Quinn walked down the path quickly and deliberately, slamming his feet down onto the gravel one after the other with a satisfying, deliberate crunch. Light from the moon and the stars shone through the tree tops. The real moon, the real stars, he marveled briefly.
He was going to do this, he repeated to himself, over and over again, words of reassurance, encouragement and determination tumbling around in his head. He had to do this, had to, because it was right and because he owed this to Edilio, owed it to himself.
Over the past year Quinn had slowly come to the realization that had driven him here in the first place; he was done with his own bullshit. The people around him had certainly had their fair share as well.
Life was not the same as it used to be, not even in the slightest, regardless of how desperately Quinn wished it so. Gone were the days of ignorant bliss, of isolating the minor imperfections of his pampered existence and painting them as actual problems, satisfying a very human need to complain. Life in the FAYZ was an endless cycle of actual, tangible, harmful, perilous complications. Dangers that actually qualified as problems. However, this fact in and of itself was not one that had been difficult at all to realize. A life lived consistently in fear of death was not easily misinterpreted.
The thing that had taken Quinn so many months to realize was that the way of coping with this new existence was not to play victim and wallow in self pity. It was not to use the unjust nature of his new world as an excuse to bitch and moan. It was not to give in and sit in the corner hoping for divine intervention because things weren't fair
And the solution most certainly wasn't to shit all over the ethnicity and social class of a guy who had (what do you know) actually had his priorities straight from day one.
No, there were better methods of coping with his new world. For one thing, Quinn had to find something to do, something that he could do and should because it was productive. For Quinn, this had proven to be fishing. Not only was it vastly more productive than bitching and wallowing, but the mere thought of it brought a warm smile to his face. Fishing was his, his idea, his command, his duty, his role. It was hard work. However, it was worth it. It was routine, it was important, it was simple and it was a way to spend each day knowing the time hadn't been wasted.
Being a racist asshole was none of these things. So Quinn was going to apologize to Edilio, tonight.
Part of him nagged that it was an infantile notion, this apology. His actions in the beginning were irrelevant at this point, weren't they? He knew he had been wrong, he had changed, and the people who mattered most had forgiven him. Quinn had even forgiven himself at this point, more or less. He had moved on. Edilio certainly had more important things to worry about than some petty apology from some asshole for being mean to him last year. It wasn't like there had even been a friendship to salvage.
But still, in spite of everything, this one regret of his many stood out from the rest. For whatever unknown reason, remembering this of all things made him feel just as ill as the others, except this was worse. This wore his conscience raw because of the blatantly simple yet unsatisfied possibility of making amends. There was little Quinn could do to make up for his betrayal of Sam that hadn't already been done in the form of apology, nothing he could do to make up for his prior uselessness that wasn't already embodied in his fishing. Yet here was this one simple apology that had been left unsaid. And that was driving Quinn completely insane.
So here he was, taking advantage of his so-called business trip to Tramonto Lake, trudging down a dirt path through the veil of night, making his way to a trailer to apologize to a kid who probably didn't give two shits either way.
As Quinn neared his destinations (according to the directions Sam had given him) his gut began to clench and doubt bore down on his mind.
Why are you even bothering with this?
Your opinions don't matter to him.
He probably doesn't even remember you.
Wow, you're such a hero, aren't you, apologizing for being mean like a good boy.
He's just going to laugh in your face.
You're making a fool out of yourself.
This is going to be so awkward and you know it.
Quinn clenched his jaw and tried, unsuccessfully, to clear his mind. His pace was quick and firm, determination evident in his step. His heart began thumping in his ears as he neared the trailer he was looking for. He took his time inspecting it from a safe distance, making himself as painstakingly sure as he possibly could that is was the one Sam had described. He felt sick to his stomach.
This shouldn't be so hard for you Quinn thought. This shouldn't even matter. But then, the fact that he was there in the first place was probably evidence enough that it did.
He reached the trailer door, steeled himself quickly, and knocked.
After a few seconds, the door opened to reveal a long-haired kid that Quinn couldn't recall ever having seen before. Quinn panicked briefly, irrationally, thinking that he had found the wrong trailer, before realizing that it was likely just shared. Sure enough, a moment later a familiarly accented voice came from deeper inside the trailer.
