60.
The first thing I notice when I get home is the daisy chains.
I don't know how anyone couldn't. They're everywhere. I don't know where Emma found all the beads to make so many.
They loop over furniture. Some strands lay in piles on the floor. Daisy chain after daisy chain. Some are green and white, others yellow and purple. They worry me. The strands feel frantic, like an attempt to regain control. I leave my suitcase by the front door and follow the trail of jewelry upstairs to her bedroom. Her door is open a crack. I knock on the wood and it glides open more, exposing the room.
She stirs in her bed, looking up at my silhouette in the doorframe. "Quinn," she mumbles, half asleep.
"Yeah," I whisper, afraid to disturb the thick silence. I venture in deeper and sit down at the edge of her bed. The blankets ruffle and the mattress creaks. She stares at my knee, and I lean in to run my hand through her hair. "I'm home."
She holds her face together as best as she can, trying to keep herself from crying. "Kate and I broke up," she seems to recall. I nod and pet her head. I had a feeling that's what happened.
"I'm sorry, Emma."
"She hit me."
My hand stops moving through her hair.
She can't look at my face, her eyes still glued to my knee. My heart is racing.
"What," my voice cracks at the word.
"We got into a fight last night and she hit me."
"Oh my God."
"So I kicked her out."
"Emma," I reach down and touch her chin, tilting it up so she'll look me in the eye. She does, but her lids begin to rim red. A few tears pool and leak down the side of her face. "Are you okay?"
She shakes her head against my hand and everything crumbles. A sob cracks the quiet in the room, violently rocking through her body. I lay down over her, stroking her hair and holding her as close to me as I can. She tucks her head into my neck and tries to regain control of her lungs.
"You are now. You're okay now." I murmur in her ear. My insides are on fire. I want to go punch Kate in her stupid fucking mouth. I want to kill that bitch. Everytime Emma sobs beneath me, it makes me want to punch Kate more.
This is all my fault.
I knew something was wrong. I knew she was upset, tense. I saw the signs. I should've trusted my gut. I should've made them break up. I should've known better. My jaw has hardened to stone, I'm clenching it so tightly.
No. No this is Kate, not me. I'm going to punch that bitch's teeth out.
I sit up and carry her with me. She wraps her arms around my waist and holds me tightly, looking for some sort of physical connection, reassurance, safety and comfort. I take a shaky breath and hug her back. I kiss her temple and rock her softly back and forth.
When she finally feels calm enough to talk again, she whispers, "I'm sorry about all the daisy chains."
"It's okay. They look good."
"I was trying to stay awake. I didn't want to fall asleep alone."
"I know. It's okay."
"And I was angry at myself."
I pull away to look at her face. Her eyes dart down her lap, unable to meet my gaze. I wipe some of the tears off her cheeks. Her lip trembles. "Why were you angry?"
"I love her," she tries to keep her composure, but the words make her face twist up in sorrow again. She sniffs and furrows her eyebrows. "I was so stupid and she was making me so unhappy. And then last night happened. She doesn't love me."
"I don't think she does"
"I fell for it. I'm stupid and I'm angry."
"You can feel stupid, but you are not stupid," my thumbs keep rubbing her cheekbones, pushing away fresh tears falling down her face. "You can feel angry. I'm angry too."
"I should have known better. I watched you and Wes. I knew the red flags, I knew the signs, and I ignored them."
"Emma, this isn't your fault." I chew on my lip, guilt rising in me. "I knew something was wrong and I didn't do anything. I should've known better."
"It's not your fault either," she sighs and shakes her head.
"No. It's Kate's fault." I assure her, leaning in. She nods and closes her eyes. "You did not deserve that. No one deserves what she did to you last night. I am so sorry that happened."
She doesn't say anything, lip trembling. She keeps her eyes closed and her eyebrows furrowed, trying to not cry again. I watch her expression carefully, the edges of her features. My thumbs wipe away her tears. She brings her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them.
