We Were Birds

Nobody at school understood why Quinn Sutherland and Fern Whitelaw were friends.

Then again, if they heard you call them 'friends,' they'd immedietley set you straight. Fern would say that it was her civic duty to take care of Quinn. His father spent long hours at sea and Quinn had a rough job that required lots of manual labor. On top of that he smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day and wasn't very good at Algebra. Someone had to make sure he was eating right, someone had to make sure he went to the doctor to get that cut checked out, someone had to help him with his math homework and someone had to chastize him constantly for smoking. Fern told anyone who asked that she had, and that it had nothing to do with their being friends. They weren't friends, according to Fern. She was a mother-figure to him.

Quinn would say that she constantly harassed him, constantly badgered him and it annoyed the hell outta him that she never stopped telling him to smoke. She'd spontaneously come to his house most days after school, show up uninvited. If he was at work, she'd set to making him (and his father, if he was there) dinner. If he was home, she'd crack open his math book and get to work. She'd wash his clothes, mend his small cuts and would clean his house. The first initial thought that Quinn had been in love with her was quickly refuted with a "Pa, I was kidding around when I said that," and grudging acceptance of the girl - but his Pa knew the look in his eyes even when Quinn refused to acknowledge it.

They could often be seen in the hallways bickering, or, when they were both in an exceptionally good mood, chatting about the next thing. Quinn always walked her to class, it wasn't something they talked about, just something they did. He'd show up at the door to her class and be there in time to join her coming out of the room. She always looked as if she wasn't expecting him and acted like she didn't care if he was there or not, but he never failed to show up.

Fern's friends learned quickly that the subject of Quinn was off limits. When she was with them she didn't speak of him at all and they knew not to talk about him. Besides, as if they wanted to. It was the same with Quinn's friends. They didn't understand how he could be so enamored with the girl, but they never pressed it. When Fern and Quinn were together, though, their friends did talk. Their words fell on deaf ears, much to their avail. Fern and Quinn ignored the whisperings.

But what Quinn didn't know was that the excuse of "it's my duty!" was just that, an excuse. The subject of The Professor had been another subject that was off limits to Fern's friends, but it had been for a long, long time. He didn't hurt her physically - God no - or even abuse her verbally. He simply locked her up, ordered her around and made her do everything he wished. No one but Fern knew that the time when she was actually going to Quinn's house, her father thought she was at the Library.

In the month after their initial conversation, Fern 'visited the Library' quite often. She did not ever tell Quinn how it was at her house, in fact, she hardly said anything about herself at all, but relished the quiet times when she could be of some use in his house, loved the moments when she witnessed the love and affection between Quinn and his Pa, and savored the seconds when they expressed their need of her being around.
"I don't know what we used to do without you, Fern," Quinn's father would say. "This soup is beyond perfect."

At home she wasn't needed or even wanted, not really. She had to keep not only her appearance, but her grades as well. Many times she'd come home from late nights at Quinn's, where his father was telling them some story from the day, and not even have a bit of her homework finished. It was a sacrifice she'd readily make though, for those tiny fletting times when she felt wanted, safe and happy.

And what Fern didn't know was that she was needed more than she knew. Pa was gone more often than he was home and before Fern, the house had been lonely. He'd used up the time before by asking for more shifts at work and longer shifts, but now that Fern was coming around, Quinn found himself asking less and less for more shifts. She would come in and he'd get the wood from the shed behind the house and make a fire in the fireplace. She'd start to work on dinner or cleaning or tutoring or scolding him about smoking.

By the time the month was over she'd gotten him down to a pack a day, and now he was smoking outside so she wouldn't have to inhale it.

Quinn got so used to having her at his house and walking her to class and generally being around her that it came as a shock when she suddenly and abruptly stopped coming around and stopped talking to him at school.

It was true that sometimes she didn't come around and it was also true that those were the loneliest days of Quinn's week. He suffered through them, though, pretended he really didn't care whether she came or not, tried to do his homework, made frozen dinners and waited until all hours of the night smoking cigarette after cigarette, waiting for his father. At school he'd pretend nothing had happened, but somehow he'd always manage to slip in a casual "Why didn't you come?" and Fern always, always answered with a shrug or a vague, "stuff." She never said the real reason why she didn't come and Quinn was too cowardly to ask.

But that one day, that one day...she didn't talk. She didn't even nod. She ignored him like a statue. It was if the entire month had been erased and there was no trace of any sort of friendship they'd built up.

On that day that Fern started ignoring him, Quinn tried to play it cool, act like he was just making a big deal out of nothing. Fern had never acted like she really needed him. She was taking her meticulous notes, maybe she was just concentrating. But. There was always a but. Fern always had time to chat with Quinn, even if it was only to tell him to be quiet. So he leaned over to her and smiled slyly. "Psst, Fern. Today we should go down to the beach. The piping plovers are around, and I know you always wanted to see them."

Fern twitched, but kept her eyes down. Quinn's heart fell. She wasn't like this. Ever. She never had been, even when they hadn't been...well, whatever they were now. She hadn't flat out ignored him. They hadn't known each other so they hadn't had a reason to talk, but when they had done labs, she'd always been terribly polite to him in asking for something. She never acted like he didn't exist. She never acted the way her friends had for seventeen years.

"They're going to start nesting soon, so Pa and I are going to go out and cover their nests with wire to make sure that the eggs don't get eaten. Do you want to come with us?" Quinn asked. Say something, say something...if you aren't going to be friends with me, at least say no, godammit so I know we're not friends anymore, just say something, say anything, please... But his mental pleading did not work. Fern turned her head away from him.

