stone cold sober, chapter 2

2

nine years earlier
         Quinn rolled off her sweaty body and grinned at the ceiling. The occasional headlight bounced off the white walls. They had been dating for over a year, but Quinn decided that this was by far the single best sex they’d ever had. He was sure she had come this time--or hadn’t she? Quinn looked over at Sarah, but there was a blank expression where there should have been ecstasy. Elation made way for frustration and Quinn suddenly felt very naked.
         He pulled the scratchy blanket from the bottom of the bed and covered himself with it. It occurred to him that it had probably never been washed, ever. People booked this room for the night--possibly even by the hour--and then they sat naked on the bed. God knew what else they did. There was a scent of mildew in the air, gently circulated by an old air conditioner. The hotel was sleazy, no doubt. Quinn cringed and made sure not to touch the blanket with vital parts of his body.
         His parents would disembowel him if they knew what he was up to. Well, maybe not his father, John Bergen would grunt with approval. His mother would mind though. She expected him to be a better person than Quinn thought possible; but what bothered him even more than the cheap room or his mother’s disapproval was the fact that while he was inside her, Quinn had declared his love and his girlfriend had said nothing.
         Sarah sat up and ran her long nails through curly blond hair. Quinn wasn’t sure what he liked less, the supermarket platinum she wore these days or the fake nails that inevitably would end up killing someone. He wished it was just a phase and his girlfriend would go back to her natural red hair and tidy short nails.
         Sarah fastened her hair with a rubber band she wore around her wrist. “I have to get going,” she said with a yawn.
         Quinn pulled her back down and pinned her under one leg. His mouth found her nipple and teased it until it became dark red. He could feel himself hardening against her thigh.
         “Are you sure?” he mumbled. “I thought we could head over to Misty’s.”
         “Not tonight.” Sarah shoved his head from her breast. She got up and took the blanket with her, leaving his body exposed to bright moonlight coming in through the window. Quinn felt his cheeks flush as she paused to look at him. He gave a nervous laugh that to him sounded more demented than charming. “Misty’s your best friend--”
         “Are you deaf?” Sarah’s voice rang louder with every word, decidedly audible against the still of the night.
The couple hardly spoke on the way back to town. Quinn didn’t mind, apart from a lingering as well as absent ‘I love you’ he was quite content just watching his headlights on the road.
         “When we get home, we have to talk.”
Quinn’s head jerked her way. He could feel the hair at the back of his neck giving him an itch.
         “Talk about what?” he blurted out. “If this is about what I said at the hotel, I didn’t mean it. I mean, I did, if you want me to, but if you don’t, that’s okay.”
         Sarah shook her head.
         Quinn stopped the car quite a distance from her house, not trusting himself to drive any further. His heart beat so fast he could hear it pounding in his ears.
         “I don’t think this is working anymore,” she said.
         He stared at her in blank horror, but Sarah misread his look of confusion and quickly added, “We’re just not ‘it’ anymore. It’s over. Okay?”
         “It?”
         “What we used to be.” Like an impatient nun, Sarah folded her hands and began biting the knuckle of her thumb. She didn’t look at him and Quinn wished he could grab her shoulders and shake answers out of her.
         “Sarah?” he croaked.
         “I’m so sick and tired of pretending to be Miss ‘nice to everyone’! Can’t I just be me and shitting honest for once?”
         “I don’t know, can you?” he answered calmly, his words slicing the air.
         She stared at him for a long second. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t make a scene.”
         “We just had sex!” Quinn shouted, and he was surprised that he could hear himself at all over the crashing in his head. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel and when the throbbing receded he balled the hand into a fist at his side. He knew he was a scary sight, but hell, he wanted to scare her. “Are you telling me that while we’re making love you thought about what scene I could make when you break up with me?”
         “I was hoping you would be cool about this,” Sarah replied and to his dismay, she didn’t appear afraid. She folded down the mirror on her side and applied lipstick. When she was done, she packed it away, zipped up her bag and turned back to Quinn. “Oh, and sweetie, while you were making love, I was just fucking. Let’s face it, that’s not love.”
