Grounding Quinn

by Stephanie Campbell

  When I turn to face him, standing there, gorgeous in his simple v-neck t-shirt and cardigan, I can’t help but wish that I was normal. I wish that I would be swept away by his words like any other girl my age.

  “No, I mean, haven’t we been over this before? This isn’t Forks, and I’m not getting married.” My gaze falls to the tile.

  “Well, I know that, obviously not anytime soon or anything.”

  “Right, but what I’m saying is I don’t ever want to get married.”

  “Huh,” he says, pursing his lips.

  “Do you think I want what my parents have?”

  “Quinn, not everyone that is married has a relationship like your parents.”

  “Look, it’s not as if you weren’t warned from the get-go. Emotional cripple, ring any bells?” I grab the tongs back from him and scoop out the fresh tortilla chips.

  “As a matter of fact, it does. Wedding bells,” he says with a laugh and cheesy grin.

  “You’re such an idiot,” I say, smacking him in the arm with the tongs. He laughs and pulls me in to him, his lips finding mine in the perfect way that makes me almost believe in ridiculous things like forever and marriage.

  “You love it,” he says.

  “New subject.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ben

  The new subject can’t have anything to do with marriage (she’s against), college (she’s still undecided), or her parents (suits me just fine).

  “Dinner was awesome, thank you,” I say.

  “Anytime.” She flashes a gorgeous smile. “You do realize that all we ever do is eat, or make out, right?”

  “I’m perfectly okay with that,” I say.

  “Yeah, me too.” She puts the last of the dishes away, but is still eyeing me questioningly.

  “What’s on your mind, baby?” I ask.

  “I’m still trying to figure out what was wrong when you came in. Was it something that I did?”

  “Absolutely not. Just my mom, being my mom.”

  “She really doesn’t like me,” Quinn says. I start to protest, but she puts her hand up to stop me. “Don’t deny it, I know she doesn’t. Honestly, I don’t really get what you see in me-”

  “Stop right there, you are-Jesus, Quinn, you’re everything.” I wonder if on some level, my feelings for Quinn are more intense, more magnified than they would be if Mom wasn’t so against she and I being together. I push the thought back down deep, wherever it originated from and bury it.

  “How was your afternoon?” I ask. I sink into the plush sofa. When Quinn sits down on the cushion beside me, I reach over slip my arm under her knees, and pull her in to my lap.

  “Was fine. I went to gym for a while before work,” she says, her lips finding my neck.

  “What about that prick?”

  “Mark-shmark” she laughs, having already moved on to unbuttoning my jacket.

  I let out a low laugh and although it takes a tremendous amount of effort, I push her hand away.

  “Come on, Quinn.”

  “Come on what?” she asks.

  “You know what. We can’t do this.” I know I’m probably making her feel like she’s the villain trying to steal my purity ring or something and part of me feels like a complete prude because of it. But the other part knows that her parents could walk in any second.

  “You’re seriously not going to have sex with me? Bah, you’re such a tease.” she says, rolling her eyes.

  “Seriously,” I answer. Although, my hand still lingers on her upper thigh for a split second before she shoves it away.

  “Whhhyyyy?” she moans.

  She’s tapping her foot to a silent beat. I pick up one of her hands in mine and kiss each of her knuckles.

  “Baby,” I say smoothly.

  Quinn holds her hand up in protest. “For the record, yes, I know I’m being childish. And no, I don’t care.”

  She won’t look at me, and I can’t hold back a chuckle, she’s just too damn cute.

  “I’m definitely not saying never. I’m just saying, not right now. Not in the middle of your living room when someone could walk in anytime.”

  “Fine, I get the chivalrous bit, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she says, finally turning back toward me. She curls up beside me and lays her head in my lap. The fact that I am completely certifiable for turning her down is screaming through my brain.

  “What’s wrong with me?” She wonders out loud.

