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Every cell in her body felt like it was being ripped apart one by one. A deafening roar filled her ears and she thought her eardrums may explode. It seemed to hurt worse every time she was pulled through the lake in the church. Like it was taking more and more out of her and causing her body to be weaker to its effects.
She let her head fall back onto the floor, feeling dizzy. “Are you okay?” she groaned, her voice coming out hoarse and raspy. It sounded like she had been screaming for hours.
There was no reply.
Rhonda sat up and looked around, her wet hair slinging droplets of water onto the floor. “Quinn?”
She pushed herself to her feet, using the desk next to her to keep herself upright. Her legs felt like jelly and she swayed on her feet. “Quinn!” she yelled. “Mr. Martin!”
Still nothing.
It was only then as she gripped onto the teacher’s desk and her eyes wandered over the papers on it that she realized she wasn’t in the library.
“What the fuck…” She spun around unsteadily, taking in the room she was in. In the corner of the chalkboard was a name written in capital letters.
MR. ANDERSON.
Rhonda let out a shaky breath just as the door to the room swung open. She flinched, knocking over a mug on the desk. Mr. Martin stood in the doorway, his suit dripping with water.
“Rhonda, oh, thank God,” he said. He was out of breath, his chest heaving. He must have run here. “I-I ended up in the fallout shelter and when I didn’t see you or Quinn with me I thought you must be at the place of your deaths.” He shrugged, looking around. “I see my hypothesis was correct.”
Rhonda shook her head. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would it spit us out where we died?” She looked around, feeling unseasy. She hated being in here despite it looking nothing like it did when she was murdered.
Mr. Martin took off his glasses and wiped the water droplets off the lenses. “I don’t have an answer for that,” he replied. “I’m just glad none of us had our keys with us. Who knows if we would have been taken into our scars and if the keys even would have stayed with us.”
The color drained from Rhonda’s face at his words.
Quinn had their key.
A few weeks ago, they had told her they hadn’t been able to stop carrying it with them. And just the day before, Rhonda had seen it in the pocket of their bibbers. She had told Quinn to stop keeping it with them, but they told her that they just couldn’t part with it yet. Fuck, if they had just listened to her.
“Do you have your watch on you now?”
“Uh, yes. I took it on my way out of the boiler ro—”
“Give it to me.”
Mr. Martin’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”
“Give me your fucking watch!” she screamed, grabbing him by the collar. She had to stand on the tips of her toes to get right in his face and she could see the frightened look in his eyes.
“O-okay,” he relented, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out the watch and Rhonda snatched it from his hands. “What’s wrong? Did Quinn—”
“Just drop it!” she snapped, taking off towards the back doors of the school. Quinn may have forgiven him for crashing the bus—and maybe it wasn’t truly his fault—but if it was her stuck in her scar, she wouldn’t want the man responsible to be the one to save her.
Rhonda kept running until she reached the memorial rock near the bus stop. Her heart was thumping erratically in her chest. She had never been in Quinn’s scar before. It was completely out of the way to get to the rest of the scars so she never had a reason to before. But just knowing it was a bus crash made her shiver.
She turned to the bus stop and stepped in, the haunting red glow lighting up the panels around her. She gripped the watch tighter in her hands and sat down on the bench.
In an instant, Rhonda was inside the mangled bus, sitting on a half bent seat. She slowly rose to her feet and a feeling of dread and fear washed over her. It was the same feeling everyone got when they entered any scar. No matter whose it was.
Electricity surged from the broken lights, sending sparks flying above her head. She was suddenly hit with the smell of dried blood and rotting corpses. Rhonda held up the back of her hand to her nose, nearly gagging.
“Quinn!”
The only reply was the slow rhythmic thuds of a drum. The source of it was a teenage boy lying at the front of the bus. His chest was impaled by what looked to be a broken log. In one of his hands, he held a drumstick that he kept raising and hitting to the top of the drum that sat lopsided in his lap.
Rhonda kept shouting Quinn’s name, hoping to God they would just call out to her. But as she made her way through the bus, she knew something had to be wrong. The bus seemed to go on and on. In nearly every seat there was a member of the marching band. All covered in grisly wounds from the crash.
Rhonda noticed they kept repeating. The same dead tuba player, the same dead drum player, the same dead flute player, the same dead trombone player. Over and over she kept seeing them. They were playing their instruments in a slow, unharmonious way and their dead eyes followed her as she moved past them.
