10
Loading video...
By Madison Chapman
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
It was a crisp autumn day around Halloween when I woke up beside yet another guy who wasn’t Quinn to blood streaked across the sheets.
I met Quinn before this date, before any of the many men I chased in college, on my first day at University of California, Berkeley, in 2012. Mom and I had driven up the I-5 from our sleepy San Diego suburb in a nine-hour purgatory of Y2K radio and greasy fast food. On the other side lay reinvention: a cramped dorm room, endless Bay Area fog and the freedom of adulthood. Quinn lived across the hall.
I was the oldest of three, a type-A striver from a California-conservative family. But from the moment I first ripped Fiona Apple on LimeWire, I knew I could be more laid-back, more effortless than the stale student government type people made me out to be. When I packed for college, I left the evidence of my old life behind: the historical fiction, the Ronald Reagan book Mom had gifted me. I hoped to find someone who could help me curate a more extroverted, hip image for myself. I didn’t need a man to mold me, but anyone I dated would need to fit the vibe.
Read More on My Turn
My Husband Tried To Tough It Out. Then Came a Devastating Diagnosis10 min read
Doctor Said I Just Needed a Laxative, Then One Test Changed Everything9 min read
I Dropped My Son Off at Daycare—Hours Later, He Was Dead10 min read
...
So it was clear that my lanky, shy hallmate Quinn—a quiet computer science major with a Legend of Zelda screensaver, a bald spot, and a bright orange jack-o’-lantern T-shirt he wore constantly—wasn’t dateable. He’d be my kind, gentle sidekick instead.
It was Quinn I dished to after I met my first boyfriend, a wry, skinny-jean-clad hipster who folded me into his off-kilter comedy group, which I found very avant-garde. But Quinn was more interested in our shared taste in music and movies than my new romance. When we were both kicked to the hall so our roommates could have sex, we studied and talked through the night.
In that liminal, grey-carpeted space, it didn’t matter that I was still uptight and self-conscious beneath the arty mask I now wore. It didn’t matter that Quinn spoke softly and still owned Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. We could go deep into what I liked in secret, breadcrumbs to an old life: the fantasy and historical fiction novels I’d inhaled when I was younger, Stephen Sondheim, Hayao Miyazaki. He was from Virginia, so I told him about the California dream—how I’d never driven Highway 1, but we should together. Quinn confessed how homesick he felt. I revealed the alcoholism in my family. Late at night, when we’d exhausted our chatter, he’d rest his head on my shoulder. And I’d unwind, for once, into the natural silence between us.
The boyfriend didn’t last long, and I became a serial dater. I sought reinvention in a surfer type, a fraternity type, a summer camp counselor, but never Quinn. He was still thoughtful, patient and witty. Now and then, he even made my heart jump in a way that bewildered and kind of scared me. But I couldn’t get over his dorky jack-o’-lantern tee. So I confided in him instead. As I whined to him one day about my latest flop—a glossy-haired Senate intern—Quinn remained more silent than usual.
And somehow, I already knew what would come next: “I…I have feelings for you,” he sputtered.
...
Could I put my ego aside for Quinn, and the strange pull I felt toward him? I was too curious not to try. On our first date, a community production of Into the Woods in San Francisco*,* I scrutinized his outfit. He hadn’t worn the jack-o’-lantern tee, to my relief—I hadn’t put it past him. After the show, we crouched on a jetty and listened to the Wave Organ amplify the heartbeat of the ocean. When I stood up and stumbled, he caught me in a butter-soft kiss.
I’d asked him about the T-shirt shortly after, and he shrugged it off. “I got it at an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. It’s a fun memory,” he explained. I frowned. “But it’s never Halloween when you wear it,” I said, with some disdain. He looked nonplussed. “Is that a problem?”
For me, it was. Our relationship was unique, special. But shallow as I felt to admit it, I was embarrassed to let him into the rest of my world. He reflected the person I wanted so desperately to leave behind: We were both over-serious, self-critical to a fault, nerdy. Through him, people might see the person I used to be and judge me, especially when he wore the shirt. So I kept him separate, then ended it.
We’d split, but remained friendly, for just over a year when I met the ideal guy—the guy I knew would complete my transformation. He was from Los Angeles and understood what it was like to grow up in sun-drenched Southern California, like me. But unlike me, he exuded easy cool. When we drank hoppy beers at a dive bar, or when he kissed my neck while cult classic Before Sunrise played in the background, I melted.
I was sure it was fate. Until the morning I woke up in his room in a pool of my own blood.
I slipped from the bed and froze: My legs were smeared with blood. The sheets, my underwear, all crimson like a scene from a slasher film*.* My period never came on this fast or intensely. It was natural, I knew, but I was young and ashamed. My date shifted beside me and I prepared to bolt, to give an excuse, to do his laundry. Instead, I choked out a weak apology as he rose from his pillow and gaped.
He sent me home with a clean pair of sweatpants and a quick hug. “I’d love to visit over the holidays,” I ventured. “I usually drive to Westwood to see a friend. I could meet you for coffee somewhere in the middle.”
“Maybe…” he replied, hand already on the door.
I tried to make my chuckle cute. “It’s not like I’m asking to meet your family,” I jumped in, but too fast. “It’s just coffee.”
He paused a beat as I stepped outside. “Maybe,” he repeated.
I never spoke to him again.
When I returned from the holidays for my final semester of school, ghosted and humbled but—to my surprise—no longer heartbroken, Quinn and I grabbed cheap seats to the student orchestra. We’d always enjoyed classical music together, another secret from my past life. At some point in the last year, I’d noticed Quinn never wore the jack-o’-lantern T-shirt anymore. “I threw it away,” he shrugged when I asked. “It was time.”
I wondered about the shirt as we sat down for a selection from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet. Surely, he didn’t toss it for me, I thought, fidgety. The shirt was weird, but it was also very Quinn. I missed it.
...
Other men had come and gone, but Quinn had remained: When I was tired or grumpy, elated or needed to let my freak out. I’d evolved in college—I was no longer conservative, for one—but he cared as much about me now as he had that first day, no reinvention needed. And through his gaze, I cared more for that flawed, but genuine, version of myself, too.
I realized: I loved him.
We sat a bit too close the next night while watching Spirited Away. At some point I turned my head to his. The kiss was still soft, but knowing, now, the unspoken truth. There was no going back.
Three years later, Quinn sat, baggy-eyed, and massaged my foot as I received my first round of chemotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma. At 25, we cowered together in the hospital—overwhelmed, confused, too young. I imagined a lifetime with him and hoped I’d live to see it. Maybe I’d even buy him another jack-o’-lantern tee. One for both of us.
Later that night we lay in my twin bed, his gangly 6’1” body laced into mine like a vine. I sloshed water, dribbled blood and spit onto my white blanket.
He saw all of this and held me closer.
Madison Chapman is a writer and proud cancer survivor from California, currently based in Washington, D.C. Her work appears in The New York Times, HuffPost, The Washington Post, TIME*, and elsewhere.*
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Do you have a personal essay you want to share with Newsweek? Send your story to MyTurn@newsweek.com.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines