“Hey…” Zephyr spoke up after a bit.
Nova turned her head to look at her friend, noting a deep, thoughtful frown on the girl’s face. “What’s up?” she prodded when Zephyr didn’t continue.
“Do you remember your parents?”
Nova froze, turning back to the stars and frowning herself. “I…yes,” she said quietly. “Well, my mother. I don’t remember my dad, though. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Zephyr said. “I miss my dad. My mom, too.”
Nova wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She and Zephyr were similar in a lot of ways, but they were also very different sometimes, and this was one of those times. Of course, Nova missed her mother, but it was more like… she missed the idea of her? She’d been seven when her mother had left, and her memories had faded over the past nine years until they were all hazy, blurry images. Nothing concrete. It was kind of alarming, actually, when she really thought about it. She had a near perfect memory, otherwise; why couldn’t she remember one of the most important parts of her life? She’d known a lot of other kids who’d lost their parents around the same time she had, and they all had a lot of memories of their lives before. It wasn’t normal for her to have forgotten almost everything, especially as her mother hadn’t died or anything—she’d just left. Shouldn’t Nova be able to recall more about her and the time they’d spent together?
“You know what I miss?” Zephyr continued, her voice betraying a wistful sort of smile. “Rainy nights, when my mom would put on old movies and make us popcorn. My dad did this thing, sometimes, where he would throw popcorn at my mom to distract her, and then she’d start throwing it back, until no one was watching the movie anymore and we were just making a big mess, and then we’d all have to clean it up later.”
“That’s… a really weird thing to miss.”
“I know!” Zephyr laughed back. “But I do. It’s the little things, you know? I mean, I also miss Christmas, and Halloween, and my birthday…but not as much as I miss things like…well, like that, and like my mom and dad taking me on walks. They always brought the wagon because I’d get tired on the way home. And chili. My mom made the best chili. Nobody else ever makes chili right. What about you?”
“What about me?” Nova asked.
“What do you miss?” Zephyr rolled onto her side, propping her head up with her hand and leaning her elbow on the ground as she adjusted her glasses, looking at Nova expectantly. “More than anything else, what do you miss most about your mom?”
Once again, Nova wasn’t sure how to answer. She glanced away from Zephyr, looking back up at the stars and frowning as she tried to think about some specific thing or moment that she missed. But she came up blank. Her memories were too foggy. It wasn’t fair. She’d been seven when her mother had left, only two years younger than Zephyr’s age when she had been orphaned, but she didn’t have any memories of things like going for walks or watching movies, or the kinds of food her mother cooked, or anything like that.
What was wrong with her?
“I miss…the beach,” she decided after a moment. “I don’t remember why we were there, but I remember thinking the water was warm, and playing in the sand while my mom was talking to… somebody, I don’t remember who.” Again, she could only recall a foggy sort of image, the sun shining brightly and the figure of her mother silhouetted against light, the ocean sparkling beside them as her mother talked to the other person. She’d sounded worried, Nova remembered that much. That had been just before she’d left, promising to come back, and then…she hadn’t. But Nova didn’t mention that part.
“We went to the beach a lot,” Zephyr said. “I remember one time, I got really upset because I couldn’t make a sandcastle. It kept falling down, and I wouldn’t let my dad help because I wanted to build it myself. I tried to fly a kite, too, but I couldn’t manage that by myself, either. That trip was for my birthday, I think, and the kite was a present. I didn’t want to share it.”
“I think I got this necklace for my birthday,” Nova told her, turning more towards Zephyr and holding her necklace out a bit, the pendant glinting against the moonlight. She wasn’t actually sure if it had been a birthday present, and she’d often wondered where she’d gotten it, or rather, who had given it to her. She thought it was her mother. She could sometimes almost recall the moment. Her mother tying the leather strip behind her neck, brushing her hair out of the way, and saying something.
But she couldn’t quite remember what she’d said, or even what she looked like. She suddenly felt ashamed for not knowing, and after hearing Zephyr’s stories, so full of detail and life, Nova wanted to say something more substantial than that she’d visited a beach once. What was the harm in a little… daydreaming? “It was wrapped in silver paper,” she invented. “With green ribbons, I think. We had cupcakes, and my mom dropped hers on the carpet, so…we shared mine.”
It felt wrong to pretend about something like this, but she didn’t have any of these real memories like Zephyr did. She frowned down at the necklace, shifting it to gleam in the moonlight again, taking in the etching of her name. Clearly, her mother had cared at least a little; otherwise, she wouldn’t have given her something so personal, but if she’d cared…why had she left her alone for so long? She’d said she would be back, but here Nova was, nine years later, making up stories about cupcakes and wrapping paper.
Maybe her mother had tried to find her. Maybe she’d been looking this whole time and couldn’t track her down because of how often she moved foster homes.
“Is this all?” Nova asked, turning to Zephyr again with a feeling of frustration growing inside her.
“What do you mean?”
“Is this all there is?” Nova pressed. “Is this all that’s left? Sitting out here alone, telling stories about how things used to be?”
“Well…yes,” Zephyr said quietly, her expression dropping a bit. “At least, for me.” She rolled onto her back, looking tiredly up at the sky again. “I can’t exactly go back. My parents…they’ve been dead for seven years now. I have nothing to go back to.”
“I want to find my mother,” Nova decided. “Or at least find out what happened. She was supposed to come back for me, so what if she’s still out there looking? Or, what if she thinks something happened to me and gave up, and that’s the only reason she hasn’t found me yet? I have to try. I can’t just sit here and wait anymore. I have to do something.”
“You mean run away?” Zephyr frowned. “That’s a bad idea, Nova. You’re talking like it’d be some adventure from a kid’s movie, and I’m not too big on adventures. Come on—you’re tired. Let’s go back.”
“I’m serious, Zeph,” Nova said, feeling her cheeks heat up a bit at the dismissal, sitting up now and drawing her knees to her chest to rest her arms on them. “I don’t want to stay with Todd and Stephanie, and I don’t want to keep moving to new places, either. I think…I’m old enough to be out on my own. I’m sixteen now, and my mother’s still out there—I know she is. I could run away, really run away this time, and not come back. I could look for her. I could find her. No more waiting around.”