With November arrived the Snowbirds.
Snowbird migration is much like a swarm of locusts. The retirees from the frigid wastes of the northern part of the country would begin arriving in the city droves shortly after Halloween, where they would prey on the sanity of the locals until mid-March. Personally, I hated the yearly spectacle. Suddenly, it seemed no one knew how to drive and every decent place to eat was suddenly crammed with elderly folks who smiled at us as if we didn't mind being invaded every winter.
The shopping center inhabited by Booked Solid sat only two blocks from a large neighborhood and Quinn and I found the store full of listless elderly folk who seemed more than content just to stand in the middle of the aisles and tell anyone who might listen about how things were done back in Minn-e-so-tah or Wis-cahn-sin. The only two benefits I could see for the entire month were one, having a week off of school for the Thanksgiving holiday and two, having a one-week reprieve from Support Group because we met on Thursdays.
As I had expected, Quinn found my story of woe regarding the fall dance pretty hilarious. Sean, however, did not appear to be as amused. He wouldn't answer my texts for at least a week after the incident and then after that with only with "cool" and "ok." We would usually sit together in the corner of the cafeteria during our lunch period (Melissa had the opposite lunch, thankfully) but lately he hadn't even been showing up to the cafeteria. I didn't even touch my computer for weeks because, really, online games weren't as fun when I had to play alone. The stupid little feud got me so worked up that, after the last Group meeting before the Thanksgiving break, I started taking my anti-depressants again. It was just one a day, but it was one pill a day I hated feeling like I needed to feel normal. It seemed to take away the anxiety and replace it with haze. This time, though, I was happier with the haze than I was feeling like crap about Sean.
That was, until Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving in the Reynolds household was sort of like a second Father's Day: Dad got to sit around all day in his sweatpants and watch several different football games at the same time while Mom cooked an awesome dinner and I attempted to just stay far out of the way. Mom's family in California was always trying to get us to come out to their place but Dad and her parents always bickered like cats and dogs, so we just stayed home every year.
This particular Thanksgiving felt strangely more somber and formal than usual. Mom went the whole nine yards with a huge stuffed turkey that we'd never finish, cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a string-bean casserole that I knew I'd be expected to demolish. "I decided to go the extra mile this year," Mom said cheerfully as we sat down at the table. "I feel we have a lot to be thankful for, seeing as Sammy is finally getting better." She smiled at me expectantly, like I was supposed to give an acceptance speech for the meal or something. I just half-grimaced and began helping myself to the potatoes, feeling a little guilty because this was the worst I'd felt in weeks.
We were almost finished with dinner (and my parents were in a heated debate about them visiting Mom's parents for Christmas) when, quite unexpectedly, the doorbell rang. We all paused, frozen, for at least three full seconds while the three of us looked at each other quizzically.
"Must be a package," my mom said, dabbing her face with a napkin and sliding her chair back so she could stand.
"It's a holiday, Mary, they don't deliver today," Dad reminded her curtly. He only called her by her first name when he was annoyed; Grandma and Grandpa were the last people he wanted to be discussing on his most sacred holiday.
"Maybe it's the neighbors," she said, pausing at the end of the table. "Maybe they need to borrow an egg, or something."
"Maybe just open the door and find out." I said, rolling my eyes and stabbing a piece of turkey viciously with my fork. The only thing I disliked more than arguing with my parents is when the argued with each other. It always seemed to escalate over stupid stuff, and this case was no exception.
"Watch it, dude," Dad warned, turning to me and raising his eyebrows.
"Sorry." I shrugged apologetically but kept staring down at my plate. Mom pursed her lips and shook her head slightly; I wasn't sure if it was directed at me or Dad. She made her way down the hallway to the front door and we heard it open with a click. I couldn't make out what Mom was saying but she sounded surprised to have a visitor, so I figured it was just the neighbors. What I wasn't expecting, however, was seeing Mom turn the corner into the kitchen with none other than Quinn Lanley trailing close behind her.
I don't know what surprised me more: seeing Quinn walk into the room or realizing that she seemed to be incredibly upset, tear streaks running down both cheeks and eyes puffy and red. I looked from her, to my mom, and back at her again, drawing a blank on, well, anything.
"Who's this?" Dad blurted out, looking just as confused as I felt and not realizing that it was kind of rude.
