1. You Be the Anchor That Keeps My Feet on the Ground, I'll Be the Wings That Keep Your Heart in the Clouds - Mayday Parade
She's thirteen years old, and her knees sink into the pew with practiced ease.
The guilt tugs dangerously at her shoulders, a golden bowed head deep in thought and prayer. Yesterday she saw Rachel Berry. Yesterday she watched the sway of her hips as her plaid skirt fluttered around tanned thighs as she struggled to reach her locker.
Today, she was here to repent and, if she had to, carve the verse into her skin if it would remind her to keep her eyes in line next time.
Quinn knows the verse.
She knows because on the first day of kindergarten, tiny and vulnerable and clutching onto her dad's hand like a lifeline, she watched her father's face morph into something hard, something unforgiving, as two men, hand in hand, led a vivacious and bubbly little girl into her classroom.
She remembers never being so intrigued in her life before then.
She also remembers feeling horrified as her daddy explained over dinner that the family of three would burn in hell forever.
Forever, Quinn thought, was a long time to punish the brown eyed girl who was very pretty, actually, even if Quinn learned quickly she didn't know how to be quiet, or nap during nap time.
She's twisting uncomfortably now, as if people are staring at her, even if she knows they aren't. They wouldn't be able to tell, would they? You can't tell someone's - someone's that way, just by looking at them.
At least, Quinn hopes. She prays. The idea of her stomach doing unpleasant flips around Rachel isn't something she wants on public display. Isn't something she wants, period. She knows she's going to need to stop lingering in the girl's locker room, because Rachel likes to sing when she thinks she's alone and Quinn maybe kind of thinks it's the most amazing sound in the world.
Her eyes are screwed shut, tight against the hot burning against the very edges, threatening to spill over, threatening to become proof, something tangible and real, that this is something she can't deal with on her own. God had always listened when her parents didn't, so this, this whole thing, running to church as soon as the seventh period bell rang? It should help.
It doesn't. Quinn swallows painfully and her lips barely move as she tries to say something, anything. The words aren't coming and maybe this is what causes her to break, causes her shuddering and heaving and tears and oh, God - why? Why her? Quinn doesn't think she deserves this. She's a good kid. She doesn't want to go to hell. She's pretty sure she doesn't want Rachel to, either.
She just wants - and maybe that's her problem, she wants too much - to feel normal, but the kind of normal every story or hymn or TV show she's been exposed to says. Quinn can't bring it to herself to admit what she's feeling for Rachel Berry definitely feels normal, but the kind of normal that's not supposed to be.
The girl is just so conflicted and, and confused, yes, that's the word, and as her sobs fall to a close she knows God needs to say something, just this once. And suddenly it's okay that when her favorite aunt Martha died that He didn't say anything then, and it's okay when her dad lashes out when he's had too much wine, He doesn't say anything. She needs Him to say something now, to tell her it's okay, it'll pass, like all feelings of grief and hopelessness.
The church is hot and stifling and silent. Quinn shakily rises on her own two feet, trembling, and despite having insisted to her parents just last week she was old enough to be treated like, like an adult or whatever, she doesn't think she'll ever be old enough to deal with this. There's no one to help, either.
Quinn feels like He might be just as unsure as she is - is it possible God doesn't know how some things turn out, either?
Because she can't imagine who does know if everything is going to be okay.