Chapter Thirty
QUINN
O nce we got back from the party, Landon had all but ripped me out of my dress and tossed me on the bed. I got the feeling he’d been waiting all night to do it. I couldn’t say I minded one bit.
I’d been waiting, too.
But even after wrapping his arm around my thighs and forcing my ass into the air so he could take his time making me come apart, he didn’t push for more.
The doubts and uncertainty I’d left on the bench came rushing back, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him about it that night.
A few nights later, I had to do it. I had to know why we hadn’t gone further. If it was really about the upcoming challenge and worry over how I’d handle it or if it was something else.
He lay beside me on the bed, his eyes closed, and his arm tucked up under his head. His face had relaxed the way it usually did right before he fell asleep. But I wasn’t even close to restful, and that he could doze off so easily bothered me.
I sat up abruptly. “Why haven’t you tried to sleep with me?”
He blinked a few times, the muscle in his jaw working as he processed the question. “I’m trying to sleep with you right now.”
He eased up onto his forearms before sitting up fully on the bed.
Obviously, putting distance between us.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
His features tightened, eyebrows drawing in as his mouth turned down. “I don’t understand why you’re asking me that.”
“You don’t?”
I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice. It rang out clear as a bell between us, the sound as damning as the silence that followed it.
He climbed off the bed, going into the bathroom to grab a warm washcloth like he usually did when the afterglow faded. But we both knew he was buying himself time and avoiding the question. Handing me the damp cloth, he stepped back from the bed.
Carefully maintaining his distance.
I held the cloth in my open palm, making no move to use it. Staring up at him, I fought past all the insecurities rising and forced out what I wanted to say.
“I thought it was part of all this. I figured you were giving me time to come around initially, and I appreciated that. But now that I’ve come around—repeatedly, I might add—I guess I’m just confused why we haven’t gone further. If that’s not something you want…” I swallowed past the lump rising in my throat, pushing up on the bed so I could run off it if needed. “If you don’t want me like that, I?—”
“It’s not—” He snapped his mouth shut, frustration building in his expression as he ran a hand over his face. “You don’t understand what you’re asking me.”
“Yes, I do. I just don’t understand why you can’t give me a straight answer.”
His hand clenched in his hair. “I…”
“Either you want me, or you don’t.” My heart pounded in my chest. “So, which is it?”
He said nothing.
“If you don’t, then just say that. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
His nostrils flared as his lips stayed shut.
I rose to my knees on the bed, shuffling over to him until I knelt in front of him. “If you do, then I’m just asking why we haven’t gone there. Because if you’re worried I’m not ready…”
“Quinn, please.” He exhaled, his voice barely a whisper as he said, “Don’t.”
At the same time, I said, “I am.”
His head fell. “I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“Does it really matter? Either way, the result is the same.”
“Yes, it matters.” I grabbed his hand, tugging on it to get him to look at me. When he withdrew, I pushed harder. “Can’t implies you’re not allowed. Won’t implies you refuse to let yourself do it. And if it’s the first—No, it shouldn’t be because the only person who has the right to decide who I do and don’t sleep with is me.”
He wouldn’t respond. And he wouldn’t look at me.
“If it’s the second, then I want to know why.”
More silence.
“Is it because I’m a virgin? Is that still a problem? Because I can go out for a bit and take care of that right now, if it means you won’t keep holding back with me.”
His head snapped up. “Don’t even—This isn’t a joke, Quinn.”
I waved a hand at his reaction, imploring him to see why it didn’t make sense—why I didn’t understand. “Okay, so you don’t want me to give that to anyone else, but you won’t take it yourself. Why?”
“You think this is what you want, Quinn, but you’re wrong. It’s not right. It would be a mis?—”
“A mistake? You think sleeping with me would be a mistake?”
“Taking that from you? What you’re asking me to do? It’s not as simple as you think.”
Old wounds tore open as the words left my mouth. But I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t help but spit them out. “Why? Because it’s supposed to be fucking special or something?”
They burned my throat like battery acid.
Breathing hard, Landon retreated off the end of the bed.
“And so what if it’s that?” His voice rose. “What if I think it matters? That you deserve more than this.”
“That’s not up to you.”
“It is when you’re asking me to be involved!” he shouted, pacing the room. Staring as if I’d gone mad and taken him with me. He threw his hands up in the air. “Or do I not get a choice there, too?”
“No,” I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. If it’s important to you that it’s special for me, yes, that matters. But shouldn’t I be the one to decide if it is? If this is enough?”
I climbed off the bed, standing in front of him and pulling him to face me.
“We’re getting off track, Quinn.”
His eyes were pleading, desperate for me to let this go.
But I couldn’t relent.
