Love You to Death

by Bebe Faas Rice

  Julie pictured her mother’s reaction and shuddered. “I . . . I guess I just panicked. You’re right, of course, Quinn. I haven’t told a soul about what happened, not even my sister.”

  “Good.” He released her, putting his hands on her shoulders and stooping down to look into her eyes.

  “Those two were bad, Julie. Really bad.”

  As they walked together toward the school building, Julie could only think how lucky she was to have found someone like Quinn.

  Someone strong and dependable.

  Someone good.

  Someone she could always count on, no matter what.

  Quinn’s jealousy was growing worse, and Julie didn’t know what to do about it. Why was he getting more and more possessive of her every day? Why didn’t he want her to talk to or be around anyone but him?

  At first Julie thought it was her fault, that she was doing something wrong, or not being understanding enough in some way.

  Then at times, in a burst of resentment, she was sure it had nothing to do with her. It was Quinn’s fault. His problem, not hers. There was something in him, not her, that made him behave this way. Made him turn sullen and angry whenever any of the guys at school talked to her or paid her compliments, even in fun.

  And then she’d remember what he’d told her about his childhood and his alcoholic, abusive father.

  “He’s the one who broke my nose,” Quinn said one night. “I was never anything to him but a punching bag when he had too many. I look a little like my mother, so I guess I reminded him of her. He never forgave her for running off and leaving him, so he took it out on me.”

  They were alone in Julie’s kitchen when he told her this. It was almost midnight and they were having milk and cake, not because they were hungry, but because they always managed to find some way of prolonging their time together.

  Julie would never forget the expression on Quinn’s face when he flattened the cake with the back of his fork, pressing it into pulp, and said, “And I’ll tell you this, Julie. When that guy died, it was the happiest day of my life.”

  Thinking about his unhappy childhood made Julie love Quinn even more. It made her feel guilty for not being patient enough with him, for not taking into account the fact that, growing up, he’d been starved for love and attention.

  And so the cycle would start all over again.

  And each new incident made it worse. His jealousy was like a snowball rolling downhill, growing larger and more menacing as it went.

  Even a casual conversation outside a classroom now, if Quinn saw it, brought on questions: “What were you talking about with him, Julie?” “Have you two ever dated?” And worst of all, when she had dated the boy, “Did you ever kiss him?”

  Julie always lied when she answered this last one.

  “No, Quinn. He was just a casual date. You know . . .”

  “Are you sure, Julie?”

  Julie would always try to look innocent. But the truthful answer was yes, and she hated having to lie like this all the time. Yes, if she’d dated the guy in question, she probably had kissed him.

  There had never been anything serious, though, between her and any of those guys. Just a few kisses at parties or at her front door, but nothing hot and heavy.

  Julie lied because she wasn’t sure what Quinn would do if she did admit kissing, however casually, any guy other than him. He would, she knew, consider it a kind of betrayal of him, even though it had happened long before he came into her life.

  He hadn’t gotten into a fight with any of her old boyfriends over her . . . so far. The word was getting out about him, though, and guys were starting to leave Julie alone.

  She resented this. She’d always liked people and enjoyed school, but now she felt as if she had an invisible wall around her.

  Well, Quinn would get over this phase. He’d settle in and make friends. It was always hard to start a new school.

  Face it, Julie, she thought. You’re making excuses for Quinn and you know it.

  Yes, but what else can I do? The alternative is to break up with him and I could never, never do that.

  Even Mollie seemed to be looking at Quinn differently now.

  “Don’t you and Quinn ever double-date or go to parties, Julie?” she asked. “When I see you in the halls or at lunchtime, the two of you are always off together in some corner. Is that right? I mean, is this really what you want?”

  Mollie must have mentioned this to her mother, because Mrs. Hagan had been coming on strong lately about how the teen years were the time for fun and friendship and lots of school activities.

