I'm just a shell of myself
And I've never felt so empty
Everything's spinning out of control
And I can't breathe
- Not ready to say goodbye, Leah Nobel
Things slowly went back to normal â or at least as normal as possible. The two of them could not fully enjoy their last day alone together but it still felt good to have this time to themselves.
They did talk about the last night a little bit, even though doing so made Quinn cry again. She explained to Ellie that she was just so scared of the future and the events of the day had been overwhelming her so she had started panicking. For her, it felt like her life was spinning out of control and crumbling to pieces right in front of her eyes and she could not do anything to stop it. And that, while she initially had not wanted Ellie to see her like that even though she was never mad at her, it had felt good to have someone comfort her. Ellie hugged her again and assured her that she would always do it again.
After their serious conversation, they kissed again for the first time that day. This time, it was just like a first kiss: tentative, unsure, testing the waters. However, Ellie noticed with relief that it felt just the same. They felt just the same.
When their parents came home early in the evening, there were no things unsaid between them, no problems left unsolved.
All of them went out for dinner to the restaurant of Fiona's parents and it seemed like even Quinn was able to enjoy it. After talking about the trip for the whole evening and looking at lots of pictures, it was weird not to share a bed anymore.
Around noon on Monday, it started snowing heavily. Quinn, who had been restless the whole day, pressed her face against the window in Ellie's room and then turned around to her, an enthusiastic smile on her face.
"Hey, if we wait an hour or so, we can go skiing in deep snow!"
"And why would I want that?" Ellie looked up from where she was currently searching the internet for a movie they could watch.
"Because it's fun!" Quinn got up from her place on the desk and stretched her long legs. Her sweater rid up and exposed a small strip of the skin of her stomach. When Quinn noticed Ellie staring, she smirked.
"I'll tell you what:" she began, inching closer to Ellie, "you go skiing with me now and I'll do something for you later."
"Anything?"
"Hm... yes, anything."
Now it was Ellie's turn to smirk.
"Then I want you to make me tea."
"Seriously?" Quinn chuckled, "That's all you want?"
"Maybe I can think of something better once we're back," Ellie pushed herself up from the bed and gave Quinn a quick peck on the cheek, "come one, we wouldn't want to miss all this snow."
Giggling and bickering, the two girls got ready downstairs and then took their skis up the mountain. The loose snow on top of the skiing tracks already reached their ankles when they made their way over to the ski run they wanted to go down.
"It's quite unusual, having this much snow at the end of march," Quinn shouted over to Ellie. It was also rather windy so they had to raise their voices.
"Maybe this was a sign for us to go skiing again," Ellie yelled back, "So let's go!"
"Let me go first," Quinn looked down the mountain, "I'll carve a way into the snow for you so it'll be easier for you!"
It turned out that Ellie really needed Quinn to do this for her. Skiing in deep snow was difficult enough but the ongoing snowflakes falling down from the sky made it even more difficult to see anything properly. When they had almost reached the bottom of the mountain in Lone Pine, Ellie tried making her own way through the snow and promptly tumbled down the mountain a few feet. Luckily, the soft snow did not hurt.
"I feel like I have snow everywhere now," Ellie announced after getting up and wiped the snowflakes from her goggles. A bit of white powder fell from her helmet and landed on her shoulders.
"You're white from head to toe!" Quinn laughed so hard she almost fell over herself.
"Oh, just wait until I get to you!"
Quinn was a little below Ellie but on the way down to her, she managed to fall two more times. Every time she tried to turn her skis, the tacky snow would throw her to the ground. Quinn was laughing the whole time so when Ellie did reach her, she just threw both of them into the snow as protest. An intense snow fight ensued.
They only stopped fooling around when the snowfall got so heavy that they could not see any farther than 10 feet in front of them. Quinn deemed it too dangerous to ski down the mountain (for Ellie, at least) so they took the lift down and then walked home. Ellie's parents were very worried for their daughter but Quinn's parents knew that they had nothing to fear about. With Quinn by her side, not even heavy snowfall seemed dangerous to Ellie.
Skiing had been very exhausting, though. Ellie was kind of used to 'normal' skiing now but skiing in deep snow was on a different level of exercise. After dinner, she almost feel asleep halfway through the movie Quinn and her were watching and then went to sleep quite early.
When Ellie woke up again, she could not immediately place her finger on why that had happened. Her room was pitch black dark and when she grabbed her phone to check the time (and almost burn her eyes out because the screen was so bright) she noticed it was only 3am. What had woken her up?
She was about to go back to sleep when a sort of howling sound startled her again. It sounded like the whole house was about to be blown away. And then, there were steps in the hallway, frantically running down the wooden stairs. At that, Ellie sat up. What was going on?
