Saving Quinton (Nova #2)(26)
Author: Jessica Sorensen

“How do you figure?” My voice sounds breathless and I hate it because it gives away everything that I’m feeling—the effect he has on me. And even though we’ve kissed and touched each other, I’m still not certain where he stands—how he feels about me.

“Because…you save me every day,” he says.

My forehead creases as I stare into his eyes, searching for a sign that he’s joking, but he looks so serious. “Save you from what?”

He pauses, searching my eyes, but for what I’m not sure. “From fading.”

His words hit me square in the chest and I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out, just like always whenever he says something so sad. Finally I manage, “I still don’t get what you mean.”

“I know,” he says with a sigh, unraveling his fingers from my hair. “It doesn’t really matter…I was just trying to say that if you and I were trapped on an island, I know you’d end up being the one to save us, because I know you’d never give up and it’d make me not want to give up either.”

I’m not really sure if it’s the answer I want to hear or how it connects to me stopping him from fading in the real world. I could ask him, but he silences me with his lips, kissing me softly, but with passion behind it, gripping my waist. And before I can think too deeply about what he means about wanting to give up, he gently pushes me down on the bed, lying on top of me. He covers my body with his and I melt into his embrace as he kisses me until I’ve forgotten about everything except him and me and the brief warmth engulfing our bodies.

* * *

May 17, day two of summer break

Nova

When I open my eyes, the sunlight blinds me and I’m sweating from the heat. No one bothered to close the curtain last night and without any mountains around, the heat of the sun is intense. I throw the blanket off and blink as I gradually sit up. I’m so exhausted that all I want to do at the moment is give up. Curl up in a ball, throw the blanket back over my head, and sleep until the next day, maybe longer. But I can’t help thinking about the dream I had last night. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, and honestly I’m surprised I even remember it. I know you’d never give up and it’d make me not want to give up either.

It hurts, thinking about Landon, because he did give up and leave me. In the end I wasn’t a lifesaver like he thought. I was just a distraction from his pain and I didn’t save him. I don’t want to be a distraction this time around. I want to do things differently. But how? How can I make sure Quinton doesn’t end up like Landon?

After thinking about it for a while, I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I sneak out of bed, grab my laptop, and go out onto the sofa to watch the video Landon made right before he ended his life. I’m not even sure what the point is. Whether I just want to see him again, or analyze the video. Watching his lips move, the pain in his eyes, the way his inky black hair falls across his forehead, it takes me back to that night when I woke up on the hill. Just after he made this video, I would find him, hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Music would be playing, like it is in the video. I often wonder if, had I woken up just a little bit sooner, I would have caught him making the video, instead of right after he hanged himself. Could I have stopped him? Was he waiting for me to wake up and stop him, but I took too long and he gave up?

Finally I shut off the video. I have such a f**ked-up mentality over his death, but since there will never be any answers, there will always be a ton of questions.

I swallow hard and cup my hand around my wrist, remembering the one time I almost gave up, too, almost left the world, left my mom to find me bleeding out in the bathroom with a ton of questions she’d never have answers to, like Landon did with me. Part of me really wanted to end it all, to stop burying the pain inside me, but part of me was scared of the what-ifs. What if I did go through with it? What if I just ended my life? What would happen to the people who cared about me? My mom? What would I miss? It was one of the darkest times in my life and it’s permanently branded on my body, a scar put there by my own hand, reminding me never again. I’ll never give up again.

When I return to the bedroom, Lea is still asleep on the other side of the king-size bed, her face turned toward the opposing wall, her breathing soft, and the blanket is pulled up over her. I quietly put the computer away and get ready to go, not wanting to wake her up and argue with her about going back home. Plus, I need to talk to Quinton alone. I get dressed in a pair of red shorts and a white shirt and pull my hair into a ponytail to keep the heat from melting it to my skin. Then I read through some of the papers Lea printed out that talk about helping a drug addict: intervention, talking to the addict, getting him into rehab. They’re very technical and most are like clinical instructions on how to handle drug addicts. What I don’t get, though, is where the information is on how to deal with their mood swings. Or the hopelessness that comes with trying to make someone see that he needs to get better, trying to find the right thing that will bring him back. Or how about how to get his family to come down and support him, because that’s what he really needs? He needs people who know him and care about him, like I needed my mom when I decided I wanted to heal.

I don’t know much about Quinton’s family other than that his mom passed away when he was born and even though his dad raised him, it was pretty much like he raised himself. I wonder if I could find out more about his dad…maybe he’d want to help Quinton. I mean, he is his son and I know if my father had been alive when I was doing drugs, he’d have done anything to help me. But I can’t count on it, because not all people are like my mom and dad and would do anything for their child. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to look into it, if I can get someone to either give me his father’s phone number or tell me his name and where he lives so I can get him.

I write Lea a note, telling her that I’m going out for coffee and will be back soon. I hate lying to her, but at the same time I hated seeing how terrified she was last night. I put the note on the pillow beside her, then write on the back of my hand no regrets. It’s something Lea and I say to each other all the time and it’s going to remind me today not to regret anything I do, right there on my hand, just in case I even think about trying to take something that I’ll regret taking later.

I tuck my phone into my back pocket and head out to the car, locking the front door behind me on the way out. It’s so hot I feel like I’m melting into a steaming puddle, the heat leaching the air out of my lungs. I walk swiftly to the car and hop in, but curse when the black leather seat burns my legs. I start up the engine, then find Quinton’s address on the GPS, along with the nearest coffee shop, because I’m going to need a caffeine boost if I’m going to make it through this.