Rhonda trudged on, trying to drown out the unsettling music. After what seemed like hours, the bus began expanding around her. There was no longer a row of seats to squeeze through on each of her sides. Instead, they were much farther away from her. It was as if someone had tripled the size of the bus.
She could just make out someone sitting right next to what appeared to be the back exit of the bus. The red flash of the emergency lights illuminated them and relief flooded through Rhonda’s body before quickly being replaced by a feeling of terror.
As she looked at the Quinn in front of her, she could tell this wasn’t right. They were in a pink, frilly dress that was hiked up past their thighs. Their hair was straightened and long. So long that it went past their chest. A full face of makeup was plastered on their skin.
Rhonda blinked, unable to comprehend the person she was looking at. This wasn’t how Quinn looked when she last saw them. And she knew they would never dress like this. It looked so unlike them.
Her eyes drifted over to the woman standing next to what she assumed was this scar’s version of Quinn. She was tall; her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders. Side by side they looked so similar. It was almost as if someone had taken one of their faces and copied it onto the other. The only difference being that the tall woman looked older.
Their mom. It had to be.
Scar Quinn and their mom were laughing. It was a sick, deranged laughter that made goosebumps pop up all over Rhonda’s arms. Both of them were staring straight at her, their eyes seeming to be devoid of any life.
“Come on everybody!” their mom said, her voice distorting into a broken, robotic sound. “Let’s watch Jacqueline play her favorite game!”
Dark red blood poured down Scar Quinn’s thighs. Rhonda brought up a hand to cover her mouth. The sight of it made her more nauseous than she already was. What the fuck?
Rhonda spun on her heels, looking around for anything that could indicate where Quinn could be. She kept shouting, pleading with them to answer her.
More laughter filled her ears. This time though, it wasn’t just Scar Quinn and their mom. Several more voices joined and Rhonda felt a chill run down her spine.
It was the other ghosts. Every single one. Charley, Wally, Janet, Yuri, Simon, Maddie, even Mr. Martin. And she could make out her own laughter too. It was louder than the others.
As their voices filled her ears, a darkness swirled around her. It was blinding, suffocating. Rhonda’s breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling frantically. It felt like the room was closing in and she couldn’t breathe.
Through the laughing, she could hear them each whispering Quinn’s old name. Taunting them with it, saying even more vile things along with it.
Oh, poor, poor, Jacqueline.
They’re just hiding how they really feel about you.
Blood pounded in her ears. Her hands were shaking. But Rhonda kept stumbling around in the void, still desperately trying to find Quinn.
They think you’re sick.
What would they think of your favorite little game?
“Stop it!”
A voice cut through the sounds around her and the darkness disappeared. It fell from around her like a curtain on a stage. This voice was different from the others. It was Quinn.
“Stop. Please.”
The pained cry came from a corner behind her. As her eyes adjusted back to the light, she could see Scar Quinn and their mom pointing to it now, still whispering their old name with wide, freakish grins on their faces. There was nothing but darkness in the corner, but she rushed to it anyway. When she drew closer, she could make out Quinn curled up against the wall with their hands covering their ears and their eyes shut tightly.
“Quinn!” she cried out, grabbed them by the shoulders. They flinched away from her and let out a sob.
“Get away from me!” Quinn tried to swat at her, but it seemed like they barely had any strength.
“Hey, no no no. It’s me.” Rhonda gripped their shoulders tighter. Her hands were still shaking. “I’m real, Quinn. I’m real.”
They slowly opened their eyes and the look in them made a knot form deep in Rhonda’s stomach. They looked so frightened and exhausted in a way she had never seen before. “Rhonda?”
“Hey,” she said softly. Rhonda brushed their hair out of their face, still wet from being pulled into the lake beneath the church.
“How are you—what are you doing here?”
“I came to find you.” Rhonda responded. She hooked her arms underneath their armpits and pulled them to their feet. Their whole body was trembling. “Do you have your key?”
Quinn’s eyes drifted to the people behind her and Rhonda could see the fear and panic growing in them. “Hey. No.” She grabbed them by their face. “Look at me. Not them. Me.”
The music from the dead marching band was growing louder, closer. But it still didn’t drown out the laughter and words coming from the people in the scar.
