Текст книги "Before You Break"
Автор книги: Christina Lee
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
“And he knew it, too.” We both laughed about our lost friend and it felt good. Too bad he wasn’t here with us, so we could rag on him. But maybe he was somewhere, listening. Ready to pound his fist into my arm or wrestle me into a headlock like he’d done countless times on his front lawn.
I couldn’t blame him for having all of that charisma, unless he was abusing it—like I’d been fearful would happen if he kept traveling down the same path. I’d always hoped that reality would slam into him one day. But not in the way it had. And not at my own hands.
In retrospect, I was jealous of Sebastian. I’d wished whatever it was that he possessed would rub off on me. That I could be as luminescent as he’d been. As beautiful and magnetic.
But maybe it only mattered if one person felt that way about you. That you were the moon, the stars, and maybe even the whole damn universe.
“Anyway, Quinn,” Amber said, bringing me out of my thoughts. “I liked you for you. Sure, Sebastian was a superstar—gorgeous and charming and good at everything he touched. But so were you—in your own quiet way. And there was something so attractive about that.”
I closed my eyes at the sound of her words. Because Gabby had been right. There was a glow inside of me, too. Incandescent. This entire time. I just hadn’t recognized it.
“Thank you for that.” I grabbed Amber’s hand and squeezed. “I hope we can start over and be friends.”
“Just friends?” Her eyebrow quirked up.
I nodded and dipped my head, hoping I wasn’t hurting her again.
“I could do that,” she said, and then smiled. It was a genuine smile that helped unraveled that ball of worry in my gut. “Let’s go.”
She threaded her arm through mine and we walked up the stairs to the building. This time, I held my head high and saw things a bit differently from the way I had a couple years ago. People greeted me and slapped me on the back. I didn’t see pity or disgust in their faces. I realized now that what I had seen back then was my own emotions reflected back at me.
We slid into the front row of seats near our parents, but not before walking past Bastian’s family first. This time I looked his parents in the eye. Really looked at them. And I saw their sorrow, their grief, their forgiveness shining back at me.
And I showed them the depths of my emotions, as well. Because that was the singular place we were joined. Connected. In our heartache over losing someone that we’d loved.
I found the empty seat next to my mother, faced the front of the stage, and straightened my tie, ready to take on the day. That’s when I felt a pair of small hands grip my shoulders.
I turned to look into the eyes of my Aunt Gabby. Uncle Nick stood beside her and he reached for her hand, his gaze never leaving mine.
“We came to support you. We figured you’d need it,” Aunt Gabby whispered in my ear. “Please stop shutting us out. We want you in our lives, Daniel.”
I nodded and allowed her to encircle me in a hug, while Uncle Nick clapped me on the shoulder. I felt something warm and wet slip down my neck onto my hand, so I looked up at her.
And that’s when I realized that the tears that had fallen were all my own making.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ella
I’d been lying on the couch trying to get my thoughts in order about Quinn when my phone buzzed with a text. I hadn’t been able to sleep very well the night before, like there had been a dark shadow looming over me. Over my heart.
Quinn: Heading home from my parents’ house. Can I stop by?
My pulse thrummed in my veins. I was desperate to see him, if only to hold him again. I loved the weight and feel of his arms around me. And I was scared of the possibility that that would be all I’d ever get from him. That he’d only be able to show me how he felt through his touch, and with his body—and never with his words or his emotions. That I’d have to make the difficult decision to walk away. Before I fell even deeper.
Me: I’d like that. Don’t have to be at work for a couple of hours.
Quinn: See you in a bit.
I brushed my hair into soft waves, sprayed it, and then changed into the clothes I’ be wearing to work—a simple black skirt, a plain lilac T-shirt, and a chunky necklace.
When I let Quinn inside, he didn’t waste any time gliding his fingers around my waist and resting his forehead against mine. “I’ve missed you.”
My heart threatened to burst through my chest. “Me, too.”
I pulled away and headed toward the kitchen. “You hungry or thirsty?”
He tugged at my hand to sit next to him on the couch. “Only for you.”
Then his lips met mine and I felt something warm and comforting in the center of my chest. Something that felt a lot like coming home.
