make you miss me • q. hughes

45

"That was a good game, babe," I call out when the front door closes. No response. Dead silence other than the sound of him putting all his things where they belong. I peek over the back of the couch. "Quinn?"

"What?" He asks a little snappily.

My eyes stay glued to him as he pretty much stalks over to sit a whole cushion away from me, immediately going on his phone. "I said that was a good game."

Nothing even remotely intelligible is said in return. Something's wrong. How the fuck am I supposed to even try to help if he's not even fully speaking? How the fuck is he acting like this after a shutout win? What could have possibly happened?

I move over so there's no cushion between us. That felt suffocating. Quinn never misses a chance to be near me. He takes it very seriously. Literally last week I put a cushion between us and he acted like it was the end of the damn world. Maybe he was distracted.

"Are you okay?" I cautiously ask.

"Yeah, Schuy," he mutters back.

"What?"

"I said yes!" That was a snap. Okay.

"No, I meant what as in what did you call me," I explain, even more cautiously. Why does this feel like disarming a bomb with zero knowledge of bombs?

Quinn huffs and tosses his phone very carelessly onto the coffee table. He quickly moves to rub his eyes.  "Your name?"

"Since when do you call me Schuy when it's just us two?"

"You're the one who complains about me constantly calling you Scout," he says.

"I know it's—" I shake my head. "What's wrong?"

"I played fucking terribly that's what's wrong." He laughs but there's zero humor to it. "You happy? Got me to admit out loud I sucked tonight?"

"No. 'Cause it's not true."

Another humorless laugh. "Sure."

Tentatively, I reach out to him. My hand lands on his back and I get maybe two seconds of trying to comfort him the best way I know how before he's flinching away from me. It even almost looks as if he went to literally smack my arm away or something. You'd think I put a lighter to his skin.

"Don't fucking touch me," he snaps. More of a yell. Definitely a yell.

It's my turn to flinch. If he didn't physically slap me away, he did it with those words. My chest feels so heavy. My skin is on fire as he stares at me. Not in the way he usually burns me. In the way he used to. In the way that I thought would kill me in a bad way.

I stand up and get as far away from him as I can without leaving the living room. "You think you did bad. I get it."

"Obviously you don't."

"No, I do," I say, trying my best to fend off the anger threatening to shake my voice. "You know what I don't get?"

Something about me must truly be getting the point across that he messed up. His face shifts from frustration to something else. Remorse, hopefully. Apologetic, hopefully.

I clasp my hands together. "I don't get how you think that's how you can communicate you want to be left the fuck alone. Especially given that I was trying to help. I was trying to comfort you on something I didn't do to you."

This is usually the point where the other person will try and figure out how you can talk it through. But Quinn's a bit too stubborn for that. If our roles were reversed, I would do the same thing as him. Keep going on my point even through the remorse.

"Usually when someone isn't really responding, you leave them alone," he says.

"I can leave you alone."

"Wait—" He stops himself. Clasps his own hands together. "Are we fighting?"

I stare at him for a moment. "You're asking me that? You yelled at me because you're mad at yourself for something that's totally unfounded and you think we wouldn't fight? If I yelled at you like you just yelled at me, how would you feel?"

"Like shit," he states.

"Yeah. I feel like shit." I sigh and start heading for the hallway. He calls my name. I pause. "I'm leaving you alone. Although, you should go to your place tonight."

"You're walking out on an argument? You're kicking me out during an argument?"

All I can do is nod. It's a stupid move to walk out. Lock myself away. I don't know what else to do. I want to toss on that stupid green sweatshirt of his and maybe even some of his sweats and curl up and cry. I've never wanted to cry after or during any argument until this idiot.

* * * * *

I wake up at 5:05. My brain almost forgets something is wrong. My body knows and I woke up late and that creates another wrong. Have I always been such a mess? Is this what love does to you?

As usual, I get ready to go run. There's a different thing blocking my path than the five minutes late I woke up. I mean this is actually blocking my path. Quinn's curled up on the floor in front of my bedroom door with one of the pillows from the guest room and my favorite couch blanket.

"You woke up late," he mumbles.

"You slept outside our bedroom door?"

He sits up, cranking his neck back to meet my eyes. "Told you if you ever tried kicking me out 'cause you're pissed, I'm gluing myself to the floor."

I sink to the floor next to him. He doesn't even hesitate to put his palm over my heart. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. In. Out. I open my eyes to see my entire heart in front of me.

"I'm sorry," I say, placing my palm over his heart.

Quinn takes a breather of his own. "I'm sorry too. I should have never yelled like that. I should have told you the moment I walked in I needed some space to calm down before talking about it."

"I shouldn't have walked out. Shouldn't have put all that blame on you. I could have seen those cues of do not disturb."

"You should have been told straight up. That's not how you treat someone you love."

I flinch slightly. A different kind than last night's. "I love you."

"Who wouldn't?" He jokes. I roll my eyes and he leans forward and plants a kiss on my cheek. "I love you too, Scout."