“Why shouldn’t you?”
“Because I have nothing to complain about. I grew up never wanting for anything. My parents have a loving marriage. I was never abused or treated with disrespect. I don’t have the right to be wounded. Jake, he has the right. My parents, my brothers and sisters—they have the right. But me? Grace? No.”
“You were there. That’s enough.”
“But nothing happened to me.”
“That’s not what the video showed. The kid looking into that camera was traumatized. That’s not nothing, Quinn.”
I glided a finger along his face. “Has no one in your family ever acknowledged your suffering?”
His body tensed, and it was then I knew it to be true—six-year-old Quinn had suffered in silence.
I squeezed tighter and whispered in his ear, “Talk to me.”
Quinn took another deep breath and then spilled. “No one told me what was happening, Jess. I had no idea that Jake had been kidnapped or even what that meant. All I knew was that Jake wasn’t there anymore, and the predictable life I was used to vanished in an instant. It was like someone flicked a switch. Good to bad. And no one bothered to explain to me why. I get it now. They didn’t want to scare us because we were so young. But what my imagination didn’t fill in, the kids at school graphically did. And figuring things out on my own was way more terrifying.
“It had another effect too. I grew up feeling like I was on the outside of this exclusive club that the rest of my family belonged to—those who suffered versus those who didn’t. I still don’t think my family knows the damage it did to me. I was there the whole time, at their feet, but no one looked down and saw me. So now I feel like I have to be extraordinary to get their attention—which with a brother like Jake is near impossible.”
I waited for Quinn’s frustration to settle before replying. “I’m looking.”
He tipped my chin up and kissed me. “I know. That’s why I turned the world upside down to find you.”
“Thank god you did. I needed you to fight for me because…” My voice faltered. “No one ever has. My parents never put me first. I felt invisible. Pushed aside. But despite that, I still try and hold on to the ones I love, even when they might not deserve it. I mean, you’ve seen my father. He verbally assaults me every time I visit him, but there I am, bringing him his favorite candy.”
“But not his favorite cocaine.”
“No,” I agreed. “Not his favorite cocaine. I know I should probably give up on him, but I can’t. I just can’t. And then there’s Andrea. Now, there’s a special kind of narcissist. She’s hated me my whole lifebecause I was born. I mean that’s f-ed up, right? And the one time in my life when I really, really needed her, she turned her back on me. And yet I work for her now. All is forgiven, despite her never having apologized. And you know why? Because I’m afraid to lose one more person in my life.”
Quinn considered my story for the longest time before his lip curled up on one side. “Jesus, Jess, you’re a fucking mess.”
I laughed, smacking him in the chest. “You should talk.”
Quinn pressed in closer, his lips brushing against mine as he whispered, “What if I promise not to leave you?”
I thought about that for a moment, the novelty of what he was saying.
“Then you’d be the first.”
23
Quinn: Just Right
Jess was not a snoozer. I discovered that the hard way when her alarm went off at six thirty in the morning and she leapt out of the bed so fast I legit thought her apartment complex had caught on fire.
“Uh… Jess? Should I drop and roll?”
She tossed on her clothes from last night then tiptoed over to me, pulling her lush mane to the side.
“Just one more kiss,” she said.
Jess made that one kiss count, her soft lips against mine as her tongue took its lazy time. As far as I could tell, it was the only lazy thing about her.
She stood back up, her expression pained. “Quinn, I really, really hate to do this to you, but you have to go.”
I lay there nodding.
“No. I mean right now.”
