Kickflip | bxb

eighteen: the confession

Quinn woke up with a very sore lip. He frowned at it in the bedroom mirror, prodding at the puffy red skin around his left snakebite.

"Ugh, do you have to do that in here?" Jessica complained from her bed.

"Tell Andy to get out of the bathroom and I'll do it there." Quinn turned around and stuck out his lower lip. "Does this look infected to you?"

"Ew, why would I wanna look at your infection?" Flapping the pages of her magazine for emphasis, Jess lifted it up to cover her face.

"'Cause you care about me?" Quinn suggested dryly.

"Not enough to stare at your face when it's oozing pus."

Leaning into the mirror again, Quinn frowned. He couldn't see any pus, but the edges of the swelling did look alarmingly yellow. The rubbing alcohol was in the bathroom. He had been planning to meet up with Jenn and Faisal before work, but he needed Andy to get out of the shower so he could clean the piercing properly. He could hear her singing under the water. She was probably going to be a while, so Quinn went to make breakfast while he waited.

His dad came into the kitchen while Quinn was eating his cereal. He was already dressed in his navy blue paramedic uniform, the creases soft from too many washings.

"Morning," he said gruffly.

"Morning," Quinn replied around a mouthful of cereal.

They fell quiet. His dad busied himself making a salami and cheese sandwich on dry brown bread. Quinn crunched his way through his cereal.

"Make you a sandwich, bud?"

"I'm good."

Groaning a little, his dad bent down to grab a plastic bag from the basket underneath the sink, uncrumpling it and pulling the top open to put his sandwich inside. When he saw the folded receipt inside, he frowned. He was usually very good about tracking all of his receipts and was surprised to find he had missed one. He reached inside and pulled out the folded paper, smoothed it against the counter.

"What is this?" he asked slowly, looking up at Quinn.

Quinn swallowed his mouthful. "I dunno, what is it?"

His dad strode across the kitchen and put the receipt on the table in front of Quinn. Crossing his arms over his narrow chest, he said, "I thought we agreed you were gonna run it by me before you spent this kinda money again."

The receipt was from Shoppers Drug Mart: makeup and experimental steroid cream, almost one hundred dollars worth.

"You know I have a job now," Quinn said defensively. "I can spend my money however I want."

"You make minimum wage, not six figures," his dad retorted, exasperated. "We've talked about this, Quinn. You should be saving for university. Can't you do without this--" he waved a hand vaguely at the receipt "--vanity stuff for a little while?"

"No," Quinn said shortly. His chair creaked as he shoved it back from the table and took his bowl over to the sink.

"I don't understand," his dad told him, frustration wearing his tone thin. "What's so bad about the face you were born with that you need to put so much effort into looking like someone else?"