That was the thing about Quentin, though. He never did ask.
I dropped my arm and moved closer to him, lapping up his warmth as he pulled me into an embrace. With anyone else in the world, I would have felt an awkward inclination to speak, simply to fill the silence that filled the room. But with him, it was peaceful.
His breathing was steady, acting like a pace against which I matched my thoughts, as my muscles relaxed and slumped. Inhale. Exhale. The afternoon sunlight highlighted the floating particles of dust in the room, decorating my view like golden glitter falling out of nowhere.
"When I was little, I used to think those bits of dust were fairies," I said.
A soft hum came from inside his chest as he laughed the way he did when he found something intriguing. He seemed to carefully handle this information, as if he was not entirely sure what to think. "What made you stop believing?"
"I tried to catch them.” I smiled. He didn’t reply, and instead absentmindedly ran his finger across the shoulder of my checkered school dress. And in that moment, an overwhelming wave of sadness came over me. I realised that I would never get the chance to revisit this exact afternoon; that with every passing second, I was losing parts of myself to a whirlwind of oblivion. The loss of innocence was suddenly made aware to me in every breath I took. A warm tear slid down my cheek as I loosened myself from Quentin’s arms, desperately trying to contain the splutters and sharp breaths in my chest. “What are we doing, Quentin?” I whispered.
“What do you mean?” A look of concern was plastered on his face, culminating in furrowed brows and his searching eyes made serious by the situation.
I couldn’t look at him. Tears distorted my vision, blurring my perception of the peaceful, floating curtains. “Look at us. We’re in our school uniforms, for fuck’s sake. How are we going to survive out there, Quentin? I’m afraid. I don’t want to move on. I want to pack my lunch and go to school and complain about teachers and go to bed and wake up to do the exact same thing tomorrow. It’s all I know. I’m not ready.” My last three words were not shaky or spluttered. As I turned to Quentin upon saying them, I realised that they were determined.
“Kat. It’s life,” he said. He moved to clasp his hand around mine. I recoiled.
“That’s bullshit. That’s a bullshit answer. Look at our uniforms, look at the people who have signed them. You think this ink really means anything? Some of those people – that’s the last time we’ll see them for years. And you say it’s life? What have I done? What have I done in six years, Quentin? Have I wasted my time? They’re going to forget me and I’m just going to be another familiar face on the train, or someone they thought they knew when they were young. One day I’m going to forget everyone. I’m fucking getting old and I’m only eighteen.”
He sighed, perhaps hurt that I had not accepted his answer, or perhaps fed up with the way I was. As my skin absorbed the warmth of the afternoon, I couldn’t help but think about Quentin’s attempt to cast away the issue with those words. We had heard them so many times, sitting in plastic chairs onlooking a stage or the front of a classroom, where teachers and past students alike told us that these feelings were inevitable. That they were normal, even.
Quentin looked vulnerable. He was facing the ceiling now, and I wondered if he could see the spider. He avoided my gaze like I had only moments before; his eyes wistfully filled with the unmistakable sheen of tears. He gulped. Then, he said quietly, “I don’t know, Kat. I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know where I’m going – in one year or ten.”
I had never seen him break like that.
Something about the way this trembling moment hung in the air made me realise that our lives were on the brink of divergence, like two lines on a graph destined only to meet once. There was something pushing me – pushing and pushing and pushing until my mind had nowhere else to go. I wondered if that was the hand of fate urging me to open my eyes.
I tried not to choke on my emotions as I focused on feeling the soft cotton bed covers beneath me and drowning in the vague aroma of his faded cologne. I watched Quentin breathe as though there was now a weight on his chest, as if he too felt the pushing. Far away outside, there were cockatoos screeching in a kind of chaotic discord that was comforting. Gently, I asked, “What are you thinking about?”
He blinked and his face changed, like I had thrown a pebble into the still waters of his mind. He gulped, trying hard not to let himself cry in front of me. “How the future will change this – us. I used to feel so,”–he hesitated–“safe. Now I don’t even know how to make myself aware of what’s happening around me. It’s like I’m walking and stepping and – and breathing in a black room. I don’t recognise anything or anyone. It’s a constant limbo, and I just want to find an escape.”
“Quentin,” I started. His name quivered and rang in my ears like a pathetic precedent to the words to follow. But no words came. For once, I didn’t know how to fill this silence – this terrible, creeping silence present like a ghost in the room. And I feared that I would forever remember this day as the end to my bliss, golden memories of life as I’d known it all these years, reflected in the beautiful tones and smells of the world that afternoon. I feared the darkness of the future. ✦
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Image source: http://in-frame.tumblr.com/
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Image source: http://in-frame.tumblr.com/
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