"Oh, um, Mom, Dad, this is Quinn," I said hastily, coming to my senses and coming up out of my chair faster than a rocket launch. I knocked over my glass in the process and water went flying across the table. "Oh, crap! Hh, hold on a second" I mumbled, blushing furiously and diving across to the counter to grab a pile of napkins. My mind was racing. Why is Quinn standing in my kitchen?
Mom cleared her throat and took the wad of sopping paper from my hand and nudged her head at Quinn, who was just looking distraught and out of place. Dad just sat there, fork full of cranberries dripping down onto his plate, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.
"So, um, hey. What's wrong?" I moved gingerly past Mom, who was trying to save her meal from my clumsiness. Dad looked like he wanted to disappear and like he wanted to just shake his head because of how awkward I was being. Quinn opened her mouth and tried to say something, but only a choked sob and a fresh stream of tears came out. I held my hand up as if to pat her shoulder or something, but chickened out at the last second and looked back at my parents with the what-the-heck-should-I-do shrug.
Mom cleared her throat once again and motioned to the front door with her head several times before I understood: go talk to her outside, idiot! Dad was still sitting with his fork in suspended animation as I gently led her back to the front door and out onto the front walk.
"Oh... oh, man," Quinn breathed finally, voice hushed and panicked. She looked over at me with nothing but absolute desperation in her eyes. I'd never seen her with any real variance from that calm, bemused manner in which she seemed to observe everything around her. Frankly, it was freaking me out. "Oh man. Oh man, Sam. Oh man, I think I really messed up!"
"What's wrong?" I wasn't even sure what to do with myself. I sort of just stood there on the driveway with my arms at my sides, trying to be helpful but failing miserably. Quinn began pacing frantically, repeating "oh man" like a mantra as a fresh flow of tears began. Twice more, I tried to figure out what on earth had sent her into this frenzy but she didn't seem to even hear me. I decided to just take a damn chance for once and reached out and grabbed her elbow as she passed. Almost as if she had been waiting for me to do something she collapsed into my open arms, shaking uncontrollably with sobs.
I don't know how to explain it, really. She just sort of... enveloped me right then, even though I was the one holding her. Her scent, the feel of her skin on mine, the warmth of her body despite the lingering heat of the day just seemed to overtake me all at once. We slowly slid to the ground against the garage door, her curled up half atop my chest. Time appeared to stop, or at least slow down to a crawl. Each tremor of her body shook me and I could feel my chest tighten until I could hardly keep my own eyes from watering.
She was in pain. Deep, unbearable pain. And so was I.
It could have been an eternity that we were huddled on the warm concrete, but it was probably only a few minutes. My legs started to fall asleep curled underneath me but I didn't even notice. Quinn's crying subsided gradually until she stopped shaking, but she didn't let go for a long time. Finally, with a sniff and a huge sigh, she loosened her grip on my middle and turned away, as if ashamed to look at me.
"Hey," I said softly. For some reason I felt oddly confident, as if the intimacy of those moments had wiped away the unsurity and awkwardness of before. "Quinn, I think you need to tell me what happened."
"Sorry," she said softly after a moment, still not turning to look at me. "I'm not... I don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"I don't know why I came here," she said, glancing over at me for the first time. Even with her swollen eyes and her runny nose I still found myself marvelling at how pretty she was. Was that even the right word? I wish I knew how to explain it. Her beauty went beyond the way her hair was tucked behind one ear and fell down over one of her smoky eyes carelessly. It went beyond the gentle slope of her aquiline nose and the dusting of freckles across her cheeks. Though impossible to describe, her beauty simply was, an element of her very being that was impossible to smother, even at her most vulnerable. I was shocked to find myself thinking these things, especially given the circumstances, but it felt like an admission of sin, a burden lifted from my shoulders:
Oh my God. I think I'm in love with her.
"Sorry I interrupted your dinner," Quinn said after a heavy silence. "I just wasn't sure where else I should go."
"What happened?" I asked for, like, the fifth time. We were sitting side-by-side up against the garage door now. Her right hand was resting on her thigh, right over a frayed hole in her jeans, with her pinky touching my leg. I fixated on that pinky, of course.
"We got in a fight. Again."
I felt my stomach drop like I was on a rollercoaster. Now would probably be the absolute worst time to find out she had some boyfriend hidden away that I never knew about. "Who?" I asked, fighting the sudden dryness in my mouth.