Rhonda shook them by the shoulders gently. “Where is your key?”
Confusion clouded their face. “My what?”
Rhonda groaned. Please don’t be difficult. “The field marker. You know the thing that gets you in and out of here.”
Quinn shook their head. “I don’t… I don’t know. I think I dropped it. I don’t remember. I was being chased. The bus just kept getting longer and longer and I-I fell.”
“Wait,” Rhonda said, “chased by who?”
The tears that were in Quinn’s eyes finally fell and Rhonda felt a sharp pain in her chest. “Me. I was chasing me.”
Jesus.
Rhonda nodded with determination. “Okay. Okay.” She grabbed Quinn’s hand and started pulling them back the way they came. Fuck the key. If it was here, she would come back later and find it herself if Quinn wanted it back, but right now they needed to leave. Before too many more memories or fears surfaced.
She started walking faster, feeling like if she didn’t that somehow they may get stuck in there. A boy slid out from one of the seats. A large piece of glass was sticking out of his neck and blood was caked around his mouth.
It scared Rhonda to see that he had moved. None of them had before. He started to open his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“Get lost, you sack of shit!”
Without a word, he slinked back into his seat. His eyes followed them as they rushed past.
When they finally made it to the front of the bus, Rhonda gripped onto the door and slammed it open, pulling them both through. Her feet hit the grass of the school’s back yard and she almost cried in relief. She had never been so grateful to be back there.
“Are you—” Rhonda had grabbed Quinn by their arms, but they pulled away.
“Don’t,” they hissed. Rhonda was taken aback by their tone. But she ignored the annoyance she felt because the look on their face and the tremble in their voice was too familiar. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She stood there for a moment, watching Quinn walk away. Her heart was still pounding and it felt like the world was spinning around her. But she made herself start walking after them. She couldn’t leave Quinn like that. Not after everything she saw in there. Not after seeing Quinn like that.
There was no question in her mind where to find them. Quinn had told her several times that the band room was the one place that they felt the most at peace. They could sit there alone and play their instruments or listen to the boxes of records without being interrupted.
When Rhonda entered through the door, she saw them sitting on one of the chairs with a guitar in their lap. “Rhonda, please. I told you I don’t want to talk about it.” They didn’t look at her as they spoke.
“We don’t have to,” she said carefully. “Can’t I just be here? With you.”
They sighed and scooted their chair over without a word, giving her room to sit next to them.
An uncomfortable silence fell in the room. Quinn wasn’t even playing the guitar. They were just staring down at the strings, their fingers rubbing up and down them. Rhonda’s mouth opened and closed as she debated whether or not to break the silence. Finally she said, “I’m claustrophobic.”
Quinn gazed at her, eyes sunken and dark. “You are?”
Rhonda’s mouth twitched in discomfort. “I wasn’t when I was alive,” she muttered. “But ever since I was strangled, I… I can’t be in tight spaces or I feel like I’m suffocating. It makes me feel like Mr. Manfredo’s on top of me again and his hands are on me.”
Quinn straightened their back. They knew she was trying to bait them, but they cared too much about Rhonda to try and stop her. She had never told them anything like this before. “It’s why I struggle so much with being close to people. Physically. It—it brings back those memories and I feel like I’m there all over again.”
“Regulation tuba distance!” Quinn brightened a little, recalling their exchange in the library.
“Yeah.” Rhonda let out a small laugh, nodding. “Regulation tuba distance.”
She looked down at the guitar in Quinn’s hands and shut her eyes, trying to keep her courage from dissipating. “Back when Wally first died he would pull these pranks all the time. On me, Mr. Martin, Janet. He was… bored. Especially during the summer when no one else was at the school. There was this one time that I ended up in a locked closet. I really have no idea what was supposed to be funny about it.”
The memory of the dark, cramped closet came flooding back and her skin started prickling. A lump formed in her throat. “He let me out once he could hear me hyperventilating. I was so angry I threw a fire extinguisher at him. I didn’t talk to him for months.”
“Jesus, he really did that?”
“Yeah, I mean, he was a stereotypical jock who liked to bully people.” Rhonda’s shoulders slumped. “He was an asshole, but he wasn’t so much of an asshole that he would have done it if he knew. He spent those months where I didn’t talk to him trying to apologize. He followed me around like a lapdog.
