Prologue
It was quiet.
Not the serene silence that happens when you are alone with your own thoughts in your own space, but the tense, awkward silence that happens when you're in a room full of people with nothing to say. The only sounds came from the quite clinking of silverware against fine porcelain and the soft chewing sounds of careful, polite bites. It was just a normal dinner at the Fabray household. It was painful.
Judy cleared her throat around her meticulously chewed food. Quinn knew she was going to attempt to begin a conversation. Quinn just hoped it wasn't with her.
"So Quinnie how was school today?" Her faux cheery voice almost made Quinn gag. It was one thing to have a miserable home life; it was another to have a miserable home life while pretending everything was perfect.
"It was fine mother. Same as always." Quinn tried to sound engaged to appease her mother if nothing else, but she knew she fell short.
"How are your grades looking?" This time it was her father that took a stab at small talk. Frankly Quinn was still trying to get used to seeing him around again. After her parents separated, she thought for sure her father would be a distant figure from then on. To her surprise, after a few months of separation her mother thought he should start having dinner with them again to "feel like a real family" or whatever. Quinn knew the real reason, without Russell around Judy realized she actually had to do adult things like get a job and pay bills. All Judy really wanted to do was sit in her garden and drink wine. Russell had realized that without a wife and daughter to set particularly high expectations on, he was pretty lonely and Quinn knew from personal experience that Russell Fabray was not good company. It didn't take long for him to want his old, reliable and completely compliant family back. They both wanted everything back to normal. So now they were in this weird almost back together stage but they hadn't really solved any of the underlining issues in the house. It made everything tense as a stretched rubber band.
"I'm sure they will be up to par. Mid-Terms went well."
"Good."
They did not speak anymore. Well they didn't speak to Quinn anymore. Her parents began small talk about the weather and work and other adult things. Quinn finished eating as quickly as was polite. She asked to be excused and left the table.
In her room, there was the silence that Quinn preferred. The silence here had no expectations and conditions, just quiet acceptance. She thought about texting Santana or Brittany, but quickly decided against it. She just wanted to lay here and be alone. She was starting to get tired of normal.
It was hard to think with all the noise.
Brittany had gotten used to it though. After living with 3 sisters and 2 brothers most of her life, she had no choice. Dinner was always an affair at the Pierce household. Everyone was talking all at once. It was hard to keep track of any of the conversations. Brittany tried though. Cooper had won his soccer game yesterday, and Becca got an A on that Algebra test she was worried about, Alex and Sam wanted to go to the arcade tomorrow to play this really cool new video game called Viking Zombies 4, and Andy was starting to crawl. Brittany ran through all of this in her head because she liked to keep up with what was going on with her siblings; it was just so many of them it was hard to keep it all straight. Her younger siblings loved to tell her everything that was going on in their lives and it was Brittany's big sisterly duty to listen.
"Britt, will you please take us to the arcade Thursday?"
"Yea, please Britt!" That was Alex and Sam and they were giving her their patented identical puppy dog look. They really wanted to go. Brittany could never say no to the twins. They were too cute.
"Sure! I'll take you after Glee practice," At this Cooper snorted. Cooper was fourteen, and though he was just a lowly freshman even he knew that glee was definitely not cool. Brittney ignored him and continued, "And then I'll come and get you when you're done."
Even though Brittany was the big sister, she seldom felt like she was. She held no real authority over her younger siblings. If they minded what she said it wasn't because they respected her, it was because they would rather have her as a babysitter than those other mean old ladies her mom hired. Brittany was never the authoritative type. Her parents trusted her to make sure her siblings were all fed and didn't kill themselves before her mom got home from work, but if her parents were going away for a weekend they would usually hire a babysitter so it wasn't so "taxing" on Brittany. Brittany knew what they meant; they didn't think that if they went away for a weekend the house would still be standing when they got back.
"So how did your mid-terms go, Brittany?" Her father did not move from behind the newspaper he was engrossed in. He knew just as well as she did 'how mid-terms went.' She didn't know why they kept asking her, Brittney knew what she wanted to do with her life and it had nothing to do with Chemistry or Algebra.
