Before You Break

Chapter Twenty-Eight Quinn

I sat on the side of the cliff staring into the murky water. Something was off about Gabby tonight. Maybe she had problems of her own. I knew nothing about her but she knew everything about me. Everything that mattered.

I was pretty sure I made her night that much more miserable by hanging up, but I’d decided in that moment that I didn’t need her anymore. I needed me. Myself. I needed to get my shit together and start living again.

Even if it had to be without Ella. I didn’t need a girl in my life, even though Ella had made me feel so many things. I’d be good on my own. Besides, I’d never be able to forget that look on her face when I’d bared my soul to her.

I’d decided right here and now that I would finish my degree and then talk to my uncle about working for him so I could then open my own shop someday. I’d remembered talking endlessly to Sebastian about it our senior year of high school and even he’d encouraged me to pursue my love of cars. Hadn’t even made fun of me or acted like it was a lesser career choice. Even he’d known I was good at it.

I’d come to realize that since the accident, I’d been in pursuit of the truth. About his death. About my feelings. About life.

And what I’d discovered about truth was that it wasn’t constant or objective. It was messy and uneven and sometimes unattainable. I wasn’t going to finally kill myself in that water down below, but I did need to find a way to get through my days.

Car lights appeared on the street corner, but I was hidden by the oak tree. The same tree I’d sat beneath with Ella. I’d miss her lips, and her arms, and her laugh. How she made me feel so alive. But I didn’t feel like dying anymore, so maybe I needed to thank her for that, too. It hadn’t just been Gabby helping me.

I heard footsteps trudging through the grass behind me and I turned to see Ella standing there. She’d said she had to work, so I hadn’t expected her to show up. Tears dotted her eyelashes and she looked relieved. Like the weight of the world had been removed from her shoulders.

And that didn’t really gel—it didn’t make any sense. Was she happy to have found me?

Back at her apartment, she’d thought I was pretty awful. So why would she come here? To clear her own conscience? Make herself feel better?

I turned away from her. “What are you doing here?”

She took another step forward and peered around the tree at me. And now pain crossed over her features. “What the heck happened to your face?”

“You should see the other guy,” I said. Even if Ella and I would never end up together, it had been sweet justice giving Joel a pounding. And all it had taken was one hard blow to break his nose and lay his ass flat on the ground, after he’d sucker punched me in the forehead. “You should thank me. Joel finally got what he deserved.”

Her breath caught and she knelt down beside me. Her fingers reached for my face before falling short. She looked defeated and fisted her knuckles in her lap.

But, hell, did she have to be so damn beautiful? I’d miss looking into those blue eyes that were like the ocean, deep and powerful—yet peaceful and familiar.

She looked down at my hands, one of which was red and split at the knuckle. She inched her fingers toward mine, but I shoved them beneath my thighs. No way did I need the torture of feeling her skin against mine.

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry,” she croaked out, and her voice broke on the last word.

And something shattered inside of me, too. A piece of my heart had chipped away leaving me with something so small, so trivial—I wasn’t sure it would have been enough for her, anyway.

“It’s fine,” I said, hardening my voice. “I knew it was a long shot, so I took a gamble. And it didn’t pay off.”

And now the last piece of my heart receded to the dark corner of my chest. I wouldn’t let her have that piece, too. I needed to save something for things I still looked forward to.

Like my cars, my aunt and uncle, and the idea of being free. I needed her to get whatever she had to say out of her system and then be gone. As far away from me as possible, so I could start getting over her.

Another example of that slippery slope of truth.

“Daniel.” Ella had said the word so softly, I didn’t know if I’d heard her correctly. My head snapped up to meet her eyes. “Is that your real name . . . your first name?”

I nodded, not sure where she was going with this.

“Daniel,” she said again, more sure of herself this time. And I hated that I liked the sound of it falling from her lips. “I . . . I’m Gabby.”

At first what she’d said hadn’t even registered in my brain. It was as if I was under water where everything was fuzzy and dark. And then, as it all snapped together, I broke the surface. I found my air and started breathing again.

Ella was Gabby. Gabriella. The girl to whom I had poured out my soul. No wonder she’d always seemed so familiar. So memorable. So comfortable.

But that also meant that she had deceived me. That she’d been messing with me this whole time. I sprang up so fast from my sitting position that my back scraped the tree trunk behind me. My skin was on fire and I welcomed the burn.

“Get the hell away from me,” I said. “You’ve been lying to me. Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?”

“No, Quinn, please. I swear to you.” She moved toward me, her eyes wild and untamed and filled with desperation. “I didn’t know until tonight, when you told me about Sebastian and Amber. That’s when I put two and two together.”

How was that even fucking possible? The coincidence was too great. I knew that she did some sort of psych work, but I had no clue that it was the hotline. Fuck. I’d told her some deep and dark stuff. Stuff that maybe no one should confess—unless they were anonymous.

“That’s why I responded that way, Quinn.” She latched on to my arm, but I yanked it out of her grasp. “Not because I think less of you.”

“I need you to leave me alone.” I started trekking down the hill toward the water.

“Don’t you see, Quinn?” she called out to me. When I glanced behind me she had sunk to her knees in the grass. “I think so much more of you. I think you’re amazing.”

I froze for a split second from the sheer implausibility of her statement. I was angry and embarrassed and miserable and I needed to get the hell away from her.

When I spoke to her, I didn’t think I’d ever heard my voice come out so quietly. “Please. Please just leave me alone.”

And she didn’t come after me. She just let me go.