"My parents and me." She said finally, avoiding my gaze again. I let out a sigh of relief, before I realized how selfish that was. I also realized that in the four months that I had known Quinn, this was the first time (other that riding in her dad's insane BMW) that she's ever directly mentioned her parents. "I just... I really needed to..." A fresh wave of tears started, silent this time.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," I tried to comfort her. I really wanted to reach over and brush away her tears, to pretend like they weren't there, but I knew I'd be crossing a line there. Realizing you might be in love with someone makes you all the more aware that they might not feel the same way, I guess. "What did you fight about?"
It took her a little while and several deep breaths to finally answer. "My mom. She's... well, a little intense sometimes. And my dad, he travels a lot." Another deep sigh and she leaned back, head resting against the garage door, eyes locked on the early evening sky. "My dad was actually home for Thanksgiving this year and Mom wanted to go all out for dinner and stuff."
I nodded, thinking of how my parents were doing inside right now. Dad would have migrated to his armchair, since sitting at the table was no longer obligatory with the meal descending into chaos as it had. Mom, of course, would be worrying about both me and the ruined family time. Oops.
"My mom isn't good at doing all the, you know, family stuff. She just works all the time, so making a huge holiday dinner was probably a pipedream for her, really," Quinn continued, shaking her head sadly. "And Dad can be a really picky hardass sometimes. Well, maybe all the time. Anyway, he started complaining about how the turkey was undercooked and the gravy was too thick, and all this other crap. And then Mom sort of lost it and they started fighting. I mean, really fighting. Like, Mom brought up the time Dad had an affair like ten years ago and he started going off about how she doesn't appreciate how hard he works for this or that. I just... I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't fucking take it!"
I expected more tears to come, but her eyes remained dry. He jaw was set in determination and she just shook her head slowly at the sky. A lump had formed in my throat; suddenly, my parents' argument about Christmas seemed all the more petty and unnecessary. Their problems were tap water, I realized, and I shook my head with her.
"I can't go back, Sam." Quinn turned and looked at me with the most pitiful expression I'd ever seen. Not pathetic. Not desperate. It was simply the look of someone pleading for someone to understand. I really wish I did, but I had no idea what she was talking about.
"Go back... to where?" I asked finally, watching her face carefully.
She waited a long time before answering, but she did answer, and that was probably one of the hardest things she had ever done. There's something about admitting to yourself that you are not okay, not even a little bit okay, that just blows the issue wide open. It's dropping a bomb, really, but instead of a bomb that explodes it's a bomb that just sucks the oxygen straight out of the air. You can't see it, but the damage is just as bad.
Despite all that, Quinn dropped the bomb on me anyway: "Back to Clearview. I can't go back to Clearview."
The name felt ominous and threatening for some reason. I wracked my brain for a few moments, trying to remember why I knew the name. Then, it hit me like a runaway eighteen-wheeler: Clearview.
Clearview Hospital.
Or, more specifically, Clearview Psychiatric Treatment Hospital.
The very same one Frolland had threatened me with just a few months ago. The one from the brochure with the picture of the mountains on the front that were always stacked on the table at Support Group. Quinn had been to Clearview before. The Clearview. For some reason the revelation seemed hugely dark to me, like finding out she had a real terminal illness. You're never sick until you have to go to the hospital, it seems. I suddenly realized I was scared. Scared for her.
I had so many questions it was hard to decide which one to ask first. I decided to settle on the issue at hand, as I was sure the rest of the story would fill itself in shortly afterward. "Why would you have to go back to, uh, there?" I questioned; the actual name of it seemed taboo, as if it were wrong to even utter the word.
"Because I left," Quinn answered dully, as if the it were both obvious and exhausting. "I told them I couldn't deal with their trivial crap--verbatim, mind you--and that I was leaving. Mom said that if I left the house again it was a," she put up air-quotes, "one way ticket back to the psych ward."
"Wow," was all I could come up with while I pondered the ridiculousness of such a threat. I mean, my parents would periodically get fed up with my attitude and constant sarcasm, but they never went that far.
Quinn must have realized I was having a hard time understanding the situation, so she sighed and went on. "I was, hmm, eleven years old, I think, when I ran away the first time. I just packed up my backpack with extra clothes, bought a ticket to a movie, and hung out there all day until the cops found me. I did it again when I was thirteen, except I took the bus down to Tuscon. It took them three days to find me that time.
