Chapter 28 - Quinn
TWENTY-EIGHT - Quinn
I'm losing myself. I feel it in my bones when the door closes behind me, blocking me off from the rest of the world and enclosing me in my place of safety and refuge.
But I don't feel safe. Even surrounded by everything I own and the life I've built for myself—within my own four walls, I don't feel protected. I feel like I'm not alone.
I don't know what came over me tonight. I remember sitting at the bar with Olivia, taking in the smell of her perfume and the way she smiled, and all of the good things she said about talking to my dad.
Everything was going so well, but then the door opened and the clouds came rolling in.
Jed and Simon, two fucking morons who didn't know how to stay on their side of the line instead of crossing it.
I'd already had a few drinks and my buzz was strong, and the alcohol was a gateway for my dark devil to step through and take over.
In the blink of an eye, Jed was unconscious while Simon was inches away from a facelift.
Tonight, I risked jail time. I did it for Olivia.
I did it because the darkness took over.
I did it because I wanted to … and I fucking liked it.
This isn't the way it’s supposed to be. I have been working so hard to not be like my father, but all of those walls are starting to crumble now, and I fear that Olivia has everything to do with it.
Ever since she introduced me to this lifestyle, I haven't been able to put those walls up.
She knocks the plaster off of them—bits and pieces of cement fall to the floor, and there's nothing I can do to reinforce them. It’s all coming down because she motivates me to be myself.
But now I'm confused about who I am. Am I Quinn, or am I the dark devil?
I keep thinking that the darkness is taking over, but I don't know anymore. I have no idea what I'm doing.
I walk into the house and immediately go to my kitchen to grab a shot glass and a bottle of Hennessy VSOP.
I fill the glass and knock back a shot like I'm trying to douse a fire with it, but the flames burn down my throat and combine with the ones filling my torso. Nothing is extinguished. Everything is made worse. I take another shot and it does the same. The room starts to spin, so I leave the shot glass on the kitchen counter and carry the entire bottle with me over to the couch, plopping down on it with all of my body weight. I stare off into the distance with tonight’s exploits playing back in my mind, and I don't move.
I'm stuck in a trance of drunken confusion and anger.
What the fuck am I doing? Who am I? What is all of this? How does it end?
I felt the dark devil grab a hold of me tonight.
Its grasp clenched around my body the moment Jed stood up to defend Simon, and once Jed was asleep on the floor and Simon was scared into a frozen popsicle, I regained some of my composure as Olivia forced me to leave before the cops could show up.
Usually, that’s where the story would end.
Olivia and I argued in the parking lot, and I tried to leave, but then she touched me.
She grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to the corner of the lot, and she had no idea that the dark devil was waiting for me there, lurking in the shadows like a demon.
The second the shade covered us, it reached out and grabbed me again.
It forced Olivia to her knees. It forced her into the backseat.
It forced her on top of me in a public parking lot, and gave her an orgasm so intense that it startled me.
The devil, however, was satisfied. I didn't regain control of my body until I was out of her car and walking toward my own, carrying with me all of the memories of what I'd just done.
I was stunned by what had taken place, and still … I fucking liked it.
Why do I like it when I have been running from it all this time? Why does Olivia love it so much? How is the darkest part of me so good at giving her what she wants—being exactly what she wants me to be? I don't understand any of it. God-fucking-dammit.
I bring the bottle to my lips and pull a swig from it.
This time, I barely feel the blaze travel down my throat.
I'm numb now. The corners of my vision blur like I'm looking through a rain-covered window, and I know I probably won't leave this couch tonight.
The EWB proposal is looming. My relationship with Olivia is …
and I don't even fucking know. The cops might even be looking for me after what I did to those pieces of shit at Wonderland.
My life is a shaken snowglobe, but snow isn't falling from the skies.
Bits and pieces of my life are raining down like confetti, and I have absolutely no idea how to stop it.
I don't even know myself, and I need answers.
As I take another sip from the bottle, a realization hits me just before my eyes close for the night.
If I want answers, there is only one place for me to get them.
I set the bottle on the end table and lay all the way down on the couch, hating that I know exactly where I have to go in the morning to find what I'm looking for.
Gander Hill Prison.