Chapter 29: Nightmare
ARTIE
Artie was watching a gymnastics video– one of a young boy executing a flawless double-back dismount off of the high bar. It was a difficult skill, especially for someone as young as the kid in the video. After watching the video for a second time– trying to spot any mistakes– then a third, Artie turned the device off, setting it in his lap before glancing out the window. A shiver crept up Artie's spine as he recognized the feeling of déjà vu, but couldn't pinpoint where the sensation was coming from.
He was sitting in the back seat, he realized, which was strange in and of itself. They'd been sitting at a red stoplight, and once the light turned green, Artie suddenly remembered what came next in this sequence of events and why it felt so familiar.
"Mom!" he yelled, but it was too late.
Artie heard the sounds of someone laying on their car horn, followed by the shattering of glass and the scraping and crunching of metal. There was a flash of light and Artie got the sensation that he was falling. Right when he would have hit the ground, though, he woke up. His eyes snapped open as he shot up in bed.
"Ah!" Artie gasped, panting furiously as he tried to catch his breath. He concentrated on taking big, deep inhalations, but he still wasn't able to ground himself. His pajamas were soaked with sweat. "It was a dream," he repeated to himself. "It was just a dream."
His first reflex was to glance over to the futon and make sure that his reaction hadn't awoken his roommate as of late, but Seb wasn't there.
The boys had worked together to clean up after the impromptu pool party they'd thrown to celebrate wrapping up the reshoot day, and when they were finished, Sebastian had packed up his belongings and moved back upstairs. He had gotten the all-clear to ditch his crutches right before filming had started, but had made no effort to leave Artie's room until after the production had wrapped. At first, the feeling of Sebastian's constant presence had been somewhat suffocating, but now– just ten days later– Artie's room felt big, cold, and empty in the middle of the night without him there. It suddenly hit Artie that he was alone, and he was surprised to find how absolutely crushing it felt.
He had no idea what time it was, but judging by the way that the moonlight was still streaming through the slats in his blinds, he guessed it was probably two or three in the morning. He wanted to reach for his phone to check the time and maybe get his mind off of the jarring dream that had just woken him up, but his body wasn't listening to his brain's signals. All four of his limbs felt impossibly heavy and unmovable, like they were made of stone (a concerning development from the two that usually felt that way). So Artie had no choice but to lie in bed, frozen with fear, too awake to fall back to sleep.
More time passed (minutes? hours?), and eventually, his room became brighter with the natural light from outside, telling him that it was probably a reasonable time to get up and start the day. Artie mustered the strength to pull his chair closer to the side of his bed and transfer into it, before heading immediately into the bathroom to throw up the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl in an attempt to ease his nausea. After brushing his teeth to rid his mouth of the unpleasant aftertaste, he went about the rest of his daily morning routine. Then, Artie promptly climbed right back into bed.
This action was nearly unheard of for him. Typically, as soon as he was finished in the bathroom, Artie got changed into real clothes and went and made himself an omelet or something in the kitchen. He was never one to waste a day of productivity by being lazy. Especially when he still had so much left to do for his short film. He just wasn't in the right headspace to focus right now. Working on this project– that could potentially determine the rest of his career– halfheartedly wasn't any better than taking a day off and not working on it at all.
Artie pulled his covers up to his chin and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. Over the nine-and-a-half years since his accident, he'd had plenty of PTSD nightmares like the one he had last night. As more time had passed, the nightmares had become less frequent– especially compared to the first year after the accident– but they still tended to happen every now and again. Usually when he was stressed or anxious, both of which he had been this week.
The self-imposed pressure of working extra hard to be prepared and professional, and to present a certain way to his friends was taking its toll on him. Wearing multiple hats as this short film's director, producer, casting director, and writer was a lot of work. He hadn't gotten much sleep over the last ten days due to how heavily it was weighing on him. Artie knew that it had only been a matter of time before one of these frightful nights caught up to him. Things couldn't be too good for too long before his subconscious would come looking to humble him by knocking him down a few pegs.
Looking on the bright side, Artie supposed that it was just a good thing that this hadn't happened a few days earlier. He couldn't have imagined how he would have been able to push through to get his mind in the right headspace– for the sake of his friends and his movie.
This was what he'd been thinking about and what caused him to take extra long to rise from his bed. When he finally forced himself to crawl out of bed for the second time, Artie didn't attempt to fight off the feelings of being distracted and groggy. He didn't bother to brush his hair or change out of the henley shirt and plaid flannel pants he'd worn to bed. It was just going to be one of those days.