And Quinn turned his head away from her. A room full of people, and he had never felt more lonely in his entire life.

Class ended in a dreadful silence and Fern escaped with light, unshed tears in her eyes. Piping Plovers, she thought with a wrenching heart. They were the little tiny birds that flit around the beach. Her father had no interest in them, but she did. She loved them. They were true birds, they could fly and flee and they were free.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur of muted colors and dull sounds. The only thing she could think of was the Professor's face when he had found out that she was not actually going to the library when she said she was. He had heard it when he was at the grocery store, his favorite deli man had a son who worked with Quinn. "Well, Professor, my son says he's been seeing your daughter with Rufus Sutherland's kid, Quinn. He's good a boy, I've seen him around. Real nice kid." It didn't matter. It didn't matter how nice Quinn was and how being with him made Fern happier than she could ever remember. It mattered that he was common while she was...something else.

It didn't even matter that she had lied. It was that he was him and she was her and they didn't belong together. "It doesn't happen," the Professor had said. The worst part was that he hadn't even shouted at her. He had just looked at her with those cold eyes of his and said in his softest voice possible that he was disappointed. Not mad. Disappointed. He was disappointed that she'd go behind his back to be with some low-class worker who didn't mind getting his hands dirty.

He'd told her that if he ever heard that they were together, even if it was the slightest whisper, he'd...well he didn't know what he'd do. But he'd looked at the aviary then because Fern had been looking at it, too. She'd wanted to tell him that there was no way he could ever do anything else to her. She'd wanted to tell him that she was already caged, and that he could not lock her up further. But she'd said only that she understood and that it would never happen again.

But if that day was any indication of how miserable she would feel now, she didn't want to think of how tomorrow would be. Or the next day, and so on. Fern walked home slowly, clutching her math textbook to her chest and walked deliberatley passed the road she usually took to get down to Quinn's house. Those fleeting moments of happiness were extinguished now. The tiny fire that had been lit within her for a few seconds was now gone and she felt colder than ever.

The Professor wasn't home, but he hardly ever was in the afternoons. He had class until four thirty and before, she usually took the time to sit out in the aviary before he came home. He disliked her in it, he didn't think she knew how to handle the birds, but in truth, the liked her more than they liked him. His blunt, hard fingers grabbed at the birds that he wanted to inspect, wanted to check, she sat still enough so the birds came to her.

She was meaning to go visit the aviary when the doorbell rung. Surprised, Fern opened the door, saw it was Quinn and firmly shut it again with a jumping heart. He shouldn't be here, he needs to leave, kept running through her mind, but her heart kept jumping and skipping and screaming. Fern let herself rest against the door but Quinn wasted no time in ringing the doorbell repeatedly, obnoxiously and idiotically. "I know you're right there, Fern, and you can't ignore me forever!"

Fern's face burned. "I can try!" she shouted back suddenly.

"HA!" cried Quinn gleefully. "You just talked to me! Told you that couldn't ignore me forever!"

Well. He had a point. Fern opened the door just a crack, but before she had time to even ask what he wanted, Quinn was trying to force his way into the house. Now, if there was one thing Fern wasn't, it was weak. However, she was no match for a tall, wiry seventeen year old who worked on a dock whose job was usually to lift heavy crates of fish. He pushed passed her easily and was standing in her foyer with a look of triumph.

He didn't belong there, that much was obvious. He stuck out like a sore thumb. "What do you want?" Fern finally asked.

Quinn shrugged. "You come over all the time, I just figure it was time for me to repay the sentiment." He cracked a smile then. "Show me the birds." His words were abrupt.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh come on, everyone talks all the time about how your father has this huge aviary with all types of birds in it. The least you could do is show me," he said, sounding so casual, so easygoing, so laidback that it was difficult for Fern to be angry. Except she wasn't angry anyway, and never had been. She was happy he was here, even if he shouldn't be. She wanted to tell him to get out, to tell him that her father would be home soon and that he had to go. But she couldn't say anything. So she just led him to the aviary and then they were inside, standing together and the cacauphonous hymns the birds sang filled Fern's ears like a lullaby.

Quinn stood there, watching the birds and then watching her with the birds. It was as if she was in another land, a far away place in her mind. Finally, she turned to him. "You shouldn't be here. My father...doesn't want us seeing each other."

There were no words for that, only hurt. As if he wasn't good enough for her. As if someone like that asshole Liam Lourdes was. As if she could ever be happy, be herself, with him. But Quinn wasn't leaving. Half of him was telling him just to go and make her father happy and was telling him that he should just give up. But the other half, the selfish half, was staring at Fern with her pale hair and her perfect clothes and her sad eyes. And his selfish half was screaming, "I could make you happy, just give me a chance!" But he didn't dare say that. Instead, he turned to the birds. "Don't ornithologists usually you know, study dead birds? Isn't it easier that way?" he asked.

Fern laughed at that, a musical laugh. "My father likes to keep beautiful things."

Quinn leaned against the cage of the aviary and felt that this cage could be around his heart, too. But the cage belonged to Fern, and she had caputured his heart and was keeping it. It was hers now. "Ah, I see why he protects you so much then," he replied.

There was a spark within Fern's eyes and she took a step towards him - nothing conscious, just a step. Quinn took that a sign. He leaned forward, took her face in his hand and kissed her soundly on the lips. Around them, the birds sang melodiously in a crescendo of the same sad beauty that was consuming Quinn.