“Look, I-I know I’m not doing a very good job explaining it and I know you said you don’t want to talk about it and that’s fine,” Rhonda continued. She started to reach out for Quinn’s hands but stopped herself. She wasn’t sure why. “But I’m just trying to tell you that keeping it bottled up doesn’t do you any favors. There’s so much about the day I died that I’ve never told anyone and it’s only caused more problems for me.”
Rhonda was saying all of this as if she had ever told anyone what really happened in that room. Not even in her time alone with Mr. Martin and Janet had she ever spoken about the things he said, the things he did.
“Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here. No matter how traumatizing or fucked up it is. I’ll listen.”
Quinn finally looked away from her. She could see the tears pooling back in their eyes and they blinked rapidly to try and get rid of them. But it only seemed to make more appear.
There was another long silence in the room. The only sound was of wood chipping as Quinn picked at the neck of the guitar.
Rhonda was about to lose hope of Quinn saying anything when she heard them take a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t actually remember much from the crash. I died pretty quickly after we flipped.”
The atmosphere of the band room seemed to shift almost instantly at their words. The air felt heavy and tense. “I remember… I remember hearing the driver, Mr. Davis, yell. And then suddenly we were skidding on the road. Everyone was screaming and gripping anything around them to try and not get flung around.”
“Do you remember anything about how you…?”
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. But instead of backing down, Quinn shifted in their seat and said, “I froze. I couldn’t make myself grab onto anything. I got thrown to the other side of the bus and hit my head on the metal of the wall.”
It was like her own memory was flashing in her mind as she visualized it and bile rose to the back of her throat. Her eyes were misty with tears and she reached out now, intertwining her fingers with Quinn’s. “I’m so sorry.”
Rhonda looked down, then back up at them. “The bus crash isn’t what you were the most scared of in there.” she said softly. She was trying to be delicate, but blunt. She wanted Quinn to have an opening to talk about it because she could tell it was hurting them not to. She didn’t want them to dodge it.
Quinn visibly recoiled, their grip on her hand loosening. “You can talk to me, Quinn.”
They shut their eyes, face twitching. “Do you remember when I told you that I had a hard time connecting with people?”
Rhonda nodded. Of course she did. It felt just like yesterday that she found Quinn trying to return to their loop. She remembered how angry she was when she walked onto the field and saw them standing in formation with the others, outfit on and all.
“Nobody… nobody liked me when I was alive,” Quinn continued. “Not really. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t belong to any group. It’s why I joined the marching band. Because I thought… but they didn’t like me either.”
Rhonda didn’t say anything, letting Quinn keep talking. She didn’t want to give them a reason to stop. “I acted too weird, I dressed too weird. It was only when I did things exactly like my mom wanted me to that it seemed like people liked me. And I couldn’t handle my mom’s expectations, the things she was saying. The things people at school were saying. So I started to—”
Quinn stopped. They gripped the neck of the guitar so tightly that their knuckles turned white.
“You started to what?”
“Nothing.”
“Quinn,” she pleaded.
“I said it’s nothing!”
They rose so quickly from their chair that it fell backwards. Rhonda winced at the sudden noise before rising herself. She walked over to where Quinn was now standing facing away from her. Their arms were crossed tightly against their chest. “It’s obviously not nothing. I told you that I’ll listen to whatever it is you have to say.”
Quinn’s body was rigid. Rhonda held out a hand and gently placed it on their shoulder. “I’m scared that it’s going to ruin this—us.”
“It’s not going to do that,” Rhonda said simply. Short of I murdered someone, Rhonda couldn’t think of a single thing that would change anything about how she sees them. Annoyance started bubbling in her at the accusation, but she pushed it away. She knew all too well the fears that came with things like this, even if they were unfounded.
Quinn shifted their body. They were becoming more and more uncomfortable. “It ruined my relationship with my mom. More than it was already ruined.”
“I’m not your mom, Quinn.”
“I know. I know,” they responded, turning around to face her. Their voice sounded small and it was shaking more than before. “It’s just—how do I tell you when the person who was supposed to love me without question didn’t.”
