36.
The car slows to a stop in front of his apartment. It's so much faster getting here when you drive. I jump out of the passenger seat. We've barely parked. Harry curses under his breath watching the door slam. I ignore him, climbing the steps up to the front of the building, pressing the buzzer twice. I hear him slam his own door, and his footsteps echo up the stairs after me.
"Damnit Quinn," He catches up to me after a moment. I don't respond, just stare helplessly at the front door, begging Wes to unlock it and let us in. "Maybe press it again," he tries.
I shake my head. "He heard us, it would just agitate him. He's coming."
We stand there for two minutes. Harry begins to tap his foot impatiently. I give him a side-eye. He stops, but huffs and crosses his arms.
The door clicks, signalling that it unlocked. I swing it open, taking on the staircase two at a time. Harry hurries after me.
His front door is cracked open. I hesitate in front of it, looking back at Harry in the poorly lit hallway. He runs a hand through his hair and sniffs.
"It might be best if you wait out here." I gently suggest. He shakes his head fervently.
"No."
"You don't like him."
"So?" He scoffs.
"He doesn't like you either. You won't make him feel better."
He pauses, running his tongue over his teeth, and then sighs and steps back, sliding down the length of the wall to sit against the baseboard. I turn back to the door and slowly creak it open.
There's Wes.
He's sitting against the wall, just like Harry outside. Held loosely between his fingers is the butt of a cigarette. If he holds it any longer he'll probably burn himself, but I think he's past the point of caring about that. To his left lays two packs, one half gone the other unopened.
Scattered around the room is the evidence of a breakdown. There's a blue glass plate, part of a set I bought him for our anniversary, with smudges of cocaine. The same skillet of needles I saw months ago still litters the ground. A chair from his kitchen table lays face down, two of its legs splintered away. The curtains are torn. His clothes are scattered everywhere, like he was searching frantically for a narcotic to ease his pain.
His head is pointed down at the floor, his hair covering his face, but when he hears the faint sound of the door and my footsteps, he peeks up at me. His eyes are bloodshot and yellowed.
"Hey Bell." He coughs a little and looks back down. I move to him, and sit myself down between his body and the packs of cigarettes. He flicks the butt of his to the floor and softly steps on it with his sock. There's a hole burned into the bottom of all of his socks.
"Hey." I murmur, reaching my hand up to comb my fingers through his hair. He closes his eyes and rests his arms against his knees. His head slowly leans into my fingertips, encouraging the action.
"My dad died at 11:24 AM today." He laughs dryly, coming out with it immediately. "I found out an hour ago. Liver cancer, everyone's known for a month apparently."
My hand stops moving as I try to comprehend what he's saying.
"Mom called me an hour ago to tell me. She thought I should know. So I took a lot of drugs and now we're here."
"Thank you for calling me."
He nods tiredly. A deep breath escapes him.
"That's really hard, Wes."
"We weren't even that close," his voice rasps out from underneath the hair hiding his face. He brings his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I fucking hate my dad. I hated my dad."
"I know," I murmur, starting to feel sick to my stomach, but not understanding why.
"I didn't like how he treated my mom."
This is the most Wes has ever opened up to me about his family. I was always the one that shared in our relationship. It was one-way street, me and him. He would ask the questions, I answered them, and then he wrote his stories, until about two years in when we both got bored of each other. To be honest I'm surprised we made it that long. We're both such restless people.
I begin softly stroking his hair again, hoping he'll keep talking. I feel a small pride surge in my chest, knowing it's my presence allowing him to open up. He needs me to talk to, he wants to confide in me. Wes always does this. He has a talent for making you feel special, without even trying to.
"He wasn't mean, he was just cold. And I could tell it made her sad. Even when I was younger I could tell." He looks up and reaches over my legs to grab another cigarette, finding his lighter in his pocket and fiddling with it until he has a fresh stick burning and hanging from his lips. "And he drank a lot, hence the liver from Hell."
I don't really verbally respond. Just sit next to him and stroke his hair while he processes his grief. I haven't talked to Wes in a month or two. But being here right now, smelling the cigarette smoke, it honestly feels like I never left. Like we've known each other our whole lives. We're intertwined, for better or worse, forever I think.
"So why do I feel so bad right now," He whispers, each syllable laced with fear.
"When was the last time you talked to your dad?" I mumble. He considers this.
"A long time ago. Another life it feels like."
"That's why," I answer his question gently. "You feel regret."
He nods softly to himself, sucking on his cigarette and letting the smoke waft from his lips, through his strands of hair and up to the ceiling. "I should have fucking called her. Maybe she would have told me."
