The House that I Grew up In

Taking a comfortable seat at the small pine dining room table while Quinn went into the kitchen to get them some drinks, Annabelle took in the warm but disorienting experience of looking around her old house. Even with different furniture, knick-knacks on the windowsill and pictures on the walls, the home still held a distinct feeling of familiarity for her.

“It must be weird,” Quinn said, as if reading her mind, as he returned to the dining room. He sat across from Annabelle and slid a glass of iced tea over to her. “Being here after four years. Does it look the same?”

Taking a sip of the sweet beverage, Annabelle glanced around herself once more before meeting Quinn’s curious emerald stare. “It looks similar,” she told him. “Of course there’s a lot of changes, but… but it feels the same. If that makes any sense.”

Watching Annabelle’s dark eyes dance as they glanced over everything again, Quinn smiled at her and nodded. “I think I know what you mean.” He paused briefly and looked at the drink in his hand, trying to summon his courage, before looking up again. “So, the reason I asked you in…” he began, but faltered.

Reaching across the table unconsciously, Annabelle placed her hand on Quinn’s for encouragement. “If you have something you want to tell me, please know I’d never judge you. But,” she waited before continuing, until Quinn stopped avoiding her kind gaze. “But if you are just worried about what I’ve heard about you from Christy and her friends, you don’t have to tell me anything. I never believe what other people tell me; only what I see myself.”

Annabelle’s palm was warm as it rested on the top of Quinn’s hand, and he couldn’t ignore the way her thumb gently stroked his. He stared at her hand, noting how long and delicate her fingers were and that there were several small scars on the skin. Not the kind of scars a normal teenage girl has; these were battle scars, he guessed, from the work she aided her mother in.

“I’ve been to jail,” Quinn finally forced out, not taking his eyes off Annabelle’s hand. “Well, juvi - juvenile detention. But I’m sure Christine and her friends already told you that.” He looked up for confirmation.

The judgment most people showed him at this moment usually was the only thing that annoyed him more than the few people who were impressed by the news. He was neither proud of this fact, nor willing to let others assess his character without knowing him.

But, as Quinn had expected, Annabelle looked neither enticed nor critical. She simply nodded her head and gave his hand a small squeeze. “Christy mentioned something about a robbery at a liquor store.”

Quinn appreciated that Annabelle immediately offered what she knew and didn’t make him stumble, trying to figure out what she already had heard. “I did rob a liquor store, two and a half years ago,” he said, his cheeks heating lightly with embarrassment. Usually, when he told this story – which didn’t happen to frequently – he acted like it wasn’t a big deal. Then, whatever girl he was with would usually tell him she thought it was ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’, and they would proceed shortly thereafter to a bed or the backseat of a car.

“But that was just one of the many bad things I’ve done,” Quinn said, knowing he was telling Annabelle about his past not to get her into bed – although he couldn’t deny the thought had crossed his mind several times over the past couple weeks. No, he just wanted to tell Annabelle the truth. Besides, she really didn’t seem the type who would sleep with him because he had a rough past. Or possibly ever, he smiled wryly to himself at the thought.

“Anyway, before that, I had been going on a downward spiral for three years.” Quinn paused, taking a long sip of his iced tea as he tried to think of some way to wrap up three years of fucking up into a few minutes of explanation. “There were drugs – crystal meth and coke were my drugs of choice. My mom had gotten addicted to prescription pills after the divorce, so I never wanted to be down like she had been.”

Annabelle watched sympathetically as Quinn continued. “So I was always taking uppers. But we never had a lot of money, so I started stealing to pay for the habit. I started small, taking money from a wallet a teacher would leave on the desk during detention while he used the bathroom or a purse one of my mom’s friends left on the kitchen counter. When that stopped being enough – more accurately, when teachers and my mom’s friends got suspicious and stopped giving me the opportunity – I started breaking into cars, and later houses. But the liquor store was the only time I was caught. Still, without a record, I basically got a slap on the wrists.”

