[completed] Nova Carter knows exactly what the next few years of her life will look like: she will work harder than anyone else (as she didn't get into New York University to slack off); she'll be keeping her head down and prioritizing getting her a...
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Chapter Five | Hot Rod
♫Hot Rod by Dayglow
They say that everyone has two births— the birth of the body and the birth of the mind. From four years of age and onward you start to become aware of yourself and make real memories, rather than loose, arbitrary points of recognition in the mind and weak strings attaching them.
Some claim to remember, like this guy on Tik Tok who described a hardware store in Maryland and his uncle, and looking at his palms and feeling his chest heave. Another mentioned a car ride and a purple hued sky with smudges of pink and shades of orange on the horizon. Another, a normal evening in the living room, a cup of warm milk and a Disney movie.
I can't really remember who I was as a child.
Throw that onto a platform like Tumblr and they'll diagnose you with three different illnesses and mention unprocessed trauma, but it's true. I can't really imagine anyone having vivid visions like the internet people do, I don't know what I liked and did all day except play with my siblings and watch them draw or watch movies. It's not substantial— it's as loose as the pre-mind-birth stage of being alive.
I know what people have told me about myself. I ask my parents and they say, Nova, you were a lovely and brave little girl. And I listen to it like they're describing a movie, unable to imagine the main character is me.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and can't imagine living before. Like all my memories are just information and codes, like I'm walking and seeing and eating for the first time. Then at night I vow that tomorrow will look different, and it does. As if I caught the universe granting me a vision I shouldn't have, as if it was a glitch of consciousness. It's no wonder half the internet believes to some extent that we live in a simulation. There's too many of them— glitches— and too many mistakes, and the cosmos can't possibly invent an experience quite as intricate. Or a rush of emotions, of wrongness, quite as off-putting.
But I slipped into puberty with time, a pimple-faced, braces-wearing, pigtailed thirteen-year-old hauling orthopedic boots with her each day. People used to cringe away at each step, physically and obviously, as I trotted by. I once got asked if walking was considered a workout and said yes, unaware it was a joke, because weeks before my physicist had actually told me that moving in general was exercise enough for me. You know, considering.
I was unattractive to befriend. That's what I remember and can only assume. Maybe when I was smaller and it was still just cute to see me struggle through my life was I somewhat of a magnet to my peers, but when you get older it works the opposite way. It's not cute, it's just annoying. And it's not fun, it's embarrassing. You get to a point of new beginnings in which everyone is eager to reinvent themselves, appear more grown-up and serious and responsible, and that's where you get stranded. You can replace your butterfly clips with bobby pins, but you can't replace your orthopedic shoes— built-in braces and all— with the new Converse and skinny jeans. So, there, have fun getting stuck in an eternal fifth-grade universe while your friends go off discovering makeup and boys and high-end fashion (or, fakes thereof).
