an: this is my first fic so any comments/suggestions/criticisms are not only welcomed, but encouraged! I've been hoarding this away for a while because I was so nervous to post it but now that I've finally ovary'd up, I'm excited for someone (even if it's only one person) to see it! I really, truly, honestly hope you enjoy reading because I'm enjoying writing :)
Disclaimer: I don't even technically own my car, let alone a whole TV show or any of its characters.
Prologue: Girl
Until I was around 14, everything about me, from my untamable brown hair to my fascination with combining socks and sandals, was nerdy. I was chubby, I had braces, and my glasses looked like they belonged to an elderly woman who was dead-set on reading nothing but the fine-print. I was well versed in all things science fiction and I had a love for classic rock deeper than the Atlantic. I was, quite possibly, the physical manifestation of the word awkward.
Of course, I was never aware of the fact that I was "weird" until I was told just how weird I was. I was told at a young age (and in a surprisingly meticulous amount of detail) everything that made me different from everyone else. The extent to which I was bullied made me almost assume that I was some sort of life-force, that I was single-handedly keeping these children well-fed and well-rested because after a while, I truly believed that these jackasses could neither eat nor sleep without the knowledge of how they had made my life a hell that day (Now that I can look back upon these events with a slight sense of humor, I would like to give a "you're welcome" to all of the people who ever bullied me. Also, a thank you to my first grade teacher, Mrs. White, for reading that Thomas the Train book to our class and teaching the word "caboose" to a room full of my evil-minded peers. That name stuck for an unnecessarily long time. I don't want to say it's entirely your fault, but I do believe that you owe me some sort of compensation.).
The kids at my school were ruthless. Most kids at that age are. They didn't care that I was an honor student. They didn't care that I had an awesome record collection and I was really good at drawing. They only cared that I was different, that I wasn't like them. They took the things that made me feel special and used them against me. They made me lose sight of myself and they made me want to hide the best parts of me. The pieces that kept me optimistic for so long. Because of them, I lost the child-like outlook, the part that says there's a little bit of good in us all, far too early. And the moment that disappears...that's one of the most tragic moments in a kid's life.
But somehow, it wasn't for me. I think the worst part about my childhood was knowing that my life at school was just the tip of the iceberg.
My parents were your stereotypical suburbia Christians. They drug me to church every Sunday and there was either a cross or a painting of White Jesus in every room of the house. And yet, for every word of scripture that they had memorized, they had countless gossip on the neighbors and judgments on anyone who they so happened to cross paths with. Even at a young age I learned to understand the irony that they were too busy with their backwards idea of God to ever really realize the error in their ways.
But my problems at home had nothing to do with my parent's twisted concept of spirituality. There's no way it could have because I could have dealt with the fact that my parents were hypocrites. Most are anyways. No, my problems were within the fact that my father was more interested in golf and scotch than why his daughter came home from school crying every day, that he was more involved in the intimate details of the lives of his coworkers than those within his own home. He was dysfunctional, to say the least, but he loved appearances far too much to ever address his own problems so instead, he made us all put on a fake smile whenever we stepped outside of the house and we ignored each other whenever we were in it.
That's why being at home was so awful. The act of being ignored, and by my own parents even, hurt far more than any words from some immature child ever could (it didn't matter what my classmates called me, feeling second-best to a bottle or a golf club was the ultimate insult). I equated their lack of attention to deafening phrases of insignificance. That's what their silence said to me. It screamed that I wasn't good enough, that I was only worthy of neglect.
And then when my mom sat me down after my last day of 8th grade, everything changed.
Before I had even made it all the way through the front door of my father's mini-mansion, my mom called me into our over-the-top formal dining room. She was sitting at the head of the table, my father's usual seat. I hadn't even fully sat down and she hadn't spoken a word yet but the look on her face was enough to tell me that things were about to become vastly different.
And that was a funny thing, really. Noticing her expression and almost instantly knowing that something was wrong. Here was someone who was practically a complete stranger to me and yet even with one simple glance, I recognized all the painful emotions etched in her skin and understood their significance. I don't know if that's an ability that came with the fact that we share DNA, that we kind of function similarly, but I'd like to think it just comes with the human condition. You know, we've all suffered so we can all recognize suffering. Or better yet, maybe it's a quality that only comes with those that we're meant to have in our lives forever, regardless of the relationship at that particular time.
But what was even funnier to me, in some sort of twisted way, was what came after. With a strength that was so obviously killing her, my mom told me that my father had ran off with the 22 year old tattoo artist who's parents lived next door. Seeing my mom in such emotional pain wasn't humorous (if anything, it opened me up to the idea that my mom was human, that we had potential), but the fact that I wasn't surprised by my father's actions at all was. I wasn't mad at him. Hell, I wasn't even sad. If anything I was curious. Just curious. I had seen the neighbor's daughter and I didn't really think she was leave-your-family-at-the-drop-of-a-dime special. But I wanted to know, what was so special about her? There had to be something...what was it?
