it.”
“But I can see you’re hurting and I want to help. But I can’t because you won’t share it with me.”
She looks stung, and I don’t understand why.
“Just let it go. I’m sorting it out, okay?”
I nod. I shrug. She takes her plate and puts it in the dishwasher.
“I’m tired,” she says, her final two words. Then she walks down to the bedroom and I don’t see her for the rest of the night.
I lay on my bed, looking at the blank piece of paper that is my vows. I don’t know why this is so hard, but maybe I do. Maybe I’m trying too hard, trying to sound romantic or clever of both. I remember what vows are about. How that they are easily kept when things are easy, but if that is all they are worth, then there is no point. It is in the hard times, when the vows are sorely tested, that they mean something - and keeping them then shows that they are the embodiment of the truest love, the love that can withstand anything.
So I put pen to paper. I don’t try to use flowery words and poetry. I just say what I want to pledge, and I guess they are the same words I want Quinn to say to me. I guess that’s how it works.
Thursday
The mood between us has not changed. We’re going to a party and I feel like its my life repeating itself, over and over, and we’re both destined to make the same stupid mistakes. Only this time its worse. I know what’s coming and I’m powerless to stop it.
Quinn is as beautiful as always. I know this is not for me. This is just her way. She’s wearing pregnancy tops everyday now. Her hair is out, her new style, and it falls down her back in long waves. She smiles at me as we drive toward the rich neighbour where Wade and Chloe live. It’s the smile I’d become used to for the last two years and I know its hiding something – some pain, some hurt. She won’t tell me what it is and that hurts me. I want to say I’m sorry but I don’t know what I’ve done.
The party has already started by the time we arrive. Most of the people there are from the station. They look at us briefly, acutely aware of what our presence means. Wade, me, Quinn, in the same room.
Quinn gets a glass of wine and drinks it quickly. I want to say something but I don’t. Stewart grabs me and pulls me away and I lose sight of her. I can’t see the hosts, not yet.
Stewart has never been to Wade’s apartment and he’s excited – particularly about the view. Wade can see right over the city and there is a glimpse of the sea. We’re out on the balcony in the cool night air. The sounds of the city below intrude a little.
I’m getting that feeling back – the feeling that something is not quite right and I’m missing something, something important. The cold railing is in my hand, and I look down at it. I’ve seen it few times but this time it’s different. I don’t know why.
Stewart is raving about something, I can’t quite follow him, but I’m nodding and smiling. All the while my mind is working overtime, trying to piece together the puzzle. My brains have been scrambled after Paul hit me, I think. Or maybe it has shaken loose something rattling around up there. I don’t know.
“Look man,” I say to him. “I’ve got to go back in. This night air is making my head ache, you know, from the accident.”
“Sure,” he says. “Hey, great party. Wade knows how to throw them.”
“He sure does,” I say.
I see the balcony again. I’m walking out and I see two people...
I start to make my way through the crowd. They’re laughing and drinking and yelling over the music. I find a wall to lean against. I take a pull of my beer. I look for Quinn.
I see her. Sitting in a corner. The wives of some other producers are around her. They’re looking at her bump, feeling our baby girl jump under their hands. She smiling, and I’m happy that she’s happy for a while. Her eyes look up and around, scan the crowd. She doesn’t see me, she sees Wade, standing up against the bar, laughing with some of the crew. Her eyes are locked on to him and I get suddenly fearful, angry and sad all at once. As I watch them, he turns his eyes to her and they lock. He smiles slightly and there is energy between them.
“Do we stand a chance?” someone says behind me.
I turn and find Chloe there. She’s beautiful and young and about to get her heart smashed into a million pieces. I can see it happening before my eyes. I know what it looks like. But knowing its coming doesn’t make it any easier, it just softens the blow when it does but the pain is the same.
Perhaps she’s wiser than me, I don’t know. She can see it coming where I was clueless.
“Chloe,” I yell. “Great party.”
“Look at them. They just can’t take their eyes off each other.”
And I do. “It’s just they’ve got history, you know?”
