Bash (3 page)

Two minutes earlier

“I don’t care. I
can’t live without you Quinn!” I’m hitting the roof of her car, pounding the
dashboard. Anything to release the frustration. Why is she doing this to us?
Why is she doing this to
me
?

“I can’t do this
anymore.” She’s crying. Crying and driving me home in the middle of the night.
An almost two-hour drive. You don’t do that unless you love someone. She loves
me. I know it.

“We can be
happy.” I plead with her and grab her hand. Her warmth leaves my grasp.

“No, it’s over
Bash. I saw the blonde haired girl. I saw the way she looked at me. Guilt in
her eyes. You—have you—I can’t even say it…”

“No! No! No!” I
hit the ceiling each time I scream. I can’t handle this pain. I can’t breathe.
“Pull over. I can’t be in the car with you. I’m gonna hurt you.” I don’t want
to hurt her. I’m spinning out of control, and she’ll be caught in the middle.

“You’re scaring
me.” She takes one hand to wipe the tears from her face. I use the opportunity
to grab the wheel and jerk it to the left.

“I said pull
over!”

The Screams

Crunch into

Nothing.

The End.

Find out what
happened to Quinn after Bash’s death in The Last Thing now available at Amazon
here.

Bonus Materials

Caution: There are deleted scenes from The Last Thing. If you
have not read the book, please stop reading until you have finished.

Deleted Scene #1

Author’s note:
This was the scene written when Quinn was telling her secret. It was my betas
that suggested the scene would be better from Chase’s POV. I didn’t want to
give it up, so I included both scenes in the original book, but eventually
decided take out Quinn’s point of view. This is the original,
unedited
scene,
so it doesn’t match with Chase’s scene 100 percent. Enjoy!

The Secret

My body was
covered in sweat, and it reminded me of the water from the dream so I use my
hands to wipe it off. I rub at my skin as if it was an obsession. Chase rubbed
my back and as much as I don’t want to, I looked over to gage his expression.
He looked worried, scared even.

“Quinn, you were
scaring me.”

I nodded and
wrapped my hands around my legs tightly. He pushed my sweat soaked hair from my
face before speaking.

“You were crying
out for him, Quinn. Bash. Then you started making these noises. Like you were
drowning. You were scaring me, and I couldn’t get you to wake up.”

This was
embarrassing, and I could feel my face burning. After weeks of silence, the
dreams had to return the one night I had let Chase stay the night. I buried my
face into my legs. I needed a moment to calm down. I had always let myself die
in the dreams, but this time I had wanted to live.  I needed to live.

“Sometimes….I
have these dreams,” I explained. I turned and looked over at him. His face was
neutral. He wasn’t judging me, neither was he pushing me for information.  This
gave me the confidence to keep talking.

“I dream about
the night Bash died. Over and over.” I can’t believe that I was talking about
this, sharing this with him, but as I talk, it was as if the weight of the
secret is lifting. I am finally able to breathe.  Chase put his arms around me
tightly and tucked my head underneath his chin.

“Shhh….” He
soothes me with the sound of his voice.

“I don’t know
what happened, Quinn, but you obviously aren’t over it. Have you thought about
talking to someone?”

“I have. I’ve
been talking with someone since it happened, but they can’t make the dreams go
away. The guilt, the pain, the memory. It stays with me even when I push it
away. I thought moving away would help, and it did, but only for a short time.
Now I am only terrified that people will find out and look at me differently.”

“Why would
people look at you differently?” He was confused and I didn’t blame him.

“Everyone did. 
They all blamed me. They didn’t want to blame Bash. To them, he was perfect. He
could do no wrong.” I wiped a few stray tears from my cheek then wrapped my
arms around Chase. He had made me feel safe, and after last night, when I awoke
to him kissing my stomach, I had an epiphany. I needed Chase. I didn’t need to
keep him at a distance, didn’t need to guard my heart with him. He wouldn’t
leave me.

He squeezed me
tighter and laid us both back on the bed. It was still dark outside, but I wasn’t
tired anymore.

“I can’t make
you tell me your secrets, but I when you are ready, I am here. I won’t leave
you,” he whispered. His voice was a comfort to my soul and it relaxed me.

