AN: I wrote this a while ago. And by a while ago, I mean over a year. I was going to write a one shot based off a two page journal entry, but then this back story came into play and more or less actually got in the way. Heh. It's a little rough around the edges, but I was tired of it just sitting on my computer, and I figured publishing it may give me a little more incentive to continue. Enjoy what I have so far, and please let me know if you wouldn't mind a continuation.
I should just go home, Quinn thought to herself, but she doesn't move. Instead she stays seated on her barstool staring at a drink that's become weak and watered down. She rolled her tumbler around, spinning it slowly in between long, slender fingers. "Pfffft," she blew a puff of hair at her bangs, more reminiscent of a bored child than an exhausted 23 year old. Lately, she had been doing everything she could to keep 'the crazy' at bay. Perhaps she shouldn't call it 'the crazy' exactly, but that's what she how she had always described it. That's how it always made her feel, and it's no different this time. Still, as much as all she wants to do is run as fast and far away as possible from the uneasy sensation hovering around her, she stays seated on that damn barstool. She had already escaped it once upon a time, but it seems to have found her a couple of weeks ago. The two whiskey cokes she had earlier kept her ass in her seat while she decided to revel in the familiarity of 'the crazy' for a couple of minutes. She basked in the nostalgia that flooded her – almost like reuniting with an old friend. She wanted to drown in the sickening sweetness of inner struggle it brought - the war she had been fighting since she was a little girl - the war that was never ending - that brought a new battle whenever 'the crazy' made its way back into the blonde's life, creeping up along her spine and tumbling down her limbs until it reached the end of each of her digits. For a few minutes she allowed it to heavily weigh upon her heart.
The crazy first introduced itself to Quinn when she started second grade at a new school. Walking down the fluorescent lit hallway hand-in-hand with her father, she could hear her heart nervously knocking against the bones of her rib cage. When they made it to the classroom, her hazel eyes glued themselves to the far wall decorated with a poster of dolphins supplying some sort of motivational quote she attempted to read until the her daddy was done talking to her new teacher. A quick tug of her arm brought her eyes up to meet the curious gaze of the two adults. The woman then pointed out an empty chair at one of the tables. Quinn turned her eyes to search for a familiar hazel before she made her way to her seat, only to realize her father had already left. She made her way across the classroom and sat down. A second later she realized that whomever she had sat next to appeared to be staring at her. Little Quinn blushed under the scrutiny and turned to confront the stranger, but when hazel met blue, the shorter girl's words dropped out of her mouth as her heart thudded just a little harder. When the other blonde, whom she would later know as Brittany, said, Hi, so did the madness. Every day, Quinn would sit down beside this bubbly girl who did everything to make her smile and laugh. Every day, her non coloring hand would tingle, itching to grab Brittany's. Every day, she wished she could hug Brittany a little longer when they had to say goodbye. And every day, she had to remind herself she couldn't always have what she wanted. On the days where her hand itched a little too much or that cootie covered butthead, Artie, would tell Brittany that he liked her bow, Quinn's tiny brow wrinkled and a miniature pout spread across her face. Brittany seemed to be the only one to notice and was always quick to make her friend's frowns go away. "Smiles are much better," she stated obviously, "It's like picking rainy thunder storms or rainbows. Everyone likes rainbows better Quinn." But it wasn't that easy to Quinn. Sometimes rainbows weren't an option. Sometimes it was like choosing between a rain storm and a tornado.
Quinn wished everything was rainbows. She wished that it would never rain or thunder. But at a young age, Quinn realized there could be thunder even without the rain, and rainbows didn't always remembered how angry Daddy had gotten when they took a trip to Cleveland earlier that summer and spotted two men holding hands. She remembered her mother nodding her head along at the dinner table as her father spat out words like 'faggots' or 'homos' when they had the pastor over for dinner after they returned. "What's a homo, Mommy?" she had asked in the kitchen later as she watched her mother do the dishes. "Or a f.. f -" "QUINN!" The old blonde spun around interrupting the little girl's question. "Those are words you should never say!" "But Daddy said them when talking about those two men we saw'd." Judy squatted down eye level with her daughter. "Your father was angry, Quinnie," the older blonde sighed, "Love is supposed to be between a man and a woman, honey. Not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. What those two men were doing – it wasn't right. Do you understand?" Quinn nodded her head even though she didn't, not really. So what if that man wanted to hold the other man's hand? She didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to. All she realized was that she wasn't allowed to hold Birttany's either. She cried herself to sleep that night. It was hard for the girl, but from that day forward Quinn ignored Brittany's hand and sat on her own empty one. Over the years the two blondes became inseparable as they developed a strong bond that the shorter one was beyond thankful for. Brittany was patient and forgiving. She wouldn't question it when Quinn had to excuse herself from movie night because being squished on a small loveseat next to the dancer and her newfound hormones caused the hazel eyed girl's fingers to itch and her breathing to become shallow. She would always accept Quinn back with a hug when the crying girl showed up at her door begging the taller girl to forgive her after another random outburst of anger. The ones that usually came a few days after Brittany would go out on a date with whichever boy had worked up the courage to approach her that week (usually whenever the Head Cheerio was not around to shoot them down before they could even say hi to her bubbly counterpart). Still, Quinn couldn't stand hurting Brittany, so after her third or fourth break down where she had very nearly called the girl stupid, she focused all her energy on pushing down the thrumming energy she felt whenever Brittany hugged her. She ignored the way her throat constricted and breathing hitched when she woke up tangled in the dancer the morning after their sleepovers. She did her best to be happy for Brittany when she started dating Artie. Soon enough she had set in place her HBIC mask and perfected graceful control over her movements and calmed her paranoia about others realizing these feelings that seemed so obvious to her. Eventually, hugs were easier to endure and Brittany's hand didn't call out to be held as it once did. There were some nights she simply cried as she whimpered quietly over and over the one question she could never answer, "Why me?" She would endure it though. If she wanted to keep Brittany as a friend, she would endure it.. no matter how much it slowly drove her crazy. She threw herself into cheerleading and school work, exhausting her body with late night runs to help her sleep at night and stop her mind from drifting to places she didn't want visit and losing herself in books to distract herself when the former didn't work. She did this until one day she realized the crazy had gone. She was Quinn Fabray, and she wasn't crazy.
All of this washed over her as she ordered another drink because in a couple of minutes she would struggle to rein it back in with all her might.