I guess I had other questions for him too, but I knew he was never going to be there to give me any answers so I decided to stop asking them. I kind of just decided to stop thinking about my father completely, which became a hell of a lot easier when my mom dropped one final bomb on me:
She told me that, because of the nature of my parent's divorce, she was going to get the house and all of their assets. But she also said that we needed to get away from that house and everything it symbolized so we were going to be selling and moving by the end of the summer. And then it hit me. A new house meant a new school. A new school meant new people...
I was about to be thrown into a crop of new people. They didn't know anything about me, about my personality, about my past. I could be anyone to these people. I was getting a blank slate.
I was getting a new life.
And in that moment, I realized that's exactly what this all meant to me. That's all it meant to me. I couldn't really change my history and all of the things that had happened to me, but I could definitely change my future. I took it as my one chance to change everything.
So, I decided to make this move as an opportunity for reinvention, an opportunity for acceptance and happiness. The next day, I cut my hair, dyed it blonde, and joined gymnastics. By the end of the summer, I had invested in contacts, gotten my braces off, cleared up my skin, and perfected both my back-handspring and my abs.
I turned 14 the day we moved from Belleville to Lima, Ohio and I left behind many things in the move. I left the insecurities and the fears that only fueled my isolation. I left the bullying and the tormenting loneliness. I even left the "Lucy" and made my mom start calling me Quinn. The minute I stepped foot into William McKinely High School, I was a completely new person with a new identity.
And this newly found identity had a truly remarkable effect on my personality. I became fierce, confident. I began stealing attention in a way that can only be compared to a hawk stealing away it's pray: fast, unknowingly, and viciously. I was immediately both feared and respected and I had never experienced anything quite like it.
It was exhilarating. People wanted to know about me. When I walked those halls with a powerful grace of which they had never seen the likes of before, they would stop and stare. They knew I was special but they didn't know why. Not yet. Not until the moment I put on that head cheerleader's uniform as a freshman. Once that happened, I officially became Quinn Fabray. The Quinn Fabray.
It all happened so quick and I think that's why things got out of control like they did.
I hadn't completely figured out how to live within this new persona yet. No more than 4 months ago, I was 30 pounds heavier, a brunette, and crying in the bathroom because everyone in my class refused to dissect a frog with me. Now, I was head cheerleader and the hottest girl in school. I had never really had friends until now (regardless of how false and superficial they were) so when my teammates started picking on those that they had deemed inferior to us on William McKinely's metaphorical pyramid of social hierarchy, the only reasonable option seemed for me to conform.
And so was the beginning of the end.
At first, I only wanted to fit in. Every time I insulted someone, I saw myself in their face. Not this new me...but the me I was before and it made me feel like I was ripping my own heart out. They didn't know that though. How could they? They only saw the grade-A bitch that was calling them a loser on a semi-regular basis. When I was bullied, I never considered why they were doing it. I only considered, and justly so, how it affected me.
Now I was on the other side and it felt just as goddamned terrible.
The more I did it, though, the more that the popular people, the people who "mattered," seemed to like me. I had never felt more conflicted. I was getting the attention that I had always wanted, that I felt like I had deserved...but at what cost? Myself?
This new me didn't deserve any of the attention that I was getting. It was like a positive reinforcement for a negative action. Lucy would have socked me in the stomach if she saw who I had turned into. But she wasn't going to. She was gone. And once that realization sunk in, I began my steady crawl back into isolation. At least in a mental sense. Sure, I was still hanging around these new jackasses (technically I was one now too) but I never let any of them get close to me. None of them knew me. I guess I didn't really either anymore.
But soon enough I learned how to revel in solidarity. Being alone felt different now. This time it felt more acceptable, more manageable. I wasn't being shut off, I was closed off. I was choosing isolation. No matter how lonely I felt at times, I soon realized that loneliness felt a thousand times better than rejection.
After a while, loneliness stopped being a problem. Sometimes I would combat it with a boy or a "friend" but for the most part, I could always end up comforting myself. I would just sit in silence and somehow, within the silence, I would find myself. I learned to live within my own thoughts because I learned that they were all I had.
These thoughts were the only things I could call my own. Everything else in my life in some way or another, revolved around somebody or something else...but not my mind. My mind was my own and to share it with others was to give them the most intimate pieces of myself.
I began regarding my thoughts as some sort of prize. I didn't just hand them over...they were earned and, like the best prizes, they were not earned by many. As a matter of fact, they had been earned by no one. No one had ever broken down my walls. No one had ever actually tried and that was surprisingly okay with me. I didn't need anyone to cloud my mind. My introspection was an effective and well-oiled machine. To put someone else's perceptions into it only would have caused it to clog and the last thing that I wanted was for someone to come along and ruin the one thing that I still had going for me. I thought no one ever would. I thought no one even could.
And then I met Rachel Berry.
xxxx
It was the first day of second semester of freshman year. I was slumped over my desk, one hand propping my head and the other doodling mindlessly in the notebook in front of me. The teacher was babbling on about how important the subject of Medieval literature was going to be for the rest of our high school careers. I made sure to scoff loud enough for him to hear.