I wanted to tell
him, but I didn’t know what his reaction would be. Would he think I was crazy?
Or would he accept my past. As if he knew exactly what I was thinking, he
spoke.

“My past isn’t
perfect either. It’s full of too many girls and too much alcohol.  I was cocky
and selfish, but you changed me. You gave me a reason to care about someone
other than myself.  Whatever demons you are carrying let me help. For us, and
for our family.”

I moved out of
his reach and looked beyond my large window to the L.A city lights. I needed to
trust him. I needed to let him in. So I began, “We were young and in love, Bash
and I. I thought we had the perfect relationship, but I was blind.”

I spoke and let
the floodgates open. Even if I wanted to stop now, I couldn’t. So I let the
words flow from my mouth, and hoped that by letting him in, he would help heal
my wounds.

“Bash had
problems. Yet, we all ignored them. And by we, I mean the entire town. When he
got caught drunk driving, the police let him off with a slap on the wrist. If
they arrested him, he couldn’t play in the games. When he got mad and beat
someone up, his parents paid off the other family. ‘Boys will be boys,’ they
said. He was always messing up and I was always there to save him.” I looked
over at Chase. I didn’t want him to think that Bash was a bad guy. He wasn’t.
Bash was just troubled.

“He never hurt
me though. He loved me. After he went off to college, things must have gotten
worse. We lived hours apart, but we saw each other every month. I could feel
him drifting away. I should have seen the signs, the depression, the drinking,
but I didn’t. I knew he was stressed from the pressures of school, football
scouts, and his parents, but I thought things were okay...”

I closed my eyes
as I spoke about that final night. Each moment was an impression in my memory
that I had replayed over and over. What I could have done differently and what
I had left out.

“Then one night,
at the end of his sophomore year, he called me drunk. He was crying and he was
saying all these things that didn’t make sense. He kept talking about killing
himself and…and.. he was scaring me, so I got in the car and drove to his
school. It took me over an hour to get there, but by the time I had made it to
his apartment he was unrecognizable. I know now that he had been mixing pills
with the alcohol. He had been trying to kill himself. Somehow I had convinced
him to get in my car, and I drove home. I don’t remember much else after that,
but I remember he grabbed the wheel. My car swerved off the road and we went
flying from the bridge into the lake. I woke up as the car was filling up with
water, and I vaguely remember trying to convince Bash to get out, but he just
sat there. I remember my seatbelt was stuck and being so scared. I don’t
remember much else. Did I give up and swim to the surface? Did I fight with him?
I just don’t know. What little I remember resurfaced while in treatment. In the
end, I survived, but Bash didn’t. After he died, everyone blamed me. They said
I ran the car off the road. I murdered him. I don’t know. I don’t know why I
couldn’t save him. I don’t even know if I tried. I was the only one there. I
should have saved him.”

Chase pushed me
back against the bed and rolled on top of me. He buried his face in the crook
of my shoulder.

“Quinn, it
wasn’t your fault. The guy obviously had issues.”

“I know that
now, but it took two psychiatrists and an attempted suicide to pull me out of
the funk. Bash’s parents tried to sue me. Our friends blamed me and stopped
talking to me. Shit, they even did news stories on me. Reporters tried to
figure out if I killed me boyfriend because I thought he was cheating on me. My
parents got a divorce, lost everything they had to pay for my medical and
lawyer bills. Everyone that cared about me was hurting. I began avoiding life.
Then I moved out here, it was supposed to be a fresh start.”

“Suicide? Oh
god- Quinn.” He rolled over so that I was lying right on top of him. His arms
wrapped around me and his legs entangled in mine. Except for the sounds of our
breathing, it was silent.  He didn’t ask questions, only listened and that was
exactly what I needed. We laid like that for what felt like hours. With each
breath, the pain subsided. And with each moment he knew my secret, I felt a bit
more secure in his arms. He wasn’t leaving.

Deleted Scene #2

Author’s note:
Before I had written the scene about Quinn telling her secret to Chase, I had
wanted them to find out a different method. Here is an unedited and raw version
of how it could have gone down if Quinn had never told Chase about her past. I
also played around with a few scenarios about Bash’s death. This scene includes
a different death. Enjoy!

Chase

I sat in the big
brown club chair at my publicist’s office. Rhea had just set a bottle of water
in front of me, but I was in too much shock to acknowledge the gesture.

