After the End (11 page)

“Yeah, Quinn,” she told me, so softly I almost didn’t hear her. “Yeah, he is.” A pause and she sighed. “Where are you? I’m coming over.”

“No.” Snuffling in a horrible-sounding snorted sigh, I tried to get myself together. I must have sounded like a loon. “No, it’s okay. I just want to be here alone for a while.”

She didn’t like that, but she finally agreed. “Okay. But call me if you change your mind.” Another long moment of silence and she added, “Brady’s a really good guy, Quinn. I’m glad you two are together. And I think this could be something great, if you let it. I know it’s hard, but this was an important thing. You’re going to be okay. And Aaron wouldn’t be mad.”

Of course he would be. I’d cheated on him. But I just nodded and sniffed quietly. “I’m okay. Talk to you later, Trace.”

The phone went silent and I let it fall away.

O
NE
of the major benefits of owning your own store was not having to think of a reason when you called in sick. I just texted my staff—well, the three people who helped me with the register and stocking, but
staff
made me sound like a successful businessman rather than a guy who sold comic books—and curled back up into bed. I’d fallen asleep on the floor sometime the night before, still wrapped in Aaron’s old sweater. The sun and the sharp ache in my back woke me up just long enough for me to crawl under the covers and sink into my mattress.

Dreams had haunted me all night, making sleep all but impossible. The idea of getting up, though, of showering and shaving and facing the world, was like a lodestone around my neck. I couldn’t even fathom the thought of it. So I crawled under the covers and hid, like I was seven years old again and afraid of the dark.

He wasn’t here. Aaron. He’d never been here. Some days, though, I reached for him. Some days I let my hand slide along the coolness of his pillow, the empty side of the bed. Some days it seemed like he was only just out of reach. Like any moment I’d feel his hands on my shoulders, a soft kiss at the nape of my neck, his arms around my waist, and I’d be home. I knew Aaron wasn’t in these walls and in these rooms, but some days, I would feel him.

Today, though, there was nothing. Ghosts of ghosts, a shivery ache that seemed to clench at every breath. He was further away now than he’d ever been, buried under six feet of dirt. I stayed in bed and missed him with guilty, heaving breaths.

Winston shoved me out of bed. An overweight ball of fluff and squished-face disappointment headbutted me until I gave in, rolling out from under the covers many hours past my usual morning. It was afternoon by the time I made my way to the kitchen, numb and hurting, exhausted down to my bones. Every inch of me felt battered and bruised, but Winston had decided I’d moped long enough, so I was pushed from bed out into the world.

He curled around my feet as I walked, purring that odd rusty sound as he pranced over to his food dish. I fed him and declined to do the same for myself. Instead I sat at the kitchen table and stared. There, in a silly little vase, was a single leaf. It’d gone brown by now, the vibrant red faded, but I hadn’t thrown it away.

Aaron had never been here. Had never touched these floors, had never filled this space. But Brady had. The borrowed scarf hung by the door, the leaf he’d given me with careless, windblown smiles was here on the table. Sleeping with him had only been one part of the betrayal. It wasn’t just that I’d had sex with Brady; it was the scarf and the movies and the crusts of my pie. That I’d given him parts of a place Aaron had never been.

A knock sounded loudly and I jumped, banging my knee on the table and cursing at the jolt of pain. Winston gave me a withering stare, prancing over to the door and rubbing against the frame, rear end wiggling in excitement. Sure enough, Tracy’s voice soon sounded from the other side. “Let me in, Quinn. I brought coffee and bagels with that ridiculous raspberry cream cheese you love.”

I didn’t want raspberry cream cheese. I didn’t want Tracy and her kindness—with those concerned looks and the way she had of making me
talk
about shit. I just wanted to go hide in bed some more and pretend burrowing under covers was a perfectly adult way of dealing with things. But sadly, Tracy kept knocking, and I figured she’d probably call some kind of intervention if I turned down free coffee.

