i've got all that i can take
The sting of loss, the sting of skin meeting skin, the sting of words she never wanted to say.
"I just want someone to love me."
Rachel hurts, and not just physically. Deep, deep down.
Quinn remembers, once, watching Rachel sing all alone in the autotorium.
Her fingers were shaking on the curtain, sweaty and slipping on the velvet red material as she huddled behind it in the shadows. She held her breath and when the first note rang out of Rachel's mouth, she let out all the air she'd been holding inside. Rachel didn't notice her, though, and she allowed herself to breathe normally while she listened to the rest of the song. It was one she hadn't heard before, something slow, soft, and sad.
When it was over, and Rachel had finished her song and exited out the front door of the room, Quinn opened her eyes and realized she'd been crying the whole time.
The next week, she whispers the words slushy facial into Noah Puckerman's ear, her head a mess of emotions, her heart beating hard in her chest.
Jesse's got his hands on the small of her back, clutching her closer, ducking his head down to whisper in her ear, and the only thing she's thinking is: I need space.
Every time he touches her, she sees a flash of his face that day, cold, detatched, someone she'd never met. She shivers in his embrace, even as she smiles, trying to forget how she'd been treated, how he'd acted. This is a new day, she tells herself, he's different now.
She's thinking: maybe he can finally be what I need.
It's hot, a hundred degrees, at least, and Quinn wakes up sweating.
She flings open the windows in her room, changes into the skimpiest bikini she can find, and situates herself by the pool in her backyard. It's the kind of summer day she used to love, back when things were simple and she was just a girl trying to get a tan. Now, she stares at the faint stretch marks on her stomach and wonders where her life's going.
Senior year of high school, no boyfriend, no friends, no idea what she wants for her future.
It would be nice just to have a peaceful year, she thinks. It would be nice to graduate without some dramatic scene. It would be nice to love someone, to really love someone.
She lets herself dream.
Alcohol is a warm blanket on her brain.
She watches everything with a sloppy smile on her face, clutches on to Finn even as he tries to squirm away. The bottle spins in a slow circle before her, and she laughs when the names are called out. Her eyes catch Quinn sitting out of the game, her arms crossed and her nose high in the air.
I just want you to like me, Rachel thinks.
By the end of the night, she's said it, and Quinn pauses, stares at her, then leaves the room.
I just want you to like me. Quinn laughs, alone in her car, and drives home without the radio on.
With the lights down low in the audotorium, Rachel feels the sting of Quinn's words like physical pain.
Quinn has Finn now, what more can she take away?
Stop rubbing salt into my wounds, she wants to say, stop adding insult to injury.
She cries her way off the stage, and Quinn sobs on the piano bench, alone and ashamed.
"You have nothing to be scared of."
Quinn lets Rachel wipe away her tears, and she feels something deep within her move, shift. This is supposed to be it, she thinks. This is supposed to be the turning point.
She smiles lightly and lets Rachel lead her out of the room, words trapped behind her clenched teeth, sealed in behind her glossy lips.
They kiss on stage.
It's not planned, nor anticipated, and Rachel knows its unprofessional but she lets it happen anyway. Mr. Shue only looks at them before taking a seat in the hotel lobby. Rachel huddles in a chair, Finn perched by her side. Quinn stares at her hands for a full hour before the results come in.
Rachel cries the entire plane ride home.
Quinn pretends she's angry because they didn't place.
Her bood boils for a completely different reason.
"All I ever wanted was to be your friend."
"I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to be your anything."
Rachel's face crumples, but she takes a breath, nods and walks out of McKinley for the summer. Quinn doesn't know what to do, where to go, who to turn to. She doesn't know.
Rachel doesn't speak to Finn after nationals.
He makes the effort, she ignores the effort, and all is said and done. She hears through the grapevine that he's been dating some sophomore. She doesn't really even care, and that shocks her.
Jesse tells her what she did in New York immature and she tells him he can kiss herass and march his own right back to Carmel, for all she cares, and that's the end of that. She cares even less than she did for Finn.
Summer stretches out before her, long and limitless.
Quinn takes to running.
It lets out all her aggression and she's getting back into shape. She likes feeling the pavement beneath her feet, the wind in her hair. She's a free woman with all the possibilities in the world.
She's too scared to even turn down Rachel's street.
Rachel remembers seeing Quinn cry the day she ruined her life.
She sits down beside her and wishes she could go back and undo the damage, decide to wait and let Quinn break Finn's heart on her own time, when she was ready.
"I just want to be alone."
Rachel leaves, request granted, and she feels something heavy settle beneth her ribcage. The feeling stays there for months. It never leaves.
"If I invited you to a party, would you come?"
Quinn smiles softly, "I'd consider it."
"Cool," Puck says, "You know where Lauren lives. Bring your own beer... Or, wine coolers. I hear that's what you like."
Quinn laughs, for the first time in what feels like forever, and says she'll be there.
Summer, too late at night, and Rachel escapes the party with a dizzy head and red lips.
She dips her feet into the pool, lies back on the cool concrete and watches the stars. Life, she thinks, is such an extraordinary, unexplainable thing. Someone's feet pitter-patter over next to her, and a warm body takes up the space to her left. She looks over slowly, taking in the appearance of a beautifully dishelved Quinn.
"Can we be alone together?" she asks softly.
Rachel nods and turns back to star gazing. She hums a song she's known for so long, one Quinn's never even heard, and Quinn slips her hand into Rachel's. Neither one of them move for what feels like forever.
Once, Rachel dreams of Quinn.
She's running through the hallways of McKinley, frantically searching for something she's lost, though she couldn't tell you what it is. The lights are dim, and getting lower by the minute, and she's about ready to slump in a corner and cry. She pushes on though, looking in lockers, in each room she passes. Soon, she turns a corner and the lights go completely out. She feels tears run down her face, her heart breaks in her chest, then, something blinding appears at the end of the hall.
It's Quinn, smile on her face, hands extended to Rachel, and, suddenly, she isn't so concerned with what she's lost. Maybe she hadn't lost anything at all, maybe she was just looking for something she needed, but never even knew exsisted.