         Her words spun around in his head. Who was this person? Quinn closed his mouth, sat back and stared at a distant spot over Sarah’s shoulder. How could he have missed it? Images started popping up: images of Sarah leaving the room for phone calls, of Sarah being too busy to meet up, and of Sarah too tired to have sex.
Quinn rubbed his eyes. “What’s his name?” he said when he was done.
         “What?”
         Quinn repeated the question and his voice displayed all the strength he could muster.
         “You don’t know him,” she replied.
         A whoosh of air escaped Quinn’s chest. “There are 1.200 souls in this God damn town!”
         “He’s not ready to go public.” Sarah volunteered with a besotted smile.
         For a second Quinn thought his girlfriend smiled for his gratification, but when he realised it was for another, he resisted the urge to break things.
         “Is he married?” he snapped instead.
         Sarah looked at the purse in her lap.
         His mouth was suddenly devoid of liquid. “Get out,” he mumbled.
Quinn started the engine and pressed his foot down even before Sarah had a chance to close the door. God help him, if he had waited any longer, he would have strangled her.



         At Misty's party, Kate decided that she was ugly. The realisation came with a faint sense of panic, and with it came the feeling that she was somehow invisible. Kate cursed. She would gladly exchange the rest of her life if only her eighteenth year on this planet made her beautiful and popular. Kate rubbed green vodka jello from the tabletop and cursed when she splattered it all over her pants. Someone had turned the music up so high that neighbours rung the bell at ten minute intervals. It was only a matter of time until the police showed up, but Misty and her friends were too drunk to care. Within an hour after the party had started, all the food was gone and the calorie intake was reduced to jello shots and beer. What this crowd needed catering staff for was beyond Kate.
         They want you to do their dishes. It was their plan all along. They laugh at me, because I’m fat.
         “Like a mass of sand being dragged back and forth by the sea,” Kate said out loud.
         “I thought they were kidding about that.”
         She whirled around to Quinn. His arms dangled loosely at his sides as he slouched against the doorframe.
         Quinn launched himself off the door and towards the tabletop that Kate was clinging to for moral support.
         “I’m starving,” Quinn slurred. He stabilised himself against the counter but his legs looked like rubber stilts attached to his torso. His hands where caked in gelatine slowly sliding off the surface.
         “Have some water,” she said with a high-pitched voice before shoving a glass into his hand. Then Kate dashed to the fridge.
         “I know this is going to make me sound like your mother--which I don’t want to be at all, but you shouldn’t be drinking so much.” She looked into the fridge.
         Butter, an open bottle of wine, something that resembles a half eaten pineapple wrapped in tin foil. He’s so drunk he won’t even remember me in the morning. Focus, she reprimanded herself.
         “What did you mean when you said that ‘you thought they were joking’?”
         Quinn looked up. “Huh?” A concentrated frown appeared on his forehead. “Oh, I meant the way you ramble on. Someone said you do that.”
         “I’m not crazy.” Goat cheese, a jar of mustard. What does it take for mustard to grow fungus?
         “That’s what I said.”
         “You did?” Kate could feel heat rising in her cheeks, a feat yet unchallenged considering she stood with her face in a cooler. But there was no answer, just the sound of his ragged breath inside a glass of water. Though Kate knew he was nothing close to a knight in shining armour at this particular moment, she considered at length what it would feel like to kiss his lips.
         Kate reached for a jar of olives and realised too late that she had used her weak hand. The glass slid from her grip and onto the floor. She jumped back. Ah, hell, she cursed, the kitchen was a pigsty, what difference did a few olives make?
         Quinn would have to make due with a bag of stale toast and pickles. She shut the door and placed the food on the counter. It wasn’t exactly a meal plan, but everything else was uneatable.
         When Kate turned around she caught Quinn staring at her behind. He had finished the water and held onto the counter with both hands. His lazy and out-of-focus gaze slowly slid past her baggy sweater to her face.
