"Do you regret it?" Santana says, just loud enough for her to hear it through her occasional sniffs.
It's been three hours since Quinn's train arrived in NYC's train station, and she's been sitting with Santana in her couch and crying for approximately one hour.
"N-no, I just-" Quinn takes a deep breath before continuing. "I expected her to say t-that she didn't feel the same, I mean..." she stares at the wall behind the black television screen. "She was engaged the last time we had a conversation face to face."
Santana hugs her awkwardly from her position, trying to comfort her friend. "Didn't she say anything that you could hold on to?" Quinn looks like she is about to breakdown again.
"She said it wasn't the right time." Her eyes get teary as she declares it, so the Latina hugs her tighter. "And that she just wanted me to be her friend, because she needs me right now."
"Okay, so she dumps you and then says that she needs you. Does she not play on our team or what?"
"She said it's not about that."
"Then it's just unfair." Santana shrugs. "To you."
Quinn looks a bit offended. "If it is, it's not her intention. She's overwhelmed with college stuff, her relationship with Finn ended recently and she's feeling lonely those days." Santana raises an eyebrow at her best friend's speech.
"You're all head over heels for her, aren't you?"
The blonde looks down at her shoes with a little smile. "Yeah... I guess."
"I'm sure. But that's not my problem." Quinn snorts and Santana pushes her off of her. "Good, you stopped crying. Now we can order something and watch a movie, maybe Skype with Britt-Britt, I miss her face."
"Whoa, calm down. I'm still not completely recovered yet, what kind of friend are you?"
"The kind of friend that let's you cry on one of her newest dresses for like, an hour. So, don't complain." Quinn rolls her eyes.
She's actually impressed Santana handled it for almost an hour. If they were in high school, she would probably just hand her a pillow and say something like, "talk to me when you're done, blondie" before going to away to watch TV or doing anything else more interesting than comforting Quinn.
They decide on ordering a pizza with a lot of bacon, because bacon makes Quinn happy and Quinn wants to be happy right now. So she gets her phone to order it, but instead she sees there are three messages from Rachel sent twenty, fifteen and twelve minutes ago:
You're at Santana's, right?
Please don't ignore me, Quinn. It's important.
I hope you didn't do anything stupid, I'm on my way to Santana's building.
"What's up, Q?" Santana asks going to Quinn's side to see what it was that got her frozen in her place. "Oh." She nods to herself. "What do you think she wants?"
"I-" The knocking at the door cuts Quinn off.
Santana gets up to open it, and finds the short brunette at her doorstep, "Okay, that was creepy."
"Is Quinn here?" Rachel tries to see for herself, but the Latina is covering a good part of her vision.
"Yup," Santana says and the shorter girl smiles relieved as she waits to be let in. "I'm just not sure if she wants to see you." Rachel's face falls. She hadn't considered that maybe, after what she said to Quinn, the blonde wouldn't want to see her. She opens her mouth for a second, but nothing comes out of it.
"Let her in, Santana." Rachel's eyes lit up again a little bit when she hears Quinn's voice welcoming her, in some way.
Santana gets out of her way hesitantly, closes the door behind her after she gets in and then just makes a reproving noise before heading to her room.
"Quinn, I'm so sorry. I was in shock, I didn't want it to be like that." Quinn was staring at the ground, but she was tempted to look up at Rachel as she heard the 'it'. How long has she known about her feelings? "I-I'm just so sorry for whatever I said that might have hurt you, okay? I don't want you to be sad, you're just- you're my best friend and I don't think I've ever had one before, so I thought that whatever it was that I was feeling... that it was just confusion. I guess that's what I convinced myself of, because I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about a best friend who was a girl, but apparently it wa-"
"Rachel, stop." Quinn looks up at her. "I know where this is going and you don't need to do this."
"What?" Rachel's confused. She had to recover from having Quinn confessing her feelings for her, really stop to think about it and when she decided on doing the same to work it out later, the blonde won't let her finish?
"You don't need to feel the way I feel, Rach. We won't stop being friends, okay? I just need sometime to get over you, but that's something I need to worry about." Quinn looks around to try and catch her breath and it's just then that Rachel sees how swollen her eyes are.
"How much did you cry?"
The blonde looks back at her. "It doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters, Quinn."
Quinn rolls her eyes. "I don't know, but I'm not crying now." It was Rachel's turn to stare at the ground. She says something but Quinn can't hear it. "Rach?" she calls. The brunette looks up again. "What did you say?"
"I said I meant it." Quinn raised her eyebrows. "What I was saying before. I don't want you to get over me."
"Rachel, I know you. You're being impulsive."
"I'm not, I swear."
"You're feeling lonely and I just said how I feel about you, it's okay to be confused." She gets up, goes to Rachel and, for a moment, she thinks that if she just accepted what the shorter girl said as truth, even though it probably wasn't, they could change that. As she gets closer she pictures it: holding hands, kissing, doing everything she's ever dreamed of doing with the other girl.
Quinn knows that if she kissed Rachel right then, she wouldn't be slapped away or something. Not after knowing Rachel was trying to convince herself she was in love with her too, but she couldn't. She couldn't do it to Rachel, the girl she was in love with, her best friend.
So she doesn't kiss her lips, she kisses Rachel's forehead.
And she's actually happy with that decision.
"You can't force yourself to be in love with me when you're not." She whispers to the girl's forehead.
Rachel reaches for Quinn's hand. "But I want to be in love with you. Is that not enough?" The blonde feels a sad smile growing on her face as her chest tightens. She wants Rachel to be in love with her, too. She really does.
Quinn ignores the question, also deciding on ignoring the subject for the rest of the night. "We were planning on ordering a pizza before you got here. You should stay over so we can share a veggie one."
"Ew." They hear Brittany's voice coming from Santana's room.
Rachel frowns. "I thought Brittany was in Lima?" she whispers to Quinn.
"It's probably a Skype call," then she says a bit louder, "and they're also probably listening to other people's conversations."
"Sorry if I worry about you, blondie! Next time, don't come here, you're not welcome anymore!" Santana screams from the room. Quinn laughs, because she's obviously still welcome there, otherwise she would already be out.
"Come here and bring Brittany, so we can order the pizza already."
"I'm up for sharing the veggie one." Rachel says, sounding excited, what makes Quinn laugh as they make their way back to the couch.
Santana comes to sit by their side with her laptop in her hands and Quinn's kind of happy. She's with her best friends right by her side right now and one of them may become something more, someday.
Maybe. But it's still a possibility. And she's willing to take a chance.