The Home Game

14. Dissonance

Author's Note:

..... Surprise!

Howdy everyone, how are we doing? Is this helping calm the collective crashout in the comments lol

I am so sorry it's been so long! 2 things have been really impacting my ability to write the main one being some good ol' vision problems 😅

Not sure if y'all saw the post I made on my page but basically my eyes were not doing too hot. I had blurry vision and migraines all the time and it took a week to get an appointment and 2 weeks to get the glasses. That whole time I was struggling to work from how rough my eyes were so writing ways kind of impossible. But I have glasses now so we're good!

Second, the discord chat knows this, but my wife is pregnant! Like almost 7 months pregnant! And she's needed quite a bit of help and support. She doing great, just growing a human is a lot of work!  While I love this book and talking with y'all her and baby department come first always 🫡

I will also say sorry though I left us at a bit of tense moment didn't I?...... whoops... sorry.... I hope y'all don't hate me too much for it.

I am super excited to see what y'all think of this chapter.... You've all shared a lot of theories which I love seeing and some of y'all feel like you're in my brain. All my little literary analysts 🥹 keep up the good sleuthing and tell me what you find! I promise the little things are on purpose.

Let's get into it shall we? See you at the bottom.
 
Word Count: 12756

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14. Dissonance
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Pounding....

Repetitive.... Rhythmic.... Unrelenting.... Pounding.

Quinn felt it before she even knew she was awake. She buried her face in her pillow and groaned, not ready to deal with the bright, warm sun she could already feel on the exposed skin of her bare back. Quinn wanted to go back to sleep, but immediately her mind flashed with images of the night before. So much had happened, and so much had gone wrong.

Rarely did Quinn drink to the point of being hungover, but last night after the basketball players left she was desperate for any kind of relief or comfort. Unfortunately the bottle of whiskey hadn't been enough and Quinn had fallen victim to the temptation of a lonely, late night, drunken phone call. If the pounding in her head hadn't been enough of a deterrent for opening her eyes, Quinn was sure that being face to face with the reality of last night that was currently occupying the other half of her bed was.

Part of her felt embarrassed that she had made the call, but part of her was happy she had. Last night she had needed someone, something incredibly hard for Quinn to admit, even if only to herself, but not being alone had helped her push down all of her bad memories and flashbacks. The embarrassment and the hangover were prices Quinn was more than willing to pay to keep her demons locked up. But still, she was worried in hindsight that her choice in late night company may end up complicating fixing things with Nika.

Quinn groaned again and rubbed her eyes, blinking them open slowly despite the immediate spike of throbbing pain in her head the second an ounce of sunlight hit her pupils. When she could finally open her eyes all the way there they were... a completely empty small bottle of whiskey, and a Nintendo Switch.

Quinn had called Inês in her drunken loneliness only for her and Amari to show up a few minutes later. They had gotten home and got a second wind to start playing switch games when Inês mentioned Quinn wanted to join them sometime. When Quinn called they both gladly went over even without the previously promised food, and ended up bringing Quinn the now empty small bottle of whiskey as a gift. Amari said they had had it since last year and no one in their apartment would drink it, but they knew Quinn liked whiskey. They spent 2 hours playing Mariokart until eventually Inês and Amari got tried and decided to go home around 5am. Quinn however kept her own party going for a little while longer with the small bottle of whiskey and her new Pokémon game until eventually she got tired too.