I raked my hands through his hair and his fingertips fluttered against my thighs. “I like this skirt you’re wearing. Your legs are so sexy.” His fingers teased farther up my thighs beneath the cotton material. I let out a sigh as he kissed my neck.
“So, how was your visit?” I asked between breaths, hoping he’d open up, but also hoping he wouldn’t—so his hands would keep working their way to my panties.
His fingers stilled on the undersides of my legs and he pulled his lips away from my jaw to look me in the eye. “It went okay.”
It was as if I’d doused him with a cold bucket of water. He sat back against the cushions and rested his hands in his lap. The air in the room has changed to something thick and suffocating. I tried to swallow but it was as if fear has replaced my saliva and I couldn’t wash it down. It infused my skin and saturated my bones.
He seemed distant and isolated and anxiety rolled off of him in waves.
This was it. The moment he’d finally tell me something. Maybe everything. It was like a boulder that sat wedged between us. One that needed to be pushed to the side so we could get to the path beyond.
I ground my jaw and tried to still my reaction. Nothing he told me could possibly make me react as badly as he’d imagined. I almost wanted to coddle him like a mother would a small child and tell him it would all be okay.
“Listen—” he began, but I cut him off.
“Wait,” I said, rolling out my shoulders, working up the courage. “Quinn, I love being with you. I want you to know how much I look forward to whatever comes next . . . for you and me. That is, if you want the part that comes next.”
I dipped my head, suddenly shy and anxious, like maybe I’d been presuming too much.
I heard how roughly he swallowed. “I’m pretty sure that next part is going to be up to you,” he whispered.
I grabbed hold of his hand, laced our fingers together, and gave him my full attention.
“Ella, I went home yesterday because my best friend from high school . . .” he said and then squeezed his eyes shut. “He . . . his parents dedicated a baseball scoreboard in his memory.”
“Oh.” I waited to see if he’d offer anything more. After another beat, I asked, “Did he pass away?”
He nodded, fingering the blanket folded on the arm of the couch.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “In high school?”
He looked up at me. “Right after graduation.”
I felt a stab of melancholy for his parents and those that loved him. Why did senseless things like that happen? And when they happened to someone young, in their prime, they felt even worse.
Was this supposed to be the big secret he was holding on to? “You must miss him a lot.”
“I do,” he said. His voice was raw and throaty, sending a shiver racing through me. I’d never heard him sound that way before and something in the back of my mind was niggling at me. A memory. One I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “I have many regrets.”
Regrets. So that’s what this was about. He felt remorse over something he’d said to him before he died. Maybe they had a fight. Or maybe he lamented not saying something to him.
“How . . . how did he die?”
And now his face contorted into something grief-stricken. It made my heart slam into my throat. “In a car accident.”
“Oh,” I said, and suddenly things began rearranging themselves in my head. Bells and whistles were going off. But still I didn’t know what it was that I was supposed to be remembering.
“Was he . . . was he alone?”
He shook his head violently and his eyes looked red and tortured. “We, um . . . we were at a party together. I was the designated driver.”
My stomach seized up as I tried to recall where I might have heard this story before.
The next part flew out of his mouth in a jumble of words and breaths and unease. “I drove Sebastian and his girlfriend, Amber, home. She was in the front seat and he was in the back, passed out. We sideswiped a truck, and Sebastian . . . He died instantly.”
And all of a sudden the sound whooshed out of the room. I couldn’t hear or see anything, only the memory washing through me like a déjà vu—this same conversation played out a couple weeks back on a hotline call. The exact story that haunted me, the identical voice that left me unsettled—and it all fell into place in my mind.
That poignant, agonizing, emotional voice was now here in the same room. I sprang up and backed away, unsure if my brain was messing with me.
My lips were immobile and I wasn’t sure how my features had arranged themselves. All I could notice was Quinn’s response to my reaction. His eyes were wide and afraid. Terrified, in fact. And then they transformed into something else. Sorrow and regret and dejection.
He bounded off the couch and then backed away from me.
