[or, three times quinn falls in love with rachel (even more). a little angst, a lot of fluff.]
we come to grips with our wrists (we come to sound with our mouths)
.
i watch her eat the apple,/ carve it to the core, and set it, wobbling/ on the table—/ a broken bell i beg to wrap my red skin around/ until there is no apple,/ there is only this woman/ who is a city of apples,/ there is only me licking the juice/ from the streets of her palm./ if there is a god of fruit or things devoured,/ and this is all it takes to be beautiful,/ then God, please/ let/ eat another apple/ tomorrow.
—natalie diaz, 'i watch her eat the apple'
…
one
Your hands start to shake. Your ring finger, to be more precise, on your right hand, in the middle of AP English 11 while you're doodling marginalia in your copy of The Great Gatsby. You try to tell yourself excuses, try to say it's because you don't eat enough, because you didn't have enough water, you had too much coffee, you're just tired.
It isn't the first time you've had to lie so much, though, because Rachel is sitting next to you, and she sounds so hopeful when she talks about Gatsby and Daisy—she calls her "vapid" but underneath it all you know Rachel wants them to be happy together. You know she hasn't seen the films or read the book before and you think she might've missed your Modernist background lecture when she broke her nose—because she thinks this happy ending could happen.
It's intoxicating, the way this relentless optimism fills her, and it always has been to you. She smells nice, like grapefruit and jasmine, and her arm brushes against yours while she's shifting her notebook and she quickly apologizes quietly, smiles when you say, "Don't worry about it," in a softer manner than you ever intended.
Your skin throbs and stings where it'd touched hers, and for the briefest moment you wonder what she would taste like if you kissed her, so your hands shake when you look down at your worn, dog-eared copy—you read it for the first time when you were eleven because Frannie was reading it at the time—and you take a deep breath and write i love you very small in the margin. Your chest aches and pounds. Rachel doesn't look over and you scribble it out quickly and harshly, so that it presses into the pages following.
This is the first time you've told the truth, but you figure it doesn't matter: you're tired of green light and you don't understand palimpsests yet but you do understand that a self-completing narrative can only end in one way, and you've always known how this story plays out.
.
two
She gets home in the evening and drops a quick kiss to the top of your head with a, "Hi, sweetheart," before running her hand through your hair for a second. You hum something like a hello but you're in the middle of an email to Spencer about a new Muñoz paper you want to teach in your queer theory seminar.
Rachel stalks off when you don't look up, and she puts the West Side Story soundtrack on as loudly as your record player will allow. You're in your second year of your program at Columbia, and she's in the middle of an insanely grueling show schedule, so you sigh once for patience and then walk out from your office into the living room and ask, "Can you turn that down?"
She turns around quickly from where she's watering the small plants she keeps trying to grow, stands up as tall as she can, puts the watering can down with far more force than necessary. "So you can talk to Spencer?"
"Rachel," you try.
"So you can laugh with Spencer about this poem and that one time at Yale and ask about the merits of her new favorite theorist and whether or not she likes your haircut and—"
"—We don't—"
"I know you do, Quinn, I know you do, because I might not be as smart as you and Spencer fucking Hastings with your pretty stupid diplomas but I'm not stupid."
She takes a breath and you think she might be done. This is the first fight you've ever really had about Spencer, and you know Rachel is really just tired—you've never done anything that even nears being unfaithful, so when she starts ranting about goddamn metalepsis and your new bangs that obviously Spencer convinced you to get because you hate having bangs (the latter part is true, but you always seem to think you might like them every few years) and that stupid game you're always playing on your phone that Spencer recommended, you just let her. She's animated and she'd showered after her show, so she doesn't have any makeup on, her hair is curling, and she's in one of your big sweatshirts from college—and you realize she's jealous. It should annoy you, maybe, or make you feel insecure about how well you love her, but it doesn't.
"I'm in love with you," you say, calmly and surely, in the middle of a drawn-out sentence about your Netflix profile.
She pauses and glares at you. "You're a published writer, Quinn. That's it?"
You fight the urge to smile, because her cheeks have turned pink and she's dragging a hand through her hair in frustration, and it's cute and sexy at once. You shrug. "I love a lot of people, Rachel."
She goes to speak and you raise an eyebrow, and you've gone to enough therapy with each other that she backs down and lets you continue.