The kitchen was empty when Artie entered. A note left for him on the countertop by his mother said that she and Harrison had gone out for a morning hike– something Artie knew his mother and step-father liked to do on the weekends, but couldn't for the life of him understand why. He'd always wondered what the appeal was of huffing and puffing your way up a mountain to no tangible reward. There should at least be a coffee bar or a mixed drink waiting for you up there, he thought. It was a good thing he was exempt from activities like that.
Ella and Griffin were gone for the weekend since they had accompanied Dad on a weekend trip to Chicago for an away series for the baseball team. Of course, Artie had been invited on the little getaway as well, but he'd declined because of his shooting schedule. As for Sebastian, Artie guessed that he was taking advantage of it being Sunday morning (and, therefore, not a work day) and was still in bed upstairs, sleeping off the work he'd done for Artie all week while also fitting a few shifts where he could at the ice cream shop.
Artie wasn't hungry, but he knew that he needed to get something in his stomach or else he'd be even more nauseous. He'd already thrown up once today, after all, and he didn't intend on doing it twice. He got himself a glass of water, made himself a mug of coffee, and ended up eating still-frozen Eggo waffles off of his lap. It was certainly a far cry from the breakfasts he usually made for himself, but it was the best he could do in his current state.
He felt like he was in some sort of trance. Like, he was there physically, but his mind was elsewhere. He was a dreamer, sure, but not to the point where he felt so out-of-body from reality. He wondered if going back to sleep would help. Or a shower. Or if maybe he should schedule an appointment to see a doctor. In the past, he'd experienced pretty vivid dreams and nausea when he had a UTI. Maybe he needed antibiotics. He wasn't able to overthink beyond that, though, because there was a knock at the front door.
When he opened the door and saw who'd come looking for him, he was even more confused.
"Quinn?"
"Thank God, you're fine," she sighed with relief. "You are okay, aren't you?"
"Huh?" Artie rubbed his tired eyes. Was this another hallucination? Maybe he really did need to get his urologist on the phone.
"It's past noon, Artie," she told him as she stood in the doorway, both of them taking a moment to survey his outfit of choice. "We were going to leave to go to Columbus at eleven-thirty, remember? It's not like you to be late, so when you didn't come by my house, I tried texting and calling you, but you didn't answer. So I got worried and drove here myself."
My phone. Artie had been so distracted that morning that he hadn't picked up his phone once. He wasn't even completely sure where it was at the moment. He'd been so spaced out that morning that he'd forgotten all about the plans he'd made with Quinn to head into the city.
"God, Quinn, I'm sorry," Artie told her, putting his palm to his face as he internally scolded himself for his forgetfulness. "I didn't mean to scare you like that. It's been… a long and confusing morning. I've been a little out of it. Here, come in."
He held the door open for her, and she slipped her wedges off once inside. She looked so pretty in a blue top paired with a white skirt, while he looked like a mess still in his pajamas. She'd gotten herself all done up for their date and he'd left her completely high and dry. What was wrong with him?
Lucky for Artie, his girlfriend couldn't have been sweeter about his memory lapse. "Is everything okay?" she asked, her voice full of concern.
"Yeah," Artie replied, not wanting her to worry about him. "I just didn't sleep well last night, and it's kind of caused me to have a weird day so far. But I'm glad you're here now. Though, I suppose it's too late to leave if we want to spend the day in Columbus…"
"We can do that another time," Quinn told him gently, following him through the kitchen toward his bedroom. "We can still hang out. If you're feeling up to it, I mean."
His bed was still unmade (yet another out-of-character moment in his morning– this was turning out to be a long list, much to Artie's dismay), so Artie quickly pulled up the comforter and stacked his pillows against the headboard.
"Sure," Artie said as he did that with far from the level of precision and attention to detail he usually used while tidying up his room. It would have to do. "Let me just… change first."
He wheeled over to his closet and selected one of his ten identical pairs of khaki pants, pairing it with a maroon polo shirt. He wasn't a huge fan of shorts– despite the sweltering end-of-July heat outside– so he figured that the short-sleeved shirt would be a decent trade-off.
"And, you know, I could plan what we do today," Quinn proposed, holding her hands behind her back as she casually focused her attention on studying the Michael Jackson and Top Gun posters on his walls, as if this was the first time she'd seen them. He knew that she was just giving him some privacy. Even though he hadn't asked her to, he appreciated the gesture anyway. "Since it's usually you that does that."
"Sure!" Artie replied, a little too enthusiastically. He was trying to prove that he was fine and didn't need to be worried about, but was going a little overboard.
Quinn's idea was to start by playing a board game of some kind. Then, for lunch, she could drive them through a drive-thru somewhere so that he didn't feel obligated to cook (he'd protested this particular idea, saying that he wanted to cook to make up for forgetting about their original plans, but she was adamant about not wanting him near a stove in his current haze). Then, she'd said that they could watch a movie of his choosing, if he felt up to it. He appreciated the way she planned something low-key that agreed with his sensory limits for the day.