She slowly got out of bed, dragging her blanket with her and wobbled over to the window. There were no street lights but the little lamp next to the front door was glowing. It illuminated heavy snowflakes being blown across the driveway, so many and so fast that Ellie could barely make out each one of them. It was all a white blur.
Quite a lot of snow had fallen since she went to bed, the footprints Quinn and her had left earlier had already completely vanished. And now that she was fully awake and payed attention to it, the howling sound that she now identified as wind never really stopped. The howl that had woken her up had been particularly loud but the wind still blew.
The snow from earlier had developed into a fully fleshed snow storm.
Suddenly, there was noise from downstairs. Ellie turned around and stared at her door in confusion. She heard voices but the sounds of the weather were too loud to make out who was speaking or what they were saying. Was something wrong? It had to be, what other reason was there for Quinn and everyone else to be up in the middle of the night? She could only suspect it was Quinn because of the footsteps on the stairs.
Ellie threw her blanket on the bed, grabbed her nearest hoodie and pulled it over her head as she left the room. The door to Quinn's room was wide open and the lights were on, blinding her for a couple of seconds.
When her eyes had adjusted to the light, Ellie slowly crept down the stairs into the living room.
The situation there was not one she was prepared to see. Both Quinn and her parents were up. The adults both were slippers on their feet and sweaters over their pajamas, indicating that they had gotten up a little while ago. Their faces were tired and their hair messy.
But the real shock was the little creature laying on a towel on the sofa: it was Pasta, lying on his side completely limp but panting hectically. Quinn was sitting on the floor in front of him, her naked feet tucked under her body. She was cradling the small animal, crying into its fur. Something was very, very wrong.
Ellie did not want to interrupt the situation so she stayed rooted on the last step and simply watched the scene.
"Mom, can you try calling the vet again?" Quinn begged and looked up from where she was sitting. Her back was turned to Ellie and she had not yet noticed her.
"I already tried four times, I've got no signal," Janet said gently but pulled out her phone nevertheless. When she raised it to her face, she turned away from the others to concentrate. Philip sighed and then went into the kitchen. He returned just moments later with paper towels and a plastic bag.
"I'm going to clean up upstairs," he said, "you said he vomited on your bed?"
"Yes," Quinn sniffled, "and then he peed on the carpet. Mom, is anyone picking up?"
"Still no signal," Janet ended the call and started a new one right away.
When Philip went to squeeze past Ellie, he was the first one to notice her.
"Oh, hi Ellie," he said quietly, "did we wake you up?"
Ellie nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. She made space for Philip to go through and then inched closer to the couch. Quinn had noticed her but did not react in any way.
"I don't know what to do," she said quietly without looking up, "mom can't reach the vet because there's no signal. All because of this stupid snow storm."
"What happened?" Ellie asked hesitantly.
"I don't know," Quinn sobbed and angrily wiped her tears away, "he woke me up because he vomited all over the blanket and when I put him on the floor, he just fell over and peed on the carpet. He can't hold himself up anymore, he's constantly rolling his eyes, he's not eating or drinking..."
She hung her head and began sobbing again. Ellie finally went over to her and kneeled next to Quinn, stroking her back reassuringly. Pasta tried to raise his head from where Quinn had put him on the couch but could not hold it up. Instead, he tiredly licked at his owners hands like he was trying to calm her down.
"Still no connection," Janet approached the couch, "I'll keep trying, though. Is there anything either of you need?"
"Can you bring some more water for him?" Quinn asked without taking her eyes off of her dog, "And a tissue for me?"
"Of course."
While Janet went to retrieve the items, Ellie frantically tried to think of any way that she could help. She wanted to do something but right now, it did not look like there was anything she could do. Quinn looked up at Ellie briefly before she focused on Pasta again.
"I don't know what to do," she whispered brokenly, "he's getting worse by the minute."
As much as she wanted to tell Quinn that everything would be alright, Ellie was not sure if it was the truth.
"You're doing your best to help him," she said instead, "and I'm sure your presence calms him down."
Quinn nodded wordlessly and took the newly filled water bowl from her mother when she brought it over. She tried to get Pasta to drink something but the tiny dog did not want to. He drank a few drops and then dropped his head again, panting pitifully.
"Yes, hello, this is Janet Reynolds," both Ellie and Quinn perked up when Janet spoke up. She had tried non-stop to get a connection and it seemed to have finally worked.
"I'm so sorry to bother you so late at night but we have an emergency," she turned away a little from the girls as she spoke, "Pasta, our dog started vomiting a little while ago. He also peed on the floor. Now he can't hold himself up anymore and won't drink anything."
She listened to what the person on the other end of the line said, then turned to Quinn.
"Is he salivating excessively?"
"No... yes... I don't know," Quinn sobbed and quickly blew her nose on a tissue.
