WITHOUT YOU (STRIPPED) (5 page)

And I feel nothing.

No tingles. No rush to my head. No desire to go any further like I would’ve with Quinn.

“No more,” I say, capturing her wrists in my hands. Quickly, I lift her off me and step out of her reach. “I can’t.”

She crinkles her nose, smoothing her hair back out of her face. “You can’t? Or you don’t want to?”

A silent pulse of a moment throbs between us, and her eyes glint in the soupy glow of light spilling from the center of the ceiling.

“I don’t want to,” I say firmly. “Not with you.”

April 19th

One week. It’s been a whole damn week without a single word from Quinn. I understand she needs time, but there’s a fine line between needing to figure out the next move and avoiding because that’s the easier way. My bet is she’s doing the latter.

I snatch my phone from the desk and text her.
Please talk to me.
Dinner tonight?

A good half hour passes. Not even a response. I try again.
Come over later? Maybe a movie?

Her response is almost immediate this time.
Busy. Sorry.

I toss my phone to the foot of my bed, and the ache in my chest tightens. It’s an excuse. I know it like I know my own name. The question is why. Because she doesn’t want me to leave? Or stay because of her?

I saw the look on her face; under the anger that I was thinking about staying because of her was a trace of fear. For the past few months I’ve been her steady, her rock. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out she’s scared to be alone again. The pressure breeds and builds and, after a few labored breaths, mutates into a stinging sensation. As if I were suddenly wrestling with a porcupine.

Jesus, is this what it would be like thousands of miles away from Quinn?

Or am I feeling like this because of what I let happen with Candace last night?

Because I don’t want Quinn to be scared?

All of a sudden my phone rings, and I scrub my hand over my face. I’m going to drive myself into a mental ward with all these thoughts. The number on the phone isn’t Quinn’s, and I almost don’t answer, but then the New York area code catches my eye. There’s only one reason someone from New York would be calling me.

I answer.

“Is this Torrin Kingsley?” a mouse-like voice says.

“It is.”

“Torrin, this is Jackie Mann, coordinator of internships for Traveler magazine. I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but I was looking through our records for the internship with Joel Harrington and noticed we hadn’t received a response from you yet. Did you have a chance to look over the letter we sent?”

“Not yet,” I respond. The words are a whisper, but the lie rings in my ears like a gong. I’ve spent every night staring at that letter. Running over the provisions. Trying to imagine myself there, away from Quinn. “I’ve been really busy with school. I’m going to need more time.”

“I understand.” A squeaky laugh fills the line. “College was a long time ago, but I remember the homework load. I sympathize with you.” I expect her to end the call. Tell me to take my time and call her once I’ve decided. Instead she says this: “Anyway, because of the extensive applicant pool who are all eagerly awaiting our response, we’ll need your decision by tomorrow.”

Tomorrow?
Tomorrow
?

The word “okay” stumbles numbly out of my mouth, and I hang up the phone.

In my room, I listen to music and watch as the sky starts to fade from yellow to orange.
Tomorrow.
I flip through the channels on the TV.
Tomorrow.
Then the three hundred photos on my camera. Eventually, feeling like a trapped cat, I grab my keys and head out the door. 

Hints of summer warm the April breeze, carrying the scents of lilac and some other yellow flower that polka-dot the rolling hills behind the school. I wander around campus, twirling my phone in my hand debating if I should call Quinn again or drive over to Loyola and knock on her door. I check the art building, peering in each classroom. I even check the door to the closet she calls her changing room, which turns up locked.

Leaving the west side of campus, three little words suddenly pop into my head:
Find My Phone
. I installed the app on our phones last month when she was going to visit her parents so I could see where she was at all times. Not in a creepy
I’m Lo-Jacking my girlfriend
way or anything, but just seeing the little red dot made me feel better. Quickly, I open the app and blink once at the dot on the screen.

She’s here? At Pacific Rim?

Maybe she’s looking for me. Maybe she’s ready to talk. I’ve never been so hopeful.

