Read Every Happy Family for Free Online Page B

fit of confession, her face as helpfully earnest as a dog’s. “Or have I been projecting mine onto you?” She didn’t have a cynical bone in her body and these questions – for which he had no immediate answer and would later turn over and over in his mind searching for one – were asked with absolute sincerity.
    â€œYou never initiate,” she said, leaving the sentence dangling. He finished it in his head: You never initiate anything. You never initiate anything good. “So I never know what it is you want.”
    â€œSorry,” he said, because he didn’t know how to fix himself and he was ready to agree he needed fixing. He could initiate things when the outcome affected only him but when other people were involved, the possibilities multiplied infinitely, beyond sight. He was also sorry because he loved her, as much as he knew how. He loved the way she dragged her nails through his hair when they kissed, loved the erotic hollows of her armpits, her glaring excitement over random things – a new singer, a YouTube prank, a book – and sure, he loved her initiative. Stupid him thought she was fine deciding what movies to watch, where to eat, how often they should spend the night together. She’d seemed thrilled when he let her “outfit” him like her favourite indie rocker: black jeans, boat shoes, pinstripe vest over a T-shirt. He’d never had “a look” before and was grateful.
    â€œI can’t tell if you want to see me or even want to make love to me,” she said, and the punctuating tears made his gut clench. “Just once,” she continued with an emotional gulp of air, “I would like to have to fend you off.” She paused then, her glistening eyes hopeful, as if to afford him one last chance.
    But Quinn didn’t have it in him to force himself on anybody, especially not on demand. That was what she was asking for? Sex? Six months in, that mindless thrusting abandon still required several booster shots of rum.
    â€œMaybe I don’t say it aloud, but I do love you,” he said instead, worried as soon as the words were out that they sounded cliché. He was seriously planning to take her hand, then move in for a “forceful” kiss. But in his moment of deliberation, she’d turned and walked away.
    â€œYeah, come with us,” says the girl named Mandy, who looks as down-to-earth and easy as her name.
    Vanessa hooks her arm in his. “It’ll be fun.”
    Matching architectural style to personality – his private game – Quinn had decided Mandy was a simple brick rancher circa 1950 with large, friendly windows. Vanessa, the drop-dead gorgeous girl in the program, who acted like a bimbo yet got the highest grades (besides him), was a complex and innovative subway system with deco mosaic detail. He’d fantasized about Vanessa. She was in that category, fantasy, because he understood that neither his personality nor his looks warranted someone this pretty. His brother Beau got the looks and he got the brains. He’s come to accept it, but it does bother him that Beau is suddenly broader in the shoulders and soon to be taller.
    â€œDon’t tell us you don’t drink,” shouts Ritchie.
    â€œOkay, I won’t tell you.”
    â€œYou don’t drink?” Rebecca looks extra sad.
    â€œIs it a religious thing?” asks a quirky Jewish guy whose name, Jehoy-something, Quinn can’t pronounce. “You a Muzz?”
    â€œI drink, all right? Like a fish.”
    â€œFish don’t actually drink,” Vanessa says, dragging her reddish-blonde curls over one shoulder.
    She sounds literal and serious, and it strikes him that in some fundamental way she might be as boring as he is.
    â€œSo you’re coming then.” Todd sounds impatient and this is not a question.
    Suspension bridge is how he thinks of Todd, the one guy in the class he considers dangerous. Long