Swimming saved me. It saved me during the dark moments of my adolescence when I realized I was different from most people. Different because of my sexuality. Different because my goals for the year involved swimming instead of getting into a relationship. Different from my brother, who rose up the totem pole at Aspen Grove while I was just sort of there—either liked only because I competed on an international level or hated because what high school kid gave up most of their social life for unrealistic dreams and goals? What a weirdo.
It saved me again when all I wanted to do was think about my first heartbreak, sulk in my bed, and cry to a breakup playlist I created on Spotify. I could have spent my whole spring break listening to that melodramatic playlist I made for myself while gorging on the cashew-milk cookies & cream ice cream I craved, but I didn’t. I had medals to win and Olympic trials to qualify for. While my friends traveled to places like Florida, Hilton Head, or the mountains for a relaxing, fun-filled spring break, I lived and breathed the pool and chlorine. I pushed my anger out in dryland. Croggling wasn’t even a thing anymore by the time spring break came around. Even Leanne noticed a difference and told me that whatever was going on with me was turning me into a beast at practice. Her words, verbatim, and hearing her calling me “a beast at practice” with an entertained grin on her face was like my spring break reward. Did that mean I was bouncing back from getting my heart broken? Did that mean I’d successfully convinced Leanne that I still obsessed over winning a medal at the world champs?
Having her see how much heart and soul I poured into practice made me feel as if I was getting back on the right track to a world champs medal. After punishing me with wall sits a few months back, calling me a beast at practice was my little beacon of light whenever I felt like crap.
At least there was a small sliver of light.
* * *
The first weekend after spring break, I reached out to Gabriel to finally hang out. Swimming had really helped me. Leanne’s compliments lifted me out of my rut. At least I was rocking some aspect of my life, so I was ready to face the world again and be social.
I couldn’t remember the last time the two of us hung out in his basement. Maybe once last summer? Definitely not at all once senior year started, and he was busy chasing after Melanie and I was busy training for the world champs or with Kennedy in secrecy. He ordered a pizza for himself and an enormous Greek salad for me, showed me a huge collection of comedies that had “no love storyline or any of that stupid crap,” as he said. He offered me a rum and Coke—rum he kept secretly stashed in his room—but I felt super pathetic because the rum he had was Captain Morgan, and I knew that was Kennedy’s favorite. I stuck to water, of course. Being healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally was meaning more every day the world champs grew closer.
Gabriel suggested we watch the dumbest, funniest movie in his collection, and that meant Superbad. Both of us had seen it at least fifty times, so we did a lot of talking in between. Our plans for prom (he was going with Melanie, I was riding solo), our plans for the summer (train, train, and then train some more), did I reconcile with Liam yet (hard no), and was I planning on hooking up with Riley at prom (that wouldn’t have been smart at all). And then he tried convincing me to finally ask out Hot Lifeguard since she’d been giving me smiles before and after practice ever since the fall. Not going to lie, his convincing made me seriously think about it. Something casual and completely meaningless would be perfect.
As I walked up my driveway coming home from Gabriel’s, I noticed my phone light up in my hands. It was two texts from Kennedy. My throat tightened as I procrastinated on opening the message. I had such a good night with Gabriel that I didn’t want it ruined by whatever Kennedy had to tell me. But my curiosity forced me to open it as my stomach slowly dropped.
Her first text read, Can we please talk?
Followed by her second text sent twenty minutes later, the one that lit up my phone screen: It’s important.
I swallowed as my fingers took over and started typing a response. My brain and heart were so tired of constantly producing emotions in my body like a twenty-four-hour factory that they finally just let my fingers take control.
I replied, What’s there left to even say?
How much I miss you.
That text was a punch to the gut. Maybe like five punches to the gut. A long breath came out of me as I took a seat on the concrete front porch. The night was warmer than an average late April night in upstate New York. The air smelled as if summer was just around the corner, and even the night bugs chirped in the darkness, and the whole scene engulfing me smelled and sounded like summer. Which meant happiness was near, right? What a great way to ruin the happiness and the glimmer into the looming summer with a text message from my ex-girlfriend—who I hadn’t spoken to in a month. We hadn’t talked, smiled, or made eye contact since that night. It was as if we were invisible to each other. And here she was, reaching out to me right as I started to finally accept what happened, telling me how much she missed me. It was amazing how much the stitched-up wounds quickly spiraled open from just one text from her.
I knew if I was going to engage in this conversation—despite making so much progress since our breakup—I was going to need all the fresh air my lungs could hold. So, I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.
