It's cold outside and I wonder what I'm doing in a place like this.
Quinn never knew the meaning of loneliness. She never understood what it felt like to miss someone, that hard exterior that she guarded herself with throughout high school eventually became more than skin deep. It became her. She was beautiful, popular, even through her most troubling times she was surrounded by a group of people who cared. Even if those people were the misfits of the McKinley High Glee Club, they cared enough to make sure that Quinn never felt truly alone.
She looked outside and sighed, turning her back on her new dorm and roommate, still dreaming of what she'd left behind. Lima, Ohio was a small town; she knew there was nothing there for her. That's what she told herself. Nothing should have been pulling her thoughts back to that place she once called her home. She'd always dreamt of having the chance of getting out and here she was, thousands of miles away, the furthest from Lima she had ever been and all she wanted to do was turn back.
"Is it a boy?" her roommate asked, snapping Quinn back into reality.
"Excuse me?"
"Is it a boy that you miss?" She asked again.
Quinn's mind stumbled over phrases, things she should have said, things that would have been right but instead she just smiled. She should have just agreed to avoid any further questioning but that would have been disloyal. She could hide her feelings but she could never, ever deny them.
This feeling was so new to her, placing her hand lightly over her stomach, she thought for a moment that maybe she was ill. She could have food poisoning; the restaurant where she had bacon earlier did look a little dodgy. Hundreds of excuses flew through her mind but it was more than anything she could have conjured up. It was more than something psychical. She missed her. She missed Rachel Berry.
Rachel Berry tossed and turned. The bright lights of the city kept her awake or at least that's what she told herself. She just wasn't used to the lights and the noise yet. This was where she was supposed to be. New York City, the place she'd dreamt of since she was a little girl. She was going to achieve her dreams, she had to, she had worked for this all her life. She wasn't going to let anything hold her back. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She was supposed to be looking forward and all she could do was look back. It's only been a week, how can it already be so hard to be away from her? She craved her touch, the sound of her voice; she even craved her snappy, bitchy ways. All of her. She needed her. Rachel never thought that being so far from her would feel like being so far from herself. That was what Quinn had become, her other half and Rachel so desperately needed to feel whole again.
They'd agreed for it to be like this. They wouldn't make contact until it was absolutely necessary. They needed to live their own lives, achieve their own dreams. They would both be too busy, Rachel with auditions for musicals, Quinn with school and anyway, Quinn's strict Christian school wouldn't allow for her relationship with Rachel. They had to keep it a secret. Again. They should have been used to this by now. Shadowing their love. Rachel had almost accepted that she would never be able to hold Quinn's hand in public, or be able to kiss her girlfriend. They would never be able to be a normal couple. Not yet, not until all of this was over. Then, once their lives had settled into what they'd longed for them to be, they would come back to each other.
Rachel put her pillow over her head, grumbling, she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight no matter how much she tried. She closed her eyelids tightly imagining Quinn's smile but the picture in her mind was blurry, what if she forgot what her smile? Just as panic was setting in, a load buzzing made her jump right up. She grabbed her phone from the desk beside her tiny twin sized bed, the bright light from the display causing her to squint.
"I can't do this anymore, Rachel. I can't be without you."