  “Trust me, there is nothing wrong with you.” I run my fingers through her hair, and she closes her eyes with a satisfied sigh. “I just think we should wait until I’m sure…”

  “Sure about what?” she asks, her eyes cracking open.

  I stare at our linked hands for a moment, before looking her in the eye.

  She’s waiting.

  I’ve never said it to anyone before.

  “Sure that you love me as much as I love you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ben

  She didn’t say it back. I’ve never told a girl that I love her before. I sort of anticipated that when I did, whoever was on the receiving end, might reciprocate. Not that I’m holding it against Quinn or anything. I don’t think she was entirely ready to hear it. Still, I can’t take it back, not that I want to.

  I pick up my bass and flip on my amp.

  My mom is knocking on my door again. I turn up the amp and smile at its growl.

  “Benny.” She calls through the door. Jesus I hate when she calls me that. “Did you not hear me?” she asks, throwing the door open and stepping inside my room.

  I shrug. Does she really want to hear the answer to that question?

  “I didn’t hear you come in, what time did you get home?” she asks.

  “Just a few minutes ago,” I answer.

  “Where have you been? You stormed out of here so upset, your father and I have been worried.”

  That’s a crock of shit; my dad wouldn’t notice my absence any more than he’d notice new curtains in the kitchen. He keeps his nose in a crossword puzzle book eighty-percent of the time, and is at work the other twenty-percent.

  “I went downtown to take some photos before the light was gone, and then I went by Quinn’s for a while.”

  I wait for my mom’s face to drop, but it doesn’t. Her smug smirk stays fully intact.

  Shit.

  “I just got off the phone with Nancy Wright,” Mom says. I stop playing and set my bass down. Mrs. Wright is Caroline’s mother.

  What the hell is Mom up to?

  “And would you believe that Caroline is going to be in Atlanta next month to tour Georgia Tech?”

  “So,” I mutter.

  “So? Benjamin Shaw, is that all you can say about someone who is practically family?”

  Was, I think. Was. “I just don’t see how it matters.”

  “Well, it matters because I invited her to stay with us while she’s here, and I expect you to be polite.”

  What.the.fuck?

  “Mom, stay with us? Why?”

  “Because there is no sense in her staying in a hotel when we live so close. I just don’t understand you lately.” She shakes her head back and forth. “This is Caroline we’re talking about.”

  “I thought we didn’t have ‘boy-girl-sleepovers,” I say, with blatant snark in my tone.

  She ignores me. “And Nancy and John can’t come with her. I for one don’t want her in a strange city all alone, and I would think that you wouldn’t either.”

  I sigh, “Of course not.”

  The first time I met Caroline was the first week of school, our sophomore year. She was sitting a couple of desks in front of me in English. I had already noticed her. She was beautiful, although, I think she was totally unaware of it. It was a subtle beauty, it didn’t scream in your face, like with Quinn. It was in the way she let her hair fall around her face while she took notes in class. It was the way that she blushed when the guys around her talked about things she was obviously
embarrassed to hear. It was in the way her lip twitched when she was forced to speak in front of the class. Those were the things I originally noticed about Caroline. My mom likes to think that it was her “good Southern upbringing,” and flawless manners that attracted me to her, but it wasn’t. Caroline silently fascinated me.

  One day, Whit and Alton, the two jackholes that sat near us were enjoying their daily dirty joke fest. Caroline already looked increasingly uncomfortable. She was trying to ignore them, but they had to up the ante by including her that day.

  “Hey lovely,” Whit had said to her. She didn’t respond. I’m not sure if she legitimately didn’t hear him, or if she was purposefully ignoring him. “Hey,” He repeated, tapping on the edge her desk.

  She raised her head nervously, her cheeks already scarlet. “Me?” she’d asked.

  “Who else, bunny?” Alton interjected. “Whit and I were just discussing something, and we thought you could settle a debate for us.”

  Caroline glanced around the room, then to me. I met her eyes for a second, I realized that she looked more than a little nervous, she looked scared.

