Catalyst

Chapter 7

He shook his head, "Her first name is Barbra. No, wait that's her surname." Finn paused, "That's the one in the middle one, right? The surname, because there's an 's' in the middle."

"The one in the middle is your middle name. The surname is your last name."

"Oh." He frowned. "That's dumb. They should have a class on this stuff instead of math."

The class was called a book with less pictures then words. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from saying that.

Then he grinned. "You know, that explains why he came in a dress one day and my mom had to explain transsexuals. I mean, I still don't really get it, because like, who'd want to be a girl all the time but I don't think it's that big a deal. Do you?"

Quinn didn't have a response for him ready. She'd never had to think about another person beside herself, really, and it was proving to be difficult, to imagine herself in that position. But his face was trusting, and she thought of Rachel's big eyes, trusting her, so she said, without really thinking, "I don't care, so long as he or she is happy and healthy."

He grinned, "Good." Then, very gently, he reached out and placed one of his hands on her shoulder before pulling her closer for a kiss. His mouth was overwhelming and she wished that she could have given him a tic-tac or two before this. She counted to seventy in her head before parting from him, taking fresh air in as delicately as possible while still rejoicing in it. He pulled her back again, and they kissed like that, for what felt like forever. She preferred kissing Rachel, even if they'd only kissed a handful of times. She knew, at least, that kissing wasn't just holding your breath forever.

She parted for the last time because her mouth was starting to go numb, and not in a good way. Four months of dating should have taught him something at the least.

He moved his hand to the nape of her neck and shifted his head to kiss her neck. She pressed against his chest to stop him and said, "That's enough, Finn."

Finn pouted, "Quinn, c'mon. We haven't been out in a long time and we, like, never kiss or go out anymore."

She said firmly, "Stop. I'm tired, take me home."

His shoulders slumped and he jumped off the car, showing that there was a dark stain on the back of his yellow hoodie. She took a deep breath and held it as she climbed down and looked at the back of her yellow cardigan. Sure enough, there was a dark stain on it as well. Apparently, he didn't have the foresight to wash the car before letting her get on it.

When the tall boy pulled up to her house, she kissed his cheek briefly and said, "I had a good time tonight, Finn." It was only sort of a lie.

He beamed, gave her a short kiss on the mouth and said, "Me too."

She climbed out and then walked to her front door. Finn pulled off as she entered her house. PBS was on TV, playing jazz music, and her parents were both asleep on the couch. The gin bottle didn't appear to be too empty, Quinn saw as she kissed them both on their foreheads as she headed upstairs.

Quinn took a shower, washed her hair, changed into her pajamas and sighed, softly, as she got underneath the covers. Her body thrummed with energy, fast-paced and bold, but she wanted to sleep, wanted to just shut her mind off and head to sleep. It felt like the night was moving slowly around her so she took her phone and then hesitated. Texting Finn so soon seemed like a chore, she was sure that Rachel had gone to work today, and she was unsure who else to bother.

She put her phone back down, put it on the charger, and curled onto her side, cradling her lower belly. That was something she could, do, she realized, and got up for her laptop. She booted it up and immediately started looking up stuff about fetuses. Turned out she wasn't at the fetus stage yet, but an embryo. It was a nicer name anyways. Fetus just sounded... alien.