Ren’s POV
The morning that we go our separate ways, Mom pulls me aside, one-on-one.
“I just need to know why,” she tells me, looking so deep into my eyes, I feel like she’s seeing straight into my soul. “Is it him—Nick? Have you fallen in love with him?”
“Yes,” I tell her, so instantly and certainly that I think I surprise myself even more than her. “I have fallen in love with him. But that’s not why.”
“Then why, Ren? Why go back there, after what you had to see there? Why go back there, when—”
“Mom,” I interrupt, taking her hands in mine. “Stop.”
She falls silent, looking at me with confused, watery eyes.
“I know you can’t go back there,” I tell her. “I know that you want to, and I know why you can’t.”
She stares at me, dumbfounded. “But… how?”
I shrug a shoulder. “The Nova i