"Damn it Roger, I told you not to answer the door at night, it's not safe to just-"
Edilio walked up to the door frame and froze. The machine gun he was holding distracted Quinn from the dumbfounded look that had crossed the boy's face. For a moment the three of them just stood there in a kind of shocked silence.
Edilio broke the silence. "What do you want?"
Roger shot him a slightly appalled look, not accustomed to his companion acting in such a manner. Edilio found that any regret for his harsh reaction was practically nonexistent. The sight of Quinn made him feel wildly, inexplicably, irrationally… defensive, to say the least.
"Um…" Even something as simple as Quinn's nervous stammer made Edilio seethe. The guy had no problem being a dick, but apparently providing a civilized response to a question was beyond his capabilities? "I was kind of hoping I could talk to you? It's kind of important- Well, not really, but… Well, it's important. Do you mind if I come in?"
Edilio would have said no. Quinn pissed him off, and (never for confrontation), Edilio wasn't normally one to interact with people who made him angry unless it was beneficial or necessary. Letting Quinn into his trailer was neither. But Edilio found that he didn't actually want Quinn to leave. There was some twisted part of him that actually wanted this scenario to play out. So without a word, he rested his gun on his shoulder and stepped out of the doorway.
After a moment of uncertainty, Quinn walked up the foldable steps and into the trailer. "Um, Edilio" Roger asked uncertainly "Do you know him?"
"I'm Quinn" Quinn clarified. "We know each other from the first few weeks of the FAYZ. Sort of."
"Oh." Roger said uncertainly. "Um, I'm Roger. We, um-"
"Roger's my boyfriend" Edilio interrupted rudely, abruptly.
Roger's expression went from startled to annoyed in a matter of seconds. The dumb shock that spread across Quinn's face only proved to make Edilio angrier, and Roger's irritation made Edilio regret the disclosure even more. He had no right to violate his and Roger's agreement to keep their relationship private, especially just to gain the childish satisfaction of being brazen with Quinn. It didn't matter if Edilio didn't care what Quinn thought, because maybe Roger did. Before Edilio could apologize, however, Roger spoke up, this time with more confidence, and an unmistakably sarcastic overtone.
"Well, I'll leave you two to your little discussion. Good night, babe"
With that he turned and walked into the bedroom, sliding the door shut behind him. Edilio sighed and returned his gun to its home on top of the refrigerator, the only place in the trailer where the kids were sure not to be able to reach it. He sat down at the kitchen table. Quinn seemed to take this as an invitation to follow suit, which pushed Edilio's seething irritation over the edge in a crude, irrational way.
"Look, man. I don't know why you hate me, I don't know why you're an asshole and I don't know why you're here. But if those three things are related in any way, you can just leave now because I have more important things to do than listen to you shit on me for being a Mexican faggot or whatever."
Edilio instantly felt that he had probably gone too far. The words had sounded so ridiculously justified in his head, for all the brief thought he had actually given them. Quinn's wounded look didn't anger Edilio this time. If anything it just made him feel like Edilio was the one who deserved to be chewed out and ridiculed. Which was wrong, wasn't it? Quinn deserved this, didn't he?
After Quinn took a few seconds to recover, he started stammering again. Damn it, couldn't he just- "Actually, I, um, came here to apologize."
Edilio's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. He immediately regretted being so rude, and felt vaguely like crawling under the table in shame. But is wasn't fair, was it? The sight of Quinn had immediately dredged up an old misery that had with time grown into a childish victim complex, and eventually anger. He had finally decided to stand up for himself, that's all, and all of the sudden Quinn chooses now to be nice?
"You're right, I was an asshole, and I'm really sorry. I don't know why I… I think it's just, you… you were dealing with it, and I wasn't, and I couldn't handle that I guess."
Edilio just stared dumbly across the table for a few seconds, sweaty hands clenched tightly in his lap under the table. He couldn't really bring himself to respond to that. Not that he even had a response in the first place. Quinn apparently took this silence as a bad sign. He started babbling.
"I know it's probably not important. I just had to come down to the lake for some fishing stuff and I figured while I was here I might as well stop by. It was probably a bad idea. Well, um, I mean, no, it wasn't. I really just had to apologize…" Quinn trailed off nervously.
Now it was Edilio's turn to stammer. "Um… thanks, man. It's cool I guess. Don't worry about it. I'm glad you came down here." Apologize apologize apologize. The words were in his throat, but he remained silent nonetheless.