“Just forget it . . .” He sounded like he was talking through a tin can. Like his brain couldn’t get his lips to form the right words. “Fucking forget everything.”
And then he was out the door and gone. Just gone.
And still I stood there and stared at the wall, at the ceiling, out the window, and only one thought was ticking through my brain. Quinn was Daniel?
Suddenly the sound rumbled back into the room—along with my breath—and I gasped and sputtered and almost puked right there on my floor.
“DANIEL IS QUINN!” I rushed for the door.
“Quinn!” I called, despite knowing he was long gone. I sprinted outside to my stoop and looked both ways down the street, tears already streaming down my cheeks.
I needed to find him. I needed to explain. He thought I was disgusted by him—just like he’d always feared. Fuck.
I ran back inside to slip on my shoes and grab my phone and purse. I had an hour before I needed to be at the hotline. I’d find him before then, apologize, and explain that I was in shock.
Maybe I could explain without having to disclose the confidentiality of the mental health facility I volunteered for. I might be in a world of trouble for nearly having sex with one of my hotline callers.
Wasn’t there some kind of client-patient rule against cavorting with each other? How in the hell was I supposed to know that he was Daniel? This was totally coincidental. Did something like this even happen in a million years?
The first place I ended up was the frat house. I hadn’t been there in weeks. I didn’t see Quinn’s car, but still I yanked open the door and rushed inside. Joel was sitting at the table playing poker with a couple of the guys. A blond girl was in his lap, slobbering kisses on his neck.
Joel’s eyes practically bugged out of his head upon seeing me. “Ella, what are you doing here?” I must have looked like a wreck, a tangle, a maze of emotions. Because that’s how it felt in my head and in my chest. And most of all, in my heart.
“Is . . . has . . . has Quinn been here in the last thirty minutes?”
“Quinn?” Joel said. “Why are you looking for Quinn?”
I ignored Joel and looked at Brian instead. “Has he?”
“I asked you a question, Ella,” Joel said, pushing the blond out of his lap.
“No, I asked you first,” I practically snarled. “So answer my fucking question.”
He stood up. “Are you screwing Quinn?”
“Fuck you, Joel,” I said, and some of the guys whistled. Exasperated, I turned to dash out the door, figuring I wouldn’t get anywhere, anyway. But then I swung back around and faced Joel again.
“No, you know what?” I said, finally able to fit my jumbled thoughts together. “I wish I had been screwing Quinn instead of you for all of those months.”
He barked out a laugh. “You want to screw Quinn? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know where to aim his dick.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said, gripping my fingers into a fist. “He’s more man than you’ll ever be, Joel.”
I angled back my arm, wanting to take my anguish out on someone. Joel would have been the perfect candidate. I wanted to punch the astonished look off his face.
Jimmy came bounding around his seat to hold me back. “I should probably grab him and let you take a good shot, but you’d do more damage to your hand than his face.”
“He hasn’t been here, Ella,” Brian said now, in a soothing voice. “We haven’t seen him since he went home for a couple of days.”
“Thanks,” I sagged against Jimmy’s arms. “If you do, please tell him I’m looking for him and . . . and I’m sorry.”
I jumped back in my car and drove past Zach’s Bar, the pizza place Quinn and I ate at the other night, and then the movie theater, hoping I’d spot his car. I texted him twice, but he never responded. I told myself that maybe he just needed time to cool off.
I pulled into the parking lot of a drugstore and tried one last time.
Me: Please let me explain.
And then the only thing left to do was to head to work. I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through the next three hours, but I didn’t know what else to do. I sat at my desk wondering how in the hell I had even driven here—my mind was a patchwork of conversations between Daniel and me.
How he’d sounded when he’d cried—like an injured animal. How the last time we’d spoken he seemed hopeful.
Had that optimism come from meeting me or was I being too presumptuous? To think my very presence would do the trick when his problems were so ingrained. I had known better than that. Psychology 101.
I’d told Quinn all about Christopher at his parents’ house that holiday weekend. Had he felt the same connection despite not understanding exactly how very real it had been at the time?
My mind drifted to the pictures in Quinn’s room. Oh God. Sebastian and Amber had been in that group snapshot. And they had been in that car that fateful night, with Quinn driving.
