Page 20 of What We Got Wrong

“Can I borrow you for just a second,” Liv murmured to Quinn when Jessica approached Mel with her phone out, both already reaching to exchange business cards. Quinn nodded and followed Liv a few steps away.

“Are you going to hunt me down after every session?” she asked, at least mildly amused.

“I just need a second,” Liv told her. “I’m moderating a panel in a few minutes, so I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”

Quinn nodded again and quietly waited for her to continue. In that moment, she wished she’d planned what she was going to say, because she drew a bit of a blank, and with Quinn standing there with her, looking like her Quinn, that perfect combination of sweet and handsome and soft and beautiful, she began to ramble.

“I know that you said you didn’t want us to get personal, and I totally respect that. I mean. It’s been a long time, right? And clearly, you knew I was going to be here. I sort of thought, maybe, you wanted to see me, and that’s why you were coming. But, I mean…you thought I was married, so obviously that was wishful thinking on my part…so stupid. And totally not the point. The point is, I need you to know, you don’t have to talk to me about any of your personal things, but I am not married.” Maybe her stream-of-consciousness speech was unnecessary, but she felt like she at least stuck the landing.

Quinn’s brow furrowed, and Liv tried not to find it adorable. “You definitely got married. I saw the photo spread online. You were a beautiful bride.”

“Thanks,” Liv said, and she felt her cheeks warm. She cleared her throat. “That was my dad’s idea. It was a wedding gift.”

“Your dad is…not what I was expecting,” Quinn told her.

That made a lot of sense. So much had changed since college, and her relationship with her parents was one of the biggest things. She couldn’t explain it to Quinn, not in the limited amount of time that they had before the next session started. How do you explain to someone that you’d so fully misunderstood everything about your family, about your parents, that it had taken years of therapy, both on your own and as a family, to start learning to communicate in a healthy way?

“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” Liv said softly. “You should make a point to meet him at the mixer tonight. And take your friend, he’s a big fan of your video.”

“He watched it,” Quinn said, sounding mildly shocked.

“Someone sent it to him when it first went viral,” Liv explained. “He had ‘Do It Badly’ T-shirts made.”

“Are you ‘someone’ in this story?” Quinn asked. Liv could sense that she already knew the answer.

“Maybe,” Liv said. They stared at each other for a moment, not sure how she’d gotten so off track from her original line of conversation. “Anyway. As I was saying, I’m not married.”

“Right,” Quinn replied, like she couldn’t quite believe her. Like she’d been so certain of a different truth she literally couldn’t trust the words coming out of Liv’s mouth.

“Have you ever heard of divorce?” Liv teased.

“They must not report socialite divorces like they do weddings,” Quinn said, and…was she teasing back?

“I’m absolutely not a socialite,” Liv replied, rolling her eyes. “But we do have a lot of money. He has even more. We kept it private, but we were only married for six months, Quinn. He works for his dad in Europe; I don’t even remember the last time I saw him. We separated like…eight years ago.”

Liv could tell that Quinn’s mind was reeling. She wanted to talk to her more, truly she did, and she wanted to do a whole lot more than talk, but the next session was starting in ten minutes, and Liv had committed to being there.

“I don’t have time to give you all the nitty-gritty details right now,” Liv told her. “But maybe we could get coffee sometime this week?

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Quinn said, sounding far away. After a second, she seemed to snap back into her body. “I need to focus on work this week. Mel very specifically asked me to get my head out of my ass.”

Quinn flinched at her own words, as if she couldn’t believe that she had actually said that out loud.

“If you find some time,” Liv replied sadly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah. I’ve missed you, too.”

That was all Quinn said before she walked away again. Liv stood there, allowing herself to spiral for just a few seconds, hating how her traitorous mind flashed back to the terrible presentation. Well, at least now she had a practical idea of how fast failure worked in her real life.

Chapter 8

Quinn

Winter, Freshman Year

Quinn had every intention of keeping things between her and Scarlet casual, regardless of how much she liked her. She was cute, smart, and opinionated in a way that made her never back down in an argument. Whether the topic was third wave feminism or whether a hot dog counted as a sandwich, she debated just as intensely. And, for the record, Quinn thought that a hot dog very much did count as a sandwich, but it was not worth getting into that discussion with Scarlet ever again. Quinn had every intention of keeping things casual, but before they left for Christmas break, they’d decided to make their relationship official.

Christmas with her family was wonderful. Liv had sent home gifts—she said it was a loophole, because the gifts weren’t technically for Quinn—for her sisters: a set of rainbow hair bows for Everlee and an oddly beautiful marine life coffee table book for Juliette that her sister had carried around the house for days, poring over it. The girls were so excited that it became a running joke with her brothers that they needed to make the next visit, if gifts were involved.