Across The Hall (35 page)

He answered immediately.

I’ll be waiting at my place for you. Drive safe. - Q

I finished making a couple sandwiches and grabbed some pop. I put my jacket on and met Dad out by the car.

“You drive safe, kid. Little cars like this weren’t made for bad weather.”

I put my stuff in the passenger side and came around to hug him.

“I wil , Dad. I love you. I’l cal you when I get home.” I broke off the hug and got in. He stood by my open door.

“Sylvia, if there is something wrong you can tel me.” His green eyes so much like my own were questioning me.

“Dad, I’m fine. Everything is going to be just fine. I’l be back at Christmas and you’l see. We’l make up for this missed weekend.” I smiled at him

and prayed he would let it go.

“Love you, Syly.” With that, he shut my door and I headed back to Minneapolis.

I had a quiet ride back. I thought about the differences between Quinn and Beau. I was so worried about a broken heart that I had put myself in

danger of having way more than that broken. I had to tel Quinn about Beau showing up in Quarry Springs. I wondered if I would have to file a

restraining order. I wasn’t sure if I could do that, since he never actual y hurt me or threatened me. I knew Dad would be able to tel me, but I didn’t

want to alarm him. I figured I could just Google it when I got back.

I also planned to send Jason back to his place. I’d had enough of him being there. If I got a restraining order, then Beau would have to stay away

and there would be no need for Jason to stay anymore. If I was met with resistance I would ask Quinn if he would stay. I real y wanted the time with

him anyway. We had a lot to talk about since my revelation. I was ready for it. I ful y believed that what I told Dad was the truth. Everything was going

to be just fine. I turned the volume up and enjoyed the rest of the drive back as I counted down the minutes until I would see Quinn again.

True to his word, Quinn was waiting for me at his place when I got back. He helped me carry my stuff in and then we sat down and talked about

our Thanksgivings. He told me about his. It made me miss Marie even more.

“I real y want to see your mom soon.”

Quinn smiled at that. “She wants to see you, too. In fact she’s been waiting for that since she found out you lived here.” He told me about Marie’s

plotting and how she chose his apartment because she knew I lived here. Part of me wanted to be upset with her meddling, but I just couldn’t be.

Her meddling brought Quinn back into my life.

I told Quinn how I’d gotten Dad to fess up about seeing Shel y. We laughed together when I told him that Dad even blushed about it. I figured I

couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Beau showed up Thursday.” His eyes went wide and the grin disappeared. “He fol owed me home from the grocery store.”

“And Kel y didn’t kil him?” I shook my head. “Did you even tel Kel y?”

I looked away guiltily as I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to tel him about Beau coming in and al .

“Sylvia, you didn’t tel him, did you?” His tone was judgmental.

“I didn’t want to alarm him,” I whispered.

“What if he’d done something to you? How alarmed do you think Kel y would be then? You know he just wants to keep you safe, too. He wouldn’t

be mad.” My eyes fil ed with tears and I just nodded. I couldn’t get any words around the lump in my throat. Quinn pul ed me close and just held me.

He smoothed down my hair and whispered quiet calming words to me.

When I felt like I could talk again I pul ed away and told him al about how Beau ended up staying for dinner. His eyes were angry, but he didn’t say

anything. He just let me finish. I didn’t tel him about the awkward conversation we had while we ate. When I was done, we discussed the

possibilities of getting a restraining order. Quinn assured me that Beau didn’t actual y have to hurt me or threaten me to be able to get one.

“Sylvia, you need to tel your dad. He wil find out about this. How do you think he wil feel if he hears his daughter filed for a restraining order

without tel ing him?” He was right. I knew it.

“I wil cal him. Crap! I forgot to cal and tel him I was home.” I got up to look for my cel phone. “I can’t believe he hasn’t cal ed to find out what’s

taking me so long.” I looked through my pockets and my purse, but I couldn’t find my phone. Quinn ran out to Kai’s car to see if I had left it in there.