I want to make it all better for her. I want to give her the fucking world. I want to see her flourish, thrive. I want to see joy in her. Emma is far too pretty a soul to ever cry.
"I love you, baby," I caress her face. She nods, she knows.
"But she's the only person I've ever loved like that. She's the only person I've ever kissed. And she hit me."
"She won't be the only one you love," I shake my head. "She doesn't have to be anything to you anymore."
"Why would she do that?" She doesn't hear me. "What did I do wrong?"
"You didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't your fault," I say it again. I'm going to keep saying it until she believes it.
"It started so well. It was so good at the beginning. I was so happy," she stares up at the ceiling in grief.
"It always starts like that, Emma," I run my hand up and down her arm. "If it started bad, you wouldn't pursue it."
"Quinn," she opens her eyes and glances up at me shyly. "Will you stay here with me?"
"Of course." I climb further onto the bed and sit down behind her, leaning back against her headboard. She picks at the skin around her fingernail. We both let the quiet linger around us. She stares at her fingernail for a long while. I watch the back of her head, her hair falling down and fanning out on the pillow behind her. She takes a shaky sigh.
"I love you too," she whispers. "It's always been you, even when it wasn't. It's always been you and me."
I nod to myself, listening to her rambling thoughts. It's true. Even with Wes, even now with Harry, even with Kate, it's always been Emma. She looks so fragile, thinned out, pale. There's no color in her face. I reach down and run my fingers through her hair again.
"After it happened," she drops her hand onto the mattress next to her head. "All I wanted was for you to come and lay here with me. I needed you."
"I understand," I mumble and reach down to play with her hair.
"We could be in any apartment, any house, any city, any country. It wouldn't matter, as long as we were together. You are my home."
Outside Emma's window I can see the faint light of the sun returning to the sky. I seem to be watching the sun rise more and more lately.
"It's incredibly strange how a person can feel like home. Like everything, and the only thing at the same time," Emma traces the edge of her pillowcase with her finger.
"Someday you're going to live in Maine with a carpenter, remember?" I blurt out. I don't know why her words are making my heart race. She's speaking so calmly, and for some reason it's scaring me. She nods against her pillow. It makes a soft swishing sound.
"Someday," she repeats softly. She sounds hopeful and pessimistic at the same time, like she's accepted her circumstances. She turns and looks up at me. Her eyes are a muddy blue, like the bottom of a lake in the summer sun. "What if we hadn't started out as friends."
I crease my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"What if you had been asking me out the first time we met," she barely utters the words. "And there never was a Wes, or a Kate."
"Or a Harry?" I remind her. She shrugs.
"Yeah. What if it was just you and me. From the beginning. What if that's what was supposed to happen, but we got all confused and messed up along the way."
"What if," I barely entertain the thought. We've discussed this so many times. But suddenly I feel a panic, her words are sticking, not washing away like I expected them to.
We've never had this conversation sober.
"What if we're the soulmates," her words rolls out. A desperation grows in her. Her eyes dart between mine frantically. "What if we're supposed to be in love, and we made a huge mistake with everyone else."
I watch her carefully, but she's serious. She swallows dryly, waiting for me to say anything back.
"I think we are soulmates," I affirm her carefully. "I've never been able to explain you, but you make sense to me, despite everything else." I slide down to lay next to her. She turns again to face me. Our noses brush against each other. She waits breathlessly for me to continue. "You are the exception to every rule. You ground me. We work well together, we always have. But, Emma," she blinks. "I think you're scared to be alone, and so you're forcing something into place to protect yourself. I'm here for you, I'm yours, but you don't need me like that. You don't need anyone like that."
She sits up abruptly. I follow after her, propping myself up with my hand.
"Baby--"
"I just feel so defeated."
"I know."
"And I miss her, like an idiot," she holds her face in her hands to hide her expression. I rub small circles into her back.
Maybe.
