Novels by Nicholeta

# LENALandon texts Sunday morning with the details.Dinner. Tuesday. His father's usual restaurant downtown. Dress like you belong there. I will pick you up at seven.I spend Sunday with Leo. He is home, propped on the couch, running through a video game with more focus than he has ever given anything medical. His color is good. He complains about the pain medication making him slow. He beats three levels in the time it takes me to eat lunch.I do not tell him about Tuesday. I do not tell my mother either. I sit with them the whole day and let it be what it is, ordinary and quiet, the one day the contract cannot touch.Monday I go to the library and research Richard Cross.He is not difficult to find. His name is on the Westbrook gymnasium. His firm manages assets for fourteen companies in the region. He sits on three school boards. There is a profile in a regional business journal from two years ago, a photograph of him at his desk looking like a man who has never been told no and h

# LENATwo days after the hospital Priya shows up at my door with tea and a look that means the waiting period is over."Talk," she says."Leo is recovering. He is home. He is already complaining about the food which means he is fine.""I know about Leo. Talk about the other thing."I let her in. She sits on my bed. I sit at my desk. Outside the dorms are loud with the particular energy of a Friday night that does not apply to me."He came to the hospital," I say.Priya is quiet."During the surgery. He sat there for four hours. He brought coffee for my mother. He did not make it into anything. When the surgeon came out and I cried he put his hand over mine.""Lena.""I know.""That is not fake relationship behavior.""I know that too.""So either he is very good at this or.""Priya." I look at her. "I cannot tell yet if it is real or if he is someone who is genuinely kind in private and I am reading into it because I am tired and it is easier than staying suspicious.""What does your

# LENAI am at St. Catherine's by six thirty.My mother is already there in yesterday's scrubs, a cold coffee in her hand, the particular stillness of someone running on no sleep and sheer will. I sit beside her. I swap the cold cup for the one I brought. We look at each other and say nothing because we have built a whole language out of not saying things in hard places.Leo goes into prep at six forty five. He makes a joke about the hospital gown. He always makes a joke about the hospital gown. He is twelve years old and the funniest person in any room he walks into and I press my thumbnail into my palm to keep from crying in front of him because he needs me steady.My mother and I sit in the waiting area. Time moves the way it does in hospitals, thick and slow. Around us the morning shifts over, staff changing, a PA announcement somewhere down the hall, a family in the corner praying quietly. I count the ceiling tiles. I count the chairs. I count the minutes.At seven fifteen the ma

# LENAThe jacket is navy wool with gold stitching and it weighs about as much as the decision I made to put it on.Priya watches me pull it over my shoulders in the corridor outside the gymnasium and says nothing for four full seconds. From Priya that is the equivalent of a very long speech."When," she says."Recently.""How recently.""This week.""Lena." She steps closer and drops her voice. "Three days ago you told me Landon Cross was the reason the orchestra got moved to the parking garage.""People change their minds.""About someone they have actively disliked for three years?""Priya." I look at her steady. "I need you to trust me right now. I cannot explain everything and I need you to let it be what it looks like for a while."She studies my face. I know what she is doing. She has known me long enough to find every seam in every story I have ever told her. She is looking for one now."Is this about Leo," she says quietly.I do not answer.That is its own kind of answer and

# LENAI arrive eight minutes early and choose the table in the far corner near the window. Pen on the table. Bag on the floor. Outside the glass the campus is still mostly empty, a few people cutting across the lawn with their heads down against the cold. I watch them for a moment and then I stop watching them and I wait.Landon Cross walks in at exactly eight. No jacket today, just a dark sweater, a folder under his arm. He scans the room once before he finds me, which means he did not already know where I would sit. Small thing. I file it away.He sits across from me and opens the folder. Clean copy of the contract and a second handwritten page beside it."Amendments," he says.His handwriting is small and even, the same as yesterday. I read each line carefully. Minimum two appearances per week. No social posts without approval from both sides. Full confidentiality from both parties. Two weeks notice for early termination. And at the bottom, pressed a little harder into the page th

LENA "Be my girlfriend." I look up from my cello. Landon Cross is standing in the doorway of the third floor music room and he is looking at me like he has been here before, like he already knows the layout, like he did not wander up here by accident. Brown hair. Green eyes. The Westbrook varsity jacket that this school treats like a religious garment. I have said maybe twelve words to this boy in three years. None of them were kind. "Wrong room," I said. "It is the right room." He steps inside and closes the door. He pulls a folded paper from his jacket and sets it on my music stand without asking. "Read it." I read it because I want to know what I am dealing with, not because he told me to. Typed. Clean. Terms of Agreement at the top. Six months of fake dating. Public appearances, his jacket at games, my presence at school events. Fifteen thousand dollars split into two payments. A confidentiality clause. No physical contact beyond appearances. I set it down. "No." "You