Doug, especially drunk, was hesitant. He seemed to play Bloodborne like any other Souls game. But Bloodborne was fast and demanded you to be faster. It was calculated and demanded you out-calculate it. It favored the bold. From the moment I entered the arena, it was like the living room faded from around me. There was no Morgan or Doug anymore. There wasn’t even a Quinn. There was only the Orphan of Kos and its Hunter.
The world went by in a blur for the next few minutes. I wasn’t even sure how many. All I knew was that my reflexes told me what buttons to hit and my eyes practically never moved from the center of the screen, seeing from the corner of my eye the movements made and how I needed to respond. I didn’t regain consciousness until after I heard the telltale groan of the Orphan falling and the Kos Parasite appearing onscreen.
I exhaled, as if for the first time, then regained my sense of self. “So, how many blood vials did I use?” I asked Doug, half-bragging, half genuinely unsure.
“Two,” Doug muttered in disbelief. “Jesus. You know how to play, I’ll give you that.”
“I was aiming for zero,” I admitted. “I guess I don’t really use your build much, so-”
“Alright, alright,” Doug cut in, snatching the controller back. “You got your time to brag.”
A little nervous given his reaction, I sank back to the couch seeing Morgan give me a look. I knew that look well — Morgan liked when I put on little displays like this. Less ‘Bloodborne,’ more ‘showing Doug up,’ but she was definitely giving me the ‘fuck me’ eyes.
Enter, stage left, who fucking else. Right when Morgan and I were about to kiss, we heard the front door slam and Morgan immediately looked back in bewilderment.
Doug was less fazed. “Who is it?” he called.
“It’s me,” Taylor’s tired voice ran through the hallway.
At the sound of Taylor’s voice, Morgan’s head snapped back into place, a look of pure frustration and nothing else on her face. Without even looking at me, she pushed the blanket off of herself and got up at the couch to meet Taylor, who was already walking past the hallway.
“Hey Doug — oh. Hey, Quinn.” She began her sentence with, granted, no enthusiasm, but at least energy. When she got to me, her voice went all quiet. I didn’t even know which look I should have been giving her at that moment.
“Hey Tay,” Doug replied.
In a voice barely audible enough for me to hear, Morgan told Taylor, “Hey, it’s good to see you, but uh…” She hugged Taylor politely to complement her point. “Could this wait? I kinda wanted to be with Quinn alone tonight.”
Taylor, not gifted with subtlety, answered with a regularly-volumed voice. “No. I need to talk about Joel stuff with you. You need to know.” She slowly turned to face me, and just looked at me. Morgan turned and looked at me too, then back to Taylor. “I think… Quinn should know too?” Taylor continued, with a lot less confidence.
“And this can’t wait?” Morgan asked.
Taylor shook her head no and, winning Morgan’s approval, motioned for me to come upstairs with them. I sighed, said my goodbyes to Doug, and followed the two of them into Morgan’s room.
“Okay, so what is it?” Morgan asked in a borderline impatient voice.
“So,” Taylor began, waiting for me to shut the door. “This is about Joel.”
“Yes, we know it’s about Joel,” I cut in. “You said that at the door.”
Taylor looked at Morgan, probably expecting Morgan to defend her, but deflated like a balloon when she saw Morgan’s face reflecting mine. She sighed angrily. “Okay, so basically, Joel doesn’t believe Milo, I think.”
“What?” both of us asked at the same time.
“Like, I think this is okay,” Taylor continued, as if that’s all we needed to know.
“What do you mean, you ‘think’ he doesn’t believe him?” Morgan asked.
Taylor started fiddling with her hair. “So, like, Joel was high when Milo told him, and I think he, like, thinks it’s a joke. Or thinks he doesn’t know if it’s a joke.”
Morgan had to deal with the confusing details and the reality of the drink hitting her harder by the minute. “Wait… he told you this?”
Taylor nodded enthusiastically. “He went up to me and was telling me, like, how he doesn’t think Milo is funny, and how pathe- no offense, how pathetic Quinn is and stuff.”
“Yeah, who could possibly take offense to that?” I sarcastically grumbled, pacing around the room. “This doesn’t sound like it concerns me. Can I leave?”
Morgan looked back and forth from Taylor to me, eventually stopping with a cold look at Taylor. “Yeah, Taylor, you need to stop pretending his feelings don’t exist,” she told Taylor in a cold voice, a voice I didn’t think Morgan had. “He’s had to deal with so much bullshit.”
“And I haven’t?!” Taylor erupted. “Do you want me to tell you what happened or don’t you?”
“You could have sugarcoated it, or even implied he was wrong for saying that,” I shot back with a louder voice than I expected. “You could have defended me, whether it was with him or with your own friend group half the time when I started hanging out with you more regularly. You could have treated me like more than just your plaything.” At this point my voice was barely above a growl. “You could have chosen not to order me to crawl.”
