Page 104 of What We Got Wrong

They walked together to the stadium, saying goodbye to their families before lining up to enter with the other graduates, Quinn’s eyes up the entire time, certainly not because she was looking for Liv.

She and Emma were pulled apart when they were sorted into rough alphabetical order, before they were given cards to write out their names to hand to the presenters. And then Quinn was filing with her peers into the stadium, and she was taking her seat. She was listening to the commencement address, and she was cheering with her fellow graduates, and then she was walking across the stage to shake hands and accept her diploma, listening to her wild family scream and blow an illegal air horn, laughing at their behavior as she heard her dad’s booming voice yell “that’s my girl!” over the thousands of people present.

She wasn’t at all focused the entire time on the fact that this was the last time that she’d ever be in the same place as Olivia Palmer. She certainly wasn’t counting down the moments until she heard Liv’s name, saw her walk across the stage.

When the moment came, her eyes were glued to the platform, allowed to really look at her for the first time in months. Liv was gorgeous, of course she was, and Quinn was pleasantly surprised when she saw her grin in response to Quinn’s family, who were cheering for her at least as loudly as they cheered for Quinn. Though Quinn also wondered how she was going to explain that to her parents, if they’d decided to take the trip.

Seeing her made the missing worse. She missed her friend, she missed the unnamed more that they’d become. She missed touching her and kissing her at least as much as she missed laughing with her and cuddling her. She missed simple study sessions in cramped dorms, the space tiny and overflowing with Quinn’s stuff. She missed their apartment, the silly insistence on a two-bedroom becoming a joke between them.

Quinn missed Liv for all the time they had together, and for all the chances that they would never get.

Quinn was lost in her thoughts for the end of the ceremony, but suddenly, it was over. She was finding her family again—they were hugging her and taking her to dinner—and her undergraduate career was finished.

Quinn couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that this part of her life was over, and they were all officially going their separate ways. There was no longer a chance of bumping into Liv on campus. She was moving home, and, sure, Quinn was staying nearby, but there was no coming back from this now.

Regardless of how much it hurt, she needed her heart to accept that she was never going to see Liv again.

Chapter 39

Quinn

Now

Things had been normal since getting back from Chicago. They’d gotten several requests for more information from J&P leaders, and they’d connected with a few of the other companies that had supported the event. In the six weeks since she’d been home, Quinn didn’t think that a day had gone by without some sort of conversation with conference attendees or other potential clients who had heard about their workshop from someone who had been present. They were busy fielding requests and intake calls to align on services. They were busy, and things were good, and everything was normal.

Every day, Quinn stopped at her normal coffee shop and she ordered her normal drink—an iced coffee, no matter the weather, because she was a reliable stereotype—and then she drove her normal route to her office. She listened to her favorite playlist, and she purposefully didn’t think of tangled sheets, or of reckless kisses, or of walking away.

Of course, she hadn’t heard from Liv. And that, too, was good, she supposed. Because it was what she asked for, and she absolutely, completely didn’t regret that request with every fiber of her being. And it didn’t run through her mind, at least ten times a day, that even when things were complicated or messy or just plain bad between her and Liv, Quinn’s life felt better, more full, when Olivia Palmer was living life alongside her. Nope, she didn’t think about that, not one bit, and she didn't think about texting Liv to re-open the lines of communication, because that? That would be a scary disruption to normal…

But, as she walked into the office, there was something noticeably abnormal about this day. The receptionist/assistant/jr. consultant that she and Mel had hired as soon as they got home, Autumn, was standing on the wrong side of her desk, clipboard in hand, jumping in Quinn’s way when she attempted to walk by.

“You have an early meeting,” Autumn announced awkwardly.

“I checked my schedule before I left last night,” Quinn replied. “My morning is clear. I don’t have anything until my intake with the J&P Buffalo office at 1:00 PM?”

“Mel added it last night,” Autumn said.

As if summoned by her name, Mel walked up to the desk, placing her hand on Quinn’s arm and guiding her towards the conference room.

“Good morning,” Mel said, her tone chipper, at least for Mel.

“Good morning,” Quinn replied, her confusion making her far less cheerful. Mel stopped them at the end of the hall. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t hate me,” was all Mel said before she opened the conference room door.

And sitting at the end of the room was Liv, holding a small bouquet of sunflowers. She was beautiful—her long, dark hair loose, expression soft. She jumped up the instant their eyes met, loudly slamming her hip into the conference table.

“That hurt,” Liv said, wincing from, Quinn thought, both the pain and the embarrassment.

“So smooth,” Mel said with a friendly teasing tone, and she began to close the door. “You’ve got this.”

Quinn assumed that the platitude was aimed at her, but when she looked up, she saw Mel wink at Liv before pulling the door closed behind her.

“Are you okay?” Quinn asked. Liv was still rubbing her hip with one hand, clinging to the flowers with the other like they were a lifeline. Quinn was a bit worried the stems weren’t going to make it through this conversation.

“You know better than anyone how great I am at messing up a first impression,” Liv said. She was dressed casually, in a plain white T-shirt and dark jeans that fit her very well, Quinn couldn’t help but notice.

“What are you doing here?” She hoped it didn’t sound mean, but Quinn felt like she was in a bit of shock, and she had so many questions.