Before You Break

Chapter Thirty Quinn

We pulled up to Hartford Memorial Cemetery as Ella clutched her bouquet of yellow daisies. She looked anxious even though she told me that she’d been here last month on Christopher’s birthday. So maybe her nervousness had everything to do with me being with her this time.

After our night at the cliff, I felt insanely closer to Ella. It was like we’d clicked on many different levels. I still don’t know how it was possible that I’d met someone like her, let alone called her on the hotline, too.

When Ella said it was fate, I just bit my damn tongue. But maybe she was right. And maybe if I’d never called that hotline, I’d still have been inspired by Ella to become a better version of myself. It was like I’d been drowning and she’d come along and saved me. But she wouldn’t have agreed with that summation. She’d say that she’d encouraged me to save myself.

And she was right. Because I had. But she’d been the catalyst, that was for damn sure.

And maybe, just maybe, I had found some small way to save her, too.

“You ready, pretty girl?” I said, slinking her hair away from her neck. I restrained myself from kissing her soft skin because then we’d never leave the car.

She gave me that adorable smile that softened my insides. “Let’s go.”

She led me toward the row of tombstones across the way until she found her brother’s.

She smoothed her hand across the stone where his name had been etched. And then she sank down to her knees and I followed suit.

“Hey, Christopher, I want you to meet someone very special. His name is Daniel Quinn.”

I had trouble finding my voice. Suddenly this had become very personal and very real. I squeezed her hand. “Hi, Christopher.”

“You would love him, Chris.” She swiped a tear from her cheek and I felt the back of my eyes prickling. “And guess what? The dude will play Minecraft with me for hours.”

I grinned at her comment. “She practically forces me to, Chris.”

We sat on the ground for maybe twenty minutes more while she told Christopher about school, the suicide hotline, how we’d met, and how the family was holding up.

As we headed out of the graveyard, my stomach tightened in anticipation for our next destination. I hadn’t been there since the funeral, and I didn’t know how I was going to deal with it now. But I had Ella with me. She provided me with strength and hope and incentive to face my demons head-on.

The ride to Lakeside Cemetery was mostly quiet. It was a comfortable silence as Ella held my hand and sang softly to the songs piping through my stereo system. It reminded me how much I looked forward to plugging in my earbuds and working in my garage later. Ella kept pushing me to fix Fire so we could take her for a ride.

My parents were out of town for the weekend and Ella planned on staying the night. And it felt so damn good to have her with me.

As I pulled in the driveway of the cemetery, I inhaled a deep breath. I knew the section and lot number, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the patches of grass would have filled in around his plot and the tree planted near it would’ve grown taller.

“Do you want me to wait in the car for a bit to give you time to yourself?” Ella asked. I wanted to say, No, please, I need you. But the fact of the matter was that I did need to do this by myself.

She traced her thumb across the inside of my wrist, over the tattoo I’d gotten from Bennett at Raw Ink the weekend before. It was simplistic—a baseball with Sebastian’s number 7 inked inside. But it was a huge and powerful step for me—to acknowledge him in a way that hadn’t brought forth a tremendous amount of guilt.

This was getting easier. Better. I was finally able to breathe more freely.

I nodded. “Give me a ten-minute head start.”

As soon as I saw his name imprinted in the stone along with his birth and death dates, my legs practically gave way. It all came rushing back to me, and I heard a roaring in my eardrums that ended up being my own heartbeat.

I remembered how they’d lowered his casket into the ground to be sealed for eternity and how the very idea of that had been staggering. Now I sank to the ground and allowed all of the memories to flood my brain.

How none of my classmates seemed to be able to make eye contact with me that day. Maybe they sympathized or even pitied me. And they should have, because I was pretty damned pitiful. I was lost and broken and hadn’t even known how I’d get through the rest of the day.

The rest of any day going forward.

“Bastian, I loved you like a brother,” I told him. “I’m so sorry. So damn sorry that you’re not here anymore. And for as long as I live I will never forget you—you’ll always be with me.”

Shudders rolled up my back and pulsed through my shoulders until all of that emotion transformed itself into ugly sobbing. My whole body shook as I remembered everything.

Every damn thing. Just like Ella had encouraged me to do.

“But I’ve got to move on. If anything, to honor you,” I panted out. “Because right now, I’m just doing whatever it takes to get by.”

I placed my head in my hand and rocked forward. “It’s fucking hard trying to be you. But you were good at it, Bastian. And I need to get better at being my own damn self.”

I felt Ella’s heat behind me, so I tugged her onto my lap, encircled her in my arms, and held her tightly against me. “Thank you,” I said against her ear, more than once.

I felt Ella’s tears dripping onto the back of my hands, her gaze fixed solidly on Sebastian’s grave.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” she whispered. “For bringing Quinn into my life.”