"And you love a lot of people, too, which is one of the most incredible things about you, because you value people, because you try to find the things about them that are important and stupid and beautiful, and you do it so patiently. And Spence? She's engaging and brilliant and she doesn't take me seriously at all, and that's just weirdly important to me, okay?"
She's deflating, you can tell, because her shoulders are starting to slump and she tangles your fingers with hers.
"But, Rachel, my hands still shake," you say, "when I think about not getting to be with you. I don't have big pretty words for you and I can't language you because that's the point. So: I'm in love with you, only you. That's the best I've got."
She shakes her head and then puts her hands on either side of your face and tugs you down for a kiss. "I feel like such an asshole," she says against your lips.
You laugh, kiss her again. "It was kind of cute. Flattering, too."
She rolls her eyes and reaches under your tshirt, scratches her nails gently down your entire back while you tangle your hands in her hair.
You end up in your bedroom because there never was a different narrative you never could've dreamed up: there was never any green light; there was only miles of open sea that learned to want the city.
.
three
You're in the middle of drunkenly trying to explain the subject of your latest paper—which essentially boils down to the brilliance of the musical episode of Grey's Anatomy—to Hiram and Leroy, which they're laughing at because you've shared far too much wine for any real coherence at this point, when Rachel walks into the kitchen again. You just finished an exhausting semester but you signed your contract at Columbia for an associate professorship, and Rachel wrapped filming for a miniseries earlier in the week, so you're taking a few weeks out of your summer to visit your respective families. Rachel's dads moved to a sleepy town in Vermont, so it's close and their house is warm and by this point you've been given more love from them than you imagined possible—you and Rachel have been married almost two years, and, most days, you are by far the opposite of lonely.
But right now Rachel is twisting her hands in the bottom of her sweater, and you realize she'd been gone from the kitchen longer than you realized. "I hate when you talk about that stupid episode," she mumbles, and you squint at her.
"What's wrong?" you ask, stand unsteadily from your barstool and rub your hands over her upper arms.
"It's just—you weren't there, when you—it's close, okay?"
"Oh," you say. "I—"
She shakes her head. "It's fine, you're drunk." She straightens up a bit and then says, "I told you to stop getting my wife drunk."
Hiram and Leroy laugh loudly, and you never wonder where Rachel got so much of her joy from.
"We love Quinn, honey," Hiram says, motioning for you to come sit back down at the counter. "It just makes us feel old when you call her your wife."
Rachel rolls her eyes and swishes the wine in her glass around but doesn't drink, and as she leans into your side lightly you try to remember if she'd had any wine tonight. Or a few nights before.
Before you even get to say anything, though, you feel Rachel take a deep breath and then ask, "Would it make you feel even older to know you're going to be grandparents?"
You almost drop your glass of wine and you look at Hiram and Leroy for a moment to make sure you aren't just drunkenly dreaming this up, but you had been trying, and Rachel was a few days late, and you turn to her and ask, "Really?"
She starts to cry and nods and says, "I just took five pregnancy tests," with a little laugh and then you kiss her. Leroy and Hiram rush over to give you both hugs, and you all end up crying and laughing at once. Your hands shake because you're absolutely terrified, but you're also blissfully happy, and Rachel tangles your fingers as Hiram and Leroy start suggesting names and where you should register for the shower they just have to throw you, and Rachel smiles in amusement when they move to the living room to start planning better.
"I'm gonna be a mom," you whisper when you're situated on the couch.
She doesn't miss the importance there, and she kisses the side of your head and says, "You're going to be a mom, sweetheart."
You squeeze her hand and lean your head against her shoulder. You always fall asleep when you get drunk and tonight isn't much different, so you feel yourself starting to nod off. "You gotta tell me again when I'm sober, okay?"
Rachel's gentle giggle jostles your head lightly and she says, "Sure thing, baby."
"I love you so," you say, then put your hand gently against her stomach, even though you know the baby isn't even a baby yet. But you've loved that child for the longest time, and you bend down a little and say, "I love you too," before cuddling into Rachel.
You hear her sniffle and she rubs your back to reassure you that she's just full. "We love you too, Quinn," she says, and you fall asleep quickly, without nightmares, because you work against archival, because you've come to terms with voltas and becomings, because you don't believe in endings anyway.