“Really?” There’s playfulness to his tone. “I always sort of thought of you as an open book.”
I roll my eyes. “You did not.”
“I did too,” he says. “I could always tell when you were angry or upset, which was a lot. Like that time we kissed.” The corners of his lips quirk. “I could tell seconds afterward that you regretted it.”
I’m not sure how to respond. I don’t quite think he’s flirting with me, just being cheerful, but at the same time we’re just sitting here joking around and it feels wrong.
“Well, I’m not angry and upset a lot anymore,” I say, taking a bite of my pizza. “And I’m sorry about the kiss thing, but I was going through some stuff.”
“I know,” he says, picking a string of cheese off his chin. “And if you’re not angry or upset anymore, then what are you?”
“I’m not sure,” I say honestly, staring down at my pizza. “Most of the time I just feel normal, but sometimes I feel sad.”
His chest sinks as he blows out a slow breath. It grows silent between us, the only sound the chewing of our pizza, as my thoughts drift to what’s making me sad—Quinton. I wish things could be different. I wish he could be sitting here with us in the awkwardness, eating pizza, and talking about everyday things for the most part.
“Do you still think about him a lot?” Tristan finally asks, giving me a sideways glance.
I blink my gaze off my pizza and look at him. “Think about who?”
He picks a pepper off his pizza and tosses it into the box. “Quinton.”
I nod. “All the time.”
“Me, too,” he utters.
“Have you heard anything from his dad, by chance?” I ask, setting my half-eaten slice of pizza down on the plate on the coffee table in front of us. “My mom said he went down there for a while to look for him, but with how hard she worked to get him there, I’m not so convinced he’ll really look for him.”
He swallows a bite of pizza. “Yeah, he took a week off from work and went down there. I guess he put up flyers and everything…” He pauses, picking at a string of cheese hanging off the pizza. “I hate to say this, but I have to…no one’s going to find Quinton.”
A massive lump forms in my throat as I force a bite of pizza down. “Do you really think that?”
Tristan tosses his crust in the pizza box as he puts his feet up on the coffee table and leans back in the sofa. “I think he’ll only be found when he wants to be found.”
“And do you think he’ll ever get to that point?” I tuck my foot under me, turning sideways on the sofa.
Confusion vanishes from his face as he folds his arms across his chest. “Honestly, Nova, I’m not sure. I know that if you would have asked me a few months ago if I wanted to be found, I’d say no. In fact my parents actually tried to call me a couple of times and I blew them off.” He pauses, staring at the window across from us, where I can see Landon’s house just outside. “But after almost dying…well, things changed a little.”
“So you were glad you were found?” I ask. “Glad you’re here instead of Vegas?”
He contemplates this deeply. “I’m not going to lie.” His fists tighten as he crosses his arms. “Even after all that shit happened, I still crave it…crave the solitude drugs gave me.” He pauses again. “But I prefer being here at the moment.”
“Because you’re sober,” I say. “And can see things a little clearer now.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s it…but I don’t think that helps with Quinton, since I was forced to get sober and someone would have to force him to get sober.” He searches my eyes for something. “You managed to walk away from it once. How did you do it without anyone forcing you?”
I don’t want to tell him, but at the same time I’m the one who brought up the subject, so I decide to just be honest, even though it’ll probably sting a little. “It was a video Landon—my boyfriend who died—made. It made me rethink what I was doing and reminded me of who I used to be.” My hands shake as I pick up my soda, thinking about how watching the video this summer had the opposite effect and kind of made things worse, because I wasn’t letting it go. Letting go. A really big problem for me.
“Are you okay?” Tristan asks, noting how emotional I’m getting.
I nod. “Yeah, it just gets to me sometimes…I mean, I still feel guilty for leaving Quinton down there.”
He considers something for a moment while I take a sip of my soda. “I feel guilty, too, because I think he’s out there somewhere thinking what happened to me is his fault and it’s not. Just like he blamed himself for my sister’s death and his girlfriend’s. I think he’s been spending two years blaming himself for everything.” He starts picking more peppers off of his pizza and dropping them on top of the pizza box. I can tell he’s trying to internally work through his thoughts. Processing something. Finally he slumps back in the sofa. “You want to know what I think?”
I nod with eagerness. “Yeah, I do.”
He pauses, then he takes a deep breath. “I think that what Quinton needs is to realize that all of the stuff wasn’t his fault—that shit just happens sometimes and is out of our control.”
Easier said than done. I’ve heard how Quinton thinks about himself, what he thinks people think of him—how he thinks everyone hates him. I know he needs to be freed from those thoughts so he can breathe again, but I’m still not 100 percent sure how to make him see that. I spent the first part of the summer trying to get to him, make him see that he was a better person than he thought.
I stare down at the backs of my hands, worried about what I’m about to ask, but needing to ask it nonetheless. “Do you think he’ll ever be able to get to that place? Be able to forgive himself for what happened? Realize that it wasn’t his fault?”
Tristan doesn’t say anything right away. I wonder if it’s because he’s actually thinking about the answer or if it’s just hard for him to talk about things related to his sister’s death. “I’m not sure.” His voice slightly trembles and he clears it. “I want to try, though…help him if I can find him…help him realize it’s not his fault, like I should have been doing instead of injecting my veins with poison.”