Rhonda sighed. That familiar prickle of irritation was settling on her skin. “Fuck your mom. She didn’t love you like she should have and she made your life hell. That much is pretty clear.” There wasn’t a whole lot that she knew about Quinn’s mom. But what she did know made her head hurt with anger. How could you not at least try to understand how your child is feeling? How could you not at least try to understand who they are? If she could try after being alive since the 1940s, then fuck their mom could have to.
Rhonda reached out and grasped onto Quinn’s hands. She could feel them trembling. “Nothing about who you are or what you’ve been through matters to me.” She was staring directly into their eyes. “You just matter to me. Whatever else it is that you’re keeping inside won’t change anything about how I feel about you.”
A beat passed between them. “Can I just…” Their voice broke, “show you first?”
Rhonda wasn’t really sure what they were meaning to show her but she quickly agreed and stepped back as Quinn took a deep breath. “Fuck, okay.” They reached up and pulled the straps of their bibbers off their shoulders and pulled them down so they rested at their feet. Rhonda watched as Quinn then lifted up their shirt a little to fully show their thighs which revealed rows of raised white, jagged scars.
It felt like all the air had gotten sucked out of her lungs at the sight. Her eyes wandered over them, taking each of them in. The blood pouring from Scar Quinn’s thighs suddenly made sense.
She had never met anyone who did this. She had heard about it, sure. Especially as the years passed and it seemed like more and more students in the school did it. But she hadn’t actually known anyone who did while she was alive. If anyone did do it, she didn’t know about it.
Her gaze landed on one specific scar. It was more red than the rest. Newer. Her eyebrows furrowed.
Quinn seemed to know exactly where she was looking. “It’s from before I died. It won’t heal.” Rhonda nodded slowly. She wondered if that made it worse for them. To have a permanent reminder that wouldn’t ever fully go away. “You can’t really hurt yourself here. You know that.”
“You’ve tried.” It wasn’t a question.
Quinn hesitated. They let their shirt fall from their hands and reached down to grab their bibbers that still sat around their ankles. “I did.”
Her cheeks warmed. She tried not to let it seem like she was too upset. Somehow she felt that it wouldn’t help. “When?”
Rhonda watched as they let themself fall against the wall behind them. They slid to the floor and pulled their knees to their chest. She followed them.
“When I hurt Simon.”
“You know that wasn’t your fault,” Rhonda replied. She put her hand on their knee and squeezed. “You were trying to save him. You couldn’t have known that he was going to move that way.”
“I could have killed him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Yeah, but I could have!”
They threw out their hands. Rhonda bit her lip, unsure of what to say. But Quinn kept talking. “I was so… overwhelmed. It was just after I had told everyone about being nonbinary and I-I was so scared that I was ruining everything. I felt like I was actually becoming friends with you guys and then I just messed everything up by being honest and then trying to help. Everyone was mad at me again.”
It made her sick to think Quinn was going through so much more than they let on. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. In the way they talked about themself, in the way they acted. She wished she had known sooner. It hurt her to know she wasn’t there for them like she could have been.
“No one was mad at you,” Rhonda whispered. She reached up and touched the side of Quinn’s face. There were tear stains on their cheek. Rhonda wiped them with her thumb. “They were just worried about Simon. Everyone knows you were just trying to help him.”
Quinn was nodding, their nose scrunched up to try and keep themself from crying. “Um, my—my mom found out when I was fourteen. About…” They gestured to their thighs awkwardly. “It made our relationship so much worse. She… she blamed the way I felt about my gender on it. I had told her since I was little I wasn’t a girl, but I wasn’t a boy either. She thought there was something… wrong with me.”
Rhonda fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course she did. “She never even considered that—that the things she was saying about me and the way she wanted me to be was part of the reason I was doing it.”
“Did you ever tell her that?”
Quinn sniffed, nodding. “I tried. I mean, I did. But she didn’t believe me.”
Rhonda turned her head away from Quinn in disbelief. Her whole body was buzzing with anger, but she stifled it. Now was not the time. “When we were in the scar you said you were being chased by yourself. Was it you in the… dress?”
“Yes.” Quinn shuddered and Rhonda could tell the memory of it had come flooding back. “I was half way through the bus. I-I thought maybe if I kept going that I could get through the back exit. I don’t know why I didn’t just turn around and go through the front… but I could hear myself behind me. I was laughing and I had this crazy looking smile on my face. And I looked like that. Like how my mom always wanted me to look. How I was made to look for every holiday and every school photo.”
