Nova (28 page)

“Well, what’s telling you to keep working here?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your head or your heart? What’s swaying your decision?” 

I guess that was a fair question, but I felt at a loss with either answer. But I truthfully answered, “My heart I guess.”

“Then you need to finish school.”

“What?”

“You know in your head that you should,
you already said so,
but being torn between what you want and what you know you should do is what trips a lot of people up. You go with the logical plan, Nova. You’ve got it figured out; just stick with it.”

Over a month ago he wasn’t so enthused about “the plan.” What changed? Now he wanted me to stick with my plan of four-and-a-half more years of school?
Four years
. That seemed so long to me now. How come? How did my plans suddenly change without me realizing it?

“Maybe I should just finish this semester
and then return here full time,
” I said. “I’m not sure if I have it in me to go four years of vet school.”

“Sure you do,” he smiled. “You’ll sail through it because you’re that smart,” he added, tapping my head.

“But what if I just don’t want to do it anymore? What if I’d rather just…be
here
.
With you.”

He stared at me for quite a while, and then I think he finally got the gist of what I was hinting
at
. He seemed to falter at what to say though, so eventually he just said, “Nah, you’re just having second thoughts. You’ve always wanted to finish school, Nova. You’re just hitting a little speed bump right now.”

I could feel myself deflate. Six weeks ago I
wanted
to hear that kind of encouragement. I wanted to hear him support me a little more than he actually had. Now, when I wanted him to tell m
e that he felt the same way too,
that he felt we should take the next step in our relationship
, he was only telling me what I
didn’t
want to hear.

“What?” he
asked
when I stood from the
couch.
“What did I say wrong?”

“Nothing—”

“Don’t give me that,” he scoffed. “Your face, like, literally fell. Why? Talk to me.”

He stood
up too
and made me face him, but I was too afraid to be honest out loud. Obviously his feelings had changed within the last few weeks, and he no longer needed, or wanted, that kind of sacrifice from me. But it didn’t even feel like a sacrifice anymore because I realized it was what I truly wanted.

“Nova, you’re kind of weirding me out right now,” he sort of smiled. “This has to do with school? Are you feeling a little frustrated about it, or even overwhelmed? You’re a smart girl, babe. You can get through it.”

“It doesn’t have to do with school,” I finally
groaned
.

He was surprised by my tone, but just said, “Okay, so what does it have to do with?”

“You.”

He raised an eyebrow and then took a moment before responding, “Okay, and what about me?”

“I love you.”

“Well
I love you, too. And that’s why you’re pissed off right now?”

“I’m not pissed off,” I partially smiled.

He smiled too, but continued to search my face for an explanation. “If this has to do with what we talked about a while back… Nova, I don’t expect you to give anything up for me. That was really selfish of me to ask that and I’m sorry I was so stupid about it. It wasn’t fair.”

“Maybe it was.”

“Hmm?”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Maybe it was the right thing to ask, but you didn’t quite finish it the right way.”

He tilted his head with confusion. “What do you mean? Finish what?”

“Your request. You wanted me to consider giving up school to be with you. Because of how I feel about you right now, maybe it
really
was the right thing to do. But maybe you should have added something more to it. Maybe there should have been one more thing that would have made the offer complete.”

He stared at me for a long time, and even though I knew he just had to know what I was talking about, my heart was starting to panic because his reaction wasn’t what I wanted it to be.

“Nova, I…”

He paused again, and that’s when I felt the severity of what I’d just done. He didn’t know how to tell me no. At first I was a little
too
stunned to believe it, but then I was angry
with
myself for
being so dumb about it.
But how could that be dumb?
I tried to reason with myself. What was wrong with talking about marriage? We’d mentioned “our future” before… Isn’t that what we were both referring to?

“I better get going,” I finally mumbled. I wasn’t sure how long I could take the torture of his silence, and fleeing the scene was my only option.

“Don’t go,” he said, grabbing my hand. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t know. I’m an idiot when it comes to talking about stuff like this. I just… I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“By telling me that you’d rather not marry me.”

“No, that’s not it,” he sighed. “It’s just… I…”

“Austin—
”

“Okay, look. Yeah, that night by the creek I really
considered bringing
it
up
. But then you just… You didn’t sound like that was what you wanted. I guess I decided you were right, and I shouldn’t have asked you to give up your education—”

“But if you had just added
that
, maybe it would have made the difference.”

“And what if it didn’t? I didn’t want you to feel like you had to make a choice between the two. Do you realize how that might have sounded at the time? ‘Nova, if you choose not to go to school, we can get married.’ ”

I guess I saw his point, but I really didn’t think I would have looked at it that way.
But maybe I would have, being that I wasn’t ready to change my plans at that
time
.

“Okay, I understand how that might have felt, but the important thing is that I
don’t
feel that way, Austin. I look at what we have, our options, and see things a little clearer now. I guess it took making the wrong choice for me to see what I really wanted; to
realize
what the
right
choice was.”

“I don’t think you made the wrong choice,” he replied. “I just think…maybe you’re feeling a little homesick right now after being away for a week. Maybe you just need to give yourself some time to adjust.”

