Page 9

When she simply continued to sit there on the couch, taking slow shaky breath after slow shaky breath, looking calm and ready to take the verbal beating, Quinn stared at her incredulously.

How was he supposed to just stand there in the middle of the living room and yell at this tranquil, frail woman?

Didn't that make him the bad guy? Is that what she was trying to do?

Make him look like the bad guy in front of the nurse?

No, she didn't have that right. She deserved to hear everything that he'd been keeping in all these years, and she had no right to sit there calmly and listen.

He was going to make this hurt. He was going to get some sort of reaction out of her other than this serene, accepting stranger sitting in front of him.

So, with one slow steadying breath, he let it all out.

All of the anger, all of the hurt, the memories that he knew only he had because she wasn't present enough to remember any of it.

He was shouting, even with the windows open, and he didn't care who heard it.

He was shouting about the needles, about having to tuck her into bed when she'd passed out, about making sure some of the money got put towards groceries so they didn't starve, about the strange and dangerous men who wandered in and out of the house at all hours, about once putting not just him, but his friends in danger when they'd stopped by to check on him.

He yelled about having to shop for himself at local thrift stores because she couldn't bother to buy him clothes, and the things of his she had sold to get her fix, and how once he'd gotten a job of his own in high school he'd caught her stealing out of his wallet because she just needed a hit.

He asked why she had never even talked to him, never gone to a single one of his games, never taken even the slightest interest in his life, why she ever had him in the first place, and the list went on and on.

By the end of his complete outburst, he was physically shaking.

He swallowed around a hard lump in his throat and glanced briefly at his mother who was a sobbing mess on the couch.

Averting his eyes, he clenched his shaking fists, clenched his jaw.

He needed to leave. Everything he’d been holding in for ages had just been released into this room and it felt tainted and toxic.

It was as if he were going to be sucked back in time and forced to relive every one of those moments if he stood there too long.

When he spoke again, it came out hoarse and restrained, “I…” he cleared his throat, “I need to go.” Quinn turned and made a beeline for the door.

“Mr. Casey,” Sandra’s voice was softer as she followed him toward the front door.

Quinn paused with his hand on the doorknob. He shook his head, unable to take any more, “I can’t. Maybe...maybe some other time. I have to go.”

He drove back to Hotel Indigo with the radio turned off, just listening to the sounds of the wind and the city passing him by.

Leaving his sunglasses on once inside and grabbing a baseball hat to pull over his face, he made his way to his King suite.

The last thing he needed was someone to recognize him and ask for an autograph right now.

Inside his room, which was equipped with a full-size living room, spacious bedroom, glass-railed balcony with a view of the lake, and a fully tiled bathroom with an extra-large shower, he strode past the living room into the bedroom, and pulled the black-out curtains shut.

After awkwardly stripping down to his boxer briefs with only one hand available to undress himself, he collapsed onto the bed.

Quinn stared up at the ceiling, replaying the scene that had just exploded at his old house.

With a shuddering breath, he felt the burning behind his eyes release, the tight knot in his throat win out.

The tears overflowed, running off his cheeks and onto the pillows.

It was like he was a little boy again, crying in his room from the hunger in his stomach, the fear he always felt, the constant uncertainty of what the next day would bring.

He was unaware of how long it took for the tears to subside, and he didn't care.

He wasn't sure when he would go back, but the loosening feeling in his chest told him he would. First thing tomorrow, he would go to the physical therapist’s office that Chris had suggested and then go from there. He'd take it one step at a time.

As he fell asleep, Quinn caught himself thinking about Raelyn DeRose.

Her bright smile and those blue eyes that he could never shake from his memory.

He wondered if he'd stay long enough to see her, and if he did, how crazy would she think he was if he asked her to go with him next time.

He remembered the soothing effect Rae's presence always had on him, like a cloak of calm blanketing him and putting out the rage that always sat deep inside him.

For the first time in a long time, he felt himself needing someone. He needed her.