So, reluctantly, I stumbled my way to the door in boxers and a worn gray T-shirt, wrapped in Aaron’s old blue cardigan. Winston practically darted outside when I let Tracy in, vibrating his happiness. He loved Tracy. Tracy fed him people food, let him nap on her bare feet, and rubbed that spot under his chin. Winston was a traitor and a turncoat, perfectly willing to abandon me for the promise of a nice piece of cheese and someone to feed his foot fetish.

“You look like shit,” Tracy greeted me, up on her tiptoes to brush a kiss across my cheek, wrinkling her nose at the stubble.

“You know, you really should get a job in motivational speaking,” I told her dryly, shoving my fat cat back inside and firmly shutting the door on the real world. “Or grief therapy. You have that touch.”

She put the coffee and a brown paper bag on the table before scooping up Winston and collapsing down into a chair. “Yes, because you’re such a fragile flower,” she snorted, grinning as the cat happily butted against her face. “Come on, Quinn. Sit down, have some breakfast. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You didn’t have to come over,” I told her, stubbornly wrapping my arms around myself, that ache starting again in my throat at the soft pull of the sweater against my skin.

Hitching up an eyebrow, Tracy began unpacking the bagels. “Actually, I did. I left you three messages, and you never returned any of them.” Her expression softened. “I was worried, Quinn.”

Crap. My phone. Which was probably still in my jeans pocket. Sighing, I rubbed a hand through my hair and wandered into the bedroom to check. Sure enough, my phone was blinking urgently at me, discarded in the puddle of jeans and shirt I’d left behind last night.

Scrolling through the missed calls and messages, I frowned. Three from Tracy, two from Annabeth, and six from Brady. He’d called twice and sent four text messages, the tone going from gently teasing to worried to flat-out concerned.

Yeah. I supposed disappearing from a guy’s bed after sleeping with him the first time warranted a few messages.

Sitting down at the table next to Tracy, I studied the texts.

Hey, sry I missed you. You were fantastic. Mind blowing. Pls tell me I can cook for you again? ;)

It was good, you were good, everything was rly rly good. p. much best ever. call me?

Ok, now Im worried. Just txt to let me kno you’re alive?

Quinn, bb, please.

I deleted them one by one before letting the phone fall to the table. Resting my head in my hands, I ignored Tracy’s patient look. Yeah, right. She was like a schnauzer with a chew toy. There wasn’t a force on earth that would shake her away from whatever she’d come here to say.

“Brady call you?” she asked, all innocent, like she didn’t already know.

“Where’s the coffee?” I grunted, ignoring the topic. Tracy frowned at me, but she handed me my cup and I took a grateful sip, getting up to rummage around for the sugar. Tracy never put enough in. Then again, I tended to add enough to give the average person a diabetic coma.

“He called me this morning. He’s worried, Quinn. According to him, you just took off.” She was quiet as I fixed my coffee, as I puttered around the kitchen, delaying the conversation. “I told him that didn’t sound like you,” she eventually continued, voice raising slightly, forcing me to hear her even though I had decided right then was the best possible time to reorganize my canned goods.

“Quinn.” It was how she said my name. Not harshly, not with frustration or anger. Just so concerned. Softly, she said my name, my best friend, my oldest friend, one half of the tattered remains of my very small family. Sighing, shoulders slumping, I stopped fussing and stalling.

“I slept with him,” I said in a mumble.

“I know,” Tracy told me gently. “You called me sounding worse than I’ve heard you in a long time. You left without saying anything to Brady, and now you’re not returning his calls. What’s going on?”

“I
slept
with
Brady
.” Like if I could say it the right way she’d get it. “We had sex and it was really good, Trace. I liked it. I wanted it.”

Sighing, she moved to stand behind me and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. “Okay,” she murmured. “None of that sounds like a bad thing.”