  “Um, okay.” Caroline uneasily tucked her hair behind her ears, something I would see her do anytime she was uncomfortable from then on.

  “So, the thing is, Whit here is hung so well, his party trick is to tie it in a knot.” She shifted in her chair, but Alton continued. “But myself, my newspaper is blessed with so much girth my dog couldn’t carry it in her mouth. Which would you prefer?”

  She looked like she was about to cry. Her dark brown eyes glistened, and her nose flared in and out like she was trying to calm the explosion building within.

  “I, um…” Any other girl probably would have told him to catch the short yellow bus to hell-Quinn would have. But Caroline just sat there staring at her hands in her lap, breathing deeply.

  “Shut the hell up,” I’d said to Alton and Whit. “Leave her alone.”

  Her eyes darted to mine, and stayed locked there.

  “We were just having fun, man,” Whit said to me.

  “Talk to her again, and I’ll show you how much fun I can be,” I scowled. I know they were only intimidated by my size and not my words, but it worked anyway.

  Whit laughed and Alton rolled his eyes, but they both turned back around. They never bothered Caroline again.

  This is what I’m thinking about when my mom mentions the idea of Caroline being stranded in Atlanta alone.

  “Good,” Mom says. “It’ll be just like old times.”

  I shrug, “Except that I’m with Quinn now, not Caroline.”

  Mom waves her hand as if she’s dismissing what I just said, which is exactly what she is doing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Quinn

  He told me he loved me. L-O-V-E. Love. The only other guy to ever say that to me was Kyle, and I’m reasonably sure that was only so he could get me in the sack. (It worked, by the way.)

  I’m not one of “those girls”. I don’t swoon over guys. I don’t stare at myself in the mirror for hours perfecting my makeup or come hither look. I just don’t care that much. My mom and dad are proof of what love brings to your life. They married for love and look what it got them. Three kids, (only one of which actually exists to them), a big house, a big pile of debt and a whole lot of crazy. I’ll pass on that, thank you very much.

  I’m laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why the hell I didn’t say it back. It’s late, or early, however you want to look at it. It’s maybe two a.m. I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Ben’s face. He said it-and he wasn’t even trying to get me to sleep with him. He meant it. I didn’t say it back, and he didn’t waver. He didn’t take it back. He actually meant it. My stomach dances every time I think of it. So, why didn’t I say it back to him?

  I hear a car idling outside. It’s probably one of the Lombardo skanks. Tina and Mena Lombardo, (I loathe matchy names!) are the twins that live across the street. Between the two of them, they have successfully sucked and fucked their way through high school, and are well on their way through college.

  Tina has decided she is going to save the world through handbags, and is going to the Art Institute of Atlanta. She’s a fashion design major, but by the way she tells it, you’d think she was going to MIT, and hanging out in Darfur on weekends. The last I’d heard, Mena (the bigger tart of the two), goes to Atlanta Christian College, which, if you ask me, is quite possibly one of the most laughable, oxymoronic things ever. Someone needs to clue her in that she can’t screw her way into heaven. (My apologies for that one, JC!)

  The car is still idling, and it’s interrupting my day dreaming of Ben– and that right there, pisses me off. Turn off your car, and drag your sleazy, drunk ass to the door! As if on cue with my thoughts, the car finally shuts off. I close my eyes, and bury myself deep under the heavy quilt. Finally, I’m settled so comfortably and content under the thick layers of goose down. Just as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear our front door creak. My eyes fly open. The door has squeaked since I was thirteen.

  My mom had just been readmitted to rehab for the umpteenth time. She and Dad had been fighting a lot, which wasn’t ever unusual. It’s a cyclical thing. They can play nice for a few weeks, and then they’ll fight for a few. It’s the natural ebb and flow of our family-and it blows. Anyway, Mom pounded a fifth of whatever she had stashed in the back of the pantry (in the brown paper bags that she somehow believes act as invisibility cloaks). Plus, she took who knows how many pills before she started a stupid fight with Dad over a book of matches she’d found in his car. Dad had supposedly quit smoking, and finding those matches pissed her off to the tenth degree. Seems a little hypocritical, what with her near permanent state of intoxication, no?