Despite herself, Annabelle was a bit surprised by Quinn’s revelation. A messed up kid who got involved in drugs, then robbed a liquor store, and finally ended up arrested… that was a story she expected. “So, if you didn’t go to jail for the liquor store…?” she winded up her question softly, never really finishing it.

Biting his lip, Quinn tried to figure out the last time he had spoken honestly about The Incident. Of course, there had been The Counselors. And his mother had tried. His father had even asked him to visit… but that had only angered Quinn more. No, the only person he had told this story to before – of his own volition and with sincerity – had been Forest last year, about six months after they had met. He had intended to keep it that way, but something about Annabelle made him unable to stop talking…

Having gotten lost in his own thoughts, Quinn was surprised when he felt Annabelle’s hand squeeze his encouragingly. He looked up from the table and right into her dark eyes. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said softly, unaware he had actually spoken the words aloud until he saw the color rising in Annabelle’s cheeks.

“Thank you,” Annabelle replied quickly, her face heating. “But you don’t have to compliment me to divert me from your story. If you’re not comfortable talking about your past, that’s okay with me. All I care about is the person I see in front of me today.”

Inhaling deeply, Quinn couldn’t decide if he should sigh in exasperation, roll his eyes in annoyance or… or reach across the table and kiss the lips of the most genuine soul he had ever met. “I said you have beautiful eyes because you do. And I told you that I wanted to tell you the truth,” he finally whispered. “So just listen.”

With a quick nod of affirmation, Annabelle waited patiently for Quinn to go on. However, her wait ended up being about ten minutes, during which time Quinn had stopped looking into her eyes and started looking anywhere but. Staring at the table, the wall, the floor… he seemed to be getting more aggravated than she had ever seen him before.

“I killed my best friend,” Quinn finally whispered, his green eyes filled with tears that he tried to blink back.

He waited for what should be the normal barrage of question, but getting none from Annabelle, he pushed on. “You are right about my need to feel like a badass. I was so mad at my dad abandoning us and starting a new family… I was so pissed at my mom for getting addicted to painkillers and not being there for me… I was angry at the kids at school for being judgmental because of my past and because we didn’t have money…”

Biting her lip, Annabelle was nervous about pushing Quinn, but she knew he had something else – something bigger – that he wanted to explain, but was having a hard time doing so. “You said you killed your best friend. How did it happen?”

Hearing someone else say the words – particularly nonjudgmental Annabelle – knocked the wind out of Quinn.

“Killed your best friend.” The words echoed in his brain for several minutes before he realized that Annabelle was asking if he was okay.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Annabelle reminded Quinn. “But I do want to be your friend, so whatever I can do to help you, please let-“

“You can help,” Quinn replied quickly, cutting Annabelle off. If she was insulted, her expression didn’t show it. “You are helping,” Quinn nervously squeezed Annabelle’s hand in solidarity. “No, I wanted to tell you that I killed my best friend, Jason, two years ago. He and I got fucked up on PCP, got on my motorcycle, ended up crashing into a tree… and that’s how I ended up in Juvi. Everyone at school thinks it was the liquor store thing, and I guess that’s good…”

Tears had already filled Annabelle’s eyes, but they were from none of the emotions Quinn feared. She wasn’t afraid of him… not repulsed… not angry… not disdainful… not even lustful or desirous.

And best of all, she wasn’t pitying. Annabelle pulled her hand from Quinn’s to put it on his cheek and look at him with nothing but honest understanding. “That must have been such an incredibly difficult thing to deal with, especially at such a young age,” her voice filled with compassion.

Quinn let out a long breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding in. “I don’t know why I just told you that,” he admitted in astonishment.

With nothing but a friendly grin, Annabelle shrugged. “For whatever reason, I’m glad.”