“When you get
yourself in these types of predicaments, you need to tell me beforehand so I am
not blind-sided by these stories. Luckily, one of the reporters down there owes
me a favor. We have time to prepare a statement and control the backlash,” she
scrambled in front of her desk and started going through papers. Her graying
hair was pulled up into a bun on the top of her head and she wore a pair of
black specs on the end of her nose.

“Are you
positive?” was the only thing I could force out of my mouth. I had known that
Quinn had a secret, but I just didn’t realize how big it actually was. I wanted
to be next to her, to shelter her from the shit that was about to go down. The
media would tear her apart; portray her in an unfair light. This was entirely
my fault. I couldn’t protect her like she needed. She had even warned me, told
me that

“Positive. The
story never made national news, but it was still quite a story on the east
coast. Here’s a news article on the accident.” Rhea tossed a newspaper my way,
which I swiftly caught in my hands. I looked it over. The article was
accompanied by a picture of Quinn and a man on it. She looked different,
younger. Her hair was shorter, but she looked happier, not so lonely. That was
the Quinn I wanted more of; this girl on the picture was not the scared and
emotionally unavailable brunette that I had had dinner with the other night.
Whoever this girl in the picture was, I wanted to know her as well.

“This doesn’t
change anything. I still love her,” I said, matter-of-factly. That much I was
sure of. We had hardly known each other. That was hardly enough time to get her
to trust me yet.

“Yes, it does.
You don’t love her. This is infatuation. You want the one girl who didn’t want
you back. This is just the type of thing that will ruin your career. People
will judge you just like they did her. She was made an example of, Chase. And
now she’s pregnant? How stupid could you be? I encouraged your playboy antics
because I thought you were smarter than this. I have to figure out a way to
spin this story, but I can’t make promises. I just hope that no one finds out
about her pregnancy before you can convince her to take care of it.”

The way Rhea
talked made me sick to my stomach. I had just admitted to myself and her that I
loved Quinn. I hadn’t even thought about it before the words had left my mouth.
The horrible taste in my mouth caused me to pick up the water bottle and down
about half of it. Rhea was making everything clear. It was Quinn or my career.
I couldn’t have both. My mother had sacrificed everything so that I could
follow my dreams. What would she think of me now? Twenty-four hours ago, I had
been so certain that Quinn had been
the
one, the only one for me. My
feelings for her were pushed aside now. I would have to sort those out later.

“Break it off,”
Rhea demanded.

“No.”

“Break it off,
Chase. I am warning you. A scandal with a girl like her is not what your
reputation needs right now.”

  Losing Quinn
was the last thing I wanted, but I knew by now that you didn’t always get what
you wanted in show business. I picked up my phone and dialed her number.

Quinn

I walked into
the small building on the outskirts of L.A. Chase had called me and insisted I
meet him at this office, gauging from the sign on the outside, it was a
publicist’s office. This was never a good thing. I knocked on the door and
started to braid my hair  over my shoulder while I waited. Something was wrong,
I could tell from the sound of his voice. He knew.

Chase opened the
door, but he wasn’t smiling. He had on a blue track suit and a backwards hat
hid his hair.

“Hey,” he told
me stepping back to let me walk in. The room was empty except for five or six
chairs. It was some sort of waiting room.

“I know why you
called me here,” I said. “The tabloid article.”

He wouldn’t look
me in the eyes, he only pulled his cap off and ran his hands through his hair.

“Look, Quinn.
There isn’t an easy way to say this, but I know about your boyfriend. I know
what happened and this doesn’t put me in a good spot publically. Rhea wants me
to break this, whatever this is, off.” The blood was rushing through my body
now. He knew the story that the papers and courts had portrayed, he didn’t know
the truth and this was exactly what I had been afraid of.

“You don’t know
the whole story, Chase. Give me a chance to explain,”

“I know the
facts and that is enough for me. God, Quinn. I knew you had a secret, but this?
This is much more than a secret. This could ruin me.”

“I know, but-“

“Did you do it?”
his voice was empty and straight to the point. My confession would change
everything. The tears started to fall down my face, but it didn’t change his
expression which was still hard. I tried to reach out to hold his hand, but he
took a step back away from me.