[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 Seven | Looking Out For You
♫Looking Out For You by Joy Again
I've never really believed that there's much to me. It was the reason behind my lack of friends growing up, having zero experience with boys, fading away in the background as much as I do. My extended family called me 'the fire escape' from early on: I stuck to walls, sat quietly and observed wide-eyed, and was always ready to get up and go home.
There's the thing about not wanting to be seen, of course. Something that, throughout my life, has kind of formed a bubble around me. I close myself off. I make no noise and no problems and am loved for it, yet also forgotten. It's kind of ironic. I spend my days making myself invisible and then get upset about not feeling like I'm part of anything.
But, there's also just me as a person. Once, when I was in my sophomore year of high school, my siblings and I got into a fight about something stupid and in the heat of the moment one of them shouted, "God, the cosmos, whichever is in charge, probably made you this way so you're at least interesting to look at— without it, there truly would be nothing to you, Nova". And yes, it's such a specific thing to just remember, but I do remember. If I strip myself of my disability, there's nothing left. My shyness stems from it. My empathy. My desires and my passions. It's pathetic.
Maybe one thing I failed to mention to Milo back on the train is that New York is also an attempt at making something of myself. I want to be more. But the longer I'm here, the more I tend to feel like the only realization I've been destined to make here is that all there is to me is what I lack. I can strut down the sidewalk to my NYU class and be part of the crowd, but this tightness in my bones won't dissolve. And if I dare to think it will, then the mean person underneath my skin tugs back the reigns again and sends a bolt of aches down my legs so that the pain of it all— physical, mental— burns at the very front of my brain again.
I'm not the type of person to diagnose myself with a serious mental issue, or make jokes or suggestions about it, but sometimes, it gets scary how fast I can spiral. Some mornings feel so heavy, my body feels so wrong whenever I move, that I end up in a daze, waiting for it all to be over, to crawl back into bed with the dog curling at my feet and my sister's weighted blanket and the ocean luring me to sleep. But there is no ocean outside my dorm, no dog, no weighted blanket. The fact that there's nothing of home waiting for me tonight somehow makes it all worse. I've only been walking for about five minutes but my muscles strain and tighten, a cramp that feels like its hotspot brews within my thighs.
My first class, an 8am in a building across the street from my dormitory, is led by an older professor. He calls himself 'traditional' and makes an entire speech about the dangers of the digital age and still believing in papers and pens— which, to someone like me who can hold a pen for approximately five minutes before cramping, is a red flag: these type of teachers usually have a hard time to wrap their minds around the notion that no, I cannot abide to your handwritten essay rule and I don't know how they did this a hundred years ago when there were no laptops, but then again, there was also racism and sexism a hundred years ago, so maybe that argument won't really hold anyway. In high school, it meant conflict. My guidance counselor sticking up for me, Claire writing a note as my cerebral-palsy-specialized-therapist, or (when really necessary) my parents making an appearance for a conversation.