  Even Brad had something to say about it. He took Julie aside one day when Quinn was nowhere in sight.

  “Are you and Quinn okay?” he asked. “I mean, does he lock you up in a dark closet if you try to leave your ivory tower or something?”

  Julie smiled. “I’m not Rapunzel, Brad. My hair’s not long enough.”

  He didn’t smile back. “I mean it, Julie. I know you don’t like me to criticize him, but I don’t like what Quinn’s doing to you. You’ve still got two years of high school to get through, and he’s making a hermit out of you.”

  Julie sighed. “Don’t you start in on me, too, Brad.”

  “I figured I wasn’t the first. Just about everyone has noticed it, Julie.”

  Julie bristled. “I don’t know why everybody’s suddenly so concerned about my personal affairs.”

  “Because there are a lot of people here at Jefferson High who like you. Really like you,” Brad said. “Oh, I know you thought Tara and her buddies were your closest friends, but that’s a laugh. I’m talking about the kids in your classes. Maybe you don’t pal around with them socially, but they admire you and hate to see you get messed up the way you are now.”

  “Messed up?” Julie shook her head in amazement. “Brad—I’ve never been as happy in my entire life as I am with Quinn. He’s everything I ever wanted in a guy. I’ll always feel this way about him.”

  “Yeah, well.” Brad’s face fell and his shoulders slumped. Then he gave himself a little shake and said, “I just hope he gets over this jealous stuff, Julie. It’s not normal.”

  “He’s not that jealous,” Julie protested.

  Another lie. That was all she seemed to do these days. Nobody had ever told her that love involved a lot of lying.

  “Not that jealous?” Brad repeated. “You could’ve fooled me. One more thing,” he said as he turned away from Julie. “Tara’s still on your case. Be careful. That girl’s a witch with a capital B.”

  Julie had just about written Tara off as a threat. All the plotting Tara, Jessica, and Shelley seemed to be doing right after Julie and Quinn paired off had come to nothing.

  True, Julie had found a dime-store rubber rat in her locker one morning, but that was all. She figured that’s what they had been planning that day they’d been in the huddle. As dirty tricks went, it had been pretty mild.

  To her surprise Julie discovered that Brad was right when he’d said a lot of kids at Jefferson High liked her. Now that she’d broken with Tara, Jess, and Shelley, Julie found herself being included in other groups, and receiving invitations to join extracurricular activities that she never would have considered before.

  Of course, Quinn objected to anything that would take her away from him.

  “What about me, Julie?” he’d ask plaintively. “What am I supposed to be doing when you’re running around up to your pretty little ears in rah-rah stuff?”

  And then he’d play with her hair or kiss her until she was breathless and she’d forget what it was she’d been saying.

  But lately Julie had been giving a lot of thought to what Brad and Mollie had said, and what her mother had implied with her lectures about the necessity for friends and activities in the teen years.

  “I’ve let a lot of activities slide this semester,” she told Quinn one night when they’d returned home from a date. “Working on the school newspaper, for example. I haven’t pul
led my weight on the staff for the past couple of weeks. I think they’re about to delete my name from the masthead.”

  “So let them,” he said. “Let somebody else write those stories.”

  “You don’t understand,” Julie said, evading his encircling arms. “I like writing, and I’m good at it. It’s important to me, Quinn!”

  So he’d grudgingly agreed to her working on the school paper.

  And that’s when things had taken a turn for the worse for her and Quinn.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “This Nick Wells guy, the editor of the paper,” Quinn began. Julie knew exactly what was coming next. “Have you ever gone out with him?”

  “No,” she said firmly, truthfully. “Nick has always had a big thing for Tara, but they only started dating heavily last summer. He’s really crazy about her, Quinn.”

  That seemed to satisfy him for the moment. Then, predictably, he asked, “Are there a lot of guys on the staff of the paper?”

  “Only a couple. It’s mostly girls. At least during football season.”

  “What guys?”

  “What?”

