Love in Slow Motion

6. Quinn

6 QUINN

5 Years Ago

Brooke is already making out with someone. I swear, I don’t know how she does that. She walks into a room, decides who she wants, and has them begging in half an hour or less. I haven’t left the space by the door of the dorm room. It’s one of those suites that has four rooms and a living room, only for the upperclassmen. I don’t even know whose room it is. Brooke just walked into our dorm last week and said, “Buy a cool Halloween costume because the parties are going to be lit!”

I guess this is what she meant, although it feels like a normal party to me. Everyone wearing cheap costumes, getting drunk, wandering off in pairs, probably to their own rooms.

I don’t mind that Brooke has already found someone more interesting than me to hang out with. I mean, if I had the magical powers she has to be able to get a guy to pay attention to me, I would be making out with someone right now, too. Brooke isn’t the only one who would very much like to meet a guy tonight. She’s just the only one, out of the two of us, who isn’t still a virgin. And at the rate I’m going, I’m going to be a virgin forever, seeing as how I’m pressed up against the wall, dressed like a skeleton, and trying not to bump into anyone. Isn’t the point of these parties to bump into people? Preferably very attractive boys who will rid me of my V-card and also my loneliness.

When I realize that absolutely nobody is going to notice, I start to inch my way out into the brightly lit hallway. Out here, the music is still perfectly loud, the bass so intense that the floor is vibrating with each thump , but it feels less suffocating. I press myself to the wall and try to decide if I want to head back to our room. It’s on the other side of campus, and I don’t really want to walk alone, but Brooke is probably not coming back tonight, so it doesn’t exactly make sense to wait around.

While I’m still trying to decide, a very large boy bursts out of the dorm room and throws himself against the wall beside me. I watch, shocked, as he sets his head against the wall and breathes out a long sigh. I watch the bob of his Adam’s apple, let my eyes wander down the tattooed length of his arm, where the sleeve of his black t-shirt ends. He’s not in a costume as far as I can tell, just a t-shirt and jeans, and his hair is a mess around his head, like he just rolled out of bed to come to this party.

His eyes open, and then his face whips in my direction, and he jumps. When he sees me full-on, he laughs. “Shit. You scared me.”

I huff a little, turning away from him to watch what’s happening inside the party. “Yeah, that happens a lot.”

He nods. “I bet, with a costume like that. You totally blend in with the wall.” He takes the long sleeve of my white skeleton costume between his thumb and forefinger and gently pins it to the wall beside me. He’s right. It’s basically the same color.

I laugh. “Right. I actually meant because people tend to forget I exist. I guess it was about time I literally blended in with the wallpaper.”

He makes a quiet snorting noise and rolls his eyes. “Right. I believe you,” he says sarcastically.

I turn fully toward him now. “Excuse me?”

He sticks his hands in his pockets, still leaning against the wall, but he’s looking in at the party, clearly refusing to look my way. “Don’t pretend you’re a piece of furniture when you’re that pretty. I don’t believe for a second that people forget about you.”

I put one hand on my hip. “Oh, yeah? Did you know that we had a class together last semester?” Because I remember. I remember all too well. This guy standing next to me, who’s so gorgeous it makes my stomach hurt, sat in the row in front of me for the entire semester, but he never once made eye contact with me.

His dark eyes slowly slide over to me, and I have to hold back the smug told you so smile. “Shit,” is all he says.

I sniff and lean against the wall. “Told you. I might as well not exist.”

I fully expect him to leave at that point. I figure he came out here for a breather, and now he’s probably ready to head back in and find a much more interesting girl to take home. In the two years that I’ve been going to Suffolk, I’ve seen this guy with at least a dozen different girls on his arm, maybe more. When we were in Intro to Psychology together, he was always flirting with the girl he sat by, putting his arm around her shoulder and whispering in her ear through class.

But he doesn’t leave. He just keeps standing beside me until I start to feel self-conscious. Should I leave?

“I’m Reed,” he says finally, putting out his hand for me to shake. He’s got a leather chord on his wrist, all wrapped up in a silver bracelet that sort of looks like a bike chain. My palms immediately start to sweat at the thought of making contact with his skin.

“Quinn.” I shake his hand quickly, like it’s a business transaction, and then drop it.

Reed laughs, his eyes all lit up like it’s his birthday. “So, why are you hovering outside the party instead of, you know, joining it?”

I shrug. “Some things are easier for me to experience from the outside.”