My temper flared as his rejection and my past burned me. “No, I’m just poking holes in your argument!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re—This is hormones. Endorphins. It’s just?—”
“It’s just that I finally stopped worrying about when or how it would happen. I finally thought about what I wanted, and I just told you what I want is you.”
He stopped pacing and stared at me with torment in his eyes.
My eyes blurred and my heart raced. “But you’re trying to tell me that’s a mistake.”
The anguish on his face—I couldn’t understand it.
I didn’t want to understand.
My body shook as the truth built up inside me.
I dragged my hand through my hair, tugging on my scar so hard, sharp pain shot to the base of my neck.
“Except, the last time I put pressure on myself over when and how I lost my stupid, fucking virginity,” I spat out the words, getting in his face as tears streamed down mine. “The last time I made that mistake, it killed?—”
I struggled to breathe, grasping my chest as pain and panic clawed its way up my throat.
“Quinn…” He grabbed my arms, his fingers digging in as I forced more out.
“You don’t get to tell me what’s good enough for me. You don’t have a fucking clue who I am or what I need.”
Tearing away from him, I left him shell-shocked standing in the middle of the room. I pushed my way into the bathroom, snatching my clutch off the chaise as I went.
Once inside, I dug for my inhaler.
But my hands shook so violently I couldn’t pull it free.
Upending the bag, I dropped to my knees and brought the inhaler to my lips. I breathed in deep.
And even though the inhaler worked, my next breaths wouldn’t come easy.
Grief had locked me in a chokehold.
“Quinn, let me in.”
“Go away, Landon.” I sank down to my heels on the tile floor, dropping my head into my hands. “Please, just…Go away.”
My voice came out soft and small, so staggeringly different from the memory racing through my mind.
Nothing about it had been soft—no part of it small. Not the wreckage on that mountain road or in my life after it.
The enormity of it closed around me the way it always did.
Compressing my chest like the airbag as it deployed. Stealing my breath like the jolt when the car flipped. Squeezing my neck. Strangling the cries in my throat. Like the seatbelt choking me as I hung upside down above a bed of shattered glass…and screamed for my dad as he bled to death in front of me.
But I couldn’t scream.
Because I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
The whole time, I couldn’t breathe, but I stayed alive.
And when the light left his eyes, and I knew he was really gone…in that moment, I didn’t want to do either one.
But death took without considering who was good or bad. It didn’t discriminate between who deserved to be taken and who should’ve been the one who lived.
And sometimes, death chose wrong.
It was my indecision that made him leave the house that night. My hesitation put us on that road.
My choice—it killed him.
I clawed at my neck, gasping for air I desperately needed but didn’t want. Black spots appeared at the edge of my vision.
A crash sounded behind me.
Landon’s hands gripped my face. His voice was muffled in my ears. Drowned out by the pounding of my heart as I relived it all over again.
As I survived to watch it end the way it always did.
My fault.
It was all my fault.
My dad was dead because of me.
He’d never breathe again. And I’d never hear his voice. Or listen to him as he sang along with the radio. Or have him read to me when I was sick in bed. Or hear him tell me everything would be alright.
And I couldn’t breathe.
I still couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Quinn, breathe!”
Landon’s voice pierced through the darkness, squeezing my face so tightly. Like he was trying to hold me together with his bare hands.
“Fucking breathe, dammit!”
I gasped.
Wheezing, I grasped onto Landon’s wrists and forced in heaving, gulping breaths. His face had gone completely white. And I didn’t know if he was shaking or if I was.
“You’re alright.”
“I’m sorry.” I sobbed, my vision blurring as tears streamed down my face. My body fell forward into his chest, hands gripping his shirt as the scent of lavender, freesia, and lemon filled my head.
But I knew that scent wasn’t really there. I knew Landon smelled like lavender and mint. And I knew I’d never find it again—the unique blend that reminded me of my dad—the smell that enveloped me each time he had wrapped me in a hug.
Because I’d never have one of those again, either.
“God, I’m so sorry.”
“You’re alright.” Landon rubbed my back as I sobbed out my regrets. Until the waves abated, and the tears slowed.
The pain dulled. But it didn’t ease completely.
Because some things never left us.
And that pain, those tears—they’d never stop coming.
“You’re alright,” Landon echoed those words again, exhaling them like an answered prayer. His voice pitched low like he couldn’t believe it.
I saw it, then—what I’d missed while I cried in his arms.
His eyes had tears in them, too.
I took his face in my hands, closing my eyes as he pressed our foreheads together. “I’m alright. I’m sorry. I just?—”
“Panicked.” He pulled my head back to his chest, tucking me under his chin. “You just panicked. You’re alright.”
His hands stroked up my back and tangled in my hair, and his heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest. Mine did, too.
But eventually, it slowed.
And, lying there together, we fell asleep holding onto each other in the dark.