         “Tell me something,” he slurred, “do girls wait for the right moment to mess up stuff, to do the most damage or is it purely accident--uh, accidental?”
         “I didn’t mean to do any damage, I was just saying--”
         “Not you,” he wailed.
         Kate took the empty glass from him and filled it with more tap water. When she passed him the glass she made sure not to touch his hand.
         “Who then?”
         “Don’t really want to talk about it,” he mumbled and emptied the glass in one go. “You know, I can’t remember ever being this drunk.” Quinn paused. “No wait. When Dan and I were thirteen we stole two of my dad’s bottles of wine. Our father beat the crap out of us and we spent the entire night puking--”. Quinn’s eyes grew large and panicky as he pushed himself past Kate with the force of a steamship.
         She regained posture just as she heard him throw up. Kate leered past the doorframe into the tiny adjoining bathroom. What she saw made her catch her breath. Quinn was on his knees, his hands holding on for dear life, his forehead against the porcelain rim of a toilet bowl, and he looked beautiful.
         Kate had always loved him, for as long as she could remember, but it was then and there that she knew she wanted him more than anything else in the whole world.
         “Damn,” she whispered to herself, “you’re pathetic.”
         Quinn let out a soft laugh that made her spine tingle. “Adding depth to my misery?”
         “No, I didn’t mean you,” she stuttered. “I meant myself. I’m--I’m pathetic.”
         “Right.” He smiled. “Because you’re looking at the bottom of a toilet bowl and I’m watching you from a safe distance. His gaze became out of focus and his skin turned ashen. “Would you mind?”
         Kate closed the door and marched over to the sink to fill Quinn’s glass. Was this what it was supposed to be like? To be in love? How did people concentrate on everyday life when they had to cope with this love thing? She wondered. How did they graduate, or work, or go to the movies, when she couldn’t even stop thinking about him for a second?
         When Quinn came back out he didn’t look well. And he certainly didn’t look at her. Kate assumed that he didn’t even know she existed. It took Quinn a while to acknowledge that Kate was offering him a glass.
         He smiled a crooked smile. “More water, you think?”
         “You actually need it more now than you did before.”
         “Maybe if you had mentioned that earlier,” he said before blushing. He studied the surface in the glass. “I have to get home.”
         Kate’s eyes grew wide. “You’re not planning on driving, are you?” Enter motherly person. She cursed silently.
         Quinn reached deep into his pocket for a pack of gum and shoved stick after stick into his mouth until there was hardly any closing it.
         “How about I drive you?”
Quinn agonised as gum and saliva collected in his mouth. He shook his head, cut the air with his hands and then he added a sweeping motion around the kitchen.
Kate took in the scattered olives and the jello massacre on the tabletop. “I’m done here,” she replied. Kate grabbed a bottle of juice and walked out the back door.


         It was when he saw Kate’s besotted expression that he knew he was making a huge mistake. It could be a friendly smile, Quinn considered, but it could just as easily be a spark of dementia. Did he really want to leave with her?
         Quinn considered his options. He had embarrassed himself beyond words at Misty’s party, going back there wasn’t an option. Leaving sounded good. Back door sounded even better.
         “This is me,” Quinn said, pointing to his car. “I can drive, why don’t you go back, or home, or something?”
         “I don’t want to go home,” Kate replied. “I wouldn’t know where else to go, and I definitely wouldn’t know how to get there if I did.” She paused and then added, “Let me drive.”
         Just as she’d finished her sentence, Quinn heard someone call his name from Misty’s porch. He spat out the gum and threw Kate the keys. Within seconds he was in the car.
         “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” Kate asked and Quinn acknowledged the hurt in her voice. He rested his head on the side window for a dizzy second, and then turned to look at her. Yes. “No”.
         There it was again, that look. “Why do you do that?” he asked as she started the engine.
         “Do what?
         “That scary look that says, ‘Give me what I want or I’ll slash your tyres’”. Quinn hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he liked being sober or not. The urge to pull up and buy beer seemed stronger every second he spent with Kate.
