Nova's Accomplice↠

III↠

I pull out my keys from within my bag and unlock the door to my apartment, 14B. It's finally Friday, and I made it through a whole week of school without being bothered much. The word about the hooded figure punching assface in my defense, who's name I found out was Kyle, spread throughout the school quickly. Kyle hasn't bothered me again since, only sending me dirty glares and the oh-so-original trip someone with your foot bit. Assface. At least he has a big fat purple nose now.I have yet to see the hoodie-wearing figure since the laundry incident though.
Walking inside, I notice the bottles of Heineken littering the floor, and knowing that my mum is going to blame me for them when she's sober (if she gets sober), I pick up the bright green bottles and throw them in the bin. I look for my mother in the small space and deciding she's not home, I plop down on the couch and turn on the tv.

The tv flickers black and white and makes an irritating static noise. "My favorite show." I mutter sarcastically with a sigh. Looks like we're going without cable for a while.

I go into my room and pull out my dad's old record player placing the needle on the Otis Redding album he used to always put on.

"Oh, she may be weary." A small smile slowly graces my lips as memories of my father waltzing with me across the living room, my mother's and Leo's light laughter and amused claps drowning out the music as we performed our little dance to 'try a little tenderness'.

I swayed to the music my dark hair dancing and moving as I do my feet sounding lightly against the old stained carpet. Twirling and spinning around, I almost didn't notice when my mom stumbled inside our apartment, a man holding her by the waist. Almost.

The smile quickly faded from my face as I saw my mother grab the man by the face and smash her lips onto his. Hastily, I pull my bag over my shoulder and leave the apartment knowing well what's next to come.

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I end up running to the woods. I don't know why my feet brought me here, I don't know how but here I am standing at the edge of the woods staring off into the trees. Back home, I used to go out to my treehouse in the backyard when these situations happen. But seeing as I live in an apartment and the lack of tree it's obvious why that can't happen. I decide to walk until I find shelter or resources to build one for the night. I don't want to go home and listen to my mom and that man, whatever they might be doing. The thought angers me and I run into the woods dodging branches and jumping over rotten logs my breath coming out ragged until I reach a small pond. It's only 5:00 and the sun is still up and apparently so are the ducks swimming in the surprisingly clean pond. I spot a mother and her 3 little light colored ducklings. I reach out to pet a duckling but the mother quacks defensively at me so I quickly retract my hand back to my lap.

"She's quite feisty isn't she?"
The voice makes me jump five feet in the air and let out a series of high pitched cuss words. I spin around only to be met by the knight in shining armor himself.

I almost reach out to see if he's really there but realizing it might not be appreciated, I decide against it. Noticing my loss of words (and sanity) he chuckles and mutters a quick 'sorry for scaring you' to me. "It's okay." I mumble shyly hiding my face with my hair. I always though if I had the chance to confront my savior I would bombard him with questions, but now that it's finally happening I can't help but feel bashful. Especially considering how attractive he is. His sharp jawline highlighted by the setting sun, his long eyelashes that I bet all the girls fawn over, his deep olive skin, and his eyes. God, his eyes, they'd look so ordinary on anybody else but on him they look amazing. You can see the emotions swimming in them. He has awfully sad eyes. He's tragically beautiful.

Wondering if he's getting weirded out by the awkward silence I decide to speak. "Yeah she's quite the feisty one. Do you come here often?" I ask finally lifting my head up to look at the pond.
"Yeah actually, I do. I've never seen you around though." He says in an almost questioning way looking at me from the corner of his eye.

"No, I just came here for a peace of mind and a place to sleep." I say and immediately realize my mistake and clamp my mouth shut.

Shit.

I look over at him nervously only to see him looking at me understandingly a soft smile gracing his lips. "You've come to the right place." He says holding his hand out to help me up from the floor. I happily take it and follow him to God knows where.

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After a short walk in the now dark woods we finally make it to "his humble abode" as he apparently likes put it. It's a barn with a brick yellow roof and pastel yellow walls and 2 stories.

As I get inside I notice there's no electricity but a lot of windows. There are flashlights illuminating the barn though making it look like regular light. The first story is awfully tall and I notice the second story is not a second story at all but an elevated room I've yet to see. I felt something kneading my leg and look down and see a cat that resembles the character 'Garfield' almost exactly.

"You're so cute!" I exclaim petting the cat behind the ears and looking at it's tag to see that his name is in fact Garfield. I look over to the boy who's name I've yet to learn and laugh. "Original name." I say teasingly him. He smiles widely at me and behind to explain his extremely detailed story about how he and his mom found the cat stuck in a tree and he had somehow got himself stuck in a tree trying to get him. The mention of his mom made me wonder where she was but I decided not to question him and make him think I'm nosy. We talk, for a long time, some things we talked about totally random others not so much, and I find out that his favorite color is green and he likes to draw and he grew up in silverspoon and many other things.

He's a very easy person to talk to, I notice and he has a great sense of humor too. I let out a yawn and he stops his debate about how "chocolate chip cookies slay any other cookie". "Do you want to go to sleep now?" He questions letting out a yawn of his own. "If it's not too much to ask." I say sheepishly and he shakes his head and replies 'nonsense' and tells me to follow him upstairs to the separate room.

I gasp when I enter. There's a bed in the corner with a couch next to it and a sloped ceiling with a big fat sun roof that shows billions of stars and constellations. He chuckles at me and flops onto his bed. "You like it?" He questions motioning to the ceiling and I nod enthusiastically jumping onto the bed and explaining to him the constellations and their stories and why they're there. He gives me clothes to change into and I jump under the covers next to him and sigh. For some reason I feel like I've known him for years and I trust him. I'm not saying that I'm in love or anything but I think this is the start of a friendship. My first friendship since dad. I let out another content sigh and face him remembering something.

"I'm Nova." I say to him extending my hand. He finds the connection of my name and the stars humorous so with a laugh he shakes my hand.

"My name's Andrew."