Page 70 of Good Graces

I don’t want to. I want to talk about . . . keeping our eyes open

Warren

stop being cryptic

Quinn

your paper. I read it. It was good, but ...

My chest pulls tight, like a door slamming shut behind me. Like I’m locked in now, no way out except through whatever she says next.

But what? I want to ask. Want to shake the answer out of her, demand she just say what the hell she means instead of making me chase her through half-formed metaphors and memories.

But this is Quinn. It always has been. She doesn’t do easy. Doesn’t hand out clean truths. She speaks in fragments and half steps, in loaded silences and unfinished thoughts.

And she wasn’t even supposed to read my paper. Told me herself she wouldn’t. Looked me dead in the eye and said it like a promise. But I sort of hoped she would anyway. Hoped she was bluffing. Lying, maybe. The way she always does when she’s scared of saying too much.

Warren

are you going to finish the thought or just circle around it?

Another pause. Longer this time. Long enough that I think maybe I’ve pushed her too far. Maybe she’ll leave it alone now. Maybe this whole thing will finally die the death it should’ve had two years ago.

Quinn

it felt unfinished

I stare at the screen.

Unfinished.

I scrub a hand down my face, heart thudding hard. She’s right. It was unfinished. Not because I couldn’t figure out how to end it but because I didn’t want to end it.

I used the whole damn assignment to talk about her. About me. About us. All the ways we fit and fought and fell apart.

Warren

maybe it was supposed to be

Quinn

and maybe I still want you

Fuck.Fucking hell.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Just sit there, staring at my phone like the words might shift and rearrange themselves, like they might turn into something else if I look long enough. But they don’t. They stay right there. Blunt and impossible and real.

I still want you.

She must be drunk, or bored, or messing with me. It would be easier to write this off as a mistake, to pretend it’s just Quinn playing with matches again. But I know better.

Because this? This isn’t Quinn being careless.

This is Quinn being brave.

Quinn

if I promise to just snap myself out of it . . . to stop pretending I don’t care and then acting like I do . . . would you meet me somewhere? just to talk, to lay it all out there. say the things we should have said during winter break our freshman year?

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