Chapter 1~Quinn
Disclaimer: I own nothing...not the Glee characters/ideas or any other product/song mentioned here.
Quinn loved Charleston, South Carolina. She had loved the city and coastline since her family had driven through the town on their way to Hilton Head Island when she was a little girl. They had stayed there for a couple nights during their vacations, and she loved the Southern drawl of the old-timers, the tree-lined lanes, the beautiful old homes, the history. As she grew older in Lima, Ohio, she yearned to return to South Carolina. She learned as much as she could about the community over the years, and, as she got older, she took great interest in soaking up as much culture as she could when visiting. One spring break vacation, she even talked her friends Santana and Brittany into accompanying her there for the week. They stayed at Folly Beach, and Quinn was then and there hooked. She knew she had to live there someday and would do anything to make it happen.
Besides Charleston, Quinn's other love was writing. She loved reading young adult novels and even more grownup books. One day at home during her sophomore year of high school, she was upset with her dumb boyfriend Finn and his dumb friend, a guy they called Puck, so she sat down and wrote down why they drove her crazy. She typed it out on her laptop and saved the document, returning to it in later years to re-read her early attempts at writing. Soon after writing this story out, she made a huge mistake with Puck and wound up pregnant with his child (maybe she was just as dumb as she thought they were). For awhile, Finn believed it was his child. She continued writing her story during all this turmoil, the pain of breaking up with Finn, the humiliation at school when it was realized she was a teenage mom and the head cheerleader, the pain of delivery, then heartbreak of handing the baby over to a lady who was a stranger to her. A lot of that time she spent daydreaming of the day she could get out of Ohio and live in South Carolina. The writing helped her escape the here-and-now of her situation at that time.
What she realized after the pregnancy fiasco was she did not need a man to make her world go 'round. Finn moved on with another of their classmates, Puck moved to California after they graduated, and she continued onto Yale where she earned her bachelor's degree in English and honed her writing skills, preparing for her master's degree studies at the College of Charleston. For a few years, she felt that she didn't need a man, a partner, but more and more often she noticed a sense of loneliness setting in. Most days, she could shake it, but some days it just wouldn't leave her. On those days, she turned to her writing, always a great escape for her.
A friend of hers at Yale knew an agent, who read her stuff and signed her during her sophomore year at the university. Before she knew it, she was selling her short YA stories to Signa Publishing. She used the pseudonym Paul Watson and portrayed herself as a man. Why not? she asked herself. She loved the money she was earning during her undergraduate years at Yale and saved a large amount of it. She called that fund her Charleston Fund…money she'd use as a down payment someday. She'd chuckle to herself when she saw her books for sale at the grocery or bookstore and wonder how the public could be gullible enough to think a man named Paul Watson wrote short stories about three teenaged girls and their adventures and romances.
After the first three short stories of The Unholy Trinity were published, her books were selling like crazy. She based her stories on herself and her two best friends during high school and all their adventures. Of course, she embellished a lot of details about those years, and her two friends were very much aware that she was writing their story and often added creative content for Quinn. Her books became so popular that Signa had to hire an actor to portray Paul Watson to go to book signings and such. Very few people knew she was Paul Watson and that was how she wanted it. By the time her four years at Yale were finished, she had penned nine short stories, the life and times of her sophomore year in high school, though she wouldn't tell her teen pregnancy story until later.
Her next move after Yale was to South Carolina to continue her degree at the College of Charleston, a prestigious university established in the year 1770. She nearly couldn't wait to get her Yale degree in her hands to leave for South Carolina. The very next day after graduation, she was driving her pink VW Beetle southward to a one-bedroom apartment in the Radcliffeborough neighborhood of Charleston. She had a deadline to meet for Signa and fan mail to respond to. Signa had made a stamp of the actor's handwriting of Paul Watson that Quinn used to sign correspondence. Sometimes, she felt a twinge of letting people down by using a pseudonym but then remembered how very much she loved her privacy. Besides, how could she continue writing if people were all up in her business all the time?
Her studies and writing for Signa left very little time for socializing, but she managed to squeeze in some dates. They were mostly friends of friends from the College or guys who were also in the English graduate degree program. Most of the time and with most of the guys, it was a one-date situation. Only a select few made it to a second date, third date, fourth date…and only a couple guys were invited into her bedroom. One guy took her to his parent's mansion on Sullivan's Island and she fell in love with the place. Not the gigantic home, but the island itself. Unfortunately, she didn't find love with that guy, but she kept the idea of living on Sullivan's Island tucked away for a rainy day and changed the name of her savings to Sullivan's Island Fund.
Actually, she was beginning to think she'd never find a guy to love, who would love her. She buried herself in her studies and Signa kept sending her ideas of what people wanted her to write about so she figured she had no time for real romance at the moment.
Maybe I'll just get a cat to keep me company, she thought one morning after another lousy date. At the moment, she was writing the story of how her friend thought she was pregnant because she had seen a stork at her house. That was the first story in a series about her own pregnancy and consequent adoption. Definitely not in the mood to date.
That story took her nearly a month to get written out and by that time her master's degree at the College of Charleston was about done. Her plan had been to find an actual house by the time she finished her degree. She had been saving all her earnings from Signa plus she had squirreled away a monetary graduation gift from her father when she finished up at Yale and had been freakishly frugal, so she was set as far as a down payment. She had a thousand ideas of what she wanted in her home, furniture, appliances, color schemes, carpet and laminate flooring, room layout, even the color of her front door. The only problems she had were no good leads on houses and her self-imposed deadline looming every day, weighing heavily on her mind. Oh, and her mother calling nearly daily to find out if she had met The One.
That's how Quinn thought of this mysterious man, The One. Italicized and each word capitalized. For some reason, it was of the utmost importance to her mother. She tried to explain to her mom that right now was not a good time to be on the lookout for a guy…soon though. She'd say that to appease her mother, all the while hearing her father in the background telling her mom to lay off! Her older sister had been married for five years now and even had a couple kids so Quinn guessed her mother felt some sense of urgency about Quinn and her boyfriend-less situation.
She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for in The One anyway. She had been attracted to a number of different guys, mostly in good shape, taller than her, smart, funny. She herself had kept herself in good shape. Her hair was still the blonde it was in high school (sometimes with a little help from the salon), and she loved to wear unique outfits to show off her fit girlish figure. She knew she could still catch the eye of guys and that always made her day.
Finding The Onewas bound to happen, she knew it. She just had no idea when it would happen…or where.
A/N: This is just a bit of background about Quinn; the story will be told from Quinn's point-of-view. Stick with me...it gets better! :)