Quinn flashed a brief, polite smile. "Well, uh… Thanks Edilio. That means a lot. I should get going."
Edilio nodded quickly, then stood and followed Quinn to the door. He felt horribly unsettled as he saw Quinn out. He closed the door, rested his back against it and took a minute to breathe. He felt horrible, and he wasn't exactly sure why. It would have been so much easier if Quinn had just… What had Edilio expected him to do anyway? Waltz up to his trailer in the middle of the night after a year and hurl childish insults? That made no sense. Edilio hadn't thought this through, but then how could he have been expected too, with the visit being as random as it had been?
Somehow the roles felt reversed. Now Edilio was the one who felt the need to walk fifteen miles to Perdido Beach and say that he was sorry. Sorry for throwing up a wall of defense and lashing out when all Quinn had wanted to do was apologize, for God's sake.
But why should it matter anyway? Quinn and Edilio had never been friends. They had just been childishly hostile to each other for a few weeks the year before, with Edilio on the receiving end. This shouldn't matter to him, so why did it?
Edilio sighed and walked over to the bedroom. He opened the door slowly and sat on the edge of the bed with caution, painfully aware of mattress creaking under his weight. Roger was curled up on his side facing away from Edilio. He said nothing.
"I'm sorry." Edilio tried gingerly. Roger rolled over to face him.
"Mind telling me who it was that felt the need to knock on our door in the middle of the night to have a conversation with you?"
"That was Quinn Gaither. He was a friend of Sam's before the FAYZ, and we kind of butt heads in the beginning. He came down here from the town for some business and decided to apologize." Roger looked skeptical, so Edilio continued. "I know it sound weird, I was surprised too. But I swear I'm not lying to you, okay? And I'm really sorry I told him about us. I wasn't thinking, I just… I'm sorry."
Roger sighed and tugged Edilio onto the bed by his arm. "Alright, fine. Just don't do it again, okay? But don't think we aren't talking about this in the morning. I'm hoping you can give me a better explanation for your creepy midnight conversations with random people you met last year."
Edilio chuckled half-heartedly. Roger was usually quick to forgive, trusting despite all he and everyone else in the FAYZ had been through. Roger and Edilio often acted like a married couple with children, which, when you considered Justin and Atria, was startlingly close to what they actually were. They were a broken yet loving, entirely unconventional family. Comprised entirely of children, a family with no blood relations, they filled the gaps left behind in their lives with each other. They were a puzzle made of pieces that weren't made to fit, but somehow did anyway. Then again, in a world where so little made sense, the incomprehensible thrived. Maybe being more than a little bit odd was what made it all work out.
Edilio was kept awake that night by an inexplicable desire to walk to Perdido Beach that turned out to be stronger than he had originally anticipated.
As Edilio finally dozed off to sleep some three hours later, it occurred to him that he and Quinn hadn't even bothered to shake hands.
Quinn's head reeled as he walked back to town with Jonas and Elise. He mostly ignored their conversation, which consisted of meaningless jest and remarks on the equipment trade-off they had gone to the lake for in the first place. Quinn would throw in the occasional chuckle or comment when it felt necessary, but he was distracted.
He wished it had gone differently, almost to the point of wishing he hadn't gone in the first place. He wasn't satisfied with his apology, wished he had said something more meaningful. Of course his visit was going to mean as little as he had feared it would if he allowed it too, wasn't it?
Perhaps the thing that bothered Quinn most, however, wasn't the visit itself. It was Roger.
Actually, the only thing that distressed him more than Roger was that Roger distressed him so much. It shouldn't matter at all to him that Edilio had a boyfriend. But then, every few minutes, the thought that Edilio had a boyfriend was at the forefront of his mind again. It was odd, and it was disquieting. The thought of Roger shouldn't have irritated Quinn, Quinn wasn't homophobic. But then that wasn't even the kind of anger he was feeling.
If Quinn had to be completely, utterly and truly honest with himself, the hollow feeling that nestled itself in the pit of his stomach whenever the thought came about was one of sorrow. Maybe even… No. He wouldn't allow himself to think like that.
Quinn trudged through the deep FAYZ night, his ears roaring with words left unsaid and emotions hiding themselves away in the recesses of shame.
At some point during the early hours of the morning, just when Quinn thought maybe his mind had been tortured enough and was moving on to other things, he realized something that made his heart sink. He hadn't even bothered to shake Edilio's hand.