And Amber. She’d been the girl in the parking lot at Zach’s. And he wanted her, felt something for her. No wonder they’d seemed to have such a bond as they held each other. They’d experienced something so tragic, so life-altering, together.
Now my brain was reeling. Spinning. Like wheels on ice.
When my supervisor checked in tonight, I needed to tell him that I’d inadvertently befriended one of my callers. More than befriended. I had fallen for Daniel. For Quinn.
Was Daniel his first name? Daniel Quinn.
My phone line lit up and I was reluctant to answer it. What advice could I possibly offer anyone tonight when I couldn’t even figure out my own problems? I was going to have trouble getting out of my own head. But I needed to push through. This was my future, after all.
“Suicide prevention.” I took a huge breath. “This is Gabriella.”
“Gabby.” His voice sounded husky and filled with bitterness.
I panicked. Completely fell to pieces. My hands were shaking and my heartbeat was thundering in my ears. What did I do? Blow my cover? Play along until I could talk to him in person, or speak to my supervisor?
Yes, that was it. I needed someone—a superior to give me advice. I needed to play by the rules here. Fess up that I had made a mistake. And be professional about it.
“Hello?” he said.
“Daniel,” I said, my fingers nearly dropping my water glass. “Sorry . . . um . . . I know my voice is little hoarse. G . . . go on.”
I heard something distinct in the background. Something familiar I couldn’t place.
“No problem,” he said, sounding a bit unsure of himself. “Um . . . so, remember our conversation about hope?”
Long pause. I tried to move my lips. I was sure he’d notice something was off about me tonight. I gulped down my fear. “Yes, of course.”
“I think I hoped for too much.” I could hear the pain in his voice and I wanted to reach out to him. To tell him he hadn’t. That it would be okay. I couldn’t get any words out and I was blowing it big-time. Blowing it out of the damn water. And he knew it. He so knew it.
“You know what?” he said in a low voice. “Just . . . FUCK IT.”
“No, wait!” But the line was already dead.
And I was done waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I needed to decide for myself what was important. What mattered in my own damn life. Screw the rules!
I needed to do the right thing. And this time it didn’t mean showing up to my job and doing everything by the book.
I needed to find Quinn and I think I knew exactly where he had gone. Despite the flashing red button, I stood, grabbed my purse, and clutched my stomach. Pretending I was sick wouldn’t be that far-fetched.
I perched at my coworker’s door. “I think I might have the stomach flu. I’ve got to go now before I throw up or something.”
I was pretty sure given the sympathetic look on her face, she seemed convinced.
I didn’t even wait for her response. I just flew out the door and headed for my car, one thought racing through my head on repeat.
I need to get to you, Quinn. Before you break.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Quinn
I sat on the side of the cliff staring into the murky water. Something was off about Gabby tonight. Maybe she had problems of her own. I knew nothing about her but she knew everything about me. Everything that mattered.
I was pretty sure I made her night that much more miserable by hanging up, but I’d decided in that moment that I didn’t need her anymore. I needed me. Myself. I needed to get my shit together and start living again.
Even if it had to be without Ella. I didn’t need a girl in my life, even though Ella had made me feel so many things. I’d be good on my own. Besides, I’d never be able to forget that look on her face when I’d bared my soul to her.
I’d decided right here and now that I would finish my degree and then talk to my uncle about working for him so I could then open my own shop someday. I’d remembered talking endlessly to Sebastian about it our senior year of high school and even he’d encouraged me to pursue my love of cars. Hadn’t even made fun of me or acted like it was a lesser career choice. Even he’d known I was good at it.
I’d come to realize that since the accident, I’d been in pursuit of the truth. About his death. About my feelings. About life.
And what I’d discovered about truth was that it wasn’t constant or objective. It was messy and uneven and sometimes unattainable. I wasn’t going to finally kill myself in that water down below, but I did need to find a way to get through my days.
Car lights appeared on the street corner, but I was hidden by the oak tree. The same tree I’d sat beneath with Ella. I’d miss her lips, and her arms, and her laugh. How she made me feel so alive. But I didn’t feel like dying anymore, so maybe I needed to thank her for that, too. It hadn’t just been Gabby helping me.