"They're only your parents," I offer.
"They're my only parents."
I bite my lip and sit back, suddenly understanding the sickness I feel. In my head I'm doing the math, trying to figure when I last talked to my dad. Five years I think. Five years of radio silence. Would they call me if one of them was sick? Got into a car accident? Would I? I remember the rainy street this spring, when I was almost t-boned. I almost died. I didn't think about calling them once. I rub the fabric of my clothes between my fingertips. Wes eyes me carefully.
"You're thinking about texting them, huh."
I nod and resume stroking his hair. This isn't about me right now. But Wes shifts so he's facing me, flicking the cigarette to let the loose ash fall onto the floorboards.
"No, do it. You don't have to now, but someday. Someday soon."
I barely nod, sitting back against the wall. He adjusts to lay his head down on my lap, staring up at the ceiling, and bringing his cigarette to his lips again. From this angle I can see his face much clearer. He grins, the stick wiggling back and forth in his mouth. The only place you can see his pain is his eyes. They're rimmed red, his whites are pink and yellow. They look bruised, battered, tired. He looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. A single tear rolls out of the corner of his eye and down his cheekbone.
"Don't look at me like I'm broken," he commands, but his voice cracks at the end, turning the order into a plea. He's begging. I lift my gaze up to the wall across from me, my fingers twirling in his hair. He closes his eyes, breathing in the smoke. "I didn't think you would come," he murmurs quietly.
"You needed someone."
"I always need someone," he sighs, heavily. My heart freezes, but I force my fingers to continue softly rubbing his head. We both know "someone" means me. I bite my lip.
"Well I'm here," I assure.
Two minutes later, I see his eyes dancing beneath their lids. He breathes softly, finally gracing his body with sleep.
I pull the cigarette lightly from his mouth and finish it for him. I haven't smoked a plain cigarette like this in a long time.
I also haven't texted my parents in a long time.
I pull out my phone and my finger hovers over my mom's contact. I press my lips together around the stick and slowly inhale, pressing down on her picture and typing out a text before I can think twice.
I'm moving next week. My new address:
I send her the location on maps and then shove the phone into my pocket and breathe out the soft cloud of smoke, feeling long winded. Long winded from sending a text.
As gently as possible, I move Wes' head from my lap and set a pillow down where my body was to prop him up. He has an arm thrown across his body, the other lays flat against the hardwood, extending out to reach something invisible to my eye.
And then I wander into his kitchen and quietly wash his towering pile of dirty dishes, putting them back into the places I remember them belonging when we dated. I wipe down his counters, pull his comforter off his bed and over his body. I rest my hands on my hips and look around the space, feeling satisfied. I don't know why I felt the need to do that, but I'm hoping he will wake up feeling refreshed because of it. Maybe I was antsy after sending that text and I needed to move around. I tip toe out and find Harry in the hallway.
He's sitting right where I left him, his arms folded tightly over his body, his chin tucked into his chest. I gently shake him and he wakes up, blinking slowly and looking up at me.
"We can go now," I murmur. "He's sleeping."
He grunts and stands up. We walk back out to the car. He slides into the driver's seat and starts the engine, which wakes him up more. As we pull back out onto the road, the sky an inky black, he rasps under his breath. "He's okay?"
I stare out at the streetlights that race by the window, the warmth and peace of the car making me tired. My mind is racing though. It's in a completely different place than it was on the way here. I'm thinking about that text I just sent. I'll probably forget about it in the morning, the message fading like the alcohol rushing in my blood, but right now it's burning bright in my mind.
"Quinn."
"Mm,"
"He's okay?" He asks louder.
"Yeah. His dad died."
His hands grip tighter at the wheel. He stares straight ahead and doesn't say anything more.
When we walk back into my apartment, he moves straight for the couch. He flops face first onto it, extending his legs over the arm so his feet dangle off the edge. I move toward him, pushing him further onto the couch to sit.
"Baby," I whisper.
He looks up to stare at his rings, his chin resting on the arm of the couch, his lips pressed forward into a pout. He stares at his hands intently, his fingers spread, his palm dancing back and forth in the soft light. A thin crease forms between his eyebrows. "Did you kiss him."
My mind goes blank. "What?"
"Your breath smells like cigarettes."
I blink. "No, I just smoked one."
I reach up to run my hand through his hair.
He shifts, his head turning to look back at me. And then a small smile twists its way across his face. My answer has satisfied him, his mood has lifted slightly.
"We're not going to both fit on this couch," he mumbles.
I look down at the piece of furniture, my ass barely sitting on the surface. I chuckle and shake my head. "But I'll stay until you fall asleep," I offer.
