The Main Character

Chapter 10

It was a grey and rainy day. The type of day when you roll over in bed, having heard your alarm, and decide to stay put. That is precisely what Quinn had done. Until he heard his doorbell ring he had not moved at all. It was MC. She thought she would try and talk to Quinn in person since she had something to say to him. She wanted to apologize. But honestly, she probably would not. Neither would he. In fact, neither knew what to expect from the coming interaction. An odd fact since MC was the one who was initiating it. MC had changed clothes to make her apology which was weird because she generally did not care what she was wearing when she saw Quinn. This time she did, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. She wasn’t going to magically trick him into thinking she was more attractive than she was by putting on eyeliner one time. She was frustrated with herself at how juvenile she was acting. While she waited for Quinn she fiddled with the fabric of her floor-length dress. It was a soft white cotton that mopped up the sweat that was building on her fingertips.

In the moments between ringing the doorbell and Quinn answering the door MC was reminded that she should have gone to the bathroom before she came down. This line of thinking and the amount of space between Quinn’s current spot in his bed and the door gave MC enough time to dwell on the fact that she had had four cups of tea while she was not sketching. She was nervous. She had no idea what she was going to say and she had to pee. Quinn opened the door. She expected him to speak first as he did her. Eventually he just moved aside and let her through his doorway. Both of them felt the heat of each other’s gaze as well as the dull throbbing pain of panicked uncertainty.

At last MC broke the silence. In the worst way possible. “How’d your date go?”

“What?” Quinn was immediately and rightfully insulted by the connotation attached to the question. “Yeah, we went out.”

MC could tell by his tone that this was not a topic that was going to be further elaborated on. She stretched her mind to picture a future, seconds from now, where she said something that would put tensions to rest. All she could manage was ‘I have to pee’. “Will you come by for a movie this week?” That would have been better. As she shuffled to his bathroom she could hear him sigh loudly and disappointedly.

Once she came out of the bathroom the silence only continued. Now Quinn was leaning with his back against his refrigerator. He looked at her quizzically and expectantly. She waited too long to say anything so Quinn took her silence to mean that she wanted him to apologize. That, or that her bathroom was broken in some way but she was too childish to say. He was the landlord after all, it was his job to fix anything that broke in her apartment. Or, get it fixed. He was useless with tools. That was the thing about those two. They had been friends for so long they had mastered the art of communication. That is, when they were actually talking. When they tried to read each other’s minds, they got into trouble. He just wanted to keep her ‘safe and dry’ as he said. She knew he did not want to make her upset, and he knew she would not do that to him either.

Both detected an anxiety in the air that they both mistook for hostility; neither wanted to speak and make it worse. Ultimately, they ended up in bed together. Again. If things weren’t a mess before they were now. MC could sense the danger in the situation like frequenting a small book store. The excitement in the novelty of the exploration is dulled with each passing visit. The more you go, the less there is to explore. Quinn was less pessimistic about the whole thing. He did no regret it at all. Neither did she.

It was still unclear if anything was forgiven or if anyone had apologized. Either way, everything was perfect.