I heard footsteps trudging through the grass behind me and I turned to see Ella standing there. She’d said she had to work, so I hadn’t expected her to show up. Tears dotted her eyelashes and she looked relieved. Like the weight of the world had been removed from her shoulders.
And that didn’t really gel—it didn’t make any sense. Was she happy to have found me?
Back at her apartment, she’d thought I was pretty awful. So why would she come here? To clear her own conscience? Make herself feel better?
I turned away from her. “What are you doing here?”
She took another step forward and peered around the tree at me. And now pain crossed over her features. “What the heck happened to your face?”
“You should see the other guy,” I said. Even if Ella and I would never end up together, it had been sweet justice giving Joel a pounding. And all it had taken was one hard blow to break his nose and lay his ass flat on the ground, after he’d sucker punched me in the forehead. “You should thank me. Joel finally got what he deserved.”
Her breath caught and she knelt down beside me. Her fingers reached for my face before falling short. She looked defeated and fisted her knuckles in her lap.
But, hell, did she have to be so damn beautiful? I’d miss looking into those blue eyes that were like the ocean, deep and powerful—yet peaceful and familiar.
She looked down at my hands, one of which was red and split at the knuckle. She inched her fingers toward mine, but I shoved them beneath my thighs. No way did I need the torture of feeling her skin against mine.
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry,” she croaked out, and her voice broke on the last word.
And something shattered inside of me, too. A piece of my heart had chipped away leaving me with something so small, so trivial—I wasn’t sure it would have been enough for her, anyway.
“It’s fine,” I said, hardening my voice. “I knew it was a long shot, so I took a gamble. And it didn’t pay off.”
And now the last piece of my heart receded to the dark corner of my chest. I wouldn’t let her have that piece, too. I needed to save something for things I still looked forward to.
Like my cars, my aunt and uncle, and the idea of being free. I needed her to get whatever she had to say out of her system and then be gone. As far away from me as possible, so I could start getting over her.
Another example of that slippery slope of truth.
“Daniel.” Ella had said the word so softly, I didn’t know if I’d heard her correctly. My head snapped up to meet her eyes. “Is that your real name . . . your first name?”
I nodded, not sure where she was going with this.
“Daniel,” she said again, more sure of herself this time. And I hated that I liked the sound of it falling from her lips. “I . . . I’m Gabby.”
At first what she’d said hadn’t even registered in my brain. It was as if I was under water where everything was fuzzy and dark. And then, as it all snapped together, I broke the surface. I found my air and started breathing again.
Ella was Gabby. Gabriella. The girl to whom I had poured out my soul. No wonder she’d always seemed so familiar. So memorable. So comfortable.
But that also meant that she had deceived me. That she’d been messing with me this whole time. I sprang up so fast from my sitting position that my back scraped the tree trunk behind me. My skin was on fire and I welcomed the burn.
“Get the hell away from me,” I said. “You’ve been lying to me. Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?”
“No, Quinn, please. I swear to you.” She moved toward me, her eyes wild and untamed and filled with desperation. “I didn’t know until tonight, when you told me about Sebastian and Amber. That’s when I put two and two together.”
How was that even fucking possible? The coincidence was too great. I knew that she did some sort of psych work, but I had no clue that it was the hotline. Fuck. I’d told her some deep and dark stuff. Stuff that maybe no one should confess—unless they were anonymous.
“That’s why I responded that way, Quinn.” She latched on to my arm, but I yanked it out of her grasp. “Not because I think less of you.”
“I need you to leave me alone.” I started trekking down the hill toward the water.
“Don’t you see, Quinn?” she called out to me. When I glanced behind me she had sunk to her knees in the grass. “I think so much more of you. I think you’re amazing.”
I froze for a split second from the sheer implausibility of her statement. I was angry and embarrassed and miserable and I needed to get the hell away from her.
When I spoke to her, I didn’t think I’d ever heard my voice come out so quietly. “Please. Please just leave me alone.”
And she didn’t come after me. She just let me go.