The dot leads me through campus toward Rimmed, Pacific Rim’s only source for a decent cup of coffee. Once inside the coffee shop I make my way through the crowded room, scanning the tables as I pass until I spot her sitting on the couch beneath the window. A steaming cup of coffee rests in her hands, lips pinch as she lifts a small smile at the guy beside her. Billy. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, his stringy blond hair threads with hers, the sight throwing off my equilibrium enough that my stomach wobbles like a buoy. 

“Quinn?”

The jealous anger—it’s here. Suddenly it’s here in a boiling rush as I fist the side of my pants in a poor attempt to play it cool in front of this cluster-fuck of people. It’s not easy, especially when all I really want to do is slam this dude’s head into the glass coffee table separating him from me.

Quinn runs her fingers through her hair, catching it at the knot on top of her head. Sluggishly she blinks and, just barely, I catch a tinge of red in her eyes. “Torrin?” she says. “What are you doing here?”

She was crying. Because of me. It’s enough to wipe away the anger in one breath. Or most of it anyway.

I lock onto her eyes—the only thing in the room that doesn’t make me dizzy—and manage to say, “Last I knew I went to school here. I think a better question is what are
you
doing here? With him?” Not that I want to announce to everyone how she blew me off for this punk, but…

She blew me off. For. This. Punk!

What the fuck?

“Oh.” Quinn lowers her cup to the table and smiles uncertainly. “I worked late with Mr. Hunter, showing him some new poses I came up with and then I ran into Billy and…” She steals a quick glance at the blonde. His eyes are big and round and looking very much like he’s been caught with his hand in the fucking cookie jar. “…now we’re here. Getting coffee.”

“Hanging out with other guys,” I say almost to myself. “For some reason that’s not what came to mind when you said you were busy.” The feeling like I’m going to burst to pieces rises up to my throat and if I talk anymore I’m going to sound like a choked-up pussy.

In slow motion I turn, so as not to make a scene, and knock open the door with my shoulder. Outside, I make a beeline for the parking lot. I have no idea where to go, but I can’t be here. Not after seeing that.

“Torrin, wait!” Quinn calls out from behind me. Footsteps echo down the sidewalk, and then I’m yanked to a stop by a tug on my shirt. “Goddammit, stop.”

I whirl around, not offering a beat of a second for her to open her mouth and explain what the hell she was doing in there, and say, “Why? So you can stand here and tell me this is how it’s going to be now? One mention that I might leave and you’re gonna run for the hills? Into the arms of someone else?”

Arms crossed over her wash-worn Loyola T-shirt, she glares at me. “Stop being dramatic. I wasn’t in his arms.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I know you’re accusing me of something I wasn’t doing.”

My arms whirl out to my sides. “Feel free to explain then. What
were
you doing with the guy who obviously sees you as more than just a friend?”

A full minute passes. We stand, silent and still. My heart is clear up to my throat, choking me like a goddamn noose and I can’t shake the feeling that something’s about to kick the stool out from under me.

She inhales an unstable breath and eventually says, “How did you know where I was?” A laugh that could belong to a psycho barks out of my mouth. Of all the things to say.

I point to my pocket. “The app on my phone. You may want to delete it next time you decide to go on a date.”

“It wasn’t a date!”

“What the fuck was it then!”

She rubs her face, the tired weight returning to her expression. “Billy saw me after class and just wanted to make sure I was okay. I was trying to kill time until the bus came anyway so I took him up on his offer to get coffee. He paid, but only because I didn’t have any money. I’m going to pay him back…”

She’s still talking, but my mind is stuck on the way her voice ever so slightly cracked with the word “okay”. And how, with that almost-inconspicuous bobble in her voice, I can feel my anger wrinkling and shrinking to something smaller, less significant.

I step forward, gently taking her chin in my hand and watch her face closely as the words, “What do you mean he wanted to see if you were okay?” come out of my mouth. Just barely, but enough that I notice, her body sags into mine. She shakes her head. And then the corners of her eyes start to glisten.

