by Ines Vieira
Or is it my foolish necessity of wanting me to believe that Quaid is hiding something from me in regards to Olivia that has nothing to do with romantic longing? Because that shit just wounds my inner soul. Like a jagged knife cutting away my insides with the knowledge that Quaid’s love could be so volatile. Could it be though? When it came to Quaid, I no longer trusted my instincts. I always felt as if he was too good to be true. Too much of a boy scout. But my Quaid was so much more than that. He was the essence of goodness. Trying with all his might to be the best man he could be. Honest, humble, altruistic. He never showed signs of being shady or two-sided. He was always just him. Quaid. Perfect with all his imperfections. So, to feel loved by such a person is bound to make anyone intoxicated and not see what’s around them, much less right in front of them. I mean Olivia isn’t the only woman who sought Quaid out. This I knew for sure, but she was the only one he let in besides me. He allowed her to step into his world and that frightens me the most.
Sure, I’m a competitive person by nature, but being in Quaid’s world tonight, showed me how far off my game I was. His world was elite, while mine catered it. You can’t get more estranged than that. Olivia could have a number of years on Quaid, but she was still a part of his world. She was comfortable in it. Spoke the same language, rubbed elbows with the same people. It was her domain while mine was Plymouth. No glamour, no New Yorker, no catwalks, just Plymouth born to two Portuguese immigrants living day to day. And damn it, I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I love my life. I’m proud of it, but confronted with Quaid’s reality, can I blame him for his confused state? I fell in love with the boy that wants to be a pediatric doctor and save one little human at a time, but what I didn’t know was that there was also a Quaid Steven’s that was bound to inherit a conglomerate. The heir apparent of the DiStefano dynasty, a little detail he felt no need to confide in me about, but that Olivia was all too aware of. And why wouldn’t she be? As this was probably the Quaid, she fell in love with and not my Plymouth golden boy.
Merda.
Could I do it? Could I be as strong as Ronnie had been with Decker and just pull the cord right out of its socket? Pretend the feelings I have will go away eventually and hold out for the fairytale One, that Ronnie was ranting about? Jesus, but Quaid is my One! I know it. His name is engraved on my skin, my every cell. Which means that the One is a matter of perspective. It all comes down to, do you want to settle for being with the person you love most knowing their heart may lay elsewhere even if they don’t want it to? Because I know that Quaid has pushed Olivia aside for a reason, of this I’m certain. He has fought his own battles in that regard, so if Olivia thinks batting her eyes at him and leaking a few tears will dissolve his resolve, she has another thing coming. But is that enough? Can I live with the knowledge that I will always be runner-up in his heart? I start to pound the back of my head on the armrest of the couch knowing the answer to that question is painfully obvious. Thank god the pillow is behind my head or I might have cracked my skull with the force of my stupidity. No, it's not enough. I want Quaid whole, but most of all I want Quaid happy. If being with me still brings up feelings of Olivia, then I’m not the right girl for him. Unfortunately, this means my Quaid was never mine, and never will be.
So, this is what dying feels like.
There is a constant thumping sound ringing in my ear and it takes me a few minutes to realize that it isn’t my brain bleeding out from all my overthinking or the brutal castigation I put it through, but from outside Ronnie’s house.
“What now?” I grunt. It’s probably a squirrel or some animal in the backyard trying to get its way into the trash can, but the thumping seems way too repetitive not for me to check it out for safety’s sake. I get up off the couch and stroll down the hall to the kitchen where the back door to the yard is. I don’t turn on the light because I still remember every corner of this house from the years Cass and I would spend at Ronnie’s. This house used to be girl terrain, while mine was usually full of my cousins who consisted mostly of loud, boisterous boys that wanted to get dirty in the mud and wouldn’t be caught dead playing dolls with me. So off to Ronnie’s, Cass and I would go to.
The closer I get to the kitchen door, I sense the slimmer are my chances of finding a curious animal when I open it. The sound is now clearly someone throwing stones at one of the upstairs windows. I half expect it to be Decker on the backyard porch as I’m positive by tonight’s performance, Ronnie’s is probably icing him out and throwing pebbles at her window to get her attention at two am may be desperate, but in Decker’s case, the only way to go.
Of course, when I open the door, I’m dead wrong there too. To my side, and not in the bushes as I would suspect Decker to have been, stands proudly in all black attire at 6-5”, seventeen-year-old Nicholas Mackenzie. I watch him count the pebbles he still has in his hand, picking what he considers to be the perfect one and aiming it at the same window he’s been hitting for the past fifteen minutes. Any other day and this would have intrigued me as to why little Nicky was out at this godforsaken hour throwing rocks at windows, but tonight I’m too exhausted even to care.
“What the hell are you doing Nicky?” I hush out, loud enough to grab his attention but not to wake up the whole household.
“Fuck!” he lets out and drops the remaining pebbles to the ground. He turns his face to the side and it’s the first time I get a good look at him. The boy is starting to resemble Cass and not in a good way. He’s looking pale and distraught. Almost like a ghost. The only color in him is a crescent moon tattooed on his neck. If it weren't pasted on living tissue, I would actually remark how gorgeous the artwork was. It reminded me of a sonnet or a play like Twelfth Night but as soon as that thought popped into my head and I remember that the pain of existence for the heroine Viola was also named Olivia, I quickly diverted my eyes away from the precious tattoo.
