The Muse
Chapter One
"The eroding hours that Quinn spent during the night appeared in the moment empty. Quietly they passed: the slipping sands of an hourglass slowly pooling into the bottom cavity. Her mind, caught within its own centre of gravity, did not notice how long the night was, and she never grew restless. Slow, and slow, and slow. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The time would come. She would have to face her. She would have to step forward and bare herself before her. Hunched over in her bed, encapsulated in darkness, bound only within her thoughts, thoughts of bright hallways and domino chains of students; thoughts of Rachel Berry, and of each person around in the hall seeing the two together, and one by one learning of what was the truth: maybe not tomorrow, Quinn? Maybe, maybe the next day, maybe even after that: maybe a chain of days first must fall before they learn the truth. Maybe never.
"A peculiar tingle at the centre of her skull caught her attention, distorting her thoughts into the conscience realm, where she could move, and scratch her sensitive skin and glance over at the clock and see the bright red numbers, skeletal and dead: 2:13. Was I asleep? I was thinking. Might as well have been. Two a.m. I can get. If I fall now. Ten minutes it'll take. Four hours and thirty minutes. Maybe. About that.
"Quinn kicked up the tucked in covers as she pulled herself under, the far reaches too tight against her feet, suffocating them within heat and claustrophobia. The red lights disappeared from her vision only to reverberate in her imagination as refracting images on the inside of her eyelids: they flashed across, her eyes moving to follow it and it moving because her eyes followed them.
"All be watching me tomorrow. Each one. Notice I'm tired. That I'm nervous. I'll cry. Get it out of the way now. Be helpful. Makes me tired. Salt maybe. I don't even. Just. Quinn adjusted herself under the sheets, like every night: each one a new challenge, finding comfort, finding balance. Under the sheets, too tight. Out of, too cold. Half out? Souls facing heaven. That helps. On my belly. Suffocating on the pillow. Puffs up around. Sleep right on the mattress. Yesterday it was fetal. Crying. Hope Quinn. I'll never make it. Maybe I'll vomit and wake up sick.
"Rachel's so short. I used to be. When I was twelve. Not as pretty. Ambitious. I am a bitch."
Rachel stopped, and, taking a moment to herself, deleted the last line. And the line before the line before. Then, convincing herself of substantiated artistic merit - ambiguity, whereby the reader questions whether or not she is saying that Rachel is 'not as pretty', or that she is 'not as pretty' as Rachel - she replaced in in the text, and leaned back. Before her sat thirtythree pages of literaryfictionesque prose, highbrow, yet a little kitsch. A dilemma.
"Rachel!" her father's voice called from, judging by the time: 5:15, and the fact he had inquired only thirtythree minutes ago what she had been interested in dining upon for dinner, the kitchen. And, validation, "Dinner's ready! Wash your hands!"
"My hands are clean!" she replied, leaving her laptop open (for the relationship she held with her father's was not only healthy, but very open, and her fascination with Quinn Fabray had been voiced, if only because they had discovered her writing one night when she had fallen asleep, and had had it out with her) and jogging down the stairs, entering the kitchen.
"How's the writing going?" her dad asked, cutting her father off before he could ask the followup.
"Very well, thank you, dad! I wrote another few paragraphs." She said, kissing his forehead.
"Aha! So you were typing on your dirty keyboard, so your hands aren't clean." He replied, slyly smiling up at his daughter.
Rachel gaped and looked at her father, conspiracy on her mind, to which her father simply turned back to the dinner with a satisfied smile. The sound of the tap flowing a minute later with Rachel's defeated sigh only made it grow.
She appreciated it though, really. They care. Every day that Rachel had come home with clothing ruined, they had no begrudgment (to Rachel, anyway), in pulling out a tissue and a credit card. It was not them buying her love, but a part of an attempt to buy her happiness, which they supplemented with the tissue, symbolic of parental support and comfort. She thanked her father without even so much as a snarky aside when she received her bowl of vegan pasta - just another way in which they demonstrated their love: enduring the dietary decisions Rachel had resolved herself with ever since she was eleven: the age of enlightenment.
Quinn, so she had been told, wasn't so lucky.