  “What guys are on the staff?”

  “Oh, you know, the real grinds.”

  Julie hated herself for this, for making the serious students sound unappealing, but otherwise Quinn would give her even more flack about working on the paper.

  “Are you going to have to work every afternoon?” he asked. “Will it mean you won’t have much time for me after school now, Julie?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. I’ll probably spend only half an hour in the newspaper office a couple of times a week. Most of the articles I’ll write in study hall or at home.”

  It hadn’t quite worked out that way, though. By the middle of the second week, Julie found she was working almost every afternoon in the newspaper office with Nick.

  She tried to explain the situation to Quinn.

  “Nick says he’s been getting complaints about how dull the paper is this year, and we’re trying to come up with some ideas for new features and columns.”

  “Just you and Nick?”

  “No, there are others, too, usually”—she hoped he wouldn’t ask how often she and Nick were alone, working—“but Nick has asked me if I’d consider being feature editor. I’d really like that, Quinn. I think I can do a good job on it.”

  Quinn reluctantly agreed, but insisted on waiting for her after school every afternoon and driving her home.

  Julie was pleased he wasn’t putting up an argument about her new job as feature editor and her long hours. He was taking it well. Maybe they were working out their problems, after all. This jealousy thing of Quinn’s would run its course. It had to.

  She just wished, though, that Nick didn’t always walk her out to the parking lot. She could tell Quinn didn’t like that.

  “It’s just that Nick always thinks of something else he wants to talk to me about, so he follows me out rather than making me stay even later,” she explained.

  “Yeah, I bet,” Quinn said. “If I were him, I’d want to stick around you for as long as I could, too.”

  One afternoon Nick made the mistake of putting his arm around Julie and giving her a quick hug when they parted.

  It was all perfectly innocent. Even Tara and a couple of cheerleaders, who’d just come out of school after rehearsal, glanced over and didn’t act as if Julie and Nick were doing anything out of the ordinary.

  But Quinn came boiling out of his car, fists clenched, and strode over to Nick.

  “Hey, Nick,” he said, “take your hands off my girl.”

  At first Nick must have thought Quinn was joking, because he laughed. But then Quinn said it again.

  “You heard me, take your hands off Julie. Find somebody else to paw.”

  Nick’s face went white, then red. “I wasn’t pawing Julie,” he snapped. “Why don’t you grow up? You’re starting to be a real drag with your jealousy bit, McNeal.”

  Quinn took a step forward, eyes narrowed and lips set in a tight line.

  “Quinn, no!” Julie grabbed Quinn’s arm and stepped between them. “Don’t do this. Please! It was nothing. Nick wasn’t doing anything.”

  Nick put his hands up placatingly. “Look, Quinn, I don’t want any trouble with you. It isn’t fair to Julie. And besides, I have a thing about not getting my nose broken. If I did something you didn’t like, I apologize. So back off, okay?”

  “Please, Quinn,” Julie pleaded.

  Quinn finally nodded, his eyes still narrowed and glaring, and allowed Julie to lead him to his car.

  “Listen, Quinn—” Julie began.

  “Forget it,” he snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I suppose this means you’re going to give me a hard time now about working on the paper,” Julie said, her voice sharp. “So I’m warning you right now, Quinn—don’t. Don’t try.”

  “Is it Nick? Is that why you’re being so stubborn about this?” Quinn asked.

  His anger had suddenly passed, and now he was looking at her sadly, pleadingly.

  His battered-child look, Julie thought, fighting back the impulse to take his face in her hands and kiss him, make him well. No, he does this to me all the time, she told herself fiercely. And, like a fool, I always fall for it.

  “No,” she told him. “It isn’t Nick. You know it isn’t. So why do you do this, Quinn? You’ve got to stop.”

  “I’m sorry, Julie. I don’t mean to. Something just comes over me and I can’t help myself.”

  Julie knew what he would say next and prepared herself for it. She could almost say it by heart now.

