Chapter 59
“LOVELY (WITH KHALID)” BY BILLIE ELISH AND KHALID
Rehearsal ended thirty minutes ago, which meant I was thirty minutes late to my first block class. If I were a better student, I would have cared enough to do something about myself to attend class.
I wasn’t a great student. I wasn’t a great friend, mother, daughter, person… I was ordinary at best. A disappointment would be a closer label.
My head weighed heavy in my hands. I was hunched over in one of the multiple black plastic chairs, an uncomfortable curve to my back.
The choir room door closed, but I didn’t move. I was too embarrassed. Too exhausted. Erica and Olivia agreed to give me some time to myself and left for class, so I knew it wasn’t either of them.
I heard a chair squeak across the tile just before the risers as it was pulled closer to my right. Someone sank into the seat, a heavy sigh leaving them.
“Chris told me you were here.”
“Fuck off, Daniel,” I spat, lifting my head enough to side-eye him. “I don’t want you here. I don?—”
“Shut up, alright?” Duke leaned back in his chair and kicked his foot up to rest his ankle on his knee. He inhaled slowly through his nose, a deeply strained breath. “I heard about what happened. Your breakup.”
“We weren’t dating.” I scowled and rubbed my face. He was such a small-dicked piece of shit. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
“Funny,” Duke chuckled. “I hear that’s what Dawson told Diana when she asked her in the hall. Accused her of being a “sapphic” and got Pretty Princess all teary-eyed mentioning you were singing about someone in class.”
“Don’t call her that,” I growled.
“Quinn, relax.”
“No.” I turned my head and let him see the frustration threaded into my eyes through in the fashion of red veins and dark eyes. “You don’t get to call her that. You don’t get to talk her down because you don’t want her on that field.”
Duke licked his lips and rolled his eyes. He looked away from me and tapped his shoe.
“She’s a good player, okay? That what you want to hear?” he retorted, offering me an obviously fake smile. “Your ex is faster than me.”
“She’s not my ex.” I looked away and felt pain strike my heart. “Can you just . . . Can you leave me alone?”
“No,” Duke responded without missing a beat.
“No?” I scoffed.
“No, I care about you a little too much to just leave you here to cry about your first lesbian crush.”
Slowly, I turned my head and looked at him in confusion. He had this weird, guilty smile on his face. His stupid brown eyes were nowhere near as satisfying as Quinntessa’s, but they pained me so deeply.
“Why the fuck would you care about that?” I asked, spitting my words at him like fire. “Guilt? Shame?”
Duke ran his large hand through his curly hair.
“Is it that hard to believe that I do want the best for you? The best for…for Estelle?” he asked me. “Quinn, I am not a father, but I was your friend.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you.” I stood and tried to walk away from him, but he shot from his chair and blocked my path. “Daniel, I will?—”
“Punch me in the balls. Yeah, I got that.” Duke set his eyes on me, much taller than I was even in my combat boots. “Look, I went to you before because I thought things. I thought things, and you helped me through it, so give me a break and let me sit and talk with you about her.”
“I don’t want her name coming out of your mouth after how you’ve treated her.
” I stalked toward him, digging my black nail into his peck.
“We slept together. We made a child. You left—parent, boyfriend, friend, whatever the fuck you wanted to be—you left her. You don’t get to come back here and play buddy-buddy with me. ”
Duke didn’t argue with that. He opened his mouth then closed it a second later with a shaming hang of his head.
“I am not a man.” He mumbled. “I’m not built to be a parent.”
I rolled my eyes when his eyes trailed down to his crotch.
“But I do feel for you. Not romantically, but something, you know?” Duke rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re . . . sorry?” I crossed my arms.
“Yeah.” Duke breathed in and exhaled out, shoulders slumping.
“I’m sorry for leaving you and Estelle when you needed someone.
I panicked. I was . . . I am . . .” His voice lowered.
“I’m struggling with myself, and it wasn’t fair to you that I took it out on you and the baby.
I’ve been wanting to make up for it. I can apologize to her. ”
“I don’t want you in her life.” I eyed him uncertainly. “She’s three, Duke. To her, she doesn’t have a father.”
“I don’t want to be her father,” he said, confusing me further. “It’s . . . You know my parents. My moms are up in the hills and my dad’s drinking away his divorce in the Groves. My life is toxic. That’s why I pushed you both away.”
“You didn’t have the right to choose that.
Not when I have as much, if not more, shit going on with my family as you!
” I shouted at him, striking him in the chest with a stiff hand.
He didn’t move, my shove nothing compared to his strength.
“What do you want here? Why did you come in here? To piss me off?”
“To comfort you!” Duke huffed. “I came in here to comfort you because when you sat on the bleachers during practice, Dawson did better. You looked the happiest than I’ve seen you since having the baby. When you were with her.”
Heat traveled up my neck and into my face. I turned away from him and sniffled, wiping my sleeve over my face to stop the angry tears from forming.
Goddamn. I’ve never cried so much in my life.
“Seriously, Quinn.” Duke sidestepped to try to meet my eyes. “Are you okay? Do I need to worry about you?”
He genuinely sounded concerned. All six-foot-something of him leaned down to lay his hand on my shoulder blades. I felt my lips quivering and the burning in my eyes intensify when he touched me. It was the threat of physical touch that made it hard to hold it all in.
“Do-don’t you ever call her princess again.” I gritted my teeth and glared at him through my watery eyes. “You don’t get to call my…”
My chest sputtered, and he seemed to understand.
“I get it. I get it. I’m sorry.” He tried to hug me, but I shoved his hands away.
All my body weight slumped back down onto the chair as I choked for a breath.
I’d cried so much, my throat was scratchy and dry.
It felt as though I’d screamed until I lost my voice.
I couldn’t keep going on like this. It was like I was stuck in a jar, hitting the sides of the glass each time I thought of her.
“Breathe.” Duke rubbed my back.
I wanted to scream at him. Like asking someone to breathe was so sucking helpful. I wished I could kill him, put a bullet between his eyes and never worry about this crazy shift in emotions.
He was lucky he looked so much like our daughter, or I’d beat his ass every chance I got.
I sank to the floor and leaned my head on his shoulder. He didn’t move or comment on my choice. Duke sat there, completely still, and listened to me weep.