“Maybe.”
And then she kisses me. Full on the lips. She pushes her body against me and parts of me starving for attention react immediately. She puts a hand where it doesn’t belong and, at the same time, pushes her tongue into my mouth.
I pull away. It was fast, too fast for my mind to fathom. Or maybe I’m a little drunk and on pain killers and my mind is moving too slow.
“That will make them think,” she tells me.
I shake my head in anger and head back to the balcony. I see the two figures in my mind. They’re hazy and indistinct. They’re up against the rail. As I get closer I see they are a woman and a man. She’s got a hand on his arm, like they’re close. He’s whispering something to her...
I place my hands up against the rail and breath in and out slowly, trying to calm myself. My mind is a maelstrom of emotions: fear, anger, sadness – at Quinn and at Chloe. I’ve been used far too many times to take it lying down.
I take another pull of my beer and turn. Quinn is at the doorway. She’s a thunder cloud.
“I want to go,” she tells me, her voice as hard as steel.
“Fine by me,” I say. I push past her into the main room and grab our things. Without a word we leave, down the elevator to the street and my car. We drive back to our apartment where we enjoy another night of silence, of unspoken hurts, of ongoing betrayals.
Friday
I’m seriously considering cancelling date night. Things have not improved, maybe they’ve worsened. Quinn is not talking to me no matter how hard I try and engage her. I drop her off at her work and head to the station. Wade asks me where we went and I tell him Quinn can’t stay out too late. I don’t talk about their glance across the room. I don’t talk about the kiss from Chloe and her grabbing me in intimate places.
I pick Quinn up at the end of her day and drive home. She changes into something casual and I take us north, on the way towards the Uptons. We stopped at a beach after our first session and talked. That’s what I intend for us tonight. I park overlooking the ocean, turn off the engine. We’re sitting there for a good minute before someone speaks.
It’s Quinn. “What are we doing?” she asks quietly.
“That’s a good question. What are we doing?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? I think you do know. There’s something going on here – something that’s driving us apart, and I want to know what it is.”
“I told you...” she begins sharply.
“I know. It’s all you and you’re dealing with it yourself. Well, Quinn, you’re failing at it. It’s just getting worse and, frankly it’s starting to annoy me. I can’t talk to you. You won’t look at me. You’re looking at him again.”
She looks at me quickly. Her eyes are wide.
“Don’t even think of denying it. I saw you. Chloe saw you.”
Quinn’s eyes become cold and hard. “And then she kissed you.”
“You saw that, did you?”
“The whole room saw that.”
“Good. Yes, she kissed me. And she grabbed me too, if you must know.”
She swears.
“But I didn’t ask for that. She just used me to get back at Wade - maybe to shake you up as well
. Obviously it worked on you at least. Let’s stop screwing around. What’s the problem?”
“You want to know?” she asks me angrily.
“I think I deserve to know.”
“All right...” She takes a breath. “When I went to the hospital you were on the trolley. They’d stitched up your head and they were watching you. You had concussion, and you were talking and talking.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” I tell her, but she puts up a hand to silence me.
“And then you started to tell me what you think. What you really think. And now I know.”
“Know what?”
“What you really think of me. And then you made me tell you about the first time I... when I told him that I loved him.”
And it’s all become clear to me. The picture has been assembled. The moment I lost her. They’d been sleeping together for a few months by then, but it was only sex. Right then, at that moment, it all changed. It became a relationship. Her bonds with him started to grow strong and hers with me started to fade – slowly, so slow that I failed to see it.
“The New Year’s party at Wade’s,” I say, “On the balcony. I interrupted you two. God... I was an idiot not to see it.”
“And now you know.”
“That’s in the past.”
“Apparently not. Apparently you want to dredge it all up again. You won’t let me forget, will you? You won’t let me forgive myself because you keep bringing this up and I just can’t live like this anymore.”
“I don’t remember this,” I say harshly.
“Yeah, you keep saying that.”
“What did I say? You’ve got to tell me. I can’t