"She doesn't know," again, she listened intently, "Are his eyes moving uncontrollably? Or is he behaving abnormally?"
"Yes, both of them â mom, what does that mean?" Quinn turned around to look at her mom but quickly focused back on Pasta when he gave a tiny yelp. Janet still had the phone pressed to her ear and Ellie watched as her face fell. The woman turned away and said something to the vet Ellie could not understand, then she hung up the phone came to the couch.
"He's coming," she announced, "but he said that because of the storm, it could take a while, since he doesn't know what the roads will look like."
"That's not quick enough!" Quinn replied, "It normally takes an hour to drive, he's not going to make it in time."
"I know," Janet sighed heavily, "darling, he said Pasta might be having a stroke."
"What?"
Janet raised a hand to stop her panicking daughter. The fear in Quinn's eyes physically hurt Ellie's heart.
"He said it's just a guess since he can't diagnose him properly over the phone but that the symptoms all fit. And... he's quite old already."
"I know," Said Quinn, "I just thought I'd have a little more time with him."
"I'm sorry, baby."
Ellie noticed a movement in the corner in her eyes and spotted her parents peaking into the living room. They were both still in their pajamas, their eyes tired. How long had they been standing there? Did they know what was going on? Ellie quickly motioned for them to go downstairs again but Dan shook his head and made his way over to Janet.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"No, not really," Janet replied sadly, "we can only hope he'll make it until the vet gets here."
"Alright... we'll be downstairs to give you guys some space. Just let us know if you need us."
Ellie's parents left the living room and Ellie heard them go down the stairs. She also registered Philip coming back from upstairs but her attention was now on Quinn and Pasta again.
With each minute that passed, his condition seemed to get worse. Each breath was more shallow than the last one and his snoring-like breathing sounded even worse than usually, like it was being forced out of him. His chest was barely moving. He had been tiredly licking at Quinn's hand but now his head was too heavy for him and he only reached his owners hand because she held his head for him.
After a little while, his tongue stayed still, hanging halfway out of his mouth mid-lick.
"Pasta?"
Quinn's voice was quiet, barely audible. The little dog gave no response. His chest rose another two, three times, then there was no movement anymore. His body became limp in Quinn's arms. The snoring sound of his breathing that had before filled the room stopped. An eerie silence settled in.
When he was still breathing, it had been just one of many sounds. But now that the little dog was not breathing anymore, the absence of his gasps was like the loudest noise of them all.
All of a sudden, Quinn let out a heartbreaking, wounded cry and buried her face in Pasta's fur, clutching his little body to her chest so carefully like she would break him apart if she held him any tighter.
Ellie's hand slipped from her back at the sudden motion and she could only sit and watch as Quinn broke down in front of her. There were tears on her cheeks, too, she realized a little belatedly. If they came from the loss of Pasta or the sight of the heartbroken Quinn, she did not know.
Quinn's sobs were slowly turning hysterical and she put Pasta down ever so gently before wrapping her arms around her knees and curling in on herself. Philip pushed past Ellie and sat next to Quinn and hugged her tightly while Janet rubbed her back reassuringly.
Ellie felt a little out of place so she got up quietly and walked over to the other sofa to give Quinn and her parents some space. As she sat down, she quickly wiped away her tears â this was not the time to worry about herself.
Quinn and her parents stayed on the floor for a long time before Quinn calmed down a little. While they waited for the vet, Philip made everyone, including Ellie's parents in the basement, some tea. Quinn refused to take any at first but then sipped a little out of her cup after it had long gone cold. After she had stopped crying loudly, she sat next to the couch, petting Pasta while silent tears rolled over her cheeks.
The vet arrived around 5am.
He could not do much more than confirm Pasta's death and offer his condolences and apologies for not making it in time. Quinn did not look up from her dog's body the whole time and only perked up when the vet, an older man with a kind face, gently touched her shoulder.
"If you'd like, I can take him with me and have him cremated," he suggested, "then you can keep his ashes. That's something lots of people do with their deceased pets."
"I don't know," Quinn shrugged and looked back at Pasta, "how long will that take?"
"If I take him with me on my way back, you can pick up the cremains in the afternoon â in a small urn, of course."
"Okay," Quinn wiped her nose on her sleeve and then carefully picked up Pasta's body. He looked even tinier in death than he did in life. Quinn hugged him one last time and gave him a kiss on his forehead-wrinkles, then she passed the body to the vet.
"Please take good care of him," she said.
"We will," the man smiled at her, then said his good-byes to everyone and then left.
After sitting in silence for a couple of minutes, Quinn rose from the floor.
"I'm going to my room," she announced, sounding completely hopeless, "I'd like to be alone for a little bit."
"Alright sweetie," Janet hugged her daughter briefly, "we'll be right here if you need us."