Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.

A/N: So, I am a die-hard Klainer, but I hate writing out of canon, and my emotions and personal experiences lately make it impossible to write this as canon with Klaine involved, or even remotely believable.

Quinn seems so effed up and confused right now, that she is kind of the perfect fit for this. Santana would until recently have been my choice for this, but my struggle has little to do with being a same-sex lover myself, right now at least, so I chose Quinn.


The Burning Taste Of Blackened Air

"Quinn. Wait. What is going on with you?"

"What do you care Noah? You said it yourself, for you this is about Beth not about me. So why would you care if I get to see her, hold her."

Noah thinks he can hear a change in Quinn's voice.

The growing softness which he still believes he detected a moment ago in the last words leaving her mouth, is decidedly gone with Quinn's next sentence, and Noah is left not so sure anymore if he might have just imagined it in the first place.

"Leave me alone," Quinn almost shouts as she turns to the next girls' bathroom and ducks in.

She groans and closes her eyes on the whole of the damn world as she hears the squeak of the door reopening behind her. Even before she meets the boy's eyes in the mirror she knows it is Noah.

"I know you haven't attended a math class in fucking forever, but I assumed you have enough daily practice in English to understand what I just said."

Quinn does not wait for a reply. She tightens the grip on her bag and darts back out of the bathroom, down the corridor, and when Puck reaches the parking lot, her car is already pulling out onto the street.

The tears come quick, too quick, and after mere minutes she has to pull to the side of the road. Turning of the engine Quinn hunches over, leaning on the steering wheel, but something is digging into her side, so she starts the engine back up, and drives until she reaches the edge of a vast field, a little outside of Lima.

It is the place they picked cornflowers for school in her second year, 7 years old, back when she was actually still friends with people she liked.

Puberty had not been Quinn's problem, but she hated the moment when popularity kicked in.

After all, she had not started to change because she wanted to be popular. She just…had started to change, and at first it was coincidence that people liked her better for it.

Gymnastics had been fun. She cannot help but think that it all started going wrong when something, yes, okay, '…not something, I know what made me change change,' Quinn thinks. But after years it is still hard to admit, even if it is to herself alone. And even with no one around to hear it, Quinn still cannot say it out loud.

She will never admit it to others, swears that much to herself not for the first time. Two years ago she had come close to admitting it to Mercedes. Feeling herself growing too close to the other girl she had acted the only way she knew how and pushed Mercedes away. Leaving Mercedes confused and hurt, and angry. But Quinn knows how to deal with people being angry with her. Quinn does not know that other people would think it strange that she is more comfortable with being hated than being loved. The unfamiliarity of love, no matter how much Quinn wishes to be loved makes it uncomfortable in the end. That is where popularity seemes to have lured her in; being feared like that put her at a safe distance from all genuine love. And she pretended to the world to be upset about losing Finn last year, but really, the sense of relief was bigger.

At least she does not try to convince herself anymore that it have not been her father's nagging comments and bitter remarks towards her, the delusional praise he has for her sister, both amplified every time by her mother's silence….

'I never knew silence could be a sound so loud,' Quinn thinks, and lets out a strangled sob as she closes the car door behind herself, and steps closer to the edge of the field, the crop standing high and burning golden in the autumn sun.


A/N: I know I should spend some time, rewriting, making this a little longer, a bit better, but I am bursting with hurt right now, and I need to get this out, to make room in me for some coherent thought. Knowing someone cares enough to read this, it may sound strange, but it helps me. Thank you for reading, thank you for allowing me to make room to feel something else but that pain abrading away at my insides.