“Jesus, Jessica you scared the shit out of me! What the hell are you doing here anyway?” he grunts.
“I was going to ask you the same question? You want to give Grandma Sabatina a heart attack or something? Or worse, have her do some Haitian voodoo to get you off her lawn since you must be some sort of spirit to be foolish enough to be out here at this time of night?” The corner of Nicky’s left lip slightly lifts but he never fully lets the smile reach his face.
“I’d handle Sabatina just fine but she’s not the one I came for anyway,” he says looking forlorn down at his feet and then up again at the window. “But I guess some windows once shut, will never open again, no matter how many rocks you throw at them,” he states staring into pale blue curtains that haven’t moved once in all the time we’ve been out here. Nicky places his hoodie on his head, covering his ebony hair from the chill of the night and saunters off without even a goodnight. I backtrack my steps and close the kitchen door. When I get to the living room the light in the second-floor hallway is on, illuminating the figure leaning on the railing, her eyes fixed on the floor. If it weren't for the light warning me of her presence, I’d be the one having the heart attack, not Grandma Sabatina.
“Is he gone?” Chloe asks, her voice but a whisper in an already quiet house. She’s in her pajamas and night scarf neatly placed around her head to protect her silky curly hair, but by the look of her, this girl hasn’t seen one minute of sleep the entire night. I feel as if it’s been ages since I’ve seen Chloe, but the way her shoulders seem to hold the weight of the world on them, she’s as familiar to me as my own shadow. I must take too long to answer because she lifts her head to search my face for the reply she’s waiting on. I nod in return, letting her know that her nightly visitor has indeed parted, and if his last remark was any indicator, she shouldn’t expect a visit from him in the near future. But I don’t say it though. I just nod again and again because I see the pain in her eyes. I recognize it as the mirror image of my own, the ache of losing the person we love most and the empty shell we become with the aftermath of that loss.
“Good,” she says giving me a small smile accompanied by watery eyes. Much like Nicky did not five minutes ago, she too turns to walk away from me without saying goodnight but reconsiders and halts before making a full retreat.
“Jess?”
“Yes?”
“What my sister told you earlier, is a lie. You never forget your first love.”
Chapter 26
Jess
“You have a visitor,” Ronnie says throwing one of her pillows at my head. I’ve been in a vegetative state most of the day, stuck in her room only answering the phone to my parents and giving them the most basic of explanations as to why I came over to her house instead of straight home from New York. Whatever the lie I was able to conjure up, it did a poor job because neither of them bought it. The only other person that was calling nonstop was Quaid, leaving voicemail after voicemail, text after text. Thankfully Ronnie had confiscated it in time before I was tempted to read or hear even one. Not twenty- four hours had passed, and I already missed him to my core. How was I supposed to let him go if I couldn’t even make it a day without hearing his voice?
“Quaid?” I bite my lower lip when I hear the hope in my question. Ronnie turns her head towards me unsympathetically and shakes her head side to side crushing that notion straight away.
“Please tell me that it’s not my parents?”
“Nope,” Ronnie answers moving to her vanity and readjusting her already flawless makeup. “Much worse.”
“Merda!” I grunt into the pillow.
“Yep. He wanted to come up here himself and drag you out by the ear, his words not mine. Told him to wait outside since I thought you were already getting ready to leave, but I guess I was mistaken. Are you hugging Mr. Sniffles?” Ronnie asks pointing at the pink unicorn in my grasp she’s had since she was five years old and insisted he must always get chilly with the lack of hair on his body and therefore christening the poor thing Mr. Sniffles. I hated anything pink growing up and used to tease the crap out of Ronnie and her pink unicorn, but right now this little sucker is the only cuddly thing bringing me any kind of joy with memories that don’t bring out the waterworks, so yeah, I might be hugging the crap out of it.
“I think maybe Mr. Sniffles and I have come to some form of understanding, let’s keep it at that,” I quip.
“Fine, but you better haul ass, because you know he won’t stay on my front porch for long. You got five minutes tops, and the boy is coming in whether you like it or not.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You ready to face the music?”
“I guess we’ll see,” I say giving Mr. Sniffles one last hug for moral support. I get off the bed and grab my stuff, giving Ronnie a sideways hug before leaving her room. I stroll down the stairs because I’m in no rush in getting an earful and I know the moment I open the door, he’s going to lay it on me like a ton of bricks. I can already hear his “I told you so,” loud and clear in my head. Taking a long breath in, summoning patience and any strength I still have in me, I open the door to face the one cousin that never cuddled me or indulged my bratty behavior growing up. The one cousin that has always been by my side whether I wanted him to be or not and had been my accomplice in crime it any hare-brained scheme I came up with.
“You want to tell me why I’m freezing my butt off waiting for you on this porch instead of having dinner at your house right now?” Tony asks arms crossed over his chest.
