Page 31 of Flipping the Script
The first sip proved Quinn's self-assessment accurate—slightly bitter, a touch too strong—but the warmth spread through Solen's chest anyway. Someone had tried to take care of her. Someone had noticed she needed caring for.
"I should have seen this coming." Solen touched the compass at her throat, the brass warm from her skin. "Tasha doesn't handle being ignored well. She posted our private photos when I broke up with her, and now she's back to finish what she started with a new wave of attacks, clearly aiming for complete annihilation."
Quinn's hand moved to cover hers, stilling the anxious fidgeting. "May I?"
Solen blinked, confused, until Quinn gestured to the phone. Her first instinct was to clutch it tighter—what if something worse appeared while she wasn't watching? What if missing one comment meant missing some crucial development?
But Quinn's green eyes held steady patience, and Solen found herself loosening her grip. The phone disappeared into Quinn's pocket with a decisive motion.
"You don't need to watch the world dissect your private life in real-time," Quinn said. "That's not staying informed. That's self-harm with notifications."
"But what if?—"
"Iris is monitoring everything. If there's something that requires our attention, she'll handle it." Quinn tucked her legsunderneath her, angling to face Solen fully. "Right now, the only thing that requires your attention is you."
The simple statement hit harder than it should have. When was the last time someone had suggested Solen's own wellbeing was the priority? Even during the Tasha situation six months ago, everyone's focus had been damage control, career protection, public perception management.
"I keep choosing people who can't fully commit to me." The words spilled out before Solen could stop them. "Foster care taught me that everyone leaves eventually, so I learned to pick people who were already halfway out the door. Safer that way. If they're emotionally unavailable from the start, their leaving doesn't count as rejection."
Quinn's thumb traced over Solen's knuckles, an unconscious gesture that sent warmth racing up her arm.
"Tasha was perfect for that pattern. Influencer, always performing, incapable of genuine intimacy. I could love her without risking... this." Solen gestured vaguely at her current state of emotional wreckage. "Without risking someone seeing all of me and deciding I'm too much trouble."
"You're not too much trouble." Quinn's voice carried the same certainty she used when discussing story structure or character motivation.
"You say that now, but you've never had someone weaponize your vulnerabilities on social media. You've never had your private photos shared without consent, or your sexual history turned into entertainment for strangers."
Quinn was quiet for so long that Solen finally looked up, expecting to see judgment or discomfort. Instead, she found Quinn's analytical expression—the look she wore when working through a particularly complex plot problem.
"We could withdraw from the remaining events," Quinn said suddenly.
Solen stared. "What?"
"The Golden Horizon Awards, the final interviews. Iris mentioned having backup plans for various scenarios." Quinn's fingers tightened around hers. "Your mental health is more important than any publicity timeline."
The offer knocked Solen sideways. Quinn, whose entire career hung on this project's success, whose perfectionist nature demanded following plans to completion, was suggesting they abandon their carefully orchestrated strategy to protect Solen's emotional wellbeing.
"You'd really do that?" Solen whispered. "Tank your own project to protect me from gossip?"
"It wouldn't be tanking anything. It would be prioritizing what actually matters." Quinn's cheeks flushed pink, but her voice stayed steady. "Which is you. Your healing. Your choice about how much public scrutiny you can handle."
Something cracked open in Solen's chest—not breaking, but opening like a door she'd kept locked for years. This was what genuine care looked like. Not performance, not strategy, not even romance necessarily. Just another human being saying your wellbeing matters more than any external goal.
"I need food," Solen said, because suddenly she couldn't breathe around the intensity of Quinn's offer. "Emotional devastation makes me hungry."
Quinn's smile carried relief at the subject change. "I have... let's see, yogurt that might be expired, half a sleeve of crackers, and coffee beans."
"That's tragic even by my standards." Solen pulled up the pizza place Quinn had mentioned before. "Pepperoni and mushroom?"
"You remember my pizza preferences?"
"I remember everything about you." The admission slipped out too honest, too raw, but Quinn's resulting blush made it worth the vulnerability.
While they waited for food, they spread Quinn's script across the dining table—not the clean copy bound for production, but Quinn's personal version, marked with color-coded notes and increasingly frequent margin scribbles in Solen's handwriting.
"Look at this," Quinn said, pointing to a page where Solen had suggested changing a monologue into dialogue. "Three weeks ago, I would have hidden this script before letting you see it. Now it's more yours than mine."
"Collaboration looks good on you." Solen traced one of her own notes with her finger. "Your brilliant structure, my instinctive character work. We make things better together."
