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Her fingers tighten around mine.
“And I’m glad you’re talking to me. I want you to talk to me, but I also don’t really know what I’m doing. I can listen and be here, and I can tell you that I don’t think you’re responsible for any of it, but maybe it would be good to talk to someone who actually knows how to help you with the parts you’ve been avoiding.”
For once, I don’t have an immediate answer.
A week ago, I probably would’ve shut this conversation down before she finished the first sentence, but today, I’m actually considering it.
Maybe it has something to do with this feeling of lightness and freedom I got last night after telling Quinn, but I think she’s right. It’s been far too long.
“I could try,” I say eventually.
And that’s further than I’ve gotten in the last seven years.
25
QUINN
In Too Deep
Three days pass in a blur of work deadlines, Wyatt’s practices, and us fitting ourselves into whatever time is left between them. I spend two of those nights at his place, but last night I stay home because I work late and Wyatt has an early practice, which is how I end up waking before my alarm in my own bed for the first time in days.
Being alone in my apartment is starting to feel unusual, but that’s not what has me buzzing with a weird kind of energy.
Wyatt told me he loves me.
I’m in love with you, Quinn Brennan.
Even remembering the exact way he said it makes something warm spread through my chest.
I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about what I did feel in that moment.
I wanted to wrap myself around him and somehow make him understand that everything he’d given me that night was safe with me. Not just the I love you, but Wayne, the lake, his guilt, all those years of carrying something so horrible by himself because somewhere along the way he’d decided that letting people see him hurting was more dangerous than hurting alone.
The more I learn about Wyatt, the more I realize how easy it was to underestimate him in the beginning.
He makes everything look uncomplicated on purpose.
He’s loud and ridiculous and shamelessly flirty, and he’ll do almost anything for a laugh, so it’s easy to assume that’s all there is.
I know better now.
And apparently, he trusts me enough to let me know better.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, interrupting my thoughts, and I reach for it to find a short video from Wyatt.
Pickles is on the floor of his living room with one of my socks hanging out of his mouth. The toe is completely gone.
That hole definitely wasn’t there when I packed it in my overnight bag.
Wyatt:
He stole this from your bag and I let him keep it because he looked so proud.
I laugh out loud.
Me:
You’re both terrible.