But then she got it. Her fingers tightened on the fabric of Aaron’s sweater and she understood. “But he wasn’t Aaron,” she said softly, and I hung my head, ashamed and guilty and so confused I felt sick. It was what I’d told her last night, choking on tears and distraught. Maybe she’d thought a good night’s sleep would make things seem better. “God, Quinn, do you actually believe you
cheated
?”

“I slept with someone who wasn’t Aaron.” The words just kept getting repeated, over and over, in my head. Saying them out loud slammed the sound of them into me, a hard and heavy ache that clawed at my throat.

“Aaron’s gone, hon,” Tracy reminded me. “Wearing his sweaters and living like he’s not won’t change that. I know it sucks, I know it’s not fair, but—”

“What?” I cut her off harshly. “It’s what
he’d want
?” God, I was so sick of hearing that, sick of people giving me that goddamn pitying stare and telling me, all righteous and sure, what Aaron would want. As if they knew. As if anyone could fucking
know
.

“Even if it isn’t, it’s what you
do
, Quinn. It’s been two years.”

“Is there supposed to be some kind of time limit?” Anger was easier than grief; being mad was so much
easier
than looking her in the eyes. “Seven hundred thirty days, that’s all right, but seven hundred thirty-
one
and you get your ass back in the game. Never mind that it was supposed to be forever. That I shouldn’t be able to
feel
this at all.”

Silent for a moment, Tracy just folded her arms, fixing me with her
lawyer
stare. The one that let me know she’d just stand there and
wait
for me to be done ranting. Sagging a bit, I leaned against the counter, exhausted.

“You’re right,” she said, very quietly. “I don’t know what Aaron would want. No one does. Because he can’t
want
anything, Quinn. He’s gone. You’re the one that’s still here, that’s still living, and every second takes you further away from him. You can’t stop that. Not by hiding in your room, not by wearing his sweaters, and you sure as hell can’t by treating people like shit.”

When I went to apologize, she held up her hand, stopping me. “Not me, you idiot. Brady. Ranting, getting mad, that’s what you do when you’re trying to move on. But you don’t get to sleep with someone and bail without so much as a phone call. That’s not grief, Quinn. That’s just being a giant dick.”

She was right. I just wished she wasn’t.

“I don’t know what to say to him,” I mumbled, staring at the ground like a scolded two-year-old. “It was really nice, Trace.” Tears pricked at my eyes again and I wrapped my arms around me, the weight of Aaron’s cardigan not nearly as comforting as it once had been. “The stupid thing is, he was great. And I want to call him, which just makes me feel like shit, because I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” she asked, going to me, hands rubbing comfortingly up and down my arms.

“Because,” I answered, and I didn’t know how else to explain it. Because Brady was slim and golden and wonderful and nothing like what I’d had before. Because being with him had made parts of me, places in me, wake up to a world where everything I’d counted on was gone.

Because for that little while, I hadn’t hurt. Hadn’t grieved, hadn’t
missed him
with that tight, pervasive ache.

“Because,” I started again, voice breaking, “he’s not Aaron.”

T
RACY
did leave, eventually. She hugged me, and we sat on my couch. I wrapped myself in Brady’s scarf and Aaron’s sweater. I sat and she sat and we watched mind-numbing television and I said, very softly, through snot and tears, “I’m sorry.”

And she said, “I know,” and kissed my cheek. Because Tracy was my family, was half of the two I had left. My parents had died a long time ago. I knew grief. I knew loss. Except losing Aaron was less like losing a piece of me and more like waking up to find there was nothing of me left at all. My mom and dad had taken parts of my heart. Aaron, though, had simply blown me all to hell. But there was Tracy, still, and her wife, now my other sister. So she hugged me and forgave me and didn’t say a damn word when I pulled that borrowed cashmere around my neck and huddled in, chilled.

Hours later, before she left, she pressed her lips to the top of my head, hand squeezing my own. “Call him,” she urged me, but I couldn’t.