Forgiven And Forgotten
As the clock inched closer to midnight on New Year's Eve and the dawn of a new year, Quinn James lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling. The lump in her throat was so big she could hardly breathe as thoughts of leaving behind her dreams for the future consumed her. The last time she had felt this hopeless, she had come running home to Tree Hill from an unfulfilling life in New York. Where could she go to escape her broken heart now? As her tears rose ever closer to the surface, Quinn slipped quietly out of bed and crept down the stairs in the dark. The display on her digital watch glowed at the movement and Quinn cursed her restlessness. Was this how Haley had felt after Lydia died?
She glanced at the pool as she moved past it, but the slight ripples didn't call to her as they seemed to have done for Haley back then. Even watching the swelling tide from the beach house balcony had brought Quinn's old fears of the ocean's immensity rearing up to taunt her. All she could see of the ocean waves in the darkness was the white, frothy surf, but even those almost playful surges settled a lump of panic in her chest.
"Quinn?" She spun around at the sound of Clay's voice, breathing shakily in vain efforts to conceal the tears about to spill over. "What are you doing out here?"
"Couldn't sleep," she whispered. "I thought I'd go down to the beach for some air, but..."
"But?" Clay prompted gently when she hesitated. "Q, what's going on? It's not like you to try sneaking off in the middle of the night."
"I couldn't be here," Quinn murmured. "Leaving Nathan and Haley's was a bad idea, she understands how...broken, I feel."
"And I don't?" Clay challenged, but not angrily. Quinn could hear the pain in his voice, it would have been loud and clear even if she couldn't read her own agony reflected in his eyes.
"You know that's not what I meant," she sighed. "You've been amazing through it all. I just...I couldn't be around Logan right now. I need to stay with my family, just like you didn't want to leave your mom."
Steeling herself, Quinn ran down the steps and around the side of the house to the stretch of sand where the tide could reach. The tears she'd been holding in finally slipped unchecked down her cheeks as if in horrified reaction to her searing honesty. The night-time waves had cooled the burning sand, but it still felt warm as it stuck between her toes. The sensation brought some normalcy to her reeling heartache, and Quinn stopped when she reached the water's edge, gasping at the sight of the swelling tides. "No, no..."
A light flicked on from the upper floor of the beach house, and Quinn spotted Logan peering out at the vast beach. She wondered if her anger had changed his view of the ocean tonight, bringing back the invisible sea monsters to haunt him. It was ridiculous, she knew, but even the distant glimpse of his face cemented her guilty conscience. Logan moved silently away from his bedroom window, and Quinn collapsed on the sandy shore, a combination of guilt and grief knocking her strength out. She covered her eyes to block out the sight of the waves, unsure why she had bothered to come out here. "It's too much, this is just too much," Quinn whimpered, barely aware of what she was saying.
"I thought we were a family." There was no doubt about the hurt in Clay's voice now, and Quinn squeezed her eyes shut even as his footsteps shuffled closer somewhere behind her. "Quinn, you're the only mother Logan has ever known. Are you really going to take that away from him?"
Quinn shook her head mutely; she'd uttered so many apologies lately they were beginning to choke her. "This was my baby, Clay. You know I love Logan, but it's not the same thing, and it never will be." She inched closer to the swelling tide, torn between facing her fear and distancing herself from the helpless misery in Clay's eyes.
"What happened to our family?" he demanded, rushing forward so suddenly to grab Quinn's hand that she almost lost her balance as another wave crashed around her ankles. His wife's fingers trembled in his grasp, matching her shaky breaths. "He needs you, baby...please don't let what we lost change what we already have."
Quinn's whispered response was carried away on the waves, and Clay watched the tears leak slowly from her eyes. Held steady by just one of his hands grasping her wrist, Clay could tell her rigid tension was about to dissolve. Just as Quinn gave in to her need for comfort and melted into his arms, a small voice reached them from the shore.
"Mom, are you okay?" Quinn lifted her heavy head from Clay's shoulder and stared at Logan, the sadness in his eyes practically snapping her world back into focus. "What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"
"Facing the immensity, I guess," she said miserably. "Clearly, I'm not doing a very good job of it." Logan tilted his head and stared at her, looking so much like a sad puppy that Quinn's guilty conscience swelled unbearably. "Logan, listen...I-"
"It's the same ocean it was last week," her son pointed out before Quinn could find the words for her apology. "You're the one who has changed." Logan met Clay's gaze, and the pride shining through the pain in his father's eyes gave him the nerve to continue. "Can I help? I know you said you're not really my mom, but I love you, Mama Q."