         “I would never slash your tyres.”
         “It didn’t mean it literally,” Quinn said. “I don’t know how else to describe it. You get that weird look.”
         “I don’t do it on purpose,” she answered so quietly Quinn had to lean over to hear what she was saying.



         Quinn’s old beat-up Ford was a mess, but it smelled clean. He didn’t have anything dangling from his rear view mirror, like scented trees or icons of worship. Kate didn’t trust people who did that, they tried too hard to put something out there.
She was in a car with Quinn Bergen and he was drunk. If her aunt ever found out, she would probably ground her until menopause.
         “I’m sorry.” Quinn opened the window farther and held his face into the wind. “I didn’t mean that you’re weird,” he said, closing his eyes against the wind.
         “You don’t have to make up for what you said,” she replied. “I’ll drive you to your house and then I’ll walk home from there.”
         Quinn sat back. “No... .” He hesitated. “No, let’s hang out.” When Kate didn’t reply he added, “Look, you are who you are. God knows, I’m the one who made an idiot of himself tonight, not you.”
         Kate smiled a little in return. “You got drunk and left without saying goodbye. I’m sure, your friends will survive.”
         “Honey, you don’t even know half of it.”
         Kate replayed the way he said ‘honey’ over and over. “What did you do?” she asked. “Unless you don’t want to tell me?”
         “Tell you what. You stop doing that self-conscious thing you do, and I’ll tell you.”
         Kate thought about it for a second. She had no idea what he meant, but she definitely wanted to hear his story. Kate nodded and said, “What do I have to do?”
          “Let’s see. You could start by telling me five things you like about yourself.” His hand shot up and pointed at something on the left. “Turn in here.”
         Kate steered the car into an empty parking lot. “Why here?” She didn’t expect to be taken to a pub on ‘One Street’, but any place less remote than the shopping centre lot would have been fine.
         “I like this place,” he replied, “haven’t been here in ages.”
         Kate turned the motor off. “You like parking lots?”
         “Daniel and I used to come here and spend the whole night talking, but we can go somewhere else if you want?”
         Kate felt heat rise in her face. “No, this is fine.” Daniel. She hadn’t thought of Quinn’s brother in a while. She tried to suck air into her lungs but it was too thick. Like a sauna with the doors bolted from the outside. A sauna with grey concrete and red sand as far as the eye could reach. “So, tell me your oh-so-horrible story,” she said, trying to relax against the sticky seat.
         Quinn cringed. He rubbed his hands over his face. “I was having a great time with Sarah. Who you probably know?”
         Kate smiled. “It’s ‘whom’, not ‘who’.”
         “Thanks. I mean, really great time, if you know what I mean? Then I drive her home and she breaks up with me because of another guy, whom I think is—“
         “Who--”
         “Do you want to hear this?” Quinn snapped. “I don’t know who it is, but I bet the guy’s married. Then I get drunk, kiss every girl at the party--well, except for you--stumble into the kitchen and the rest you know. Can you top that?”
         “Sarah broke up with you?”
         Quinn’s eyelids fluttered in disbelief. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”
         “I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re so--so perfect.” Kate laughed at the surprised look on his face. “You are! You’re just perfect with that perfect nose and that perfect jaw line, and then there’s that ridiculously nice hair, and that body. No really, if my bum was on a picture next to yours it would look like an aerial of the moon in comparison.”
         Quinn’s grin was plastered across his face and it pleased Kate to know that she had put it there.
         “I would kiss you now,” he drawled, “but you probably don’t want me to after witnessing the whole toilet scene, huh?”
         “No, from what I hear you’ve done your share of kissing tonight, Giacomo.” Kate avoided his inquisitive eyes. “Also, I don’t think I could keep up.”
         He leaned back against the car door, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you mean?”
         She cleared her throat and concentrated on keeping her voice level. “There are a few things I have yet to experience; kissing being one of them.”



