[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 Nineteen | Sweet
♫Sweet by Cigarettes After Sex
I imagine that trying to fall asleep in my body while nervous is similar to what hell is like.
I'll be lying there facing the ceiling, my body so tensed that my shoulderblades stick out to the point where it feels like they're propping me up. The feeling makes me tired. My open eyes make me tired. The tension makes me tired. But whatever I try to think about, however far I count, the sensation of being pulled a hundred different directions, on the verge of snapping (literally) won't allow me to lose consciousness.
Sometimes it makes me cry out of frustration. Actually, a lot about this being underneath my skin makes me cry. In the small bathroom of the nail salon or over a chalked sidewalk in New York City, or accompanied by Olivia's soft snores across the room.
At this point I think I subconsciously consider it to be a normal part of life. The aching, the yearning, the questioning— out of everybody I've ever met, seen, shared a space with at any point in my life, why am I the one having to live like this? Why not my siblings or a random person sleeping in the dorm across the hall? Why not the girl that pushed me to my knees when I was seven and made her friends spit on me? Why not the man calling his brother as we're waiting at the stoplight one Tuesday night, cursing his wife for having an unattractive body after she birthed their child? What did I do to deserve this? What did they do to not deserve this?
Last night was one of those nights. It rained all seven hours of me trying to fall asleep and all two hours of me having breakfast on my own and it rained on my way to professor Stew's 10am class on Monday morning. The idea of giving the presentation I've prepared has just made me want to cry with the rain. Somehow the almost-storm we've got going on feels like permission.
I sit at the front of the lecture hall, a calculated choice. On two different occassions I'll have to walk the distance between my seat and the front of the room and I need that distance to be as small as possible, so people don't get the chance to stare at my walk and I won't have to endure their looks for longer than a short minute.
I know it would've been easier if I had friends in this class, but I still don't have friends in any of my classes, so I sit alone as the space roars with conversation and laughter before class begins. I've always seen making friends sort of like a ship getting ready for departure. I know that it's a window of time in which to socialize and explore and take risks, but it seems I failed.
From the moment the year started and I met my classmates, I could tell I'd never advance to the next dock, wherever that might be. They gave me the Look every other second and slowed their speech when they addressed me, and if someone spoke over me they'd hush them and gently tell me to continue. It didn't matter if I joked or listened or made suggestions, I knew they didn't take me seriously. It was like I was speaking a different language.
