The church was unusually empty. Though she had spent countless hours there in the past, Quinn could recall not a single time when she had been the only person inside. Services at the only Anglican parish in Lima had always been crowded; youth group and Christ Crusader meetings had taken place in the annex and were always bordering on raucous happenings. The complete silence surrounding her as she stood uncomfortably in the aisle pressed oppressively on her chest, her lungs, the swell of her stomach.
Motionless, Quinn tried to will herself to move further into the church, to at least take a seat in one of the pews; her feet remained fixed to the dark red carpet beneath her shoes. The burgundy color had always, during services, reminded her of the rich red of the Communion wine. Now, the overhead light fixtures extinguished and the fading light of the setting sun barely filtering in through clouds and glass, it looked like dried blood; the absurd thought that the carpet was stained with the drying blood of the Jesus crucified above the altar intensified the weight pressing in on her from all sides.
Quinn was baptized at the age of six—christened at only a week old—and she harbored a distinct memory of her father holding her hand as she stood nervously in front of the priest; her father had lifted her up after the ceremony and held her close, whispering in her ear that Christ had died for her and that He would always love her. Ten years, three wine coolers, and one unplanned pregnancy later, Quinn wondered if the God her father had spoken of was still the same, still loved her, still cared; after all, her daddy, her father, who had always been there to catch her when she slipped, had shoved her out onto the streets. If he could stop loving her, then why should she believe any different of God?
"That's stupid," she mumbled, the audible words surprising her; she hadn't meant to speak out loud. Even her hushed tones echoed throughout the church, startling her. She cast her eyes upward to the arched ceilings, then humbly let her head fall forward. "I'm sorry," she said clearly, her words drifting towards the toes of her shoes but meant for God. "I'm sorry for thinking that. I'm sorry for messing up and sleeping with Puck, for betraying Finn. I'm sorry for lying and I'm sorry for the people I hurt and I'm sorry I'm going to bring a child into this world with an incapable teenage mother."
Her breath caught in her throat, a sob forcing itself to the surface and drowning out her words. Legs unsteady, she finally moved, stumbling over to the closest pew and dropping into it exhaustedly. "I'm sorry," she whispered again. "God, please, forgive me. I know my father won't, but please." Trembling fingers locked around the slender gold cross she wore around her neck, pressing it against her skin, over her thumping heart. Her mother had given her the necklace and the cross hanging from it the day Quinn started high school, wrapped in her brand new Cheerios, one of only three freshmen invited to join the squad; she had told Quinn that it would keep God close to her heart and remind her of His love. Quinn hadn't taken it off in two years.
Her hands shook, clenching at the cross as she cried, finally letting go of every millimeter of resolve and determination that she had held onto so tightly since Finn burst into the room and pummeled Puck. Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped off her chin, splashing down onto her interlocked fingers and trailing down her wrists to soak into the sleeves of her sweater. By the time the tears slowed and stopped, the cuffs of her sweater, pushed up to her elbows, felt almost saturated. Slowly, eyes closed tiredly, she forced herself to relax her grip on the cross in her hands. Unclenching one finger at a time, she let her grip relax.
The gold chain that the cross hung from slid off her neck, slithering through the loop atop the cross and falling to pool in her lap, broken gold resting despondent and messily curled atop dark denim. Quinn stared down at the chain—she must have been holding onto the cross far tighter than she thought—numbly, feeling like she wanted to cry again, but far too exhausted to manage more than a slow blink. Her fingers ached from being locked so tightly around the cross; it felt heavy and hot in her palm.
Her phone rang suddenly. Debbie Harry's voice echoed throughout the church; Quinn automatically slipped the phone out of her pocket and silenced it without looking at the screen, dropping it unthinkingly onto the pew beside her. She stared at the altar in the front of the church, unbidden memories rising in her mind. Her baptism, her confirmation, serving as an acolyte, standing proudly at the lectern to read the birth of Christ at the Christmas Eve service, watching as her sister recited her wedding vows. She wondered if the same enveloping, powerful feeling of comfort and protection that had surrounded her each and every time she had sat in this church would ever be hers again; if she would ever be able to close her eyes and pretend that God stood before her, finite and tangible and warm like a sweatshirt that just came out of the dryer, and smile and nod and radiate love and forgiveness. She wondered if God would forgive her transgressions—fornication and dishonesty and betrayal and lust—where her father never would.
Her phone chirped at her, the vibration making it dance along the seat of the pew. Wrinkling her nose, she flipped it open and read the text message waiting for her from Rachel: where are you?
Rachel Berry. Quinn inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly through her nose, shutting the phone and setting it down carefully on the pew next to her. It had been neither her pregnancy, nor her lies, nor her father's disgust, that had driven her into the church. Nor had it been Finn's fury, Puck's sad eyes, the broken look that had taken up permanent residence on Mr. Scheuster's face. No, it had been five feet two inches of brunette mezzo soprano, wrapped in argyle and a smile with approximately four hundred pearly white teeth.
More specifically, it had been the percussive sensation that had started to fill Quinn every time she was around Rachel in the past week. What she had mistaken at first for a pounding headache, which she attributed to a combination of both pregnancy and exhaustion and Rachel's unfortunate habit of babbling incessantly, had expanded into an all-encompassing drumming that matched perfectly to her accelerating heart rate; it pounded so loudly that every time, she was convinced Rachel had to have heard it.