"I have a better idea," he sits up, pulling the cushions out of the couch. I furrow my eyebrows.
"What are you doing?"
He carries the cushions to the window, turning at the last second to smirk at me. "You wanna sleep under the stars?"
We take two piles of pillows and blankets out the fire escape, spreading them across the metal gridding of the floor. After ten minutes we've created quite the nest for ourselves. The night is dry, fairly quiet for New York, dark except for two floodlights at the entrance to the alleyway, and the soft yellow light from our window. It's that perfect summer night temperature.
I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and lifting my face to the sky. He wraps a blanket around the two of us. We fall back onto our small pile of throw pillows. He curls up into me, wrapping his leg over my torso, his arm around my chest. His forehead presses against my temple, and I feel him breathing softly against my ear.
I flick my eyes open to look up at the empty sky, my hand reaching over to fluff my fingers through his hair. Across the alley, the silhouette of an owl protrudes from the perfectly straight edge of the building's roof. I hear it call out, a low whistle, into the night. A moment later, a second appears. They sit on the ledge next to each other, surveying the damp ground for scurrying mice.
"I feel bad for him," he whispers, but his voice is loud right against my ear. I nod gently.
"Me too," I mumble.
"And I feel bad for not feeling bad earlier. It's hard to lose a Dad," he continues. I suddenly remember sitting on his couch in LA with a cup of hot chocolate and brandy. When he told me about his step-dad. I bring my hand down to wrap around his shoulders, my thumb gently running over the bare skin underneath his brown sweater.
"Should we change?" I switch the subject, realizing we're still wearing our clothes from the day.
He sits up a little and smirks. Almost instantly, he's pulled off his pants and sweater and thrown them back through the window. He lays back down and resumes the position he was in before. "Done," he brags, a tight white shirt and boxers being all that remain.
"Well I won't be as fast," I chuckle and stand up, crawling back into the apartment.
I creep down the hallway to our bedroom, quietly opening the door to not wake up Emma. She shifts softly in the crack of light from the open doorway, glancing up at me with sleepy eyes.
"Hey baby," she murmurs.
"Hey," I whisper back and quickly change into an oversized shirt, taking my hair down and running a hand through it. She turns back to the wall and doesn't say anymore. It makes me wonder if she was even awake, or if she was just sleep talking.
And if she was sleep talking, if she was even talking to me.
I make my way to the bathroom and flick on the fluorescent light, squinting at the sudden brightness. I grab my toothbrush from its stand and begin brushing my teeth, hoping to get rid of the cigarette smell Harry mentioned earlier. After a moment, his figure shows up in the doorway, his own toothbrush in hand. I smile at him through the toothpaste in my mouth.
We brush our teeth side by side, and then walk back out to the fire escape.
"Hope no one decides to burn down the building tonight," he jokes. "They'd have a hard time getting past our boobytrap."
I laugh and lay back down. He follows my lead. His fingers play with the hem of my shirt. For a split second I feel an urge to tell him I texted my mom earlier, but a ball forms in my throat and so I push the thought away. That's not something I want to speak out loud tonight. Saying it outloud would make it feel too real.
I turn onto my side to look him in the eye, catching him a little off guard.
"You know," I mumble. His mouth partly open. "We were kind of in the middle of something earlier."
He blinks, and then a realization grows in his eyes and a grin spreads across his face. "We were, weren't we," his accent suddenly thick, his voice low. He reaches out to grab my waist.
I laugh at his eagerness and roll to sit on top of him, my hair falling down and casting a shadow on his face. He pushes it aside with a careless hand and brings himself up to a sitting posture, allowing my legs to gently fold around his torso. It all feels like it happens in an instant.
Suddenly, we're tangled up in each other. His lips move immediately to my ear and I look down into the darkness of the alley behind us, and then up at the sky, exposing more of my neck. His hand firmly pushes my lower back closer to his stomach. Mine reaches up into the roots of his hair and holds on tight. He's so eager, moving with intensity, like he's been waiting an eternity to do this. Waiting for the right moment, and now not wanting to let a single second go to waste.
He shifts his legs unintentionally below me, raising his thigh up between my legs to adjust how he's sitting. The contact sends a burning chill through my body. I quietly gasp.
He pulls back, "Wait--"
"Oh God, please don't stop." I breathe. He smirks.
A long arm reaches down behind me and grabs the end of the comforter we carried out here.
In a single motion, he yanks it over both of our bodies. And suddenly we're in the dark. And the owls sitting on the building ledge across the way see nothing but a blanket swaying in the night.
a/n lol what a chapter
Song: "cardigan" by Taylor Swift