When he came back empty-handed, I sat down on the couch to think about the last time I’d seen it. I realized it had been after Quinn’s text. I’d put

it on the counter while I made the sandwiches.

“I think I left it at my dad’s.” Great. Now I would have to drive back for it or have him mail it to me. “Can I use yours to cal him?”

Quinn handed me his phone and I cal ed dad. It rang until voicemail picked it up. I left him a message tel ing him my phone was there, and this

was a number he could reach me at. It was after two and I hadn’t heard from Jason yet either. I cal ed him next. Jason and Colby were stil on the

road. Jason said it was starting to get bad out. I told him Quinn was here with me and to just go home. He argued but I held my ground. Final y, he

gave in.

I hung up with Jason and yawned. Quinn smiled softly and wrapped an arm around me. “You’re exhausted. Why don’t you take a nap? I’l wake

you when Kel y cal s.” I didn’t real y want to sleep yet. There was stil more I wanted to tel him. I yawned again and agreed. I rested my head against

Quinn’s shoulder. He turned the TV on and soon I was out.

I woke up when I heard Quinn’s cel phone go off. I sat up and blinked as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It was already fairly dark. I must have

been out for a couple hours. I was trying to gauge the time when I noticed how stil Quinn was beside me. I turned to face him and he was sheet

white.

“You’re sure? No, I can tel her. Where is he?” The hair on the back of my neck stood up and chil s coursed through my body. Something was very

wrong. “Thank you. No. Just cal me.” Then he ended the cal .

He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned towards me and took my hands. His eyes were wet and ful of pain. I could

tel that he was fighting to keep his face control ed.
This was bad, very bad.
My heart was pounding and my stomach was rol ing.

“Sylvia, that was Jason.” He swal owed and continued. “He’s at the hospital here in Minneapolis.”

“What...”

Quinn held a hand up to stop me before reaching back down to take mine again. “It’s not Jason. He’s fine. Kel y and Brad were on their way here.

Nobody knows why yet. They were in an accident. Brad is in ICU. Jason is with him.” He squeezed my hands tighter and my heart screamed
NO!

“Sylvia, Kel y didn’t make it.”

“Has she cried yet?” I could hear the hushed tones of Jason and Quinn as they talked about me. I didn’t even bother to look up from my book. At

some point in the past few weeks, my friends had al taken to talking about me as if I were absent. I knew I should be mad about it, but I just couldn’t

find it in me. Right now I was doing everything I could just to make it through each day.

I continued to stare at the open book in my hands. I couldn’t even tel you which book it was. It didn’t matter. They were al the same right now.

They were an escape. Not that I actual y read any of them. The words on the pages were nothing more than black ants crawling across the pages.

The books were my shield. When I held an open book, no one asked me if I was okay, if I wanted to talk, or if I needed anything. I’d had enough of

those questions.

“No, but my dad said to just be patient. Everyone reacts to grief in their own way. Sylvia always works things out in her own mind before she lets

others in. She’s doing that now. Just let her process this in her own way.” Quinn was beginning to show his frustration with the questions too, or

maybe it was his frustration with me. He had spent day and night at my side and it was real y wearing on him.

“It’s been almost a month, and she hasn’t cried since the night it happened?” Jason asked. Had it real y been that long? Al my days just seemed

to blur together. I didn’t hear anymore, I didn’t want to hear anymore. I looked at the book, but al I saw was Dad’s ashen face, lifeless and gone just

like my mom’s.

That was when I had stopped crying and let the numb soak in. That wasn’t Dad there. It wasn’t him on that table, it couldn’t be him. I didn’t want it

to be him. I wanted Dad to remain warm, and thoughtful and comforting. I wanted him to be trustful yet worried. I wanted him alive like I’d left him.

The body laying there was not my dad. The sobs slowed to nothing but a hiccup as I turned and walked from the room. I didn’t know what Quinn said

to the man in that cold, stark room. I just wanted to leave. There were things to be done and cal s to be made.