“How can you be glad?” Quinn looked at her with astonishment. For a moment, he grew angry, afraid Annabelle was like the other girls he had been interested in in the past – those impressed by his “dangerous” and “tragic” roots.

“I’m glad you trusted me enough to know that if you told me something so personal and painful, I wouldn’t judge you,” Annabelle said softly, still stroking his cheek. “I’m sorry your life’s been so difficult, and that you carry around all this guilt. I’m not going to tell you what everyone else had probably already said-”

“Like what?” Quinn asked suspiciously, expecting Annabelle to ask him how he lived with the guilt and shame every day.

“I mean, how it’s not your fault that Jason died,” Annabelle said softly, her eyes wide as she expected Quinn to have known this. “How you were just a young kid going through a really rough time, and I’m guessing Jason was, too… If I’m wrong, please tell me,” she quietly begged suddenly. “If you want me to shut up-”

There was only one reason Quinn would want Annabelle to shut up right then, and that would be so that he could kiss her. Her openness, kindness and understanding were so pure… but for some reason, he couldn’t lean his face into her palm, stare into her eyes, and try to kiss her. “You are so different from everyone I know,” he finally stuttered out.

“So I hear,” Annabelle sounded sad for a moment, but quickly dismissed it in favor of paying closer attention to Quinn. “You have to stop trying to make up for one mistake-”

“I’ve made A LOT of mistakes,” Quinn countered.

“I meant the ONE mistake you can’t forgive yourself for,” Annabelle let her fingertips move from Quinn’s high cheekbone, down over his chin, across his jaw, and then back to his cheek, all the while never breaking eye contact with him. “And I’m not a psychiatrist, so I probably shouldn’t try to help you forgive yourself. But what I can do…”

Kiss me, Quinn begged silently.

“What I can do,” Annabelle repeated, pulling her hand back nervously as she saw the expression in Quinn’s eyes change. “Is be your friend. Knowing all I know now, about your family, and about your past, and how you feel about all of this… Quinn, you are the only person our age I’ve met since I came back this summer that I truly trust. Warts and all.”

Despite himself, Quinn chuckled at Annabelle’s sweet and innocent assessment. While a part of him would have enjoyed pity sex – a lot – another, bigger part was touched by the word Annabelle kept repeating.

“Friend.”

“I’ll tell you more about Jason,” Quinn promised quietly, dismissing Annabelle’s protests that it wasn’t necessary if he didn’t want to. “I DO want to,” he was almost shocked with himself for the truth of the statement. “But not today. Today, let’s do something fun. Where were you headed before I stopped you?”

Pushing through all the deep emotions Quinn had just unloaded on her, Annabelle tried to remember where she had been intending to go. “The playground at the elementary school!” she suddenly remembered excitedly.

“A playground?” Quinn smirked, rising from the table and lifting the two glasses up to bring them back to the kitchen. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Annabelle nodded her head and grinned as she rose. “Come on, I promise it’ll make you forget about everything you just told me, at least for a little while.”

“I doubt that,” Quinn shook his head with amusement as he headed into the kitchen with the used glasses. But despite what he had just told Annabelle, he had a weird feeling in his stomach that maybe going to the playground with Annabelle was just the right thing to get him out of his foul mood.

Or maybe it was just the “with Annabelle” part, Quinn thought wryly to himself.

-----

Two hours later, Quinn couldn’t believe how much childlike fun he was having. He had spent nearly an hour listening to Annabelle’s memories of this playground – occasionally finding it hard to match the “Christy” Annabelle spoke about with the “Christine” he knew from high school. They had gone down the slide a dozen times each; climbed across the monkey bars; kicked sand at each other in the sandbox; and played an impromptu game of tag in the playhouse. They were now standing in front of the swings.

“You go; I’ll push,” Quinn told Annabelle.

“Please,” Annabelle smirked at Quinn. “I’m not here to be impressed by a cool guy maneuver like pushing me on a swing. You go and I’ll push.”

