fckkailee:
the sudden shift in his tone caused her to stiffen. “i-i had hoped you would feel it was worth it too. if it was too much, you could have told me at any point. i would have left you alone if that’s what you wanted – if that’s what you needed.” she shook her head. “you have no idea how much i’ve thought about skye through all of this. i would never ever ever do anything to hurt her. you know that. you fucking know that. i would do absolutely anything for that little girl. i wanted to make amends. with you, with her. i know you don’t trust that i wouldn’t leave, and that’s why you won’t let me see her. i completely understand and respect that but i would never ever leave her. no matter what happens between you and i.”
he was right. having luke inside quinn’s apartment had felt wrong, like he didn’t belong. she was sure that to quinn, it felt like rubbing it in his face. “i didn’t know it was your house or your party! i would never intend to do that. by the time i realized, were we supposed to leave and explain to everyone why we were leaving immediately after arriving? i certainly didn’t want to get into that, did you?”
kailee didn’t dare move, wanting to savour his small touches for as long as she could. she met his last statement with silence. she had tried to explain herself to him in the past, and why she had done what she did. it may have come off sounding like an excuse, though she didn’t mean it that way. kailee knew she fucked up, she knew everything that happened between them was her fault and she took ownership of that. she simply wanted him to understand where her head had been, the pressure she felt at school, how homesick she was, how drunk she was, how much the long distance killed her, how much she needed him close to her, to comfort her, but he wasn’t there so she settled for the boy who was. but he could never fathom it. she wasn’t going to try again.
after a long silence, kailee lifted both of her palms and rested them over his heart. “let me patch that hole, and heal it so it doesn’t ache anymore.” it was at this moment that her eyes fluttered open, looking up through her lashes for his reaction.
Quinn said nothing when she told him she would have respected his boundary if he had expressed it. That would have been the right course of action from the beginning. As soon as the disaster of a dinner party at his apartment had ended and everyone went their respective ways Quinn should have reached out to Kailee and respectfully asked her to keep her space. New York was big enough for them to live in the same city and never see each other again if needed.
But Quinn was stupid, and the wound that was left unattended while they were apart never healed and her stepping back into his life made him forget it was even there to begin with. He was weak, and part of him felt like he still needed her and as a result he made a bad choice. So instead of trying to interject with a counter argument that would unjustly leave the blame planted on her shoulders he held his tongue and let her continue. “That bridge has been burned regardless of whether you left or not. “ Quinn said quietly. Oddly enough this wasn’t a moment where he was trying to make her feel worse, it was just a simple fact that they both needed to acknowledge regardless of where they were at in their relationship. Quinn was going to protect Skye as best as he could so yes, he was going to prevent the two from seeing each other for as long as necessary, but even if he allowed Kailee spend time with her that was a relationship that she and his daughter would need to mend on their own.
Quinn’s jaw set as he tried to level his frustrations. It was difficult but the last thing they needed was for him to go off again. Kailee’s words still managed to strike a nerve and while his voice was slowly leveling his words were still sharp. “ Yes, that is exactly what you should have done, fake an emergency…..you’re really goig to try and play it off as if the end results of that night were the better option as opposed to just leaving from the start?” His patience was wearing thin as his mind travelled to that night and landed on the sudden thought that Luke knew exactly who he was, came into his home and also decided to stay. Quinn’s stomach flopped, in all his moments of thinking back on that night all he could think of was Amber’s meltdown and ow much he had missed Kailee, but now that he was alert to his true emotions he was seeing it in a new light. Kailee wasn’t the only one who decided to stay that night. Luke seemed just as content at staying all the way to the end and thinking on it now Quinn could only imagine how much fun he must have had, flaunting his victory over Kailee in Quinn’s own home while his girlfriend broke down. He felt like a fool.
As her palms found their way to his chest the beat of his heart increased. His body was reacting with longing, missing her touch and wanting to find its way back to hers despite his mind’s current state of racing with anger and pain. He found himself moving his hands from her hips, up the sides of her body slowly, wanting so badly to give into her words and make a bad decision. Quinn let the palms of his own hands stop once they were laying over hers and was about to wrap his fingers around hers when he felt it.
The cool metal and the soft indentation of the stone’s setting grazed his skin and Quinn’s whole body stiffened. Suddenly the words that left her mouth were just that, words. She would never be able to heal the deep laceration she had left in his heart and life, let alone while wearing the ring that belonged to another man. He suddenly felt cold stone sober and knew what his decision needed to be. Maybe it was his lingering anger, or he had finally come to terms with the fact that they would never go back to once they once were;but the chouce was clear and he was ready to make it. She already made him look like a fool twice and wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of letting her pull him back into a mess that would only leave him more heartbroken than before. “Kailee” He finished wrapping his hands around hers. “I wish you never came back into my life…” He said bitterly as he gently pushed her away from him, “Heck, at this point I wish you never came into my life at all.” The words surprised him but once they were in the air he knew he meant them. He walked around her and headed towards the door, knowing he needed to leave the room as quickly as possible if he wanted to avoid changing his mind. Once he got there he opened it quickly but paused for a moment. “ I need you to stay away from me.” Quinn left before she could respond. He didn’t go back to work, he just kept walking until he was completely out of the building. In that moment he was sure he never wanted to see her again.











