“Knock, knock.”
She lays the picture on the desk and flicks out the light before swinging the door open. The hall is dark too. River is there in silhouette, head bowed.
“You don’t have to say, ‘Knock, knock,’if you actually knock,” she says, and she means it to come out light, but she’s not sure it has because he releases a heavy sigh and leans against the doorframe. Outside, the sun must have set because the hall behind him is a deep, thick blue.
“What are you doing, Joey?”
Joey goes hot. She shrugs.
He reaches by her and flips on the light. “I thought you were done with all this.”
“All this?”
He looks disappointed or resigned. She can’t tell which. “What happened to Quinn was…”
“You don’t know what happened to Quinn,” she bites back.
“I do, though,” he says, ignoring the sharpness in her tone. “Everyone does. She fell.”
Joey looks away, feeling herself seethe but not wanting to get into it right now.
“Look, I’m worried about you,” he says. “Fifteen years is a long time to hold on to so many questions.”
“I’m not just going to let it go,” Joey says.I can’t, she thinks but doesn’t say. She takes the opportunity to turn the light out.
River runs a hand over his beard and exhales. “Anyway, the thing I said the other night…I’m not going to bring it up again, so you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to hide from me.”
Joey’s body begins to warn her of some small impending danger. A flutter in her chest, a hitch in her breathing.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, and that’s fine. I’m okay with it. I just want to—” He inhales and moves his hands up and over his hair. Joey feels a spasm of alarm when she sees that motion, as if he’s reaching the end of his tether. As if he’s ebbing away from her. She’s not sure she wants that. She’s not sure what she wants.
“I just want to be with you,” he says finally.
Joey has to swallow. Her throat is dry. When did she last have a drink of water? She feels rooted to the spot, feet nailed to the floor. In the end, she says nothing. What is there to say? The pause is excruciating. She knows what he wants her to say. But she can’t say it. To reply would be a kind of betrayal.
Joey is a thief. She has no right to be happy. Quinn is dead, and Joey won’t steal the life she could have had. Fresh waves of grief and guilt move through her, and she resists them yet again by closing the door behind her and stepping past River to turn on the hall light. It’s shocking, the sudden brightness.
River squints at her, and she says the only thing she can think of. “You should go.”
Another sag of the head, and she knows she’s let him down. She pinches her bottom lip, harder than she means to, as she watches him go down the hall. She doesn’t move but hears him shake Walter awake. The front door clicks gently, and she is alone.
14Quinn
May 2011
One month before the fall
It takes ages to get out there.
We take it slow. Joey is scowling, cradling her hand to her chest. We walk in silence, but there is something stirring inside me, and it’s not the magic. Secrets have a kind of energy all to themselves.
Neon green aspen leaves blink and twist as the wind picks up. I zip up my soft pink hoodie, wishing I had another layer. As I look at the red rims around Joey’s eyes, I feel a stab of guilt, just as I did when I first saw her an hour ago.
All is quiet except for the uneven beat of eight shoes on dirt.
“Mark was looking hot yesterday,” says Elena, breaking the silence.
“Oh my god, call him Mr. Collingswood,” says Sophie.
