Chapter 2 – Rewrite
He knew he needed to buy a new car when he crashed it into a pole last year. The bumper was smashed and the front lights only worked if he banged them with a baseball bat before he got into it. It was a 1994 land rover which he had gotten it for a steal at an auction nearly eight years ago, and he loved it. He loved it so much that he refused to let nearly anyone else drive it. It was his second baby and he liked to think he had a connection to the car that ran deeper than just steel and man. This car held so many memories for him.
Fragments of memories came back to him all at once as he drove down the highway towards the town. Excitement of finally being free to go where ever he wanted, loving warnings from his mother out the passenger window to be safe, nervous smiles on a first date, laughter as she tried, unsuccessfully, to climb over the console into his lap and trying to drive as slow as he could to make sure he didn't hit any pot-holes the first day they brought the tiniest and most precious thing in their lives home.
Quinn tried to push them memories away nearly as fast as they emerged. They all led to the same place. Pain.
Everyone had told Quinn he was too young to get married. How could he possibly know what he wanted for the rest of his life when he was only nineteen years old, so young and inexperienced in the world. His mother had begged him to just wait until he was even legally allowed to drink before he made a lifelong commitment to a girl he had only met a year prior.
But Quinn had convinced himself that they just didn't understand. How could they possibly understand?
Rebecca was the first person who didn't look at him like he was damaged goods. She didn't ask questions like, "How did you survive that place?" or say outlandish statements like "You must consider yourself really lucky to be alive". What kind of question is that? Of course, he considered himself lucky, but only as lucky as a person who survives a motor accident does. It was a disaster, he could disagree, but it was a disaster he had been ready to let go of the second it ended and was met with a world who wanted to relive It ever second of every day.
Except her.
She didn't want to grill him or make money off him or manipulate him. She just wanted to be with him and experience him for who he really was. She asked questions like "What do you want to achieve in life?" and the only outlandish statement she ever made was her declaration of love for him that Quinn could just not believe.
The whirlwind that was their relationship seemed to just keep giving and giving. One year turned into a proposal, a proposal turned into a wedding, wedding turned into marriage and finally marriage turned into something that even Quinn didn't expect this fast. Parenthood.
No matter what become of his marriage and relationship with Rebecca, Greg, his now five-year-old son, would be the shining light that continued to make his life worth it.
Quinn decided to direct his attention to that very thought.
He thought about how excited his meek voice was on the phone last night when he told him he would be there to collect him from school.
"No way. Really?" He had asked over the line at a time far too late for him to be awake.
"Yeah mate, you better be ready for all the fun we are going to have."
"Can we go to the park straight after school?"
Quinn shook his head and laughed lightly as he sat in his cold and empty apartment, clinging onto every sound his son made, as if it was the only warmth that could heat the entire room. This wouldn't last long and he knew it, so he needed to take full advantage of every second of it.
"You bet pal, maybe we can even go to the movies if you're really, really good." He was met with a giggle that made Quinn's smile grow wider, if that was even possible.
"I'm always good!"
"That's my boy." He hesitated before speaking again, knowing he shouldn't make the comment but knowing he was going to do it anyway. "I hope you are good for your mum all the time too."
"Obviously!" Greg almost shouted back in a playful humour, but he was drowned out by a fit of awkward feminine coughing and then a string of light mumbles that Quinn couldn't quite make out, but knew what that they were once Greg let out an annoyed sigh and said, "Aw but I want to talk to daddy!"
"No Greg, your mum is right. It's way passed your bedtime too."
They hadn't actually spoken, they never did these days.
Greg said goodbye and had hung up the phone himself.
Yet, maybe that was exactly what they needed. Distance and time healed the heart, but Quinn couldn't stop the thought that it just made his grow founder.
Chocolate slime ran down the boy's chin and was dropping onto his hands, jumper and grey trousers. As Quinn looked down at the boy's school uniform, he noted to himself that the legs of the trousers were an inch or two too long for his son and he could see the slight tears that were appearing due to the fact that his shoes would constantly lean on them while walking. This reminded Quinn that although his son was nearly six years old, he was well below average height, just like his mother. However, if he got his height from his mother, he got nearly everything else from his father. His light brown hair, his chestnut brown eyes and even his overactive personality that Quinn had at that age, all came directly from his DNA.
It was one of the most fascinating things Quinn had ever seen. Seeing a person who is half of you, grown into a completely separate person. Of all the things he had seen in his life, this was defiantly the most magical.
They sat on a park bench in the California sun as Greg ate his ice cream and swung his little legs over the side. Quinn had pulled his sleeves up in an effort to protect the uniform from complete bombshell of Greg attempting to eat anything. However, as he started to lick the ice cream down to nothing, he persisted on stopping to talk every time he remembered something he hadn't told his dad yet. Which was a lot. This caused the treat to melt before Greg could even make a substantial effort to eat it, but Quinn couldn't find it in him to tell him to stop. He was completely transfixed on the boy as he excited told him details about his day to day life that Quinn found he knew little about.
The guilt that ripped through him at that realisation was heart wrenching for him.
He wanted to be there every day when he woke up, or when he got home from school, or when he needed to be held because a nightmare had scared him out of sleep.
But the simple fact was that he wasn't there, at least not anymore.
Rebecca had picked Greg up and moved him half way across the state in an effort to distance herself from him. That along with the bizarre visitation rights (or lack of) he was given, made it that Quinn was lucky is he saw Greg once every three weeks.
"And then I told him that my dad could kick his ass!" Greg said loudly with the sense of pride that poured out of him every time he spoke about his father, or more appropriately to him, his hero.
"Greg!" Quinn muttered lowly as he tried to keep the amusement out of his voice.
Fearing he had done something wrong, Greg immediately reacted with a defensive, "What?" Then quietly followed by "you could."
"I know but we shouldn't say it out loud."
This immediately returned the sharp smile to his son's face as Quinn finally decided to take the half-melted ice cream away from him and attempted to wipe the chocolate remnants that were smeared all over the young boy.
When he asked could he go back to the swings for a while, Quinn happily agreed and then watched his son run himself into exhaustion for another hour and half.
He'll sleep well tonight, Quinn thought to himself just before Greg tugged at his leg in a request to be carried. Before he had reached the car, he was passed out asleep with lose arms around his neck and his head on his shoulder. Quinn could feel soft snores on the side of his neck and he reached up to cradle a small head as he placed his son in the car seat that was securely strapped down into the back of the Land Rover.
Closing the door as lightly as he could as to not wake the sleeping child, Quinn noticed a flicker of white on the front windshield.
Damn it, Quinn thought. It must be a parking ticket.
