Nova's POV
Strength, they say, is quiet. It doesn't scream and advertise itself but just shows up when you need it to.
And I was mastering living like that, each painful day at a time.
Because of that night, the evening, the thing between Levi and me had shifted. Not in the type of apocalyptic, Hollywood script type of way you would find in films.
But in the type of quiet, jarring, unpleasant silence that crept up the sides of every room we stepped into. The type that reminded you sharply of your own breathing, the clank your coffee cup made if you bang it down on the marble counter.
Levi barely spoke to me anymore and, when he did, spoke curtly, matter-of-factly, as if reciting lines for a play for which he was not the author.
I had realized that there was going to be nothing else to occur, as you get to put your hand on the hot stove once you've been burned. I no longer cried myself to bed in darkness or woke up with that broken moment of hope that perhaps.... perhaps, he