A part of her—a tiny part, miniscule, the same part of her that acknowledged that while she wanted nothing more than her old life back, she still didn't want to give up her child, either—realized almost immediately what it all meant, but that part was overwhelmed and drowned out and beaten back by a voice in Quinn's mind that sounded suspiciously like her father, speaking of hell and sin and eternal separation from God. But as powerful as that voice was, stronger still was the part of her that believed that the God she knew—the one who she felt when she prayed, who she had felt hold her family together a year earlier when her sister's five-month pregnancy had ended in tragedy and heartbreak, who had throughout Quinn's life provided that warm sweatshirt feeling—would not cast her aside so easily as her father had. The God she knew was not a condemning God, Quinn was growing to realize; nor was He angry, or vindictive, or liable to strike a girl with lightning because she made a drunken mistake, or the wrong decisions in trying to deal with that mistake, or because she might possibly perhaps just maybe have an overwhelming attraction to Rachel Berry and her obscenely strong mezzo soprano.
It had been Rachel's voice that hooked her initially. As unbelievably annoying as she could be when she spoke, there was no denying that the girl had a pair of pipes that would make Charlotte Church the tiniest bit green with envy. Quinn had always, her whole life, been attracted to strong singing voices—she had known that Finn could sing before their first date, having heard him belting out karaoke drunkenly at a party freshman year—and Rachel had one that would put any Broadway starlet to shame.
It was more than just an audiophile attraction, though. When things had first started to come apart at the seams, with the news of her pregnancy leaking out around the school, Rachel had come to Quinn with the equivalent of an olive branch to extend between them. Even though Rachel had never mocked Quinn in public or laughed when someone threw a slushie at her, she still made her peace offering as if they stood on even ground. And when things had really fallen apart, when Finn finally found out the truth, Rachel had somehow become the Godsend (the irony and perfection of that label was hardly lost on Quinn) that Quinn needed and had grown to rely on. Bolstering up her confidence when Finn's alternating angry glares and gazes of disappointment left her hiding in the bathroom to calm her shaking her hands; establishing herself as Quinn's unofficial protector and caretaker at school; convincing her to come out and go to dinner and movies and a few parties with the rest of glee, just so she could still be a teenager; through the past months, Rachel had unquestionably inserted herself into every facet of Quinn's life and become her primary support beam.
And somewhere along the line, Quinn had realized that the drumming feeling that pulsated through her body when Rachel was around was more than just pregnancy hormones with poor timing. She was unsure as to whether or not she was falling for the other girl emotionally, but she was bordering on positive that she was almost painfully attracted to her. It was what had led her into the church that afternoon, breath caught in her chest after she had beheld a momentary epiphany: wanting Rachel made her the worst kind of person in her father's eyes—a pregnant-out-of-wedlock teenage maybe-lesbian—and she had been struck with the overwhelming fear that God may very well send an archangel down to ship her straight to hell from Lima. Caught in a flurry of blind existential panic, she had fumbled her way to her car and driven on autopilot to the church, as she had so many times in the past, and stumbled inside.
Her phone chirped again, another text message waiting for her from Rachel. Going on a Cookout run with Brittany and Noah. You want to come?
Quinn felt a small smile spread across her lips. Six months ago, she never would have imagined that Rachel Berry would be going out to dinner on a whim with Puck and Brittany, much less inviting Quinn along. Her smile widened slightly, and she looked back up at the altar, gazing thoughtfully at the crucifix. The sun had set almost completely now, the streetlights outside turning on automatically and flooding artificially bright light through the windows. The carpet looked like a rich merlot once more, the figure on the cross far less judgmental.
Sniffing and wiping at her eyes, Quinn set her phone down and picked up the broken chain from her leg, setting it gently in her palm next to the cross she had yet to release. Tracing one finger over the cross lightly, she clenched her hand around the cross and chain, before climbing to her feet slowly and sliding the both of them carefully into her pocket. She would have to get another chain for it in the next few days; her throat felt naked without the comforting presence of cool metal there to anchor her.
Picking up her phone, she tapped out a message to Rachel. I'll meet you there. Get me a milkshake please. Oreo mint.
She paused before stepping away from the pew, her gaze locked on the altar once more. Eyes slipping shut, she ducked her head down momentarily before she opened her eyes and looked up to the ceiling, through the rafters, up to where she imagined God sat, hopefully listening.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you." Forgiveness didn't feel like a weight lifted from her shoulders or her heart; it didn't make the ache in her lower back or ankles fade; it didn't make her chest hurt any less at the thought of her parents kicking her out. Forgiveness came quietly, stepping softly into and through and within her, invading her senses until she just knew that whatever happened, He still did love her, for all of her flaws and mistakes and pregnancy and maybe-lesbianism and crushing on one of the singularly most annoying people in Ohio.
Her phone beeped again. Duh. I know you. Got you covered, Q. A quiet percussive beat pulsed through Quinn's body. Rachel calling her Q was an entirely different experience than every time Coach Sylvester had done so; more often than not, it left Quinn a tiny bit breathless and wanting to grab a handful of Rachel's argyle and drag her to an empty room.
Quinn smiled at her phone, slipping it into her pocket. With one final glance up at the altar, she made her way out of the silent church. The cool air hit her sharply as she stepped outside, but she walked on a temporary high, unaware of the cold, as if she had slipped into a comfortable oversized sweatshirt, fresh from the dryer.