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CHAPTER ELEVEN. the melancholy blues
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MIDSUMMERS HAPPENED TO be the last place Nova Van Kirk wanted to be right now, the very thought of being stuck in a place surrounded by people who stared at her with sad smiles and looks of pity in their eyes. The girl swore that if one more person came up to her and offered their condolences for her brother's death one more time ( considering it was four months late ) then Nova would slap the fake sympathy out of them herself. God, this entire party was enough to make Nova want to blow her brains out. Did that sound a little eccentric? Absolutely. But she meant every word and every bitter thought that crossed her mind.
This was exactly the reason why Nova didn't want to attend Midsummers in the first place. The young blonde knew she would be forced to endure several hours of complete strangers expressing their sympathy for her and the rest of the Van Kirk family because this was the first Midsummers since Riley's tragic passing. Many people would describe Riley as the life of the party, but that was because he would sneak so many booze into his system that he would end up dancing on top of the tables by the end of the night.
However, if all these strangers knew Riley like Nova did, then they would know the boy hated Midsummers more than life itself, and thought getting intoxicated was the easiest coping mechanism, because attending the extravagant event sober was no option for someone like Riley Van Kirk. Nova always used to believe her brother was insane for not enjoying Midsummers the way she once did, but now Nova understood her brothers burning hate for the event, because it took him dying for her to realise it was just an excuse to play dress up and party whilst the rest of the world outside of their perfect bubble fell apart.
It was moments like these that made Nova need a coping mechanism of her own, her skin crawling with agonising discomfort, an insatiable craving on the tip of her tongue, her body yearning for some kind of release from the intolerable feeling scorching across her skin. It was a kind of feeling that Nova wanted to put an end to, but she knew the only way to do that was to go after the one thing she had been trying to run away from, and if she slipped up, even if it was just once, then her parents were going to send her away, and that was the last thing Nova wanted.
