Chapter 23
Quinn
Quinn hadn’t lied about being busy, but the excuses he’d given August hid his true plans for the day. Talking about visiting graves wasn’t the kind of energy he wanted to bring into the bedroom while fucking his ex, when he already felt guilty about fucking his ex before visiting his sister.
This wasn’t the first time he had gone to see Esme’s grave since she’d passed, but there was something different about this reunion.
Something heavier.
Quinn released a shaky breath as he forced himself to leave his car, bringing the flowers he’d bought with him and slamming the door. No one was around to see his tantrum, but not many came to the cemetery in the winter months unless they had to, so he was saved from the embarrassment.
His anger was stupid. Quinn couldn’t even say what he was angry at, only that he was. Emotions didn’t always require an explanation, and he was trying his best to be lenient and allow himself to work through them, but knowing it was okay didn’t dull the pain.
That’s all Quinn had been lately. Pain.
He hid it well behind smiles and determination, gritting his teeth even when it felt like parts of his body were being carved to the bone, but that was who Quinn was. He was the fixer, and Esme had been the dreamer.
Mirror twins.
Quinn, the fixer. Esme, the dreamer.
Quinn, the closed one. Esme, the open book.
Quinn, the stubborn. Esme, the selfish.
Quinn, alive.
Esme, dead.
Quinn went to his knees before her grave, feeling the snow crunch under him and the cold seep through his pants. There wasn’t a lot of it; a few centimetres to keep him cool while the heat of grief burned through him like acid, turning his stomach queasy.
This part didn’t get any easier—coming to the place where his sister was waiting for him, only to find a rock with her name and a date.
The name belonged to her, but it told nothing about who she was, and had been.
The dates represented the day she was born and the day she died, but they said nothing about what she did with all the time in between.
Maybe that’s why Quinn was angry. It wasn’t the cancer, the death, or even the guilt. Maybe it was because graveyards were stupid and they gave false hope.
Esme wasn’t there. Esme wasn’t the ashes in the ground. Esme was so much more than the remnants of her physical body marked by letters and numbers, but Quinn had come to visit her anyway.
“I’m an idiot,” he said softly, his voice cracking as he forced the words out. “But I needed to see you—needed to talk to you.”
They were twins, and Quinn would always need her, even in death. Without her, he was only half a person, so being near her was the only way for him to feel whole again.
“Why didn’t you tell me about August?” Quinn asked, swallowing hard around the knot in his throat. “You never mentioned him, which is surprising because you’re as much of a gossip as Bea is.”
A chill breeze blew past him, rustling the leaves of a memorial tree a few feet away. The swishing sounds could have passed for whispers, and Quinn found himself smiling at the thought.
“I know, you didn’t want to bring up bad memories,” said Quinn. “But it would have been nice to have a little warning before walking into that jump scare.”
A winter songbird chittered happily from the treeline, and Quinn huffed and glared at the flowers in his hands.
He was admittedly a bit eccentric, but not eccentric enough to start talking to woodland creatures.
He would save that for his next mental breakdown—which was probably coming soon if he didn’t keep a hold on the August situation.
Why had he brought flowers? The ground was too frozen to put them in the vase in front of the grave, and the cold would kill them as soon as the sun went down.
Quinn touched his finger to the velvet-soft petal of one of the white roses, brushing it along the smooth surface until his anger spiked, and he pinched it.
“I hate him,” Quinn said, plucking the petal off the rose with a small snap. He tossed it into the wind, watching as it drifted away like a big snowflake until it got caught in an updraft and sucked into the sky.
“I don’t hate him,” said Quinn, snapping off another petal to throw.
“I hate him.”
Snap.
“I don’t hate him.”
Snap.
“He’s changed.”
Snap.
“He hasn’t changed.”
Snap.
“I like him.”
Snap.
“I don’t like him.”
Snap.
“I should take revenge.”
Snap.
“I should—”
Quinn paused, rubbing the next petal between his fingers. “I should let it go.”
Snap.
“I shouldn’t give him a chance.”
Snap.
Staring at the final petal on his mangled rose, Quinn sighed. “I should give him a chance.”
A chance at what, Quinn didn’t know. All he had was history, and just like everything else in life, history was doomed to repeat itself. August and Quinn were like magnets that, when pushed too close together, would inevitably snap into place.