Looking at Annabelle for a moment, Quinn couldn’t stop himself from smiling. She looked so pretty in the late afternoon sun, her red-highlighted hair messy and unkempt and her cheeks naturally rosy with excitement. “Okay,” Quinn said, surprising Annabelle as he sat on a swing. She looked at him questioningly for a moment before moving behind him. “Okay, you swing and I’ll push you.”

Still, Quinn said nothing. As he started to swing, Annabelle tried to take a moment to herself to take in everything she had learned from him earlier that afternoon. She knew he thought he had told her a far worse story than she had imagined; and she knew she had been right in wanting to make friends with him at first.

“Okay,” Annabelle shouted with glee, watching Quinn swinging high before her. “Now I’ll push you to see how high you can go. Christy and I were sure, when we were younger, that one truly good push could send you all the way around.”

Just as Annabelle prepared herself to give Quinn a swift push, he stopped on his toes. Looking over his shoulder, his green eyes twinkling, he smirked. “I think I’d rather you ride with me,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Annabelle began, but quickly yelped as Quinn grabbed her from around the waist. Pulling her to his lap and carefully latching his arms around her petite ribs, he finally released his feet and began swinging with Annabelle close to his front.

“These swings are meant for children!” Annabelle admonished as Quinn swung them higher. “They were barely made for one adult, let alone two!”

“Oh, I’m not an adult,” Quinn chuckled, pulling Annabelle closer around the waist and burying his head into her shoulder. “Neither are you, even if you act like one. Come on, just enjoy this.”

So glad Quinn seemed past the bad mood he had been in earlier, Annabelle gave in and leaned against Quinn. His arms held her close, but his legs swung below them to keep them moving deeper into the height. “I don’t remember having this much fun,” Quinn whispered into Annabelle’s ear a few moments later, his lips barely touching her lobe. “You are so amazing.”

For a moment, Annabelle suddenly felt that Christy and her friends were right in their assessments of her – maybe she really was just some jungle freak. After all, here she was in the arms of a beautiful boy who had basically confessed his soul to her that afternoon, but she was afraid to even consider what might happen next.

At the exact moment that thought crossed Annabelle’s mind, Quinn stopped there swinging quickly with his feet. He pressed his forehead against Annabelle’s temple and squeezed her tight. “Thank you so much for listening to me today.”

Annabelle was about to repeat what she had been saying all evening… “That’s what friends do”… when she looked over her shoulder and met Quinn’s eyes. At that moment, they were bright green, like ivy leaves in spring, and they were looking at her with complete trust. As she slowly saw him tilting his head, though, she looked away immediately.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” Annabelle sprung from Quinn’s lap in such a quick motion, he had no time to protest. “Come on, your mom gets off at six. Let’s make something for dinner…” She put out her hand nervously, afraid of how he would react.

With any other girl, Quinn would be annoyed. After all, he had opened up to Annabelle like no one else in his life. Besides that, they had had fun together, had flirted, had almost kissed… and then she had pulled away. But for some reason, Quinn trusted that Annabelle’s reason for pulling away had nothing to do with all he had told her earlier. He just hoped she would get past whatever issue was holding her back soon, because he’d really like to kiss her.

“That sounds great,” Quinn reached for Annabelle’s outstretched hand and felt pleased at her grin. He couldn’t remember a time in years when he had a friend that mattered to him as much as Annabelle quickly had.
Except Jason.

------

Karen had had a rough 12 hour shift in the ER. All she wanted was to come home, microwave a TV dinner, and take a bath before she went to bed. Or so she thought.

As she wearily entered her house, Karen was caught off guard by a sound she rarely heard anymore – her son laughing heartily. Afraid it was just her exhaustion, Karen quietly sneaked into the hallway and peaked into the kitchen. What she saw astonished her.

