“Is that what you think? You think someone as incredible as you wouldn’t be worth my time?” I pushed away from the wall and sat down hard on the edge of my bed. “I don’t date girls because . . . I can’t . . . I’m not . . .”
Her eyes were round and shiny. “Because of that girl in the parking lot at Zach’s?”
My back straightened. Had she been spying on Amber and me?
That was the cold splash of reality I needed.
“Yes and no. Not because I still want her. But she’s part of my past and it’s a past I’d like to forget,” I said. “And you bringing her up reminds me of why I shouldn’t be doing this again.”
She knelt down in front of me. “Doing what again?”
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going there with her. With anybody. I’d already said too much.
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to pry,” she said. “I’m just trying to understand you.”
Had anyone ever said that to me before? Had anyone even taken the time to care?
“Look, I’ve never done this before,” she said gesturing between us. “I’ve never been so reckless. Here I am throwing myself at you and you don’t even want me. I must look like an idiot.”
She stood up and balled her fists. Her hands were shaking.
And she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“You think I don’t want you?” I reached for her waist and yanked her toward me. I gripped her sweet ass and tipped my head to rest on her stomach. Her fingers fisted my hair and I felt her harsh breaths against my neck.
“If I kiss you, Ella, I won’t be able to stop,” I said. “I’d want more, and that can’t happen. I’m just not . . . it just . . . can’t.”
I felt her stomach quiver and then her fingers loosened their grasp in my hair. “I don’t know you very well, Quinn. But I’d like to.”
She cupped my chin and forced me to look at her. “I don’t understand why you’re fighting this so hard. God, I made it so easy for you.” She leaned her face toward mine and I felt her warm air on my lips. “So for whatever it’s worth, I think you’re amazing.”
My chest squeezed into a tight fist and I bit my lip to keep my emotions in check.
She backed away from me, turned, and walked out the door.
Worst of all, I let her.
Chapter Thirteen
Ella
It was the night before spring break, and I was volunteering at the suicide hotline. In the morning, I would be headed home for a long weekend. The phone lines were lit up tonight, as I knew they would be right before a holiday.
It helped keep my mind off Quinn and what he’d said to me that one night last week. Avery thought it was cavalier of him to push me away if he knew he was fucked up. Her words, not mine. She’d done much of the same when she’d started crushing hard on Bennett last fall. It was nice to have her perspective. But it didn’t lessen the want. The need. The desire to see him.
To make matters worse, I didn’t miss Joel all that much. I’d seen him around campus with different girls. Like he’d unleashed himself on the female population again. He was free and raring to go.
It was strange to not have an excuse to go to the frat house anymore. Tracey had called to ask what happened between Joel and me and I’d been tempted to question her about Quinn. To spill the beans and see what she knew about him. I also considered showing up at his ball games, but I didn’t want to look like a stalker.
A student volunteer named Lizzy gave an exasperated huff across the hall. “I’m getting a lot of hang-ups tonight; are you guys?”
“Nope, I haven’t. But it’s almost spring break, so it makes sense,” I said. Steve, another volunteer on with us tonight, was busy on a call. Sometimes, hang-ups meant people were just too scared to go through with the call. It was frustrating on both sides.
I couldn’t even finish my thought because my phone line lit up again.
“Suicide prevention. Gabriella speaking.”
“I was beginning to think you weren’t working tonight, Gabby.”
My heart vaulted into my throat. “Daniel.”
Had he been hanging up on the other lines until he reached me?
I swallowed several times before answering. “You having a hard time tonight?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I figured you wouldn’t want to chill on the phone with me if you weren’t.” I was going for humor, but I wasn’t sure if he’d appreciate that. So far, he’d been unpredictable.
“True. But I like talking to you, Gabby,” he said. “You make me feel . . .”
“Feel what?” I had no clue why I hung on this guy’s every word. He brought out some protective instinct in me.
Long silence. This time I could hear the wind in the background and the sound of cars swishing by. “Like I . . . matter.”
“Oh, Daniel.” An emotion I didn’t recognize slammed into my chest and I tried not to vocalize it. All I could think about was whether Christopher had felt like he mattered. Had I told him enough times how much he’d meant to me? I knew from experience that what-ifs were useless and that loving homes didn’t necessarily dissuade suicidal acts.
We had a loud and active family, and maybe Christopher had felt lost in the shuffle sometimes. He was the quiet and reflective sibling who spent lots of time alone in his room. But it would have helped to know that Christopher had felt loved before he’d decided he was ready to die.
“Gabby?”
“I’m here,” I said. Shit, I didn’t want him to think that I’d abandoned him. “What you just said made me feel . . . emotional.”
I heard his uneven breaths.
“I do think you matter, Daniel. To a lot of people.” I recognized the honk of a car horn and I imagined him sitting in a public park or maybe pulled over on the side of the road. “And to me.”
“How could I matter to you?” His voice had pitched. “I’m just a voice on the end of a phone line.”
“You’re much more than that, Daniel,” I said. “Don’t you realize that every time you’ve hung up I’ve wondered for days if you were all right?”
“You have?” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been gulping in air.
“Of course I have. Sure, this is my job,” I said, “but I have feelings, too.”
“Oh.” His voice sounded incredulous. “Yeah . . . yeah, of course you do.”
Did he have someone in his life who told him that he mattered?
My supervisor stood at the door listening, checking whether I needed any assistance. He used to stay in the room at the beginning of the semester, and then gradually allowed more independence and responsibility. I gave him the thumbs-up that all was okay and tuned back in to Daniel.
“Do you have anything you’d like to talk about, Daniel?” I asked, hoping that he finally felt safe enough to confide in me.
“I . . . uh, maybe. I’m not sure.”
“Why don’t we begin slowly. About that night. The night of the accident,” I said, hoping my voice sounded soothing instead of nervous. “I mean, if you feel ready to tell me.”
“I . . . I think I do.”
“I’m here. You can trust me to listen.” I realized I’d been bracing my knuckles so hard that I’d left indentations in the sides of my paper cup.
“We went to a party that night.” He blew out a long breath. Like he was gearing himself up. To bare his soul. “I was the designated driver, and I drove my best friend and his girlfriend.”
I tried picturing what Daniel might look like. I also wondered why he hadn’t taken his own girlfriend with him that night. Did he hang out with only the two of them a lot? Like a third wheel?
“My best friend was being a dick to his girlfriend that night. They’d been fighting lately. And what he didn’t know was I’d been crushing on her, hard.” He said that last part in a whisper. That answered my question about why he wasn’t with anybody else. “And she knew how I felt. I think she played me because of it. She and I had been sharing looks all night. I thought it was something intimate, but in hindsight, I wondered if she’d wanted to make him jealous.”