Scene 20 - November 8th

Interior Townhouse, Continuous

Quinn Kaufman

I had been doing better over the last week, but I found myself drifting in and out again as Holly helped me pack things into suitcases and cardboard boxes. I would be doing fine one moment, and the next I would remember wearing this shirt while out to dinner with dad, or telling him about what I had learned from this book, or how proud he had been when I drew this piece of artwork, and I wouldn’t be able to...

Each time, Holly patiently waited for me to come back to myself, sometimes nudging me gently or tapping me on the shoulder to bring me back. She seemed to have an almost uncanny ability to spot when I was drifting, and would resume speaking in the middle of sentences as though nothing had happened.

“How do you do that?” I asked her after one such occasion where I had spent who-knows-how-long just standing in my closet and staring at the first suit my dad had ever bought me.

“Do what?” She didn’t look at me as she spoke, busy taping a box of clothes shut.

“Spot it when I’m... drifting away from myself.”

She rested an elbow on the box and propped her head up on that hand, looking up at me where she knelt on the floor next to the box. “It’s hard to describe, really. But, well... I’m a pretty observant person, as a rule, and there’s a bit of a difference, although I’m not sure quite how to explain.”

“You explained magic pretty decently, give it a shot,” I said. “You might surprise yourself.”

“Alright. You have kind of a... I dunno... I presence to you,” Holly told me. “Like, you’re very there, at every moment.”

“Really?” I said, curiously. “I think I get pretty in my head, sometimes. You think I’m in-the-moment?”

She shrugged. “Maybe it’s just around me, I don’t know. But when you’re... drifting, you said? When that happens, something changes. Maybe it’s your eyes - they unfocus a little, I think.” Then she chuckled a little. “Plus you drift off in the middle of a thought sometimes. That’s pretty clear as well.

I shrugged. “Maybe it is just around you. I mean, I don’t want to be wrapped up in my own head when I could be spending time with you, after all.”

Was that too far? Did I make them uncomfortable? Was this a bad time? This was definitely a bad time. I shouldn’t have said that. My eyes met Holly’s, searching for some sign that she approved or disapproved.

Her eyes weren’t on mine, oddly. They were a little downcast, and... was that a blush and a small smile? No, it couldn’t be, I decided as she looked up. The smile was there, yes, but the blush must have been a trick of the light.

“I like spending time with you too, Quinn,” she promised, and leaned forward to affectionately bump her head into my leg where I stood. “I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I honestly feel like you’re one of my best friends already.” She stood, hefted the box in her arms, and carried it out of my room to join a pile in the hallway.

“I feel the same way,” I called, turning back to my closet and reaching for a few flannels. The MLED was going to be providing the ones I would wear as part of my costume, but those would have a kevlar mesh and I didn’t expect them to be very comfortable for normal wear. Besides, some of these had sentimental value, like the one that dad had...

Holly put a hand on the small of my back, and I turned to smile up at her. “Where was I?”

“I’m one of your best friends.”

“Right.” I began folding up the shirt that dad had passed down to me. “I don’t want to get too into it, but... I haven’t had any close friends since high school, just casual friends. But you’re becoming very important to me very quickly. I hope that’s not too much to say.”

“Of course not,” she promised me. “Didn’t I just say that you’re becoming one of my best friends, too?” She took the old shirt from me, then pointed to a suit bag in the back of the closet. “You should grab that suit. Most events the MLED holds will have you just in costume, or a formal version of it, but there are a few where heroes are supposed to go incognito, and you’ll want nice clothes for them,” she recommended.

“Like what?”

“There’s an art show coming up in January, I think that’s the next one if you aren’t presenting anything. There’s a regional gala thing every summer that heroes can choose to go to either in costume or civvies, too.”

“I’ll take the suit, then.” I grabbed it and passed it to her. “That should lie across the luggage, not get folded up, right?”

“Right.” She set it atop the boxes. “Back to the friendship thing... on my end, it’s similar, I guess. My parents never sent me to school when I was growing up - I had private tutors until university - so I never really had close friends until now. Some in the Journeymen, but just because you’re both heroes doesn’t mean that you’ll get along, especially since there’s a wide age range. I mean, I’ve been part of it since I was 14, but as recently as last year we counted Blue Phoenix in our ranks.”

I thought back. Blue Phoenix... “The guy whose powers came in when he was about to die of old age?” He had made the papers.

“Yup! 83 years old and suddenly his body is made of burning blue energy that can take on any shape he can imagine. He definitely needed the training.” Her expression soured a bit. “And the crash course on the modern era, too.”

“...he didn’t understand you being genderfluid?” I asked sympathetically.

“Not in the slightest. Never respected Molly’s pronouns, either.”

“What a dick.”

She sighed. “It’s not that complicated, is it?”

“I mean, I don’t think so,” I promised her. “Cis people have just never had to think about gender before, so it comes as a complete shock to them. Even 1+1 is tricky when you don’t understand the concept of numbers yet.”

Holly shook her head violently as though trying to dislodge the thought. Her hair fanned out for a moment before settling back in a perfect spread over her shoulders, as she said, “Lets talk about something more cheerful. Friendship! That’s a happier topic, right?” She grinned.

“Right, friendship!” I decided that I had pulled everything out of my closet that needed to come, and stepped out of it to head to the bookshelf instead. “Friendship is...”

I blinked. It had, I figured, probably been a few minutes - I was sitting between two piles of books, one that seemed to be schoolbooks and the other my own personal books that I wanted to bring. I glanced over at Holly, who had just closed the last box of stuff from the closet and was now looking at me with concern. I managed a smile and gave her a thumbs up.

“...you don’t have to pretend to be okay, Quinn,” she said after a moment. “I know you’re not. It’s fine.”

I sighed. “I’m... not okay,” I agreed. “It’s just... dad was such a big part of my life. There’s so many things that make me think of him, and...” I actually felt myself tearing up this time. That was an improvement of a sort, I supposed.

Holly knelt next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Would you like to talk about it?”

I wiped the tears away. “No, I... I need to distract myself, that’s all. It’s just... really hard, right now.”

Holly bit her lip thoughtfully, and I restrained the sudden surge of attraction I felt. I wouldn’t be a good partner right now, no matter how wonderful Holly was - I couldn’t be nearly what she deserved. Besides, she had turned me down when we had had dinner a few weeks ago.

“I wish I could help,” she said after a moment, “but I don’t think I can. I mean, I could make everything look super generic so it wouldn’t trigger memories, but... you do need to see them, so you can decide what’s important and what can stay.”

“Everything is important, in some ways,” I said. “It’s all... it’s all him. That’s why I can’t live here anymore.” I closed my eyes, but the sense of my presence still filled the room. I could still feel the mattress that he had helped me pick out with the money from my first summer job and the computer we had struggled through building together and the desk that he had once written poems on before it he had gotten a new one and passed it on to me and-