Waiting for Sunday

chapter 4 - the spider in the ink

At two in the morning, Felix's phone rings, and even before he's pulled open his weary eyes and fumbled around for it until he finds it under his bed, he knows it can only be one of a few people. His mother, who is usually asleep at this hour but is known to call him with peculiar "revelations" at whatever hour they accost her, or Quincy, because she is Quincy.

"Help me move this couch," Quincy says. No greeting, no explanation. This is the way of the world, or at least the world as Quincy French knows it.

Felix sits up and stares mutely into the murky dark of his bedroom for a second. The jagged stacks of papers and textbooks on the desk in front of his bed cast grotesque shadows, the vague silhouettes of beasts lurking there in the dim light. He scratches his head, hoping somehow the grit of his fingers digging into his scalp will wake him fully. "What couch?"

"I found one on the street and I think it'd look nice in the living room but I need a big strong man to come help me carry it in."

As far as Felix knows, he is neither of those adjectives. He sighs. "Somehow it makes even less sense why you called me now."

"It's not a big couch. Please, Felix? We have to get it before someone else does!"

Felix considers hanging up and going back to sleep, but the worst case scenario plays out in the catastrophic and often melodramatic theater of his mind. She'll just try to move it herself if he leaves her be, and then he'll be getting a call from the emergency room. "Fine, Q," he says at last. "But you have to come pick me—"

"Yes! Thank you thank you. Be there in five. Sit tight!"

The phone call ends. Felix lets the phone drop from his hands and slumps back against his pillows, savoring another thirty seconds of surface-level pseudo-sleep. When he can pretend no longer, he grabs his eyepatch, and by the time he hears a honk honk outside, he's entirely awake.

To Quincy's credit, it is a nice couch.

It's more a loveseat, really: a soft leather two-seater in a unique deep emerald hue, the color of the surface of a lake. Quincy pulls up in front of where it rests on the curb between a trash can and a stack of flattened IKEA boxes, hops out of the car, and stands there looking pensive with her hands on her hips. She's in hot pink Barbie pajama pants and a vintage Disney sweatshirt, both of which Felix is pretty sure she's owned since middle school, at least. Her hair's swept back into a short ponytail, big highlights of blond sneaking out beneath the red.

After a moment to wonder how he has allowed himself to arrive here, Felix joins her outside. The night is cool but not cold, perfect stand-outside-in-your-pajamas weather, which both of them are now doing.

"So?" Felix says.

"So," Quincy says, and looks at him. There are mascara smudges beneath her eyes, but somehow on her it looks artful, intentional.

Felix steps over the curb, crouching down on one side of the couch. He nods his head at the other side. "Let's get this over with."

Quincy does, matching Felix's posture, her head barely visible over the couch's arm. "Your mom called me today, you know."

"Lift with your legs," Felix says, tightening his grip. "Ready?" Quincy nods. "Up!"

The breath all but bursts from his lungs. It's heavy, and he knew it would be heavy, but actually lifting it is making him regret all those gym subscriptions he gave up on.

"Felix," Quincy says as they start back towards the entrance of Quincy's townhouse. "I said—"

"Did she?" Felix gasps. "Just to say hi, or..."