She shrugged noncommittally.
"Brittney, you need to try harder in school if you want a good job one day." Her dad gave her a fatherly gaze, one that said 'I expect you to be meeting the expectations I'm expecting you to expect'. Brittany turned her own gaze down to the picture she was making with her mashed potatoes and peas. The clouds could use a little more gravy.
"I'll try harder." Brittney had told them time and time again that she wanted to be a dancer. They just told her to try harder in school, but she knew that school just wasn't her thing.
Brittany could tell how people felt about her. Most people thought she was pretty dumb. Brittany knew she wasn't dumb, her brain just worked different than most people. Nothing was wrong with that. She tried not to let what people thought of her get her down and for the most part she succeeded. It was only when those people she thought knew her called her dumb that she got upset. She wasn't dumb and she didn't know why other people couldn't see that.
After dinner, she helped her mom clean up. Her mom sang while she washed the dishes. She loved when her mom sang. She could almost dance to it. Andy babbled happily in his high- chair. Brittany thought that Andy probably liked when mom sang too. Brittany reached for another stack of plates to put away and smiled at her mom. Her mom beamed back at her.
"Karen! Have you heard about this? Darn thugs," her dad called from the family room. Brittany's dad always watched the news after dinner. Brittany could usually hear the sounds of disapproval at the latest string of bike thefts or random vandalism in the area. It always reminded Brittney of the sounds that teachers made whenever she tried to answer a question in class.
"No, what happened?" her mother continued scrubbing the cup in her hand. Brittney dried a plate while making silly faces at Andy. She was not really interested in the latest string of petty theft; she really thought her dad was overreacting a bit. Nothing interesting really ever happened. It was usually just the same-old stuff.
The house was empty.
Santana tried not to let it get to her. Her parents were very busy people. They worked hard to provide for Santana and get her everything she could ever want. The shoes, the clothes, the cars, she had all that and more. So, she felt she shouldn't complain about the empty house or the hollow feeling she gets in her gut at times like these. If she was honest with herself, Santana knew she would trade in all the designer labels for more time with her parents.
Why couldn't her parents have at least had another kid? Really was that too much to ask for. Brittany had like 20 siblings. Her parents could manage one more kid.
Santana shuffled into the kitchen and headed straight for the fridge. The kitchen was pleasant and sparkling, with all its modern appliances and open counters space. It had a welcoming feeling to it, but you could tell it wasn't used often. It felt like those tour homes realty companies have. Santana rummaged around the refrigerator for something edible. The pizza from four days ago looked dry as a bone and the Chinese food from last week had something growing on it. Santana went with a leftover sub-sandwich. Santana doesn't exactly remember when she got the sandwich, but it looked edible.
Dinner time at the Lopez house is usually the worst time of day for Santana; it's when she feels the most alone. Most days she could get Brittany to come over to distract her from the empty house, but Brittany had her own family to spend time with and she couldn't be here every day. She took her sandwich to the living room so she could use the television as a distraction. She flicked through the channels until she gets to the news. Not many 17-year-olds watched the news, but Santana does so regularly. It was a habit left over from spending so much time with her abuela when she was younger. Her abuela watched the news every night and Santana felt like her day wasn't complete without at least tuning into the weather report.
"Tonight we have shocking reports from around the Lima area. What is thought to be a gang of youths, is terrorizing East Lima with ghastly graffiti over many public buildings. "
"We'll have more here on Channel 5 news."
Santana shook her head. The "ghastly graffiti" was a few murals of scenes from Breaking Bad. They actually were pretty good. Lima did not have much real crime and that made the local news station desperate for any small scandal they could blow completely out of proportion. Santana watched the local news to see how well the anchors could spin Lima's few miniscule problems into ones people with soft heads actually cared about. She sat and watched for twenty more minutes before she decided that she has had quite enough news for one night and turned off the television.
She looked at the clock and decided to head upstairs for a quick shower and then bed to end this exceedingly boring and disappointingly average day. Santana really couldn't help but wish something exciting would happen around here.