Rhonda let her knee fall to the side so it now rested on Quinn’s. She wanted to just engulf them in a hug; let them know she was here for them, to comfort them. But she didn’t want to take away from the things they were saying. So she made sure to keep at least a small part of her body touching them.
“And it just made all of those feelings come rushing back, you know?” Rhonda nodded. She was no stranger to the experience of being in your scar and all the feelings and traumas that you tried so hard to bury suddenly coming bubbling to the surface in an instant. “Then… Scar Me started running at me so I just ran the other way. But they didn’t stop until I got to the back of the bus and suddenly I was in front of me again. And my mom was there, too.
“I tried to turn around but everything was dark and I couldn’t even see my hands in front of me.” Quinn let out a small noise, almost like a whimper. A tear fell down Rhonda’s own cheek and she wiped it quickly. “And they both started taunting me. Calling me Jacqueline and saying that none of you actually care about me and you’re all just pretending. And the blood. It was everywhere.”
Quinn suddenly burst into tears, letting their head fall into their lap. Rhonda leaned over and held them as they continued crying. She wasn’t entirely sure what to even say to Quinn. Everything about this was brand new to her. Both Quinn being nonbinary and hurting themself. So, she didn’t say anything for a moment and they just stayed like that. Rhonda didn’t loosen her hold on them until it seemed like Quinn had calmed.
“I’m sorry,” they mumbled, leaning their head up off their knees.
“You don’t have to be sorry, Quinn.” She brought up a hand to wipe their tears again. They peered over at her. She needed to say something else. She needed to tell them that nothing in the scar was true. She was nervous though. She didn’t want to fuck it up and make things worse. But she still had to try.
Rhonda pressed her lips together, then spoke.
“None of us at this school care if you’re nonbinary. None of us. We’re not pretending or-or humoring you. All of us just care about you and if that’s who you are then we’re okay with that. I’m okay with that. And if any new ghosts show up and they care, I’ll lock them in their scar and throw their key in another.”
“Rhonda.”
“I’m kidding.” Sort of.
This time, Quinn was the one to grab her hand. She could feel their thumb lightly grazing over her skin. “I’m serious, okay?” Rhonda continued. “About everything I said. I don’t want your scar to convince you otherwise.”
“I know. I know. Really I do.” Quinn sighed and started tapping their feet on the floor. Rhonda could practically feel the anxiety radiating off of them. “It’s just hard sometimes.”
“I get it.” She probably understood what Quinn was saying more than they even realized. Maybe she didn’t understand them hurting themself or not being a girl or boy. But she did understand how you can believe something about the people around you, yet still struggle with that deep seeded fear you seem unable to ever fully get rid of. “I’m really sorry that you had to deal with all of that. That you’re dealing with all of this.”
Quinn shrugged and fidgeted with the sleeve of their shirt. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“No. It’s not,” they agreed. “But… I’m really glad you know. It-it helps.”
“Me, too.” Rhonda took a deep breath. “If you’re ever… struggling again you can come talk to me. I don’t really know if I know how to help, but I’ll just be with you. We can talk about it or put on a movie or fucking, I don’t know, stargaze?”
She clenched her jaw, feeling embarrassed at the words. But it seemed to lighten something in Quinn. They nodded, eyes darting from her eyes to her lips and back down again. “That sounds nice.”
They leaned in and kissed her. They stayed like this for a moment. It felt nice to just be alone like this, holding each other and kissing after everything that had been said. But suddenly Quinn leaned back, an almost sad look in their eyes.
“You know you can talk to me, too,” they said. “About what happened with Mr. Manfredo. About your scar. Anything. I want to be there for you, too.”
Rhonda smiled. She rubbed her fingertips lightly over Quinn’s cheek. “All in good time, mon cœur.”
Quinn tilted their head at her. “What did you say?”
The curiosity in their face made Rhonda’s chest tighten. God, they were cute. “Don’t worry about it,” she responded. “It’s French.”
“Oh. I took Spanish in high school.” Rhonda started laughing and she let her head fall into Quinn’s shoulder blade. That had been what she was counting on.
“What’s funny? What did you say?” Quinn begged. Their voice was no longer trembling.
Rhonda lifted her head and leaned in close. “I said don’t worry about it,” she said against their lips.