Nova Grace

11

Chapter 11| Burning

"So I'm begging you to come and pull me out the fire
Come quickly cause I'm burning up inside
(...)and I need your hand but I don't wanna burn it"

— Broken, Jonah Kagem

𑁍Nova𑁍

I close the notebook, startled, as Elías bursts into my room. I quickly blink away the dampness in my eyes and morph my features into a scowl

One that seems to be ever present when he's around. Sort of...

"Dinner's ready" he says jumping and landing face first on my bed

"Couldn't hurt you to knock" I roll my eyes. He sits up on the bed looking highly annoyed

"Save me. Lucas is talking about doing a game night, Nova. Game. Night" he sighs opening the zipper of my pillow and taking out the stuffing for no reason at all

I take it from him and smack his head with it. "What's wrong with Game night?" I ask casually putting away Cadence's box, I make a mental note to find a hiding place for it

"Rafael overanalyzes everything everybody does because he's too competitive. Like, we're playing UNO and he makes us get up to pat us down for hidden cards. We play Just Dance and he makes us move our whole bodies and not cheat by just moving the remote" he starts

Doesn't sound that bad to me. Eli is just a grumpy kitten. A real big, intimidating kitten. Also, I can't for the life of me picture any of them playin Just Dance

"Oh and let's not forget about that time we played scrabbled. He spelled love and had a fit because it was worth only five points, said even in board games it is fucking under appreciated, flipped the table and stormed off"

Okay that does make me laugh, it sounds like he's a tiny bit sensitive

"To be fair he was going through a breakup so we let it slide" Elías says. He's oddly chatty tonight

"Well I think you're overreacting, just tell Raf to chill or he's not playing and that's it" I say putting my hair up in a bun, Milo comes running into the room and I sit down on the floor to pet him

"Oh no. Rafael isn't the only problem, Star. Lucas cries when he loses, Dad takes too long to do anything and Santi is such a pro at cheating I'm convinced he'd cheat death if it was coming"

I laugh even harder, already forgetting a tiny bit of the sadness I was feeling. "Well I'm sorry to tell you but you'll have to keep an eye on Rune, he's always winning and I know he cheats but I never figure out how" I say

"Fuck me" he groans and mutters something about family bonding time being stupid and unnecessary torture

We walk down the stairs to the dinning room where everybody is setting the table and chatting. Emilio is checking something that looks like a cake in the oven

"I bet you ten someone storms off tonight" Eli says elbowing me

I hold my laugh when Lucas snaps at Santiago for bumping into him, making his drink spill on his shirt. Santi rolls his eyes and pushes him out of the way