I had no idea what to say back. Of course I missed her. I missed her like crazy. There wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t think about her, about kissing her, hugging her, or wishing so much that I could bury my face in her chest as we cuddled and I deeply inhaled the wonderful and comforting smell of her shirt.
As I stared at her text message, wondering if I should text her or not, I watched the typing bubble appear and disappear, triggering my heart to race every time those three little dots popped up on my screen. I watched it for a good two minutes, going through every possible thing that she could tell me. How much she hated me. How much she regretted our relationship. How I was just an experiment to her bi-curiosity, and she really was in love with Liam. How she was going to prom with Liam. How she never wanted to talk to me again.
It was amazing how three little dots engulfed in a texting bubble could trigger your anxiety to run a full marathon.
And then, finally, came her long text.
I sucked in a breath of the warm, summer-smelling air and braced for the worst.
Her novel-length text read, I told my parents and my brother about us over spring break. They asked me why I’ve been so upset. So, I told them everything. We dated. I stopped talking to you because I kissed you the night before we moved. How I’ve liked you since, and I tried running from it. How I’ve been so miserable without you. Long story short: my parents are really shocked, but I think they took it well. Jacob doesn’t care either. They said that they just want me to be happy and find someone who makes me happy, and I told them you make me happy. They told me that I needed to tell you that. So, this is me telling you that. No one has made me feel the way you do. Not a single person.
Holy fucking crap, I thought. She’s out.
I read the text over and over again so every word could marinate in my mind. Forget about all the crap that scurried through my head just a moment ago from the texting bubble. It was everything I would have never guessed that she would say. She told her family everything? And from the sounds of it, literally everything? My body felt pinned to the concrete patio, and those night bugs I’d listened to on my walk home? Yeah, they didn’t really exist anymore.
I must have typed ten different responses, changing my mind, backspacing, and writing something new. I guess it was her turn to deal with the anxiety of the appearing and disappearing texting bubble.
Ultimately, I went with, Wow. That’s really amazing, Kennedy. Seriously. I hope you’re proud of yourself for coming out to your family. I sure am.
I am proud of myself. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I feel like I’m not hiding this part of myself anymore. It feels amazing. So, all the important people in my life know. I’m not afraid anymore. I want you to give me a second chance. I miss you SO much. We can be open and free this time.
I started crying. Not because I was happy, but because what I wanted her to do still didn’t change the betrayal and hurt that lived inside me. Why was my heart still broken? I wanted so badly to run over to her house and tell her how proud I was of her because I was so incredibly proud of her for coming out to her family. She did more than I even asked her to, but why didn’t I feel different? I wanted to feel differently. So badly. But I still couldn’t shake off the gut-wrenching feeling she left me with when she gave me a hard, flat “no” in my driveway. I still couldn’t get the image of her sleeping with Liam out of my head. We were together for five months, and the whole time, she kept the fact about sleeping with my twin brother right next to her in the closet.
But the reality of all of it was that it was too late. The damage had already been done, as much as I wanted it to be fixed. Kennedy couldn’t undo the pain she’d caused. The first person who I was head over heels for shoved me into the darkest parts of her life too many times for me to just open my arms back up for her.
Fighting through the stinging in my eyes, I let my fingers respond as my lungs constricted. Kennedy, you lied to me. Our whole relationship, you kept this big secret from me. Apparently, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about you and Liam, and you didn’t even trust me enough to own our relationship together when everyone already knew about it.
She texted, Quinn, I’m sorry. I already said that I was sorry. I can’t take it back, and I wish more than anything that I could.
I replied, I believe that you’re sorry, but I can’t just forget about it and jump back into this relationship feeling 100% healed because I’m not. I still get angry just thinking about the lying and imagining you with Liam. I haven’t even worked things out with him yet. Plus, we’re leaving for college on opposite sides of the country in four months. I’m all in world champs training, and I’m doing really amazing at that. I can’t backtrack knowing that we’ll have an expiration date in August when I move to Berkeley and you move to Syracuse. How would that even work?
The text bubble appeared and disappeared at least five times. I can’t believe I just told her no, I thought. I can’t go through this all over again.
Another round of la douleur exquise coming right up.
She responded, I don’t know how it would work…
I bit down on my lip so hard when I wrote out my next text, I’m so sorry, Kennedy. Please believe me.