Quinn had been arrogant to think he could escape the magnetic force between them, but deep down, he knew what the consequences of his actions would be. He didn’t have to admit it out loud, but he knew.
“August will fall in love with me again,” Quinn told Esme’s name and numbers. “He’ll try not to, just like he did the first time. He’ll make himself miserable to make me happy, because that’s who he is, even when he’s using his anger to push away the hurt.”
August had been temperamental as a teenager, and listening to Eren talk about him suggested that that hadn’t changed.
During high school, they had clashed several times before Quinn shut his behaviour down for good, leaving August chasing after him like a loyal puppy who had just had his leash yanked for the first time.
Once Quinn verbally neutered August, the fighting stopped, but then he sank into a level of self-hatred that surpassed Quinn’s own. The lengths August had gone to avoid his bisexuality had been funny at first, but Quinn changed his mind when he saw how much suffering it unleashed.
August would have finished high school still in the closet if Quinn hadn’t put a stop to it. He would have wallowed in that agony just to have Quinn as a friend because he had been too scared to ruin what they had.
August would do it again, too. And Quinn was smart enough to know that August’s mental anguish wasn’t his problem since he had drawn the line and August would be the one to cross it, but it also left him in the same position as before.
So, Quinn could either ignore August’s issues and keep things simple, or he could intervene and give them what they both wanted.
But did he want August?!
Fuck, he hated everything. He wanted to bury himself in the snow beside his sister until people forgot about him. It had only taken August ten years to erase him from memory, so he knew it could be done.
Quinn’s knees were starting to ache from the cold, and his fingers were turning numb. Esme wasn’t there, and she wasn’t going to answer, but he needed to ask her the question he had been brooding over since Eren mentioned something.
“I didn’t go to the party last summer because I hated hockey players, and being in a room full of them sounded awful at the time, but you pushed me to go,” Quinn began, hugging the undamaged roses to his chest. “I thought at first you didn’t want me to miss it because you knew you were about to die, but then Eren said the two of you cornered August, and it made me think. ”
Quinn took a breath, fighting the shakiness out of his voice before he could continue.
“We’re you…planning to reunite us, Esme?”
Another breath.
“Did you know something that I didn’t? Something you couldn’t explain?”
How many times had she brought up August after high school?
Quinn didn’t think he could count the number, and in his anger, he’d gotten used to blocking her out.
She had taken his side, and she was so disappointed in August. Quinn had endured her prattling about how they were perfect for each other for years, which never failed to infuriate him.
August came up in conversation less as years passed, but when Esme found out she had cancer, it sparked the debate again.
Quinn had hated it, but he said nothing as Esme talked about how things used to be, while never once bringing up the fact that she knew where August was and had been in close contact with him.
“I hated August for hurting you, Quinn. I wanted more for the two of you, especially now that I know I won’t be here for much longer. You and I may be mirror twins, but you and August are mirror souls. I just wish…things could have worked out while I still had time.”
That was the last time Quinn had heard August’s name leave Esme’s mouth before she died, not long after the party. Her approaching death made it an easy comment to forget about—until now.
Mirror souls.
Quinn, the artist. August, the athlete.
Quinn, the independent. August, the touched-starved.
Quinn, the dominant. August, the submissive.
Quinn, the heartbroken.
August, the heartbreaker.
“I can’t just be with him, Esme,” Quinn said, his chest heaving from the effort of holding back a scream of frustration.
“I would be stupid to fall for him again. They would have to write ‘Idiot Harlow’ on my grave instead of my name after August breaks my fucking heart and I die from drowning in my own tears.”
Quinn’s eye caught on the last petal left on the ruined rose, watching as it fluttered madly in the breeze. It was only a matter of time before it broke off and joined the rest in the clear, blue sky, but Quinn gripped it between his fingers to stop it.
He tugged on the petal as if threatening to remove it, but always hesitated before he could fully pluck it from the stem.
August. What was he going to do about August?
“I’ll wait and see what happens, but I won’t make it easy for him, either,” said Quinn. “I’m not desperate for love anymore, so this time I’ll have the patience to let this thing between us build naturally. That way, if we’re happier being friends, there will be no heartbreak or hard feelings.”
Esme didn’t answer, but that was okay because Quinn had already made up his mind.
“What I’m saying is—”
Quinn tugged on the petal until the breaking snap echoed over the wind.
“I’ll give him a chance.”