Beautiful Things Never Last (31 page)

             
I laugh, even though the statement makes me a little sad, because I know that jokes like that make her pain a little less.

             
She tells
me
to
pick where we were going
, but I know
her well
enough to know
that letting me choose is basically giving me permission to pick one of her three favorite place
s
. We end
up at
El Café de la Esquina
, a little
hole-in-the-wall Mexican place that’s just down the street from our apartment and
whose name translate
s
into The Corner Café.

             
“I went by the school today,”
she
say
s
. “I got so many damn credits for going to Italy. I am going to graduate long before the rest of the people in my class, which I think is really crazy, right, because, I basically got the trip of a lifetime and it works out that I get to gra
duate early? What kind of crazy-
ass dumb luck is that?”
She
take
s
a quick breath and a sip of
her
soda. “
I’m
so excited to be eating Mexican food tonight. Don’t get me wrong, the food in Italy was spectacular, but I’m a little pasta’d out right now.
And, I’m rambling, aren’
t I
? I
had this grand idea that if I just started off the evening talking, that we could bypass the awkward
ness of where things are at..
.
”

             
“You’re great,”
I say
.
“But it doesn’t have to be awkward. It’s just me and you.” She twists the strings of her hoodie, and I can hear the light tap the rubber soles of her Chucks under the table.

             
“You asked me to marry you,” Quinn says, biting on her lower lip. I know what that lip tastes like. I know how it feels to nip at it. And I’d g
ive anything to do it right now.B
ut I can’t.

             
“I did,
”
I say plainly.

             
“That’s crazy, right?”

             
Maybe.

             
“I don’t know, Quinn. It felt like the thing to do.”

             
“
I don’t understand how you thought that would make it any better?”

             
I don’t know how to answer her. The truth is, I was desperate. I would have said anything to get her to understand that I love her. That my bailing to go to Georgia had nothing to do with me not loving her.

             
She sets her menu aside and looks me in the eyes. “
What happened while you were there?”

             
“Can we talk about this at home?” Is it still
our
home?

             
Quinn gives a quick shake of her head. “I’d like to know now.”

             
The waiter interrupts us, buying me a few minutes to figure out the best way to tell her that I kissed someone else. But only a few very brief moments, because we order the same thing we always
do,
a street-food platter and duck enchiladas to share.
Because that’s what couples do. And I don’t want to lose any of this.

             
“Caroline called me. Well, Caroline
had been
calling me. I didn’t lie to you on Thanksgiving when I said that I didn’t know why and I never called her back.
I swear to you, I wasn’t lying when you asked me that.”

             
“Okay,” is all that she offers.

             
“
Anyway, I went out there and the good news is, I talked with my mom. I think things are going to be
okay
from now on with her. And she thanked you for the biscotti. Why didn’t you tell me that you did that?”

             
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Georgia to see your ex-girlfriend?” she asks. The parts that I love most about Quinn are the same parts that scare the shit out of me when I’m the one that she’s angry at.

             
“Caroline,” I say, careful not to use her nickname, because I know that it drives Quinn crazy. “She moved in with m
y parents because her boyfriend—
or, her ex-boyfriend was accused of stalking her. He showed up at her dorm, things got really out of hand.”

             
“Oh my god,” Quinn says. “What happened?”

             
I pause. It’s not my story to tell, but I have to.

             
“He attacked her. He tried to rape her. If a friend hadn’t have shown up, he would have.”

             
“Shit,” she says. “Is she okay?”

             
“She will be. That’s why she’s with my folks. Her parents are trying to
get it all sorted out back in Kentucky,
and making sure it’s safe for her to come home, you know?”

             
“So, that’s it? You just
went out there to help her get settled and
hung out and stuff?”

             
I have to tell her. I can’t tell her. I have to tell her.

             
I watch Quinn tense up.
“What is it, Ben?”

             
I shift in my chair and feel like a coward
I am
.
Quinn
knows there’s more.

             
“She tried to convince me to stay. With her.”

             
“What?” she says through clenched teeth.

             
“Caroline is lonely, and scared, and for her, I’m this safety net.”

             
“No, no you’re not. You aren’t in a relationship with
Caroline
, Ben. Did you forget that while you were there? Settle back into old habits, or what?”

             
“I didn’t reciprocate, I swear to you, baby—”

             
“What?
Didn’t reciprocate? Never mind,
I have to go. I have to leave.” Quinn
slams her palms
down
on
to
the table as she
stands up
.

             
“Quinn, come on, it’
s not what you think.”

             
But she
grabs her purse off of the back of her chair and
hauls ass
out the door.A
way from me.

             
I
easily
catch up with her in the park
ing lot
where she’s standing there, shaking with anger
.
Because of me
.

             
“Quinn—”

             
“I just want to go home,” she says.

             
“Okay
, get in the car.
I’ll drive you
.”

             
“No thanks, I’ll walk. It’s not far.
”

             
“I don’t feel safe with you out here alone at night, Quinn. Let me drive you home.”

             
Quinn spins on her heals and glares at me.

             
“Ben, unlike Caroline,
I
don’t feel safe with you.”
Her words are the daggers she intends them to be.

Twenty-one

QUINN

             
“Fine, take my car then, I’ll walk. I don’t want you out here alone at night.”
Ben tosses me the keys to his car, the same one that I rode in the very first day I met him and
then he
turns to start the walk home.
I’m not made of stone. It does occurs to me that it’s a crappy thing to do, to let him walk away while I drive his car home. But my anger doesn’t let me stop it from happening.

             
I’m adjusting the driver’s seat to accommodate my short-as-hell legs when the passenger door opens and Ben slides in.

             
“What are you doing?” I ask. I reach for the door handle to get out. The apartment
really
isn’t
that
far.

             
“Don’t leave.
Please. Don’t run away. Not this time.”

             
It’s infuriating that he’s acting like I have the choice to do anything
but
run.  I thought I was ready to hear it all, but I’m not. When he started talking about Caroline wanting him back, all of my fears slammed into me at once. How I’ve never been able to l
ive up to the angelic Caroline. How she still wanted him, and maybe always will. How can I compete with perfection like her?H
ow maybe Ben would be better off choosing her instead.
And I’m scared that when he tells me what happened, that it may break me. That this shell with crumble and the old Quinn will step out of it. Angry and damaged and empty inside.

             
“I fucked up, Quinn. I know that I did. But you asked what happened
.
I didn’t want to do this he
re, but you’re the one that
insisted. And you know what? I want you to know. I wan
t it all out in the open, Quinn.B
ecause I’m losing you without you even knowing. I need to at least
try
to make you understand.”