I had only taken the class because it was the last one available. Coach Sylvester had worked us so hard the night before class registration that I accidentally overslept and I had to take whatever classes were left over. This just so happened to be one of them. Now that I was there, I understood exactly why. Hell, the class only had six people in it and by the overwhelming looks of disinterest that were on their faces, I could have only assumed that they had made it here under similar pretenses as myself.
I heard the door open but I didn't bother to take my eyes off of my notebook. I heard a female voice, breathing heavily, say "Sorry for my tardiness. I understand how very rude it is of me to enter your classroom in such a state and how you must feel compelled to see that I serve some sort of fitting punishment for my actions. However, I can assure you that my excuse is extremely valid and I hope you will believe me when I say that I will try my hardest to make sure that this situation never arises again."
The teacher waited a few seconds before replying. I can only assume it was because he didn't want to interrupt her in case she decided that there was anything else that she felt as if she needed to squeeze in. "Right...uhh...well, don't worry about it. Just find a seat and I'll let it slide this time." He was obviously overwhelmed by the girl's intensity. I made sure to note that he was a pushover for future reference.
She thanked him and I heard her footsteps growing louder. I never bothered to look at either of them during their exchange. I didn't look up until I heard the footsteps stop directly next to me. By the time I lifted and turned my head, the girl had taken the desk right next to mine.
She seemed short and she had darker skin...Italian, maybe Spanish descent. She had far too many books stacked on her desk and it looked like the sweater she was wearing had some sort of horse on it. I thought that I may have seen her get slushied before.
When she noticed that I was looking at her, a wide, almost hyperactive smile spread across her face. "Hi! I'm Rachel Berry! It's really nice to meet you," she whispered at me, probably not as quietly as she thought. She was still smiling. I noticed that she had really nice teeth and that her mouth was huge but I thought the smile looked far too genuine for someone who intended it to be received by a stranger.
I arched one of my eyebrows in confusion, which probably made me look like I was glaring at her. "Yeah, a real pleasure." Okay, so maybe I was glaring at her. But she seemed way too excited to be talking to someone to even notice. And when she continued talking, I assumed she didn't pick up on my condescending tone either.
"Unfortunately and as you probably noticed, I was late to class and I was wondering if maybe you fill me in on what I missed. You see, as a member of the Renaissance Club, I found it quite necessary to take a class on the literature of that time period and I really don't want to miss any material. Even the smallest pieces of information could prove themselves quite useful later in life. Anyways, do you think I could look at your notes...I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" She was looking directly into my eyes. Hers were big and brown and beautiful and I'm pretty sure her eyelashes were a mile long.
Then I realized: no one ever looked me in the eyes.
In a brief moment of self consciousness, I broke the eye contact and around her neck I found a Star of David necklace. I had never met a Jewish person before.
"Okay, first of all, I don't know who taught you history, but they seemingly forgot to tell you that most of the Renaissance was after the Medieval Period. Second of all, I'm obviously not paying attention to this. It's boring and pointless and we will never use it again. Ever. Lastly, you talk too much. Far too much. As a matter of fact, if you ever talk to me again, I'm going to call the Bureau of Immigration and get you deported back to Israel. Oh, and it's Quinn Fabray, head cheerleader Quinn Fabray." I finished my barrage of insults with a patronizing smirk and I returned to my doodling. I heard her huff loudly and almost slam her notebook open.
I didn't immediately understand why I responded so harshly to her. I do now though. I had known her for less than 30 seconds and already she had an effect more profound than I ever even knew was fathomable.
She was friendly and interesting and although she was wearing a mustard yellow headband and an argyle skirt, she was extremely beautiful. She smiled at me like she was smiling at an old friend even though she knew the consequences of someone of her social status (which, I could only assume since she was a member of the Renaissance Club, was not great) trying to befriend a cheerleader.
I saw Lucy in her. With her penny loafers and her striped tights. I saw everything that I was and then I saw more. She wasn't letting insecurities or fears prevent her from being who she really was. She was so much better than me as Lucy and she was a thousand times better than who I was in that moment. And that's what scared me so much about her. She wore her certainty with a natural grace that could rival a bird wearing its feathers. She seemed fearless. And here I was, hiding in a Cheerios uniform, letting it bind my soul like a straight jacket.
I knew that this girl had the potential to rewrite everything I had ever understood. Just the idea of what she could stand for terrified me. She would destroy everything that I had worked so hard to come to understand and accept about my new self.
Because before her, I at least had some grip on the reality of my condition. I understood that I had built up this persona because I knew what it was like to live a life without confidence. I always just assumed that the darkness within me would pass once I truly understood what it meant to love myself. But it never did.
I spent the next two and a half years of my life tormenting Rachel Berry, trying to tear her down, and no matter what I did, she would still end up proving that she was better than me in the end. I was seriously convinced that she was going to break me.
What I didn't know then, though, was that I was already broken and she was going to be the one to fix me.