He nods, looking off into the distance. And once again, I’m waiting for him to walk away. I’m so bad at social situations, and I can’t tell whether or not this conversation is awkward, but it has to be, right? This guy has to be getting bored of standing beside me quietly while I try to figure out what else to say. As if to prove my point, he says, “I appreciate that you went the anatomical route with your costume.” He tilts his chin toward me and uses his index finger to trace my costume in the air. “No black outline for contrast.”

I look down at my all-white body suit, hanging off of me a little bit, with thick black lines outlining each visible bone. “Right, well, I wanted to be authentic.”

His lips spread into a smile. “Dedication. I like it.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the whole thing yet.” I reach up for the mask that’s perched on top of my head, pulling it down to cover my face.

He lets out a joyous laugh that makes my stomach spin. “Perfection,” he says, the word slightly distorted because he’s smiling so big. Have I ever made a boy laugh like this? I’m not even trying to be funny. I’m just trying to have a conversation.

And then it dawns on me, the reason why he’s out here with me instead of inside the party with his friends.

“Look, I’m not going to sleep with you,” I blurt out, the words echoing loudly behind my thick plastic skeleton mask.

His smile fades. “What?”

“I bet you think that because I’m out here, I’m lonely and that I would go back to your room or whatever because you’re cute and friendly, but I’m not going to sleep with you.”

For a moment, his face is blank, and then his eyes seem to change, like he’s smiling with them and them alone. “Listen, Quinn. I’m not going to lie to you. If you asked me to have sex with you, I would. You’re beautiful and funny and interesting, but I’m so drunk right now that I don’t think I’d be able to get it up, even for you.”

I roll my eyes and collapse back against the wall. “Well, that’s charming.”

He smiles and shrugs. “Just being honest.” We go quiet, our heads turned awkwardly in each other’s direction, and then he turns his body toward me, pressing his shoulder into the wall. He reaches out and lifts my mask, just enough for him to actually see my eyes and not just the suggestion of them through the mask’s eye holes. He’s standing close enough to me that I can see that his eyes are brown, his jawline a little round. He has a sweet face, contrasted by the dark tattoo crawling up his neck. He smiles, like he just caught me during a game of Hide and Seek.

My stomach does something weird, like anxiety but in a pleasant way, sharp and sudden.

“Don’t worry,” he says, his voice low, “my mother taught me right.”

“I don’t know if bringing up your mom is really the best flirting material.”

I reach up to take off the mask, our fingers brushing. When it’s gone, he takes a step back, like he could only be that close to me when I was in hiding.

He shrugs. “Eh. Well, my mom always finds her way into every conversation, so I’ve started just throwing it out there to save time.”

I send him an are-you-crazy look. “Why does your mom come up in every conversation?”

His face is blank, like he’s waiting to see if I’ll make a joke. “I thought you said you knew who I was.”

“I said we had a class together. I’ve seen you around campus, that’s all. Why? Who’s your mom? Is she, like, a mayor or something? My knowledge of local politics is ghastly.”

His smile is back, spreading slowly across his mouth, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes from it. “No. She’s not a mayor. It’s not important.”

He seems to find this amusing, but I don’t know why. I lace my hands behind my back and duck my head. He can’t honestly find me interesting, right? “The only thing I really know is what’s right in front of me right now.”

“And that is?” I can hear the hesitation in his voice. I do know about his reputation, and I know he probably thinks I’m going to call him out on it. Instead, I smile up at him and say, “A guy who’s drunk and clearly can’t handle the indignity that comes with dressing up for Halloween as an adult.”

He laughs. “Oh, but you can?”

I motion at my skeleton costume. “Obviously. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota, so I didn’t have much dignity to begin with.”

He looks like he’s going to protest. His jaw clenches for a second, but then his eyes go soft. “Hey, why don’t I get you a drink, skele-girl?”

“I don’t accept drinks from strangers.”

He purses his lips. “That’s entirely fair. But you can watch me the whole time. See?” He wraps his hands around my upper arms and very gently pulls me toward him, positioning me so that I’m standing in front of him, my back to his chest, facing the open door of the party. It’s jarring, the way the darkness seems to creep out of the dorm room compared to the blinding florescent lights in the hallway.

I feel him shift behind me, and then his voice is in my ear, sending a shiver through me that I just barely suppress. He extends his hand, pointing with two fingers and his thumb like a gun into the room. And he’s right. There’s a straight line of visibility from the doorway to the counter where drinks are being poured.

“Or I could go in with you,” I say, keeping my back to him.

“You could, but I like you out here, in the light, where I can see you.” He steps away from me, heading for the party. “Be right back, skele-girl.”