“How the hell should I know why you do the things you do?” I retort, letting my bag fall to the ground and crossing my arms over my chest mimicking his stance.
“Tio’s worried. It’s not like you to come back home and not actually go home. Pick that bag up and get your ass in the truck. You can tell me how you fucked it up with pretty boy on the drive home,” he says already stepping off the porch and sauntering off in the direction of his truck. I run behind him trying to keep in step, but he’s already in the cab when I reach it. Jumping inside, I throw my bag in the back seat and put on my seatbelt.
“Why do you automatically assume that I’m the one that fucked up? And how do you know that there was a fuck up at all?” I snap at him.
“Well golden boy isn’t much of a talker and you’re the one with the big mouth. Easy assumption you got your foot in it somehow and the reason I know something went down is because Quaid’s been parked outside your house all day waiting for you to show up. His visit to the house was what got Tio riled up in the first place. You told your dad you were coming home with him, not on your own the night before and crashing at Ronnie’s.”
Merda!
The moment I got home, I would have to deal with Quaid. I wasn’t sure how to go about that yet. At Ronnie’s I was certain I had made a decision in regards to what I would do, but face to face with Quaid, I don’t know if I would be strong enough to actually go through with it.
“Never pegged you for a wuss, Jess. Whatever you did or said to the guy, you put on your big girl pants and face the hurricane that’s stalking your house. Clean that shit up before you give your dad a coronary, will ya?” Tony grunts heading out of Ronnie’s neighborhood.
“You’re not the type of girl that would hide or chicken out from a fight before so don’t start now. Whatever came out of that trap of a mouth, can be remedied with an ‘I’m sorry’ or whatever. I hear that shit works,” he smirks.
“Well, point to me then, dipshit. I wasn’t the one that screwed up this time, so I’m not the one to apologize. And no amount of apologies can remedy my problems with Quaid.” I slump back in my seat, eyes fixed on the road ahead of me, calculating the remaining time I have left before I have to man up, as Tony so eloquently put it. Tony looks over at me genuinely puzzled, waiting for me to tell him the whole sordid tale, but that would take longer to explain then the five-minute ride we had left to reach our destination.
“Let’s just say his handsy ex is still in the picture,” I scowl, angrier than hurt.
“Are you fucking kidding me? That goody-two-shoes has a side piece?” Tony growls. Jesus what is it with everybody! This is the second time in less than twenty- four hours I’ve been asked if Quaid is cheating on me. Am I the only one who didn’t think it was even possible?
“Do you have to say it like that? No, I don’t think Quaid is cheating on me. I just think he might be more confused than he’s willing to admit,” I say biting my lower lip.
“If he lets his ex put the moves on him, he’s not confused, Jess. He’s just an asshole. Take it from me. It takes one to know one. I never did like that guy. Someone who’s that quiet always puts me on edge. Too fucking observant. Like the guy knows something you don’t,” he says taking another left, getting closer and closer to the source of my anguish.
“Quaid isn’t like that, Tony. I might not understand what’s going on with him and Olivia, but he’s still honorable. I know he is and that’s why this is killing me,” I tell him still feeling the vile taste of repeating Olivia’s name on my tongue.
“Shit Jess, did you fall in love with him or something?” Tony looks over at me not hiding his shock. I just scrunch my shoulders in response.
“Yeah or something,” I whisper not hiding what my true feelings for Quaid are.
“Don’t worry, cuz. Pretty boy won’t be so pretty after I’m done with him. Let’s see how much his ex is gonna appreciate my handiwork,” Tony smirks going a little bit faster to reach his target.
“You’re not going to do any such thing. I got this handled. You were right in the first place. I’m no coward, so I’ll face Quaid in my own way. Don’t try anything stupid Tony, you hear me?” I screech at him.
“Well I hope so, cause there he is and if you don’t have this, I do.” I roll my eyes at him, but then they rest on the figure before me, stoically standing next to his beloved SUV. I get out of the truck and head over to the front door not even acknowledging his presence as I try to pass him by.
“Jess, don’t you dare take another step,” Quaid states furiously, grabbing my
elbow and halting me in return. He’s taught me well enough to remove his grip on me if I wanted, but I stop, abiding his request. I missed him too much not to want to be near him, and the proximity we find ourselves in is just close enough for me to get my daily Quaid fix.
“Go home, Quaid. You shouldn’t have come,” I tell him my eyes fixed on the ground. Maybe I am a coward after all because for the life of me I’m having a hard time facing him eye to eye. His grip on my elbow lessens, and I feel his other hand move to my chin, taking away my ability to hide.
“You left. Without saying a word Jess, you just left. Why? I’ve been going insane wondering what could have happened for you to just leave like that, without a single word.” His tone is no longer angry but hurt and confused. My face is as detached as I can make it, but those blue steel eyes filled with anguish, picket their way at my resolve. I shake his hands off of me before it’s too late and I melt into him. Begging for him to make my hurt go away, pleading with him to make me change my mind on what I know I have to do. I ache to have him explain what I saw and heard last night, to mean nothing to him. I take a step back, regaining any bravado I still hold and tell him exactly why I left. Or ran more like, from his grandparents’ house.