“Babe, what is going on? Is this because of the internship?”

In the dimming light of the night, she pinches her eyes closed, her mouth mirroring the movement. When she opens them, tears spill over her lashes. “Yesterday was Zoe’s birthday. She would’ve been twenty-one. That’s the reason I haven’t called you, not because I’m upset about your internship—which I am, but that’s for a day I can think straight.”

I was so ready for the word “yes” to answer my question that it takes me a minute to process what she says, and then as I do, I rush to gather her into my arms. “The first birthday with your sister gone. Quinn, why didn’t you tell me?”

Her face buries into my chest, words muffle. “Because if you knew I was upset—and not handling it—then you wouldn’t go to Costa Rica. You’d realize there’re going to be more
firsts
without my sister in the five months you’re gone, like my birthday and Halloween and Thanksgiving, and because you’re you and you put other people’s needs before your own you’d pass on this opportunity.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out, the scent of coffee fanning over my face. “And that’s not going to happen.” 

“It would be okay with me if it did.” I’m not exactly sure where the words come from. Somewhere past my consciousness, obviously, seeing that my present mind is incapable of making any sort of decision. 

“No.” She pushes back, her stance stiffening again. “It’s not okay. It will never
ever
be okay for you to sacrifice your life or future or desires for mine.” A long, exhausted sigh whispers off her lips. “End of discussion.”

She doesn’t have to say that twice.

I take her face in my hands and tip my forehead to hers. She doesn’t pull away so softly I kiss her. “I’m sorry about your sister,” I say, my lips against hers. “I should’ve known.”

She leans back, dragging the back of her hand across her wet lashes. “Another reason I didn’t tell you? I didn’t want you looking all Poor Quinn at me. I had enough of that at home.”

With my thumb, I wipe the moisture from her cheek. “You went home?” It kills me I didn’t know that either.

“If you call my parents’ tiny one bedroom apartment home, then, yes. And I sat on their stupid slab of cement they call a patio and wallowed in my sadness. Then we had a stupid chocolate cake—Zoe’s favorite, which I couldn’t even eat because all I could think was that Zoe would’ve asked for fancy champagne or something, not a dumb cake with pink frosting flowers. Pretty pathetic, huh?” She looks at me with a forced smile.

My hand surrounds the back of her neck and I pull her into me, trying to block out thoughts of what I was doing while she was there.

“You could’ve called me.”

Her head shakes against my chest. “No pity parties.”

Carefully, I cradle my arms under her legs and around her back and lift her to my chest. With the curve of her body perfectly fitted to mine and the top of her head tucked into the hollow of my neck, I close my eyes against the warmth of her body for a small, soundless moment.

And then I carry her to my room.

At the door, I stop. Not to insert the key, but because it wouldn’t be right spending the night with her without admitting what happened last night. If she won’t talk about the internship right now, she at least deserves to know about Candace.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say as I lower her to her feet.

A quick glance to the key pinched between my fingers and she says, “Can’t it wait till we get inside?”

I shake my head. “You may not want to come in after you hear it.” Her body presses up against the beige-colored wall, eyes lock onto mine with absolutely no expression on her face, and she waits.

There’s no easy way to say this. So I just open my mouth and let the words spill out, not trying to sugarcoat them in any way. “Last night I was at a party with Andrew and I ran into one of my ex-girlfriends. To make a short story even shorter, she asked if I’d go inside with her to get a drink so I did. While we were in there, she kissed me…and I didn’t stop her.” I swallow hard, the memory of Candace’s mouth on mine lodged in my throat like a chicken bone. “I was drunk, but I’m not using that as an excuse.”

Still no expression. Flat voice. “Why’d you do it then?”

“Please don’t hate me for saying this, but I was testing to see if I felt anything.” I look down the vacant hall, unable to watch her face as I explain. “I thought maybe if I did feel something for someone else then it’d mean I didn’t love you as much as I thought I did, which in the end would make it easier to leave. For the internship.”