Monopoly was Quinn's board game of choice, which Artie could get behind. It was more a game of luck than it was one of strategy, so it required a very small amount of intense thinking on his end. Artie considered himself to be fairly competitive, but there was no way to really outsmart the other player in Monopoly. Quinn ended up winning once Artie went bankrupt.
Quinn had been shuffling the 'chance' cards as they were cleaning up the pieces of the game together when she paused for a moment to say, "You seem a little bit better. Back to normal, I mean. If you don't mind my asking… what had you feeling so upset earlier?"
"I think I just overdid it this week with all of the movie stuff," was the surface-level explanation Artie gave her for the funk he'd been in earlier that had caused him to forget about their plans. He shrugged. "Sometimes when I go to bed stressed out… my mind wanders while I sleep. It causes me to flash back to some not-so-pleasant memories. But I'm feeling better now."
He was careful with how much he revealed to her. It was embarrassing. He was ashamed of being eighteen years old and still experiencing night terrors that could paralyze him– both literally and figuratively– like that. Those types of dreams were for little kids, not adults.
"It's normal to have a bad day, you know," Quinn reminded him. "You don't have to be happy every day. Very few people are."
He didn't have to divulge to her the intensity of everything he went through for Quinn to understand what he was saying. He could spare most of the details and she would still be supportive. That was just who she was.
"I know. I just… don't want to worry anyone," Artie sighed. "My family is awesome. I've never wanted for anything, and I've always felt loved and accommodated and taken care of. But when you're from a family like mine– one that's big and blended and genuinely gets along– there are a lot of people, you know, thinking about you. I just never want to disappoint them or give them a reason to worry."
Quinn nodded, silently and slowly. It was like she was trying to imagine what that would be like– being a part of a family where members genuinely cared about one another's well-being like that.
Complaining about having an attentive family, when Quinn can't even relate to that? He thought to himself. Nice going, idiot.
Realizing his thoughtless mistake, Artie stumbled over his words in an attempt to break the silence, hoping he hadn't somehow hurt Quinn's feelings.
"I guess… the stakes just feel higher because they care so much. I never want to be a burden." Artie noticed the way that Quinn had opened her mouth just then, so he continued talking before she could get a word in. "Not that I think of myself as a burden. Not always. I just don't want my family to worry about me facing isolation or ridicule or anything. Especially, you know, back in those early high school years, being tossed around. I wanted to protect them from knowing about all of that."
"That's where movies came in? And Glee Club?" she asked, picking up his thought. "You wanted a way to prove to your family– to everyone– that they didn't need to worry about you? That you're okay?"
It sounded so lame when she'd put it that way– despite it being perfectly true– that Artie couldn't help but laugh at himself. "Yup. When I'm on stage or when I'm behind the camera making movies, I'm not… getting picked on or told that I can't do something because of my chair. None of that matters."
He hadn't wanted to overshare initially because he didn't want her to wind up pitying him. Now, here he was, doing just that, but it wasn't pity he felt from her. It was love.
"Thanks," he added.
"For what?"
"Just… for the way you've never made my chair or my disability 'a thing'. Well, I mean, just that you have always acted normal about it. Like I'm no different from everyone else you've been with. Even when it has, you know, complicated our plans." Artie shifted his weight uncomfortably on the mattress. Being vulnerable like this always made him feel awkward. "I'm really grateful for that. And for you."
"You did the same thing last weekend," she pointed out, glancing over her shoulder as she returned the Monopoly box to its spot on Artie's bookcase before rejoining him on the bed. "Adjusted the plans you'd made to accommodate me when I was having a bad day. What is being in a relationship for, if you can't depend on the other person in your hour of need?"
They were lying side by side on his bed now, their bodies just barely touching. Artie's arms were resting behind his head, while Quinn was on her side, mindlessly draping her right leg over his as he looked on. Just that tiny touch ignited something within him. His brain couldn't fully remember what it would feel like to have her foot brushing over his like that, but he was trying to imagine it. He didn't want her to ever stop.
As he watched Quinn play footsie with him, Artie cleared his throat. "You know, I never expected that anyone would ever… touch me the, uh… well, the way you are now."
Quinn stopped what she was doing for a moment, as if his mentioning it had made her suddenly aware of the way their bodies were meeting, and met his eyes, searching for permission to continue. He gave the slightest nod and she started back up again. "For years it felt like nobody wanted to get too close to me. Like they were scared that they'd somehow… break me. Like I'm made of paper and glass," Artie explained, swallowing. "No one's ever… done this to me before. I like it."
