How?

Anastasia's words again hit a little too close to home for Quinn. They made him wonder if he'd been right... made him wonder if maybe he'd been wrong... made him wonder if maybe he'd burned a bridge that shouldn't have been burned. Axel had never tried to convince anyone that the girl had consented to anything - it seemed if that was the truth, he would have tried to use that in court. Right? At the time, Quinn would have sworn his brother would never go that far with a girl anyway - he knew better. Then to believe that same brother had raped a girl... why had Quinn believed it anyway?

Shaking out the cobwebs, he accepts refill on his coffee, glad that for now his time with Anastasia hadn't ended. Her starting statement makes him chuckle, though he could see that she had a different story under the surface too, and he listens intently.

Watching her as she speaks, Quinn keeps a close eye on her eyes, the way she moved and the tone of her voice. It still hurt her somewhere, but she was strong... she was moving past the hurt she'd had, and she was now seeing with more mature eyes... eyes that could see that there were two sides to the story, not just one. Two sides... two sides...

Quinn's gaze drifts down for a moment before bouncing back up again. "That's a tough break... I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Sounds like you got quite an uncle though." And she'd also kept her faith - that in itself was commendable.

But what about the two sides? She'd wrongly held anger against her mother all those years. Had Quinn been in the wrong too? But how could he have been? The courts had proof. Axel was guilty. "DNA doesn't lie..."

Quinn realizes he'd just thought aloud and he shakes his head. "I don't know how I could have been wrong about my brother... How can there be a second side to the story when the side I see has blatant proof? I'll admit... I didn't think Axel would do anything like that but... when there's proof..." He sighs. "I know what you're saying about you and your mom... but there was a whole lot of gray area there - details of why and how and when. But with my brother... I just don't see how there can be more, ya know?"

Taking a new swig of coffee, it's almost too hot, and he cringes a little but he swallows it down. "I'm all about forgiveness and all... I mean, one sin isn't greater than the next but... something like that, it's just... not easy to forget. Someone like that just can't ever be trusted again. I guess that's why part of me doesn't want to see Axel. I don't want to have to decide all over again whether I believe him or not. I made up my mind seven years ago... I don't want that war again."

Reaching over, he takes a packet of sugar to play with, though he doesn't add it to his coffee. "Even though you found out the reasons your mom left you... she still had left. So how did you reconcile that in your mind? How did you get over it? Whether my brother's guilty or not, I just... I don't know how to move past it."

Why on earth he was having this conversation and had taken it this far, Quinn didn't know. But all of a sudden it felt very easy talking to Anastasia. It was like there was no barrier between them. There was nothing to fear and the words just tumbled from his mouth as if he were talking to someone he'd known all his life. Maybe it didn't matter why.