to notice.
"Ah, Nova. Are you going to be staying for lunch? It's already almost noon. You slept in very late," Her voice echoed through the room with an unrelentingly judgmental tone, "I'm sure we can make something you'd eat," Now she was mocking her. Nova wasn't a picky eater, she swore by that. She just liked food that was good.
She didn't realize how late it was. She started to worry about why her friends hadn't texted her earlier.
"I'm okay. I should probably be leaving soon anyway."
"Oh perfect! I'll go start your car!" Her stepmother's voice rose to a high pitched squeak, almost unable to maintain a level of civility.
Nova didn't hate Elizabeth. She actually appreciated her. But she was more snob than she was human; the house was aesthetically white and even though Elizabeth never took any pictures, Nova knew that she loved the idea of entertaining guests in such a clean and bright space. Everything the woman did was to attract attention, and Nova despised that about her. Her and her father were more reserved and kept to themselves. They enjoyed their movie mornings because they never had to worry about other people; when it was just the two of them, it was almost relieving, like they could finally breathe.
"Thank you, Elizabeth! But I can do it," Nova smiled at her dad, patted him on the shoulder, and walked out of the living room. She placed her bowl in the sink and grabbed her keys from the counter, making sure to fake a smile to her stepmother before she walked out of the front door.
Kalamazoo sucked. Actually, the entirety of the midwest sucked, but Nova was sure Kalamazoo was one of the worst parts of it. There was nothing to do - or, at least in Nova's twenty years of living, she hadn't found anything to do. The city was dangerous, but she lived just outside of it, so she never felt too unsafe. Her stepmother had chosen the house because she expected Nova to go to Western Michigan and help her take care of her father, but after she was accepted into Notre Dame, her dad insisted he would be fine with her an hour away. Nova thought that was why Elizabeth avoided her so much and seemed so disappointed in her whenever she walked through the door. That, or it was the fact that in the eight years they had lived as a family of three, Nova had never once brought a friend home.
It wasn't that she didn't have friends, it was just that she felt embarrassed that her parents were rarely home. Elizabeth would always try to get her to invite friends out on weekend trips, but Nova cherished the small time she got with her dad so much that she didn't want to give that time to anyone else when they took those small trips to Lake Michigan every year. When she got older, she'd go with her friends to the lake without her family, but she never liked to intertwine the two, almost as if she felt they wouldn't mix well.
Elizabeth wanted another child and never got one, so her step daughter never bringing any friends over always got under her skin in ways Nova never truly understood - but she never asked.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but Nova still worried about driving home. Her dark blue 2002 Saturn Vue was, for lack of better words, falling apart. But she loved her car, and she had memories in there; driving Ruth and Ashton home after they got drunk at a party, screaming Taylor Swift out the window after her high school boyfriend broke her heart, her first sexual encounters. Everything happened in that car.
She held her key in the ignition until it stopped sputtering and revved to life before she walked back into the house, slipped her shoes off, and gave her dad a long hug on the couch. She told him she loved him and he replied with the same, and then she walked back up the stairs to her room and put her paper-filled textbook into her backpack, followed by her sweatshirt and leggings, and she made sure to grab her phone and the connecting cord. Before she left, she made sure to brush her teeth, although she already knew she'd stop to go through some kind of drive-thru before she hit the highway.
She muttered a goodbye to her stepmother and walked out of the house, pulling the front door closed behind her. Nova opened the passenger side door and threw her bag onto the seat. She let herself stand in the rain for a moment, staring at her house and allowing herself a moment to miss it, to miss her father, to miss her bed.
Then she climbed into the drivers side and opened her phone.
Ashton: at least you didnt forget about a whole project being due TOMORROW MORNING. if im dead by the time u get here, scatter my ashes at ihop
Ruth: after nova comes back u can come to the dorm. we'll help you. i spent all morning cleaning anyways. i need something fun
Nova: ruth cleaning????? i'm shocked. im headed home now. might stop and grab something for lunch. elizabeth made me leave before i even finished breakfast
Ruth: what a bitch
Ashton: ^^^ hurry your ass up, nova! we miss u
Nova stared at the McDonald's cup in the cupholder in defeat; she wasn't ready for school on Monday, and she wasn't ready to go back to her cramped dorm room. She wasn't ready for a lot of things, she just didn't know it yet.
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hi, okay, so like, holy shit. this first chapter has been through HELL. i planned out most of this fic literally five years ago and just found the notebook i wrote everything in a few weeks ago. i decided to make it a reality, and i wrote it as an original piece and then said fuck it, lets make it a luke fic. so here we are.
i have A LOT planned for this story. like, it probably wont be the typical fics ur used to seeing. hell, its not even something ive seen done a lot. luke is his 2016 self here (because that era was a blessing) and he's twenty-two. i know it doesn't actually match up but its my damn fic and i can do what i want. don't you worry, the lip ring will make many appearances because im a SUCKER for it. ANYWAYS, it's going to be a lot of fun. thanks for coming along for the ride :)
- emily <3
(also, special shoutout to my two best friends, allison and fatima. they edit all of my shitty work and they're also pretty damn cool. if you see any spelling errors u can blame them - and me, because i wrote it. but mainly blame them because im fragile and hate confrontation.)