Love in Slow Motion

34. Reed

34 REED

5 years ago

I sit in the middle of my mom’s living room in New York and watch Quinn on the balcony. She’s been out there for twenty minutes, and I’ve been in here on the couch, trying to decide whether or not to go out there to talk to her. I don’t know if she wants to be alone.

I think back to Halloween, just a month ago, when we met. The night I let her think I forgot about. She wanted to be alone then, too, hiding in the hallway like she could disappear. Is that what she wants to do now? Disappear?

“What are you doing?” I turn at the sound of Sabrina’s voice. I thought everyone was asleep—well, everyone but Quinn—but she’s wide awake, wearing pajamas and clutching her phone in her hand like she just got done making a call. She doesn’t even hesitate before coming to sit with me. I must seem like a serial killer or something, sitting in the dark, watching my brother’s new girlfriend through a window.

As soon as she’s settled, I see her eyes go to the balcony, to Quinn out there in her own pajamas, her hair blowing in the wind. Her eyes slide back to me. “What are you doing?” she asks again, but this time, her tone is different. Suspicious. Confused.

I immediately turn away from the balcony. “Nothing. I just couldn’t sleep.”

I can tell she doesn’t believe me. I’ve been too obvious. I have to get better at hiding my feelings from her. I lower my head, hoping maybe the shadows will do me some favors.

“She’s pretty,” Sabrina says.

“Stop,” I growl.

“What?” she says, pretending to be innocent. “She is. And she seems to be very nice. Way too nice for the likes of Chase, that’s for sure.”

I take a deep, steadying breath. “Sabrina. Please stop trying to cause trouble.”

I hear the squeak of the leather couch as she stands. And then she drops down on the couch beside me, a whole seat closer, tucking her feet up under her legs. “I’m not trying to start anything,” she says. “I’m just saying that it’s okay if you have a tiny little crush on Chase’s girlfriend. That’s entirely normal. You like pretty girls and you like nice girls and just girls in general, so why wouldn’t you like her?” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, and I’m certainly not going to try to change her mind.

But it’s more than that. Yeah, she’s pretty, and she’s nice.

But what I’m not going to tell Sabrina is that that girl on the balcony made me feel something on Halloween. She made me feel like a real person, something that not a lot of people we go to Suffolk with know how to make someone feel. It was like I’d been walking around, being a mirror for everyone my whole life, and in that hallway, she saw straight through the mirror to the other side. To me.

She didn’t just see some kid whose famous mother got him into college. A kid who’s never been quite sure how to be the person everyone sees him as. The oldest kid, the quiet kid, the kid that always gets lost in the crowd. The one everyone is always waiting on to fail. Floating around being unextraordinary and disappointing.

She didn’t make me feel that way, not even here, with my whole family in the room. She looks at me like I’m something interesting, a treasure that she uncovered and refuses to share with anyone else. Because that’s what it feels like. Whatever version of me she found on Halloween, that version of me belongs to her and only her.

So to hear Sabrina call it a crush is insulting at best.

That girl out there? I want her to be mine.

“You should go to bed,” I tell her, my eyes traveling back to the balcony. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

I don’t know if this is true, but it’s a fair assumption. Sabrina has ten times the social life that I do, now that she’s modeling in her free time. Seventeen and already following in the Lynch footsteps better than I ever will.

“Okay,” she says, her voice small. “But try not to hit on Chase’s girlfriend, okay? I don’t think he would like it very much.” She laughs, like it’s a joke. I wish it was a joke. I wish that my life hadn’t become something I’m not interested in being a part of over the course of one Thanksgiving meal.

Once Sabrina is gone, I get up and move to the balcony doors. She’s still out there, probably freezing her ass off, watching the night pass by, no clue that I’m even here.

I snatch the blanket off the back of the couch and push open the door. “You’re going to freeze,” I tell her when she gasps and spins around. I shake out the blanket and offer it to her. I want to put it around her shoulders, but if I accidentally brush any of her skin, it might destroy me.

She wraps herself tight but doesn’t turn back to the view, the city lights bright beneath us. “You have a lovely family,” she says.

I step up beside her and lean against the glass that separates us from thin air. “I’m sure your family is lovely, too.”

Her smile falls, her face losing all its color. She looks down at her feet, white in the cold. “My family hasn’t been a family for a long time. The second every one of my siblings turned eighteen, they took off. I was the last one standing because I’m the youngest. Home has always felt more like summer camp, where everyone comes and goes.” She sighs and covers her face with her hands. “I don’t know why I just told you all that.”

I reach out and pull one of her hands away, hold her wrist in a gentle grip. She looks up at me, and I think of that girl on Halloween. I was going to kiss her that night when I got back with the drinks. I was going to ask her for her number and walk her to class and ask her out on a date. And Chase did it all first.

Her big eyes stare up at me, until she finally blushes and takes her hand back. “Thanksgiving was never this fun back in Minnesota. This was my first time having cranberry pie.”

“Really?” I’m trying to act normal, like I can’t taste my pulse in my throat. Like she doesn’t look like a dream with the wind blowing through her hair.

“Really. It was delicious. I can’t wait to come to your restaurant. If all of your desserts are as heavenly as that pie, you’ll be famous within the month.” She smiles, her apple cheeks becoming more prominent.

But when I can finally bring myself to look away from her, her words sink into me. I stick my hands in my pockets and lean against the partition. “You really think I can do it?”

She gets a wrinkle between her eyes, her confusion adorable. “You’re Madison Lynch’s son. You can do anything.”

Disappointment settles in my chest. She didn’t even know who Mom was a month ago. Maybe even twenty-four hours ago. I don’t want her to think I can do it because I’m Madison Lynch’s son. That means she thinks I’m going to go to Mom and ask her to buy me a restaurant. Isn’t that what super rich kids do? Mom has never been one to hand us money. She gives us what we need and then a little on top to have fun with. She pays for school and there’s the stupid thing she’s starting to do where she pays us to spend the summer at the lake with her, but it’s not like I can ask her for an Aston Martin and expect one to pull up at the curb.

I want her to think I can do it because of who I am. A guy who gets good grades and never spends any of the money his mom gives him and never asks for anything. I work a part-time job on the weekends and saved up every penny I made for the bike I’m riding. I want her to believe in me , not in my mother’s money.

“Anyway,” I say, heading back for the door. “I should probably get to bed. Chase, uh, is probably looking for you.”

She looks at me without expression. Does she know how jealous I am of him? Does she know how much I wish it was me sharing a bed with her?

She smiles. “Goodnight, Reed.”

There’s a dagger somewhere in the vicinity of my gut. “Goodnight, Quinn.”