Page 76 of Timeless
Abby took a drink and said, “No, I… I don’t do well with most things. There’s a reason I moved back to this small town. Had I grown up in LA, I still would’ve left for someplace smaller, calmer, not as busy or filled with people and pressure. I have some intense anxiety. I go to therapy remotely once a week, and I’ve been able to avoid meds so far. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I don’t want anything to interfere with my writing. My doctor said they shouldn’t, but I don’t know. Something about me wants to work through the issues I’ve got without being medicated. Nothing wrong with it. Just not my thing, if I can help it.”
“How long?”
“How long what?”
“Have you been experiencing the anxiety?” Quinn asked.
“I would say all my life, and that’s true to an extent – it’s always been there – but I don’t remember it hitting me this hard until–” Abby stopped.
“Keep going,” Quinn told her, knowing what Abby was about to say.
“About five years ago, it got worse.”
“Yeah… Thought so,” Quinn replied and took a long pull from her beer. “So, my whole life, I was unhappy, with no real reason for it. Moving here calmed the feeling down a bit, and then it dissipated entirely when I met you. You were anxious, and it was more manageable until about five years ago, when I moved here. Did it get better when you moved back?”
Abby nodded and said, “I thought that was because I was here, where it’s not as hectic.”
“I’m sure part of it was. But I’m starting to understand this a little, and I think we’re like opposite poles of two magnets, Abby. We’re drawn together. And whenever we’re not together, it’s like something is missing or wrong until we find each other again.”
“So, we’re just supposed to, what, get married tomorrow and settle down in my house or yours?”
“No, I don’t think we have to get married at all, if we don’t want to. And I’m not asking you to move in just yet.”
“What if we don’t like each other this time?”
“Do you not like me?” Quinn asked.
“No, I just don’t know you.”
“You know that I like red wine and that I’ll drink white if I have to. That’s a start, isn’t it?”
“So, what? You’re suggesting we date?”
“That day at the shop, before you knew anything about Harriet and Deb, before you picked up that photo, did you like me?”
“Yes. But how much of that is because some dead woman inhabited my body or changed her spirit out with mine when I was born or something, and how much of that is me?”
“I don’t think it matters, Abigail,” Quinn said. “We’re here now, and we do have feelings for each other. They’re complicated feelings, so I’m not suggesting that any of this will be easy, but I do think it’ll get easier in time. When we first started picturing things, those images were unclear and brief. Now, we’re seeing a lot more. Maybe the further along we go, we’ll be able to better separate out what Cheryl felt for Diana, Harriet felt for Deb, Bess felt for Elizabeth, and all the rest from what we feel for each other.”
She watched Abby swallow.
“Which iswhat, exactly?”
“Interest,” Quinn replied. “I feel a deep interest in you. I don’t feel love yet. It’s there, but that belongs to them. I know I like you. I like your humor, your intelligence, your writing, and I’d like to get to know you more; who you arenowand not who you might have been then.”
“I haven’t looked them up yet,” Abby said.
“Who?”
“Cheryl and Diana. I didn’t look them up before I came here. I don’t know what happened to them yet. I didn’t want to know until after I talked to you.”
“Will you look them up now?”
“I don’t think so. Not today, anyway. I think I’d rather keep writing to see if I can find out for myself.”
“Do you have to go now, or can you stay and finish your pie?”
Abby smiled at her and replied, “Pie, for sure.”