"Emma," I say softer. She peeks out between her fingers at me. I bite my bottom lip and stare fearfully at the girl before me. The depressed freshman that lived down the hall, who needed me, who reminded me of myself. Her face registers my tone. She drops her hands to her lap. Her mouth parts open.
Maybe.
I would die for this woman, no questions asked. I would jump in front of a bus for her. And now I'm thinking back to all the times I've watched her stirring something at the stove or working on a piece of jewelry or playing with Leo, and I've felt an overwhelming urge to pick up Cherry and capture her, preserve her on film, like jelly in a jar for a rainy day.
I'm thinking back to every flower I've stopped to pick because she looked longingly in its direction. I'm thinking about every gentle touch. I'm thinking about how jealous and protective I felt when she sat in the backseat with Kate on our double date. I'm thinking about how lonely she got when I left for France, how she filled the void with an animal. I'm thinking about our late nights high as a fucking kite on our old fire escape. We used to giggle and watch the sun come up because we were both too afraid to sleep.
I'm thinking about the first time I made her laugh, on the floor of my dorm room. She told me she was a 'gold star' lesbian. Golden.
I'm not good enough for you. I've never deserved you.
But maybe.
If this is what you need. I will give it to you. I would give you every last breath in me if I had to.
I touch my fingers to her chin. Her eyes widen. They dart between mine and my lips. Up and down, like a lightswitch. My jaw hardens and relaxes.
I lean in and kiss her.
My heart immediately falls to my stomach and one word flashes like an alarm in my head. Harry.
What the fuck are you doing. What about Harry?
She grabs my face and kisses me back. Her energy is frantic, intense, like this is the only bit of intimacy she'll ever experience. She begs for more, pulling me closer, closer. She's trying to fill her wounds with me.
What about Harry?
But he just kissed Mitch last night. He just kissed his best friend last night.
It's not the same. You're hurting him.
She breaks to breathe and presses her forehead against mine, looking down at our legs beneath us. She's still holding my face in her hands. I watch her eyelashes flutter as she blinks. She sighs and lets go, leaning back to look at me fully.
"No." I whisper dryly.
She nods. "No."
What about Harry?
"Thank you," she shrinks into herself, shy about what just happened. She was wrong.
That's not who we are to each other. It didn't feel quite right. As soon as our lips touched, I could tell. It felt empty. All I'm left with is a wave of oncoming guilt.
"Now you've kissed someone else besides her," I offer and pat her knee. She nods and looks down at her hands.
"I wish it could be you," she mumbles to herself. "It would be so much easier if I could be with you."
"Are you kidding me?" I sit back in disbelief. "I would make your life a living hell."
She giggles.
"Seriously," I press on. "If we dated you would not have fun at all. All this will they won't they crap. You know, I refused to call Harry my boyfriend until months and months after our first kiss? And we just got into a big fight before I left because, well, actually that was his fault," I trail off at the end, remembering everything.
"What happened?" Her face knits together. She reaches to hold my hands in hers.
"We met my parents," I grimace. She gasps.
"No fucking way."
"And it went horribly. It was all his idea. He convinced me to go. Then I had this really bad nightmare and panic attack," I grimace. "The worst I've had in a long time, maybe ever. Like, it was bad." She nods, understanding. "And then he felt super guilty about it and asked me to forgive him."
"Did you?"
"I don't know," I try to remember the conversation. "I think I was scared of what would happen if I didn't. So I did, or I said I did. I don't know if I really did, in my heart."
She nods again and looks down at our hands. "Do you feel guilty about kissing me?"
"Yeah," I grin sheepishly, the back of my neck suddenly heating up. "I do."
"Then you forgave him," she looks back up at me. "People that hold grudges don't feel guilty about hurting someone's feelings."
I stare at her, my mouth half open. She laughs.
"What?"
"You're very smart, did you know that?"
"Oh, stop."
"Should we sleep through the whole day and get ice cream tonight?"
Emma giggles and pulls the blanket up to her chin.
a/n
whoaaaaaaa..
Song: "Doubt" - Hippo Campus