Weirdly, none of my accusations seemed to hit her hard until the last one. The last one broke her. She started breathing more rapidly, although I couldn’t tell if it was anger or trying to stop herself from crying.
Morgan reacted to my final words immediately too. “Crawl? What do you mean, crawl?” She turned to Taylor. “What does he mean, crawl?”
Taylor said nothing.
Morgan turned back to me. “Is this a metaphor or-”
“It’s literal,” I answered.
Morgan’s look of concern deepened. “We’re discussing this afte-”
“No. That’s between me and Quinn,” Taylor said, her first words since my outburst.
I waited until Morgan turned back to me. “We’re discussing this after she leaves, yes.”
“Quinn, what are you doing?” Taylor asked. “Trying to look like the tough guy for your girlfriend?”
“If you don’t think what happened was wrong, you should be fine with me discussing that with her,” I simply answered.
“I think it was private,” she sharply objected. A beat of silence passed. “Defending you would have made it look more like Milo was right, and Joel was, like, believing nothing happened.” She paused. “He looked for you on Facebook and Instagram later. I saw it. He couldn’t find you.”
“I don’t have a Facebook,” I replied. “Or an Instagram.”
“Don’t tell her about the crawl thing,” Taylor quickly spoke. “Please. I won’t do it again.”
Another beat of silence passed. Taylor’s eyes were definitely welling up now.
“The fuck is going on?” Morgan asked.
I had a theory. “She thinks this is the one thing that, if you knew fully about it, would make you consider actually leaving her,” I answered. “For some reason, she thinks this is the thing.”
“All the more reason I should know about it,” Morgan replied darkly.
“I was just curious about — I got too carried away with something. If you talk about it I’m fucking leaving,” Taylor continued.
I studied her face. “Why do you think this is the one thing…?” I trailed off, looking from one girl’s face to the next. I felt like I didn’t have every puzzle piece here. Or I did, but I just didn’t get why.
I thought about Morgan’s words from earlier on in the week. Obsessive. Don’t get obsessive. You don’t always need to know why.
I shook my head. “You know what? Forget it. This conversation is going nowhere. Let’s move on. So Joel thinks it’s a lie, but clearly has his doubts if he was trying to look me up online. What’s the next step?”
Taylor sniffled a little. “Well, like, first of all, I don’t think I should talk to you or be seen with you anymore.”
I threw up a hand and began pacing again. “You really enjoy this, don’t you?” I asked rhetorically.
“I never said I liked it,” Taylor admitted. “And I’m sure if it’s the group it’s fine. If we’re in a group it’s fine. More than fine, since you’re Morgan’s boyfriend.”
“Which means I’m going to have to lie about how open we were, in case he asks me,” Morgan noted, even while tipsy. “He might see me as the only neutral third party.” She cleared her throat and nodded. “And what happens after that?”
I stole a look at Taylor. “I think it’s become abundantly clear there’s not going to be an ‘after that’ for us, huh Taylor?”
The first tear. The first convulsion. The dam broke. Taylor was crying. Taylor’s cute chipmunk face was twisted into bitter pain, and I was standing there, looking down on her, trying not to feel sorry for her. God damn, did she ever make it difficult.
Morgan felt sorry for her first, moving in for a hug, which Taylor accepted. I sighed and quickly followed. “Anything I can get you?” I asked annoyedly, crossing and uncrossing my arms.
Taylor turned to Morgan. “Ha-have y-you been dri-inking?” she asked.
“Yes,” Morgan admitted.
“Can… can I…” Taylor mumbled.
Morgan looked at me. It probably was not a good idea to drink alcohol to help with sadness, but I wasn’t sure whether it was wise to voice that here. She looked back at Taylor. “Look, Tay, I get that this is hard for you, but Quinn and I wanted one night, just one night where we could-”
“I won’t butt in,” Taylor protested. “I can s-sleep on the couch, and you and Quinn could have the bed…”
“I won’t be staying tonight,” I interjected.
Taylor looked at me with sad eyes. “You’re leaving.”
“He was already planning to,” Morgan helpfully pointed out. “He’s okay walking home. He says he likes it. It’s why Doug and I felt it was okay to drink.”
“Are you lying…?” Taylor asked innocently.
“No Tay, we’re not,” Morgan reassured her. “I’ll get you a drink, okay?” She got to her feet, somewhat unstably, and leaned on my shoulder. “Watch over her,” she whispered to me.
“How?” I whispered back, but Morgan was already leaving. I waited until she was out of the room, then squatted down to look at Taylor.
Watch over her, my ass. I had Taylor alone, and wanted to make good use of it. “Why is it so scary if Morgan knows about that in particular?” I asked. I didn’t always have to know why, but here, I think I earned it.
Great story! And..great story telling!