My last year of high school was my best one.
First of all, my health was better than ever. Good old Dr. Randall came through with a new protocol, and while I was on that, my energy and strength were boosted. My immunity was increased, too, so I didn’t pick up every bug that came around the school. That was a relief, to me and to my parents.
And then there was the fact that we were now at the top of the high school food chain. There was no one older to pick on me, and the guys in my own class had matured enough that they didn’t mess with me anymore. Brent Collins had even become almost friendly, out of guilt, I assumed.
But best of all, Quinn wasn’t with Leo.
I’d worried for a while that they might get back together. I was aware, even if she wasn’t, that Leo was suffering from their distance as much as Quinn was. When she didn’t know it, he’d stare at her, his eyes hungry. He gave her lots of space, but I also heard that the Lion wasn’t roaring so much anymore. He partied, yes, and he drank, but he wasn’t sleeping around. The cheerleaders complained that Quinn had broken their football star. Whether Quinn heard about that or not, I didn’t know, because she never mentioned him. And I didn’t ask.
All of that extra time on his hands paid off, though, because Eatonboro walked away with the conference championship for the second year in a row. Leo was MVP, interviewed by the Philadelphia papers, and courted by a bunch of colleges.
Quinn never talked about football. She didn’t go to any of the games. On the night we won the championship, she persuaded our friend Gia Capri to steal her a bottle of wine from the Capris’ liquor cabinet, and the three of us sat together outside at the old playground while Quinn drank the whole thing and then cried for hours.
She’d changed, too. She didn’t laugh as much as she had before Leo. She smiled sometimes, but she seemed shut off. Like there was a part of her that I’d known before that didn’t exist anymore. I tried to do everything she liked, tried to get her excited about something, anything, but it never made a difference. She was just going through the motions of life, and sometimes, it was painful to watch.
I’d asked her to go to prom with me in senior year, but she’d adamantly refused to even consider it. As a matter of fact, she almost seemed upset that I’d suggested it. I’d enlisted both Gia and Quinn’s mom to try to change her mind, but it didn’t work.
She never mentioned my declaration of love, and neither did I. But I hadn’t given up, because I knew someday, Quinn and I would be together. Someday, she’d be over Leo and she’d see that life could be good again. And then I’d have my chance.
I knew one thing for sure. Once I had Quinn, once she was mine, I was never going to let her go. I was never going to make the mistakes Leo had. I’d love her with everything I had, for as many days as I had.