As soon as he’s gone, swallowed by the mass of bodies inside the dorm room, I press myself back against the wall and suck in a deep breath. I will not have sex with a boy I just met. I will not go back to this boy’s room and let him touch me everywhere. Nope. Nope. Nope.

In the dim lighting of the party, I see him appear in the kitchen, standing at the counter, exactly where he said he would be. He has a red plastic cup in his hand. His eyes find mine across the expanse and he turns the cup upside down, shaking it out to show me there’s nothing in it. He sets it down on the counter and then lifts his hands, showing me the fronts and the backs.

I fight back a laugh. The situation itself is definitely not funny. He just looks really cute trying to reassure me. He starts to pour something from a very large jug into the red plastic cup, but he hasn’t quite finished when a girl approaches him. Dark-skinned and long-haired, all I can see of her is her mouth. The rest of her face is covered in glittery face paint in the shape of a butterfly. I guess that’s her costume as she’s otherwise just wearing a sweater and a denim skirt.

Reed has seemingly forgotten about my drink. He smiles down at the girl and then immediately begins what looks like a very friendly conversation with her. She says something and he laughs, his hand pressed to his stomach.

Another girl appears on his other side. She’s dressed like a pirate, complete with vintage leather hat. She goes up on her toes to hug him, and he warmly reciprocates the embrace.

I feel like such an idiot. He isn’t really interested in me. I was just…available. Someone for him to talk to until he found someone better, just like I thought. He caught me with my guard down. Well…that’s just fine.

“Have a nice night,” I say to the empty hallway, and then I turn and smash right into someone.

I feel the warmth of the coffee seeping down the front of my costume before I process what it is. The strong smell fills my nose as I take in the guy in front of me, the one with his mouth hanging open and a mostly empty coffee cup in his hand.

I look down at the brown liquid, watch it as it spreads across my stomach, quietly staining my fabric rib cage and spinal column. “Well, there goes any hope I had of recycling this costume,” I mutter, pulling the wet fabric away from the clothes I’m wearing under it. Don’t need those stained, too. Luckily, the costume is quite loose on me and is very thick.

“There goes any hope I had of cramming for this exam.” The boy I bumped into grimaces and looks down into his coffee cup. He has a stack of books tucked under his other arm and a look of despair on his face. He sighs heavily and finally meets my eye.

Sheesh. Is every guy in this dorm hall offensively beautiful?

Where Reed is dark—his hair, his clothes, his eyes—this guy is light, with caramel-colored hair, light brown eyes, and a general glow around him that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere.

“Sorry,” I say, because technically the collision was my fault. I should have been paying more attention, but I was a bit distracted by the fact that I was just ghosted by a total hottie.

The guy in front of me, tall and slim and gorgeous, shrugs. “That’s okay. I was gonna fail the test, no matter what, but I thought I would get a little higher up on the failed horribly scale. Seems there’s no use now.” He stretches and tosses his coffee cup into a nearby trash can. And then his eyes go straight to the stain on my costume.

“Geez. You look like you have bone rot.” He nods in the direction of the hallway behind me, ignoring the loud thumping of the party, like it’s not even there. “My room is at the end of the hall. You could come and soak that if you wanted to.”

It sounds like a pick-up line, but he doesn’t look like he’s trying to flirt. He looks like a guy who needs coffee or maybe some sleep. And he looks like a guy who’s very, very cute. “You don’t mind?”

He shrugs. “Nah. I could use the company. I’m trying not to party for the rest of the semester, so with that racket going on…” His eyes shoot to the party that’s still happening over my shoulder. “…it would be nice to have someone to keep me distracted.” He looks so sincere, it’s almost funny.

I reach behind me and pull down the zipper on the back of my skeleton costume. It parts around my shoulders and sags to my waist. “Why are you avoiding parties?”

His eyes follow the drop of the costume and then take in the shorts and tank top I’m wearing underneath. Apparently, something about what I’m wearing is amusing because one side of his mouth tips up. “Because when I go to parties, I tend to get in trouble, and I need to stay on the up and up, or I’m going to get kicked out.”

I step out of my costume and hand it to him. “Your door stays open the entire time.”

He smiles fully then, taking the costume from me. We have to pass right by the party in order to get to his dorm. I duck my head, wrapping my arms around myself and hurrying past the door, just in case Brooke sees me. I don’t want her to know I’m going to a boy’s dorm room alone because she’ll freak out. And I would freak out too if our places were reversed, but I’m on high alert.

The guy unlocks the door to his room and holds it open for me. “I’m Chase, by the way.”

I smile at him over my shoulder. “Quinn.”