Clay stared up at the clear night sky, centering his focus on a cluster of stars. He only realized he was crying when his vision of the twinkling starlight began to blur. Quinn pressed herself into his arms, beckoning Logan into the shallow tide with them with her free hand. "Hey," she murmured. "What happened?"
"Thank you," he breathed, nuzzling into her hair while Logan wound himself around his parents. "For a while there, I was really scared you would make me choose between you and Logan. I can't do that, you know...I won't ever do that!"
"You don't have to," Quinn promised, finally releasing him to hug their son tightly. "God, Logan, I'm so sorry." She stepped back and looked into the little boy's eyes, the love in them soothing her pain instantly. "There are no excuses for what I said. I just hope you know what an honor it is to be your mom. Can you forgive me?"
"Our family," Logan smiled warmly at her, lighting up the darkness around and inside her. "I totally love the way that sounds." The tide chose that moment to surge towards the shore once more, but this time, Quinn felt anchored. The life inside her was gone now, but an abundance of love was warming her from the inside to make up for the loss. Life was immense indeed, but she would never have to face it alone again.
New Year's Eve at the Riley household was a much more subdued affair. Bobby's arm felt itchy beneath the cast as it healed and was keeping him awake as it often did lately. His father was on the clock to keep drunken partygoers under control, and before long, the eight-year-old gave up on sleep and crept down the winding staircase. In the living room below, his mother sat alone in the dark; the television screen light illuminated her fear and frustration. After she regained consciousness, the doctors determined that Melissa's home environment could only aid recovery. All it had done so far was allow Kevin to fuel her uncertainty about how she ended up in this position. Bobby glanced at the screen his mother was staring at with a vacant expression and a lump lodged in his throat. On the television, a faded clip of a hospital room was playing, and the little boy's heart sank when he heard Katie's voice behind the camera. "For the record, Bobby Ryan, Aunt Katie is completely obsessed with you."
"Mom, are you okay?" Bobby willed his voice not to tremble at the question, even when Melissa flinched as if he had startled her out of a stupor.
"I don't know," she admitted faintly, reluctantly looking up at the innocent question. "I feel like I'm missing a lot of puzzle pieces between that…," she gestured at the television screen: "and where I'm supposed to be now."
"That's you and me," Bobby told her softly, pointing at the screen. "It's always been you and me against Dad. You have to remember that, okay? Please…," and on that desperate word, Bobby's throat closed, and he couldn't muster another word. In silence, he lifted one edge of a blanket Melissa had draped across her lap and curled into a ball beside her. "I'm sorry he hurt you again," he whispered, and the sadness must have been clearer in his voice now because Melissa turned away from the screen at last and gazed at him searchingly.
She couldn't explain the feelings that swirled like a budding tornado from the depths of her heart at the little boy's forlorn expression. Melissa stroked his hair gently when he buried his face in the soft blanket across her knees. The words rose from her soul as if ghost-written when she said: "It's not your job to protect me, kid."
"It goes the other way around," Bobby finished under his breath. "That's what you said when we left Aunt Katie at the clinic after she said she couldn't help us. That didn't exactly work out."
"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I don't remember what's making you sad, but I wish I could fix it for you."
She tried to move her hand from the top of his head, but Bobby grabbed her fingers and held them in place. "Don't let go," he begged. "If you can't remember everything it took to get here, just stay, okay?"
"I can do that," his mother consented. Her gaze flickered back to the grainy home video on the television, searching for clues to how she got to this feeling of deep and inexplicable despair. "Why does the camera get so shaky after your father's proposal?" she mused out loud when the clip wobbled before fading to black, leaving Melissa's past tears of joy seared into her memory.
"Aunt Katie was filming that. I'm pretty sure the proposal made her really mad," Bobby told her. "She tells you all the time what a bad mistake it was to stay with Dad." The eight-year-old couldn't tell what hurt more, disillusioning his mother or facing Kevin's hatred of his son. "You should have listened to her a very long time ago."
As if telepathically linked to her nephew, Katie Ryan stirred from a restless sleep in a nearby motel when he spoke her name. She groaned at how puffy and bloated she already felt from going off her medication cold turkey, but the physical effects were nothing compared to the emotional ones. Every time she began to regret leaving the psychiatric facility, she forced herself to think of the distraught eight-year-old depending on her for help. She wasn't sure what she would do yet, but one thing was certain: she would make Kevin Riley regret every day he had ever messed with the Ryan girls. Katie could almost hear Melissa's voice in her head, defending Kevin and insisting everything was fine. The bipolar woman was well aware of her reckless and aggressive reputation, but the longer she thought about what needed to be done, the more justified it felt. A new year was coming, and Katie was determined to save her sister's life if it was the last thing she ever did.