Love in Slow Motion

15. Reed

15 REED

Quinn is freaked out. She’s been putting as much space between us as possible all morning, and I can’t really blame her. I came on too strong. I didn’t want her to apologize for touching me, for sleeping half on top of me. Because I liked it. I liked it so much that long before I woke her up, I had to focus on a lot of very un-sexy things to get rid of the morning wood that was pressing against her leg.

But all she wanted me to do was punish her. Because that’s the kind of shit Chase used to do, punish her for being less than perfect. Less than his idea of perfect. To me, nothing could make her anything but absolutely perfect.

We’re sitting in the breakfast nook with Sabrina, trying to pretend nothing happened between us this morning while Sabrina and Lydia discuss the correct way to make Eggs Benedict. My eyes meet Quinn’s across the table, and she looks away quick. I don’t want her to be uncomfortable. I’m starting to rethink this whole thing. It’s too soon. She and Chase are still too fresh. The divorce just became final last night . But…

But if I have to leave here without her, I’ll be sick.

When Lydia moves into the kitchen, I lean across the table toward Sabrina. “Does Lydia know about Mom?”

Sabrina sends me that you’re a fucking idiot face that she does so well, even this early in the morning. “Of course, Lydia knows. Lydia’s been taking good care of Mom back in the city. Mom would be totally lost without her.”

I shrug. “I thought that’s why you were living with Mom.”

Sabrina rolls her eyes. “Come on. I’m just emotional support. I’m useless when it comes to anything that’s actually useful.”

“Hey,” Quinn barks. Her eyebrows are curved in, her mouth turned down in a frown. “Don’t talk about yourself that way. You’re not useless. You’re helping Madison fight cancer, for God’s sake.”

Sabrina’s eyes go glassy, and she looks down at the wood grain of the table, brushed a gentle yellow color. “The chemo makes her so sick, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”

Quinn’s arm flexes, and I know that she’s taken Sabrina’s hand under the table. “I bet Madison is so happy to have you with her. She loves you so much.”

Sabrina sniffles and nods. “I know. I love her, too.” Her voice breaks, and I’m about to stand, to move around the table to her, when Chase comes stomping into the room.

“Hey, man. Did you know you have an oil leak?”

We all stare at him. It’s like having someone throw a bucket of ice water on you when you’re half-awake.

And then I realize Chase’s eyes are on me. He’s talking to me .

“What?” I ask, my brain still in an emotional fog.

Chase points over his shoulder, toward the front door of the house. “Your bike. It has an oil leak. Looks like it’s been going for a while.”

“Shit.” It has been going for a while. I turn and look at Sabrina, who no longer looks like she’s going to cry. Her face is back to normal, no sign of upset at all. I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned that she can put herself back together so quickly. She shouldn’t have to do that. I open my mouth, intending to offer to stay with her, but she makes a shooing motion at me, so I turn for the door.

But when my eyes catch the hallway that leads to our mom’s room, a thought hits me, and I turn back to the breakfast nook. “Mom never sleeps in,” I say, aware of how stupid the comment sounds as it comes out of my mouth. Of course she’s tired. She has cancer, for fuck’s sake, but it’s not just that. “When she said she was going out with friends in town yesterday, did she go to a doctor?”

Quinn’s lips part, and her eyes slide over to Sabrina, clearly seeing the logic that I just did.

Sabrina nods. “Her doctor wouldn’t let her travel unless she saw someone else while she was here. She had some treatments. Nothing like the chemo though.”

I just nod. I don’t know what to do with that information, what to do with any of it, how to process the fact that my mother is in the other room sick, and we’re all supposed to go on with life as if everything is normal.