  “It’s just that I love you so much, honey. . . .”

  We can’t go on like this, Julie thought. Talking doesn’t seem to help. Maybe if we went to the school counselor, she could help us or tell us where to go to get help.

  But this wasn’t the time to bring it up. She’d wait until she and Quinn were alone, and he was feeling mellow. That would be tomorrow night. Friday. They had a big date planned. Dinner in a little restaurant on the edge of town. That’s the right time, Julie thought. Tomorrow night . . .

  What a shame he had to act this way today, when she’d thought he was getting better about this jealousy thing. And in front of an audience, too.

  Julie remembered the expression on Tara’s face as she’d stood watching the exchange between Quinn and Nick.

  She’d been smiling.

  Quinn stood Julie up for their Friday-night date.

  She’d put a lot of thought into what she would wear and finally settled on a dark-gold dress with a flaring skirt and a wide, tight belt. With it she wore the amber earrings and pendant her aunt had brought home from a recent trip to Europe.

  The color of the dress brought out the gold flecks in Julie’s eyes, and the amber jewelry suited her coloring. This would soften Quinn up and make him agree to a heart-to-heart talk. Something about her coloring turned Quinn on, and she was really playing it up for all it was worth tonight.

  At eight-thirty Julie realized Quinn wasn’t coming.

  All dressed up and no place to go, she thought dismally. Where is he?

  She tried calling his apartment, but there was no answer.

  “Do you suppose something’s happened to him?” she asked her parents. “I mean, like an accident or something? Should I call the police?”

  “No,” her mother said. “Something’s probably come up. Maybe they called him in suddenly to work. You said they’ve done it before. He’ll call and explain—just be patient.”

  But he didn’t call. Finally, a little before midnight, Julie went to bed.

  She was just falling asleep when she heard a gentle tapping at her window. Her bedroom was on the second floor, overlooking the backyard. At first she thought a branch of the huge old elm tree that grew beside the house was blowing against the window.

  But then it came again. Tap, tap, tap. More insistent this time.

  She climbed out of bed,
shaking back her long hair, and went to the window.

  Quinn’s face peered in at her. He’d climbed the elm tree and was crouched on a limb outside her window.

  “Quinn! What . . . ?” Julie pushed up the window, grabbing her robe from the back of her desk chair and slipping into it.

  Quinn crawled through the window. “So you’re home.” He sounded relieved.

  “Sssh!” she cautioned. “You’ll wake the family. Of course I’m home. What did you think? And where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  Quinn took her in his arms. He was rough, almost hurtful, and Julie was painfully aware that he shouldn’t be in her room at this hour, with her parents sleeping just down the hall. What would happen if her mother came in and found her here in Quinn’s passionate embrace? She’d ground Julie forever.

  “Then you weren’t out with Nick Wells?” Quinn asked.

  “What? I was supposed to have a date with you, remember? Why would I go out with Nick Wells, anyway?”

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Julie. And I’ve seen you looking back at him. You like him, don’t you?”

  “Oh, no, Quinn! Not that again. No, I—”

  He overrode her protest. “Why wouldn’t you have a thing for Nick? He’s a real big shot, and his folks are rich and all that.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Quinn? What’s wrong with you? You stood me up and now you come crawling through my window at midnight because you have some crazy idea I’ve been out with Nick Wells. I don’t feel that way about Nick. I never have!”

  Quinn’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “Do you really mean that, Julie? You aren’t just saying that because you’re afraid of what I might do to you?”

  “Do to me? What are you talking about? What made you think I was out with Nick?”

  “I saw the note.”

  “What note?”

  “The note from Nick, telling you to meet him at eight at The Point. I went there and waited, but no one came. I thought maybe you two decided to meet someplace else, but I came by the house anyway, just in case. That’s when I thought I saw you moving around in your bedroom. So I waited in the car until all the lights went out and—”