"Last time I ran was last year; I called up a taxi and used all my savings to get to Salt Lake City. I had a cousin going to college there, stayed with her for a week and a half before I got bored and so I came back. Thing is, the cops really don't like getting runaway calls about the same kid three times, so they gave my parents two options: put me in juvie, or take me to Clearview. My parents, well, they kind of have this reputation to uphold, so juvie wasn't going to happen. I spent three weeks in that dungeon and, bam, that's how I ended up at Support Group."
She bit her lower lip and looked over at me, brow furrowed deeply. "Look, I know I'm a nutcase and all, but you deserve to know the truth, I think. I understand if you want me to stay far away. I... I get it."
I probably should have found the tale concerning, or even alarming, but I didn't. Instead I found myself fascinated. It was like when you learn how hurricanes work in science class, or how earthquakes happen; these events, the catastrophes, they were how Quinn happened. It was, put in the simplest term I can come up with, captivating. Suddenly, it all made more sense. The attitude. The curiosity. The confidence. Quinn Lanley was on the run.
"Why did you run?" Out of everything, that question was pressing me the most.
"Why stay?" She fired back without missing a beat. And then, seeming to realize I wasn't the threat, she shook her head, letting out a long breath. "There's a lot of reason, Sam. I won't bore you with them. I just... I don't want to run anymore, you know? I'm tired of running from it. The depression. The treatments. The weird looks. The denial. The hospital. Oh, God, how I hated that place."
"I'm really sorry you had to go through that," I said, and I really meant it.
She smiled weakly. "It's okay," she sighed heavily. "Maybe it helped, but it doesn't feel like it. Imagine having group all day every day for three weeks and five of Frolland telling you how to make yourself better. I... wasn't a fan."
I couldn't help but laugh a little. "Sounds awful."
"Definitely." She picked up a pebble and tossed it down the driveway. It came to a rest in the middle of the street, alone. "I don't want to go back."
"You should go back home," I replied carefully, after a pause. "You haven't really left yet, besides leaving the house. Maybe they will realize you're not running."
"I want to, though," Quinn said finally with a shrug.
"Don't."
I wasn't sure if I said it because it was the right thing to say. I might have said it to help her, but I think I really just didn't want to see her go. I didn't want to return to a Quinn-less world where they greys were greyer and the colors were invisible.
I didn't want to suffer alone.
"No promises," she said with a grin, that grin that fit her face so well. The smile faded a little. "You know, maybe I'm not running away from everything bad so much as I'm running toward something better. I don't know..." She trailed off. As she said this, she leaned into me. Like, really leaned in, full on, resting against my shoulder. I thought my heart was going to tear itself out of my chest and go running down the street.
The front door opened with a bang and we both jumped, the contact broken unceremoniously. "Sammy, everything okay out here?" Mom's voice rang out like a shot in the darkness.
"Yeah, Mom, we're doing fine!" I called, trying not to sound too annoyed that she had ruined a rather intimate moment. Quinn seemed to come out of a trance and stood abruptly, brushing off the back of her jeans; I couldn't help but notice. I got up, too, and we both just stood there for a few moments, facing each other.
"Well, I better get home and straighten things out," She said finally. I shoved my hands in my pockets and nodded, wondering why goodbyes always had to be uncomfortable.
"Will you get there alright?" I asked suddenly, wondering how it was she had even gotten to my house in the first place.
"Yeah, I have a few passes for the bus," she said with a small smile. "Thanks for looking out for me, Sam."
"Of course," I replied automatically. "You sure you don't want a ride home? I could, like, borrow my mom's car or something."
"I'm fine," she said, smile widening slightly. "Riding the bus makes me feel... normal, thank God. That's sweet, though, thanks."
"Okay," I said, mind going blank for a moment. She said I'm sweet! "So, uh, call you later, then?"
"Only if the world doesn't end," she winked and I smiled like the big, dopey idiot I was, standing there, frozen, while she turned her heel and walked off into the darkness. I watched her as her silhouette passed under each streetlight. It could have been anybody's shadow, really. The outline of anybody in the world passing by. But it wasn't; it was Quinn. The girl who felt normal for riding the bus. The girl who ran. The girl of incurable apathy.
I wasn't sure if I'd ever really understand just exactly who she was.
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