Try as I might, that was stil the vision I saw. I had to go identify the body and now that would always be the last image I had of him. There was no

coffin and no viewing of the body at the funeral. Dad hadn’t wanted any of that. It had been too hard on both of us with mom’s funeral. In its place,

there was a picture of him in a big frame on an easel with a plain, black urn sitting on a table next to it. That was al I remembered of that day. The

fucking plain black urn that held my father.

It was al so sudden. With my mom I had time to prepare. Not that it was easy or that I wasn’t sad when she passed away. I was just ready for it.

Relieved even. I had been able to show her my love and say my goodbyes. I knew that last time I hugged her that it was the last. I knew I never would

feel my mom’s arms around me or hear her heart beat as I held myself close to her. I didn’t get that with my dad. We had plans to see each other

again. Our hug and goodbye was cut short with the risk of the oncoming storm. It didn’t bother me then. I knew we had Christmas coming and I

would see him soon. I just wanted to hurry and go before he asked more about what was bothering me. The regret of it al settled in me causing me

to internalize it al . I just didn’t know how I should react. So I just sat in my silence.

“Is she at least talking?” I knew Jason’s concern over this. He was worried that I had reverted back to the way I had been when Quinn left.

“Yes, Jason. I am talking.” Silence fel across the room as both turned to look at me. “I am talking, and now I am tired and I am going to bed.” With

that, I got up and went to my room. I was tired, but I wouldn’t sleep. I just wanted out of the room.

I was being incredibly rude and I knew it. I had used up my quota of quiet graciousness within the first few days. For being a terrible liar, I felt I had

put on a good act for everyone. Between Shel y and Quinn’s mom, Marie, everything had been taken care of. Al I had to do was shake hands and

receive hugs and listen to countless numbers of people tel me they were sorry.

I gave a short bitter laugh. They were sorry? They weren’t the ones who caused him to be out on icy roads. No, I was the one who caused that. If I

had told him about Beau, he wouldn’t have been on his way to see me. He should have heard it from me and not as secondhand stories passed

from Jason to Brad. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

Quinn’s voice was quiet and restrained as he talked to Shel y on the phone. I didn’t process much of the conversation, one-sided as it was. I did

get that Dad had his suspicions about Beau, and had gone to the station and run a background check on him. He went home and tried to cal me,

only to find my phone on the counter. He brought it out to Brad’s, hoping Jason could take it back to me. Jason had already left, but before he had

he told Brad al about Beau. The combination of the background check and Jason’s stories spurred Dad into coming to Minneapolis. I don’t think

there was any more I needed to know from that conversation.

The background check had shown that Beau was wanted for drug trafficking. There was more there, too, but that was the current and biggest of

the red flags. At least I hadn’t heard from him since Thanksgiving. I don’t know if he knew Dad was aware of him or what, but he didn’t try to contact

me again. Quinn had his own suspicions on that, too, until Brad had woken up.

“I stil think Beau had something to do with it.” Quinn’s voice was bitter as he talked to Reed and Sloane. I don’t think he was aware that I was

awake. I had been on the couch fighting the odd floating sensation that kept trying to pul me into the void of nothingness. Quinn had talked me into

taking the Ambien that his dad had prescribed for me. They both thought I needed to sleep. I didn’t need to sleep. I needed to have my dad back.

I laid there and listened to the three of them talk about the possibilities of Beau having been responsible for the accident that took my father from

me. I tried to hold on and understand what they were saying, but the words were jumbled in my altered mind. I wasn’t even sure that had al

happened or if that was just my brain flipping through random files and putting them together as I lay in some quasi-conscious state.

I thought about what Brad had told Jason once he was off the respirator. It had been ice and nothing more. Dad had been driving too fast, intent

on getting to me as soon as he could. The freezing rain had turned to snow, and the road crews couldn’t keep up with the clearing and sanding.

Dad had taken a turn too fast and tried to slow down, but ended up skidding off the road and into the trees.

“There was nothing that could be done.” Alex’s voice was stil calm, even though it was laced with sadness. He was explaining to Kai and Kerri