Nova and Quinton: No Regrets by Jessica Sorensen Page A

Sure.
    Me: That you’re a good, strong person.
    Quinton: Are you sure u know who you’re talking to?
    Me: Yeah, the person who was good to me when I was in such a vulnerable place. The person who managed to pull himself away from a life of addiction. That takes strength, my friend.
    Quinton: It takes weakness to get to that place to begin with. To walk away from my life like that. Give up everything instead of being strong and actually just facing my problems. I wish I could be stronger and face them now. And I wish I hadn’t given up everything.
    Me: You’ll get there. It’ll just take time. Facing the hard stuff is… well, hard. And as for giving everything up, you can still get it back. You just have to know what you want and work toward getting it.
    Quinton: But I’m not sure what I want exactly. I know I like helping people and everything. It keeps me busy and makes me feel like I’m giving stuff back. But other than that, I don’t know what I want to do. Draw and paint, yeah, but that’s not a whole hell of a lot.
    Me: Sure it is. U just have to do it.
    Quinton: I don’t even know what to draw anymore. All my sketches and paintings over the last couple of years have been trippy. I want to draw things that mean something. I want to draw things that I can put passion into. Like life. Happiness. Sadness. Pain. I want to draw stuff that’s important to me… I want to draw you, too. And not from how I see you in my head. I want to draw you in front of me. Every line. Every inch of you.
    Before I have time to react to the text, another one comes in.
    Me: I’m sorry if that last text made u uncomfortable. I’m blaming it on the fact that Greg made me share way too much today and broke me down I think.
    I take a deep breath, thinking about what it would be like for him to draw me like he described. I remember when Landon first sketched me: halfway through it, he kissed me for the first time. It was magical at the time and it’s heartbreaking to remember it now, but I wouldn’t want to forget how it felt for anything.
    Me: I want u to draw me like that. In fact, I’m going to hold u to it and make u do it the next time I see u.
    Jesus Christ. Did I seriously just text that? Wow. I can’t even breathe.
    Quinton: I wish I could do it right now… see you right now… touch u right now.
    My heart pitter-patters inside my chest and I have to suck in a huge breath when I realize I’ve been holding it. My initial response is to skirt around the conversation because of where it’s heading. But then I realize that it’s been a long time coming so I just go for it.
    Me: I wish I could see you and touch you, too… I wish you were touching me. In fact, I think about it all the time.
    My hands shake as I hit send.
    Quinton: Nova you’re killing me right now. I swear to God. Now I’ve got pictures inside my head of us touching each other.
    I shut my eyes and bite my lip as images appear inside my mind as well. How it felt when he ran his hands across my body. How his tongue tasted. How his tongue felt. How his fingers felt when they were in me. God, it’s been a long time.
    Me: Good, because I do, too… do u remember that kiss we shared right after we got off the roller coaster last summer? It was our last kiss.
    It takes him a moment to answer and I grow worried that maybe it was the wrong question to ask.
    Quinton: I do. I should have never kissed u when I was like that.
    Me: And I probably shouldn’t have kissed u when I knew u were like that, but at the same time, I’m glad u did. It made me realize a lot of stuff… how I feel about you. And how much I want to kiss u, over and over again.
    Another pause and I start to feel stupid for being so forward. But then a message comes through.
    Quinton: Nova, I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I don’t think I can take much more of this kind of talk with u. It makes me want to do things I’m not ready for. I’m seriously one step away from getting on a plane