Breaking Nova Read Free Page A

sure, but it feels like I need to find out… somehow… about him… about myself… but how the fuck do I find out about him when the only person that truly knew what was real is… gone?” I blink and then click the screen off, and it goes black.
    *    *    *
    May 27, Day 7 of Summer Break
    I started this ritual when I got to college. I wake up and count the seconds it takes for the sun to rise over the hill. It’s my way of preparing for another day I don’t want to prepare for, knowing that it’s another day to add to my list of days I’ve lived without Landon.
    This morning worked a little differently, though. I’m home for my first summer break of college, and instead of the hills that surround Idaho, the sun advances over the immense Wyoming mountains that enclose Maple Grove, the small town I grew up in. The change makes it difficult to get out of bed, because it’s unfamiliar and breaks the routine I set up over the last eight months. And that routine was what kept me intact. Before it, I was a mess, unstable, out of control. I had no control. And I need control, otherwise I end up on the bathroom floor with a razor in my hand with the need to understand why he did it—what pushed him to that point. But the only way to do that is to make my veins run dry, and it turned out that I didn’t have it in me. I was too weak, or maybe it was too strong. I honestly don’t know anymore, what’s considered weak and what’s considered strong. What’s right and what’s wrong. Who I was and who I should be.
    I’ve been home for a week, and my mom and stepfather are watching me like hawks, like they expect me to break down again, after almost a year. But I’m in control now.
In control.
    After I get out of bed and take a shower, I sit for exactly five minutes in front of my computer, staring at the file folder that holds the video clip Landon made before he died. I always give myself five minutes to look at it, not because I’m planning on opening it, but because it recorded his last few minutes, captured him, his thoughts, his words, his face. It feels like the last piece of him that I have left. I wonder if one day, somehow, I’ll finally be able to open it. But at this moment, in the state of mind I’m stuck in, it just doesn’t seem possible. Not much does.
    Once the five minutes are over, I put on my swimsuit, then pull on a floral sundress over it and strap some leather bands onto my wrists. Then I pull the curtains shut, so Landon’s house will be out of sight and out of mind, before heading back to my computer desk to record a short clip.
    I click Record and stare at the screen as I take a few collected breaths. “So I was thinking about my last recording—my first—and I was trying to figure out what the point of this is—or if there even had to be a point. “I rest my arms on the desk and lean closer to the screen, assessing my blue eyes. “I guess if there is a point, it would be for me to discover something. About myself or maybe about… him, because it feels like there’s still so much stuff I’m missing… so many unanswered questions and all the lack of answers leaves me feeling lost, not just about why the hell he did it, but about what kind of person I am that he could leave so easily… Who was I then? Who am I now? I really don’t know… But maybe when I look back and watch these one day far, far down the road, I’ll realize what I really think about life and I’ll finally get some answers to what leaves me confused every single day, because right now I’m about as lost as a damn bottle floating in gross, murky water.”
    I pause, contemplating as I tap my fingers on the desk. “Or maybe I’ll be able to backtrack through my thoughts and figure out why he did it.” I inhale and then exhale loudly as my pulse begins to thrash. “And if you’re not me and you’re watching these, then you’re probably wondering who
he
is, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to say his