Page 52 of Parker

“Yeah. I know.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why do you think your reaction to Quinn loving you is so strong? I mean, I know it might have caught you off-guard, but if all he ever really was to you, was a nuisance, prankster, and tease, why didn’t you just laugh in his face and shrug it off as nonsense? Why does it matter so much?”

These are good questions.Reallygood questions.

WhyareQuinn’s feelings for me hitting me so hard? Why am I feeling so unhinged? Why am I crying like this? I barely recognize myself in these emotions, they’re so foreign to me—all over the place and so fiercely intense—I’m at a loss to answer her.

“I don’t know,” I tell Harper honestly. “I don’t understand myself right now. That’s why I calledyou.”

“So you want to know what I think without hanging up the phone on me and running away?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Okay. Here’s what I think. The line between hate and love is thin, Park. It’s more of a scrim—a gauze, a veil—than a wall. You can see through it. It doesn’t take too much strength or imagination to punch through it to the other side.” I hear her take a sip of her wine as I roll her words around in my head. “When I told Joe about Moriah, I couldfeelhis hatred. It breaks my heart to remember, but I felt it in my gut, in my soul. He hated me for keeping our first daughter a secret.” Another sip as she composes herself. “But as Wren grew inside of my body, she helped to bind us back together. We found our love again. To be clear, I’d never stopped loving Joe. Not for a single moment. But for Joe,” she says, “I’m pretty sure it was his hatred for me that kept his love alive. They’re two sides of the same coin.” She pauses for just a second before finishing. “Last week, you would’ve said you hated Quinn—and you won’t like what I’m about to say—but I think it’s possible, over the last three days, that you punched through the scrim…to love.”

“I don’tloveQuinn,” I sob, my voice soft and unconvincing. “I barely like him.”

“Your feelings for him arereallycomplicated,” she says gently. “But they’ve always run closer to love and hate, than to indifference. You’ve never, ever been indifferent to Quinn. That’s why you couldn’t laugh in his face and shrug away his feelings when he told you he loves you. You care about Quinn. You always have.”

She’s right. I know she’s right, but I can’t admit it out loud. Not yet.

“Also, Park, people change. The ten-year-old prankster and the twenty-one-year-old man may share the same DNA, but they are totally different humans. He’s grown up. He’s changed. Assuming he’s the same snotty kid who put reptiles down your back is unfair to him…and to you.”

Now, this is an argument that makes more sense to my tired brain. Harper’s right. Peopledochange. And giving people a chance, or the benefit of the doubt, is something I pride myself on.

“I guess.”

“You don’t guess. You know.”

“Fine. I know.”

“So, isn’t it possible that your hatred for Quinn kept the possibility of love alive? For all these years? Just like Joe hatingmeultimately helped him fall in love with me all over again.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Harp. Joe never stopped loving you.”

“Yes, he did,” she says softly, the pain in her voice audible. “It’s only now, when we’re safe, that I can see how close I came to losing him.” She clears her throat. “I have to go to the bathroom, and then I’m going to check on Joe and Wren. I’ll be back in a sec, okay?”

“Take your time,” I murmur, thinking about everything she’s said.

My mind turns to her question—Isn’t it possible that your hatred for Quinn kept the possibility of love alive?—over and over.

Was thereevera possibility of love between me and Quinn? Some seed? Some moment? I rack my brain for a memory that answers this question…and a second later, I remember.

Applause.

A bow.

His wide grin and deep dimples.

A vision of someday when Quinn would be tall and confident, smart and cheerful, black Irish and handsome, like the actor who played Captain Hook in Once Upon A Time.

The notion that maybe, just maybe, his non-stop teasing and pranking was a clumsy means of seeking my attention, not my scorn.

That was the moment.

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