we never discuss it at the dinner table. “I bet she could sort that out, and we’ll cover the expenses.”
“Yeah.” I snort. “Good luck getting her to accept that. Alright.” Stifling a yawn, I push up to the edge of the couch and groan. “I have to go find her before she steals your car or some shit.”
“You want us to leave?” Mom straddles a line between hurt and practicality. “Will you come over to the house tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I think we need some quiet time, but I’ll try and get her to visit tomorrow.” Then I look to Bean. “I might have more luck getting her to Ellie’s.”
“She’s been watching our classes.”
I smile. “How can you know?”
Bean shrugs. “I don’t know how she does it, but Soph has this way of sending a session straight to Quinn without anyone else seeing it. And Quinn doesn’t know it’s only for her. She just assumes it’s a regular recording. But every single day, every time, we could tell that she was logged in and watching.”
“That’s nice.” I take Bean’s hand as I stand, and pull her up with me. “I like that she had that, even if she didn’t realize it. I’ll try and tempt her over to the studio tomorrow.”
“What’s the plan?” Mom asks. “You’re just gonna… like… pretend that this is her life now?”
I switch out Bean for my mom, and pull her into a hug. “For right now, the plan is to bunker down and stay out of the way. Soph is helping Will, so once they fix that problem, Will can come here, and Quinn can make her choices. In the meantime, my job is to keep her on this side of the country and away from all of that bullshit over there.”
About ten minutes after Quinn dashed out of my living room and away from my family, I lead them outside and say goodbye. My mom wants to go back inside and find Quinn, to become the mom, to hug and fuss, and probably feed her, since that’s what she does. But she acknowledges that Q is scared, that she’s in hiding, and that she’s proud. So after another round of hugs and promises to see each other tomorrow, my family heads out, and I turn back to the house with Giselle standing right beside me.
It’s where she always is. Where she wants to be.
She’s my princess, my high-maintenance, two-hundred-pound house guest who really does like the quiet. It’s not surprising to me that she gravitated toward Lyss’ home while I was gone.
Heading back inside, I hold the door open for Giselle – her royal highness – and then I head toward the kitchen.
Empty.
I duck into the laundry.
Empty.
And then I open my back door and check the porch chairs.
Empty.
Frowning, I start up the stairs toward the second story and look into the rooms, and as each space I check comes up empty, my heart pounds faster. I know she’s a runner, and I know she’s proud, but she wouldn’t have run yet, right? She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye…
Right?
Fuck. That’s exactly what I told her she’d need to do.
I check one spare bedroom, then the next. I check the bathroom – empty – then move into my bedroom and feel an odd mix of homecoming and dread. Homecoming, because I’m dying to sleep in my own bed again. But dread, because she’s not here.
There isn’t a single clue that she even walked in here. There are no discarded shoes, no socks, no bra that she wanted to peel away, and no missing baubles that she wanted to pick up and look at.
Just as I’m turning to leave, and preparing for a run through the forest in search, I catch a soft whisper on the air.
Giselle hears it too, because her ears perk up, and her nose shoots into the air.
The carpet in here is lush and thick, so it muffles the sound of my footsteps as I approach the mirrored closet. Stopping against the wall, I frown and wait.
“I miss you, Will. I miss you so much that it makes me sick.”
He obviously says something, because she goes quiet for a moment. But she breaks the silence with, “I know I was mad at you. I’m still kinda pissed. But the further away we drove, the more I missed you. Not even being pissed outweighs how much I miss you.”
More silence, as I slide down the wall and sit on the floor just a foot away from