Karen’s normally stolid son was stripped of his normal leather jacket. Instead, he was in a t-shirt, his hands buried in a salad bowl, and – most surprisingly – a huge grin on his face. However, Karen wasn’t extremely shocked when she saw the sweet, beautiful young Annabelle Murphy on the other side of the kitchen; obviously, Annabelle was the reason for Karen’s son’s uncharacteristic joy.

As Quinn went to put the salad bowl on the island in the middle of the kitchen, he looked over at Annabelle, who was laying flour out. More seemed to be on her face and in her hair than on the surface of the counter. “You lied!” Quinn accused cutely. “You can’t cook!”

“I can too!” Annabelle turned in defiance, but as she did, she accidentally tossed a handful of flour at Quinn. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that,” she told him as she burst into hysterics.

“Maybe not consciously,” Quinn teased Annabelle, taking a step towards her and putting his hand into the flour bowl. “But deep down…” he picked up a handful of flour and felt his stomach flip at the look of amusement and anticipation in Annabelle’s dark eyes. “But now it’s my turn to get you back!”

“Stop right there, Quinn Michael Peregoy!” Karen entered the kitchen, an amused smile on her face. “I might let you do that, seeing as Annabelle started this,” she winked at the teenaged girl at the other side of the room. “IF you had ever bothered to make dinner for us before. If Annabelle can make you make dinner on a regular basis, I give her full authority to tar and feather you, if necessary!”

Looking over, Quinn saw Annabelle’s beautiful flour-stained face light up in victory. “Just wait until my mom’s not around to protect you,” he jokingly threatened, putting down his hand.

“You’re not brave enough even then,” Annabelle teased, taking a few steps towards Karen to offer a greeting. Before she got anywhere near the woman, though, Quinn tossed his handful of flour at her and all three people exploded in laughter.

“You are in so much trouble!” Karen told Quinn with a laugh, coughing at the small amount of powdered air that entered her lungs. “Unless, of course, you could convince Annabelle to teach you how to cook a few more meals…”

“Sure,” Quinn quickly replied. “Annabelle would love to teach me how to cook.”

“Would I?” Annabelle looked on with amusement at Quinn as she wiped a flour-stained lock of dark hair from her eyes. “And why would I want to do that kind of favor for you, Quinn?”

Slipping into the cupboard for a moment, Quinn stuck his head out with a mischievous grin. “Because your such a good person, Annabelle,” he said matter-of-factly, grinning a little too much to himself. “And because, DESPITE that good nature of yours, you will want to get even after this-” With that, he pulled another packet of flour from behind his back and disbursed a handful all over Annabelle’s head.

“I am SO getting you for that,” Annabelle jumped up and began chasing Quinn – in complete hysterical laughter – out of the kitchen.

Karen just watched in amazement until the teens moved out of view, although their laughter was still easily heard. After all she and her son had been through, Karen couldn’t believe it was Quinn she heard in the other room, shrieking in such adorable innocent adolescent laughter; she had been so afraid they had missed out on the chance for him to experience that.

And it only made Karen’s heart swell even bigger to know that the person that was bringing such enthusiasm and healthy excitement back into her son’s life was the daughter of the woman that had saved her own life. It almost seemed too good to be true.

-----

After dinner and some wonderful conversation with Karen and Quinn, Annabelle returned to Christy’s house reluctantly. She could see that neither of Christy’s parent’s cars – or SUVs, to be more precise – were in the driveway, and she was not looking forward to another chilly evening with Christy, especially after such a good night with Quinn and Karen.

Sneaking into the house quietly, Annabelle hurried to the guest bathroom to take a shower. As the flour clumped into her hair like glue under the water, only giving when she added shampoo, Annabelle couldn’t help but smile at how much fun the day had been. As she turned off the shower and dried herself off, she smiled at her memories of Quinn at the playground, and the fund dinner conversation with Karen. As she put on her pajamas and climbed into her bed with a book, Annabelle smiled to herself despite…

Despite Christy’s parents having changed so much. Despite Sasha’s judgment of her a few nights earlier. Despite not hearing from her mother in nearly a week. Despite how cold Christy had been to her over the past week…

“Hey, beautiful!” Christy broke Annabelle’s sad thought, and Annabelle looked up in amazement from her book. “Did you have fun tonight?”