         Quinn couldn’t remember ever having been in the presence of a girl who hadn’t been kissed before, not in the last four years anyway. Hell, he had never even slept with a virgin. “I really don’t know what to say. I don’t usually talk about--things--like that.”
         He took a deep breath. Damn, she unnerved him. Why did she have to be so feisty and so frigging fragile at the same time? As if women weren’t difficult enough to understand.
         “What I would like to know,” he said looking away, “without getting into detail, is this: why didn’t you just do it? Kiss, and all that.”
         “Do you know who you’re talking to?” She stared at him blankly. “It’s me. Kate Piswanski, the crazy girl. Guys like popular culture girls; and they don’t really give you a second chance once they’ve put you in a drawer. I don’t fit onto the obvious scheme of things.”
         “You’re not ugly,” Quinn stammered, “if that’s what you’re saying.”
         Kate sighed. “Just shut up, okay?”
         “All I said was that you’re not ugly. Are you deaf?” Quinn paused to open the juice bottle. He took a long sip before adding, “And I agree. I didn’t see all this before tonight.” His hand made a sweeping motion towards Kate. “But you didn’t exactly make it easy either.”
         Kate’s eyes grew wide. “Are you telling me it’s my fault that I’m an outcast, a freak with no friends who cleans dishes for her classmates?”
         “Okay, slow down.” Quinn reached over to touch Kate’s knee. She pulled away and let her hair fall around her face, hiding it. “I understand you’re upset,” he continued with a low voice, “but I didn’t make you an outcast. You snap at everything anyone ever says to you. That’s not winning you many friends, you know?” Quinn leaned forward to sneak a glimpse of her face. “Look, I know people are superficial and have ideals that make it difficult to be different, but I also believe that you’re biggest problem is you, honey.”
         “Is that so?” she said defiantly.
         “I’m not going to give you a cliché speech about ‘love yourself and others will follow blabla’, but that’s really it, in a nutshell.” Quinn sighed, and then added with a smile, “Now, for washing dishes––I don’t have an easy explanation for that, but let me tell you, I’ve had worse jobs.”
         “It’s all just nice and easy in theory.” Kate mumbled. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hand.
         Quinn stretched to get a tissue from his front pocket. He passed it to Kate and looked out the window as she cleaned her nose well enough to make an elephant proud.
         When he turned back she was looking straight at him. Quinn realised that this was probably the first time he was consciously seeing Kate’s face. Sure, she had brown shaggy hair and wore clothes sizes too large, but it had taken him a decade to see that she had smooth pale skin and dark circles around her eyes. Kate looked like a child with the eyes of a junkie. It was quite an upsetting combination, Quinn decided, but fascinating nonetheless. He looked at his hands. “You don’t have to tell me five things you like about yourself.”
         “I don’t?”
         “No,” he said and his eyes locked with hers. “I’ll tell you .” Quinn didn’t wait for her to protest but simply carried on talking, “I like the way you say what you think. You’re not fake like most girls I know. You’re really smart, but then you already know that. You’re funny, you have great timing and when I’m not laughing I have to smile because I know you’re brain’s doing overtime.” Quinn passed Kate the juice, but she didn’t drink. She just sat staring at the bottle.
         “You have beautiful eyes,” he continued, “and I’m not going to say something cheesy, like ‘your eyes look like light caramel’, but that’s what they look like.”
         Quinn enjoyed the way he was making her blush. Now, if this girl were beautiful, he’d marry her on the spot. His smile fell slightly. Who was he kidding? If Kate was anyone but Kate, they wouldn’t be on an empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere.
         “Wait, one more thing.” Quinn winked. “I think you could have nice breasts, but I would have to see you naked to judge that further. I suggest you take off your clothes.” Quinn laughed as he reached for the bottle still locked in Kate’s hands. He looked up in time to see her lunge over to his side.
         She bruised his jaw while pressing what Quinn had to assume was a kiss to his lips. He gently pushed Kate back to her side of the car.

Continue reading "stone cold sober, chapter 3"  or start at the beginning "stone cold sober, Prologue"