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“We don’t have to—”
He stopped, forcing Quincy to fill in the blank. Room together? Sleep together like Janelle so blatantly planned for them to do?
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Quinn, really. If you’re not ready.”
Quincy sat beside him and put a hand on his trembling knee. Craig Anderson, the budding basketball star. Brown-haired, green-eyed, sexily lanky Craig. Out of all the girls on campus, he picked her.
“It’s fine,” she said again, meaning it as much as a nineteen-year-old contemplating the end of her virginity possibly could. “I’m glad.”
4.
Jeff finds me on the sofa with Lisa’s book in my lap and my eyes raw from an afternoon spent crying. When he drops his suitcase and sweeps me into his arms, I lay my head against his chest and weep some more. After two years of living together and two more of dating, he knows not to immediately ask what’s wrong. He simply lets me cry.
It’s only after I’ve soaked his shirt collar with tears that I say, “Lisa Milner killed herself.”
Jeff’s grip around me tightens. “TheLisa Milner?”
“The very one.”
That’s all he needs me to say. The rest he understands.
“Oh, Quinn. Hon, I’m so sorry. When? What happened?”
We settle back onto the sofa and I give Jeff the details. He listens with a heightened interest—a by-product of his job, which requires him to absorb all information before sifting through it.
“How do you feel?” he asks when I’m done talking.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m just shocked. And in mourning. Which is silly, I guess.”
“It’s not,” Jeff says. “You have every right to be upset.”
“Do I? It’s not like Lisa and I ever actually met.”
“That doesn’t matter. You two spoke a lot. She helped you. You were kindred spirits.”
“We were victims,” I say. “That’s the only thing we had in common.”
“You don’t need to trivialize it, Quinn. Not with me.”
That’s Jefferson Richards the public defender talking. He lapsesinto lawyer-speak whenever he disagrees with me, which isn’t often. Usually, he’s simply Jeff, the boyfriend who doesn’t mind cuddling. Who’s a far better cook than I and whose ass looks amazing in the suits he wears to court.
“I can’t begin to understand what you went through that night,” he says. “No one can. No one but Lisa and that other girl.”
“Samantha.”
Jeff repeats the name absently, as if he knew it all along. “Samantha. I’m sure she feels the same way you do.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I say. “I can’t understand why Lisa would kill herself after everything she went through. It’s such a waste. I thought Lisa was better than that.”
Once again, I hear her voice in my head.
There’s nobility in being a survivor, she had once told me.Grace too. Because we’ve suffered and lived, we have the power to inspire others who are suffering.
It was bullshit. All of it.
“Sorry for being such a mess,” I tell Jeff. “Lisa’s suicide. My reaction. All of it feels abnormal.”