"What you said a minute ago… about the other guys I've been with–"
"I know, it's fine, you don't have to say it," Artie cut her off, glancing up at the ceiling. "I understand that I'm not your usual body type or whatever. Believe me, my body's not my favorite thing about myself either. I wish that I could be more for you."
"Artie, what?" Quinn asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "No. I was going to say that you don't have to change yourself for me. Have I ever done something to give you that impression? That I want something from you other than who you are?"
"Well, no, but– I just don't know how somebody like you, who's been with people like Puck and Finn, would end up settling for me. That's, like, the opposite of what society says should happen. And I would know, I've seen all the movies."
"Who said that Puck and Finn are anything to aspire to?"
"Okay. Sam, then."
"Don't think about Sam," she told him. "I'm not. Thinking about him, or comparing the two of you, I mean. And, well, you've been with Brittany," she reminded him. "Why shouldn't I be insecure about that? She has a six-pack of abs, and I had a baby that wrecked my body."
"Your body isn't wrecked, it's–"
"Neither is yours."
That got a smirk out of Artie. He saw what she was doing and, though he may not agree entirely, he appreciated the sentiment.
Their innocent, somewhat therapeutic moment took a sultry turn as Artie noticed the way that Quinn's gaze had begun to dart between his eyes and his mouth. He knew what she wanted, and he wanted that, too. As he pushed himself up on his elbows to bring their faces closer together, she leaned in. The immediate passion between them was too intense for either of them to ignore.
They had a bit more privacy in his bedroom than they had the last time they'd made out like this on Quinn's living room couch, but not much. His mother may not have been home, but Artie had still left his door open to honor her rule for whenever he had girls in his bedroom. Plus, Sebastian was home, and he was known to barge in without warning. There was no such thing as being too careful.
Recently, in their relationship, Artie and Quinn had been hanging around second base, and Artie was enjoying himself. He certainly wasn't itching to take things at a speed that was any faster than they were going now, and what Sam had recently shared– about how conservative and hesitant Quinn had been when they'd dated– was fresh in his memory. Artie certainly didn't want to pressure Quinn into something she wasn't ready for, so he always let her take the lead. If she wanted to go further, he'd gladly do so, but he was also more than content with just a good, old-fashioned makeout session.
To put it simply, Artie enjoyed kissing. He liked the feeling of his lips against somebody else's. Quinn was his third girlfriend (if he wasn't counting Sugar, which he was not), and he'd heard from each of them that he was a pretty good kisser. Having a cool older brother had helped with that, of course. Griffin had looked out for him in that regard, telling him way back in junior high about what girls liked. Artie was grateful for that, because when the opportunity for his first kiss presented itself freshman year, he didn't feel insecure. He was proud of his kissing ability. It was a confidence booster, to know that he could be superior to other guys his age in some way.
Quinn had already adjusted her position so that she was straddling his lap instead of laying beside him, and after focusing her attention on his lips for a while, she moved lower, kissing his jawline and the top of his neck. His hands were on her hips, and as she bent over, the babydoll shirt she was wearing rode up, putting her lower back on full display. Artie couldn't hold back the chuckle that escaped his mouth as a portrait of Ryan Seacrest stared back at him.
"What?" Quinn asked him between kisses.
"Nothing," Artie replied, struggling to find the words to explain what had elicited that reaction out of him. "It's just… Ryan."
"Ryan?" Quinn pushed herself up, her hands on the mattress on either side of Artie's shoulders as she stared quizzically at him.
"Seacrest. He's… staring at me."
"Oh, zip it," Quinn told him playfully, rolling her eyes and lightly slugging him on the shoulder.
They hadn't yet dissected the months she'd spent as a Skank, and Artie wasn't sure they ever would. He, however, could clearly recall the first day of school last year, when Quinn had parted the sea of students as she walked down the hallway. She was reeking of cigarette smoke, had a nose ring and pink hair, and was wearing a low-rise maxi skirt that perfectly exposed her new 'ironic' ink. He remembered spotting Ryan for the first time. His face had been right at Artie's eye level, after all.
"Hey, no judgment here. I still watch American Idol sometimes…" Artie continued to joke. "I'm not actually threatened by Ryan Seacrest. I mean, unless there's a reason for me to be…"
"That's enough out of you," said Quinn, good-naturedly allowing Artie to have his fun before giving him one last peck on the lips and ending their makeout session by laying back beside him.
Quinn settled herself into Artie– cuddling her back into his chest– as she rested her head beside his on the pillow. She grasped his hand and pulled it around herself, forming herself into the little spoon, and him into the big one. The space between her shoulder and her neck fit Artie's face perfectly as he held her. It seemed that she needed that closeness just then, and he did too. Especially on a day like today.