“I did, thanks for asking,” Annabelle hated that she was being cautious with her words, but after what she had experienced last week with Christy, she wasn’t sure how else to react.

“Listen,” Christy sat down with a thump at the end of Annabelle’s bed. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know I was a bitch last week, and that was totally uncool. I think I was just premenstrual, but considering you’re here all summer, without your mom, with me having totally new friends… I could have been WAY more understanding when you didn’t cover for me.”

A warm smile on her face, Annabelle smiled at Christy. This is why she hadn’t told Quinn about what had happened between the two girls; Annabelle had been sure Christy would realize she hadn’t meant to hurt her in any way.

“Even though we don’t talk as much anymore,” Christy continued, reaching out and taking Annabelle’s hand in her own. “I want you to know I still think of you as my best friend.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Annabelle squeezed Christy’s hand. “I feel the same way.”

“Good,” Christy’s blue eyes diverted away from Annabelle’s dark quizzical gaze. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. So now you’ll understand that – as my BEST FRIEND – I’m going to need for you to cover for me tonight.”

Tilting her head slightly, Annabelle had no idea what Christy was talking about.

Trying to hold back an obvious sigh of frustration, Christy tossed her long blond locks over her shoulder. “Josh has a totally important banquet dinner for the basketball team,” she gave up this information to Annabelle as though it pained her. “And even though I told my mom how TOTALLY important it is, she won’t let up on the grounding crap.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Annabelle asked nervously.

“NOTHING!” Christy waved her hand dismissively. “I mean, just, go downstairs in an hour or so to get ‘a cup of tea’ or something, and tell my parents I’m asleep already.”

“I don’t know…” Annabelle felt very uncomfortable at the concept of lying outright to Christy’s parents. “Can’t we try to convince them-”

“There’s no time,” Christy’s voice got harsh as she rose from the bed, but she quickly caught herself. “I mean, there’s no point. They won’t let me. And besides, you know the saying… what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

Not one of Ghandi’s quotes, Annabelle thought to herself.

“PLEASE Annabelle,” Christy threw herself back on Annabelle’s bed and reached for the girl’s hands. “Please. This is so important for Josh… and for me. PLEASE???”

Swallowing hard to try to bury the uncomfortable feeling in her throat, Annabelle looked at Christy. All she had hoped would come from this summer really would be a chance to rekindle her friendship with her old best friend.

Now, even though they had experienced a few bad weeks, Annabelle was being given that chance again. “Okay,” she finally concurred softly.

Letting out a squeal, Christy lunged at Annabelle and squeezed her shoulders. “I’m so glad we’re seeing things more eye-to-eye now,” she said as she sprang from the bed. “The rest of the summer is going to be killer, I promise!”

Watching Christy leave her room throwing air kisses her way, Annabelle tried to ignore the constantly growing knot in her stomach. Dishonesty had never worked for Annabelle or her mother, so why was she agreeing to start now?

Of course, the answer was obvious. The only best friend she had ever known was asking.

Christy.

-----

TO THE READERS AND REVIEWERS:

7YEARS – THANKS SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING FOR EACH CHAPTER. AFTER TAKING SUCH A LONG HAITUS FROM WRITING, THAT KIND OF ATTENTION TO DETAIL REALLY MAKES ME FEEL SO GOOD.

GIRLFIXER – YOUR REVIEWS ALWAYS MAKE ME SMILE!

TWINKLINGDEE – I’M SO GLAD YOU LIKE THE CHARACTERS. I THINK THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP TO A GOOD STORY.

AND THANKS TO ALL THAT READ AND REVIEW. I’VE MISSED THIS A LOT!