  After getting sufficiently shit faced, she somehow managed to drive to their insurance agent’s office and cause a scene. And by “cause a scene”, I mean that she asked the girls in the office how much life insurance she had, and what would happen with the payout if she were to say, commit suicide, of course. Understandably alarmed, the receptionist called Dad…and the police. By the time they got there, Mom had moseyed on. She drove around for hours, before she called my older brother Carter’s cell phone to tell him goodbye.

  Then she passed out. Somewhere.

  Dad and the police drove around for hours searching for her. All we knew was she’d left an empty bottle of Valium sitting on the counter. Not much to go on, but enough to scare the hell out of us.

  We’d all been calling her cell non stop, but she either refused to answer, or couldn’t answer. Everyone was panicked. Everyone but me. This was Mom’s M.O. How could everyone be so oblivious to it? She’d fly off the handle, and drag us all into a whirlwind of drama, and then the next day, she’d be totally over it. I, for one, had had my fill. The police found her late that night, passed out in her minivan. Sometimes my mom has a butt-load of class.

  The police couldn’t wake her from her drug induced stupor no matter how hard they pounded on the windows, and they had to jimmy the door open to get her out. Because law enforcement was involved, there was no other option but for her to go to rehab since there had been documented proof that she intended to harm herself.

  The thing is-I don’t really believe she would. I don’t know how many of those pills she actually took, and how many she just washed down the drain, but I think she’s too selfish to hurt herself. Everything is a big freaking show to her. The more drama, the better. Not that I want her to, that’s not it at all. I do love my mom, despite her insanity, but it just gets old. It’s like she gets the biggest high from seeing all of us upset, and crying over her. Even at thirteen, I saw that as her main motivation for everything she did.

  So when my dad told me I needed to call her in rehab nightly to cheer her up, I refused. I told him I wasn’t falling for her games anymore-that I was done playing. Dad and I got into a huge argument, and he told me if I didn’t call Mom, that I was grounded until I le
arned how to be a “proper” member of a family. I was going to be grounded for failing to enable my drunken mother? That sounded like the most idiotic thing I’d ever heard.

  I started for the door, not sure where I was going. No one knew about my mom’s problems, or the fights she and my dad had. But I was getting out of there. I opened the door and started to leave, when my dad pushed on it with all of his force, slamming it on my outstretched hand. The pain shocked me like a slap in the face. I looked at my hand, and saw my middle and index fingers dangling at the top crease.

  Dad took me to the ER. I had two fractured fingers and they were partially detached. I had to wait hours for the hand surgeon to come in and stitch them back together. The tips of those two fingers are still numb from the nerve damage.

  Ever since then, the door has creaked when you open it. So when I hear it, I shoot up in bed, instantly wide awake, like when you oversleep and jump straight out of bed without even giving it a thought.

  Carter is at school at Stanford, so it’s obviously not him going out. And Mason is the golden child– and also, twelve; he wouldn’t be going out at this hour. I run my thumb back and forth across the numb finger tips as I cross my bedroom and peer out into the darkness.

  There, outside of my second story window, I see them. Mena Lombardo is recognizable even when the only light is from a dim street lamp. Her long blonde hair falls in perfect waves down her back. She’s pressed up against her white Mercedes, her legs wrapped around his waist. His hands are holding her face, their lips mashed together. They are really going at it. I feel my stomach lurch.

  He jerks back suddenly and raises his hands. It looks like he’s saying, “Stop, enough”. But through the glass, I have no idea what it actually is.

  All I know for sure is that I have just witnessed my dad hooking up with Mena Lombardo.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Quinn

  I still didn’t say it back. Why did I do that? Or why didn’t I do that, is more accurate. Not that day. Not the next. I also didn’t tell Ben or anyone about what I saw outside my window. How hideously embarrassing would that be?