How the hell could Kennedy and I have an expiration date? How the hell could Kennedy and I expire, because all the feelings I had for her felt way too real to be dead. How could something so real and amazing like this not work out, especially when there were tons of people in shitty relationships they shouldn’t have been in. How could we not fucking work out?
The stitches I gave myself unraveled, and my chest burned just rereading my text and watching her texting bubble stutter again on my screen.
Don’t take my no for an answer, I thought. Give me an answer. There has to be an answer. Find a way to be together. I’m so sorry.
She texted, I believe you.
I guess there really is no answer to how this could possibly work, I replied.
With that, the conversation died instantly, and I cried myself to my room.
Erick had sent me a playlist of all the songs I needed to listen to in order to mend my broken heart. He was one of those people with about two thousand songs on his iPod (yes, he still had an iPod, an iPod Classic, to be exact) and he knew exactly how to cater his playlist to speak to me. “Everytime” by Britney. “Broken-Hearted Girl” by Beyoncé. “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. “The Harold Song” by Kesha. “Someone Like You” by Adele. “Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson. “All I Want” by Kodaline. And every single song Damien Rice ever wrote because he was the king of making people ugly cry over their heartbreaks. “I Remember” by him made me do exactly that for about an hour straight.
Somehow, through the crying and music, I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I shut myself up, quickly wiped my face, and pulled the headphones out of my ears. Liam softly called my name from the other side.
Just what I need: more drama.
“What?” I said.
The door opened cautiously; a ray of light from his room illuminated his face. In the shadows, I noticed his sympathetic and worried look.
“Hey. I, um, I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I haven’t checked in at all, and I’ve realized that’s pretty shitty of me.”
“How does it look like I’m doing?”
“I can’t really see anything, but I can only imagine you’re not doing well.”
He could have turned away at that point. He didn’t have to waste any time checking in on me at all. But he did, and instead of locking himself in his room to blare his rap music like he’d been doing the past six weeks, he broke through the wall we built and crept into my room. As much as I wanted him to leave me alone, I also wanted him to stay because honestly, I really missed my brother. I really needed him right now.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
When he took a seat by my feet, I just cried. He scooted closer to me but still kept his distance. He rubbed my knee, which I think was his way of giving me a hug, though I wouldn’t have shooed him away if he offered me one.
“She just told me she came out to her family and begged to get back together,” I said as I cried. “And I had to turn her down. I can’t forget about how she hid you from me or how she said no to me on our driveway. I wanna forget about all of it because I want her so much, but I don’t know how we can ever work out when college and world champs are in four months. How can something that made me feel so good not work out?”
“I don’t know. It’s just at a really crappy time.” He let out a long sigh. “I…I don’t know what to say. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now, and I’m so sorry for being such a dick about it. I should have told you about me and Kennedy. I didn’t know it was something to tell you until I found out you two were dating, and I was just so mad and jealous that you guys were together to even think about telling you about some drunken hookup before you two were something. When Kennedy came over when you were at states, we talked about it—telling you—and we thought it would be best to wait until everything was all right between the three of us before we dropped another bomb. It probably wasn’t the right thing to do either, but I honestly had no idea what to do. I’m sorry.”
Knowing that they talked about their hookup and how they were going to purposely hide it from me made the flowers and the Swensons she got me that night instantly rot in my memory. It meant so much less knowing I walked in a second after the conversation hushed from the sound of my footsteps.
But as the knowledge of their conversation tainted the wonderful memory I had, Liam did sound genuinely sorry, and the look he continued to give me when his hand consoled my knee was the most genuine I’d seen him in years.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, it’s not, but I forgive you. I’m sorry too.”
“And I shouldn’t have said all those things in front of Mom and Dad either.”
“Same.”
“I know I’ve been a piece of shit to you for the last couple years, but I want you to know that I’m on your side, and I’ll always be on your side, and I don’t want you to think you have to go through this alone anymore. I want you back. I miss happy, sassy, funny Quinn.”
Another round of waterworks. This time, I reached my arms out to him to let him know how much I needed his hug. He latched his arms around me and held my head into his shoulder, allowing me to cry into his shirt.
I didn’t realize how much I missed him until his arms hugged me back so tightly. We just sat there in the darkness, hugging as if we’d never hugged before. I sobbed into his chest, and he rubbed my back. I cried even harder the more he consoled me and the more he showed me how much he was on my side. I hoped that reconciling with Liam would push me in the right direction to get over this awful heartbreak because half of my broken heart was from my strained relationship with the first best friend I ever had in my life: my twin brother.