It was my turn to be silent
and I thought I felt a tiny little break starting to form in my heart. I never would have had this conversation with him had I known where it was going to lead.

“Nova,” he said,
softly gathering my hair in his hands
. “I
don’t want you to lose your focus because of me, okay? I don’t want you to end up resenting me because I made you give up your
education
.”

“You’re not making me give up anything. I’ve already made my choice; I just need to hear you agree.”

And he couldn’t say it. He just stared at me.

I could feel my eyes bu
rn with the tears that formed. A
nd that, combined with how I had just put myself out there
so boldly
, made me feel completely weak and vulnerable. I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat and tried to nod my head with resolve.
“Okay, at least I know how you feel. I guess, uh, well, I guess we finally got that out of the way…”

“It has nothing to do with not wanting to marry you, Nova. Don’t think that, okay?”

“Well what am I supposed to think?” I asked quietly.

“That you’re changing your plans again and I just need a minute to think it over.”

I sort of scoffed. “You have to think about how you feel?”

“No, I already know that I love you,” he said, almost angrily.

“But that’s where it stops? You love me but don’t see a future with me?”

“I didn’t say that,” he groaned. “You’re adding your own words. I absolutely see a future with you—we’ve already discussed that—but right now just…it just isn’t the right time to talk about getting married.”

“Well if you can’t even talk about it, then it obviously isn’t even an option for you.”

“
That’s not what I meant. And y
es it is an option for me. I do plan on you and I getting married. But right now things are really good between us—at least I thought they were—and with so many things going on, how could we possibly
complicate it even more?
”

“Complicate
it
? I see it as making it better and you see it as complicating things?”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, seeming to try and slow down the conversation. “Okay, hold on for just a minute…” He took a deep breath and let it out, even taking a couple of steps away to regroup. When he turned around he said, “I love you, Nova. I really do. I mean I’m
in love
with you. It’s the best feeling
in the world.
But… Right now I think it’s just the way it is. You need to finish school, and getting married isn’t going to give us more time together. And then when you move to Sacramento…”

“I don’t have to go to UC Davis. Austin, do hear what I’m telling you? I’d rather take Jack
’s
offer and continue to w
ork here. It’s gratifying to me
and I love it. It’s everything that I want. I don’t need that piece of paper anymore.
You
are more important to me
and I can’t move to Sacramento because it won’t work for me. It will pull us apart.”

“No, you’re going to apply to the school and you’re going to get in, okay? And we’re not going to let it pull us apart because we’ll do everything we can to be together as much as possible. I’ll even come up there and spend time with you, Nova. We’ll make it work, I promise, and it won’t be any different than what we have now, and you can still achieve your goals
and get your degree
.”

In listening to him “reassure” me, I also realized that he didn’t
want
things to be any different than what they were now. I guess I felt like he was using my education as an excuse, and my real fear wasn’t that I couldn’t get into UC Davis anymore… My fear was that Austin might not ever be ready to get married.

I took a slow
,
silent breath before I said, “My goals have changed, and if you’re unwilling to get that through your thick head, then I’m just going to assume that you don’t want to get married. I understand that Austin, I really do. But don’t use me
, or my education,
as an excuse. I appreciate how much you care and how much you want me to achieve the things I’ve set out to achieve, but if there are other reasons that you’re not admitting
to
right now,
then
I suggest you just get it out in the open so we understand each other perfectly clear.
Am I making
myself
clear?
”

Our eyes locked on one another, and I almost regretted being so aggressive about it, but we’d come this far with the subject and I felt like it wasn’t doing either of us any good to beat around the bush.

“I love you, Nova
,” he finally said.

“I understand that. But you’re not doing me any favors by protecting my feelings.”

He slowly nodded. “Okay, then yeah, I don’t want to get married.”

My heart dropped into my stomach, but I tried to remain strong as he continued.

“I love you, and I don’t plan on being with anyone other than you, but right now I’m not ready.
I’ve always admired you for your strength, Nova. And that night, when I basically asked you to give everything up for me… It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that
, and I’m sorry
. You still wanted to pur
sue your career, and I completely
respected that, so I started thinking that I should continue to do the same.
I want to keep racing
,
and I know that doesn’t make you happy. I’m going to win the All-Star Showdown, and I’m going to be racing in the majors next year, and I don’t know how you’re going to feel about that. Right now you just barely tolerate racing, but at least you allow me to do it. I’m afraid that might change if we got married.”

I slightly raised an eyebrow at that. “You think I’d have more control over your decision to race?”

He barely shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know if you’d change how you feel, but I know that I won’t back down, and I’m sure that would create a lot of tension between us. When you’re married…there’s a lot more at stake.
And if we have kids…
I don’t want to set us up for disaster, Nova. Right now things are good, and I’m comfortable with it. A month ago I might have eloped with you
,
without
a
second thought
, because I realized how much I loved you
. But
then
I began to realize how much I wanted you to finish school, and now racing has really been blown wide open for me. I just think it was meant to be that way. I kept wondering why I was such a moron that night—why I botched a perfectly good moment with you—but now I realize that it wasn’t meant to be the right time for that.”