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Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
Quinn sat in the choir room, looking to the wall opposite to her. She couldn't believe this… this shit! Since when Yale didn't take wheelchair people in? She really had convinced everyone she wasn't upset about this at all, that she would dance in nationals and that she would walk to get her diploma from principal Figgins. But most of all, she had tried to convince herself.
She had told everyone who asked that her physical therapy was going great and that she already felt something down her legs. But it wasn't true at all. So her mother had made her announce her condition to Yale. A week later, she had gotten a letter that was probably supposed to sympathetic and understandable, but it wasn't. It was plain and simple; she wouldn't be welcomed to Yale University if she didn't walk by the end of her senior year. And she wouldn't be walking, that was a fact.
So there Quinn was. She had tried to break her wheelchair by constantly bumping it to wall, but instead she had fallen off it and tumbled painfully to the floor. To her anger, she didn't feel the fall with her legs. So she had crawled to the corner of the room with her arm muscles and placed her legs gently so that they wouldn't look twisted and then buried her head to her arms. She didn't cry because she didn't have any tears. She hadn't felt anything for a long time, ever since the car crash. She had expected to be angry or sad or confused, but no. Nothing at all.
"Quinn, are you here?" A familiar voice cut her thoughts and her head sprang up from her palms. She knew the voice, of course, but she couldn't believe it was true. It was Puck. The same guy that helped her through her baby kidnapper haze. But it wasn't the case now.
"Puck?" She stammered and saw Puck searching through the choir room, until he noticed Quinn's fallen wheelchair and her in the corner. He then rushed to her, jumping over the wheelchair and then leaning down to her.
"Fuck Quinn, are you okay?" He spat out, looking surprisingly angry. She noticed he was sweaty and breathed hastily as if he had been running. His eyes were alarmed, but his mouth showed signs of furiousness.
"Of course I am." Quinn muttered and put her hand up to her belly, as if she could feel her baby still in there. "What's the deal?"
Puck threw up his hands in rage and sighed frustrated. "Are you freaking kidding me? It's midnight! You didn't go to your home so Judy called me and I'm here now, and now you tell that you don't need me and act like you haven't been upset lately! Why can't you just act like you feel?"
Quinn raised her eyebrow delicately. "What are you talking about? Midnight?"
Puck pulled a chair under him and sat so that he faced her from up, probably being tired of her whining, which she was ashamed and partly puzzled about. She hadn't complained. Not at all. She had let her friends go to Six Flags without her. She had smiled and clapped at Brittany and Santana performing their sweet little autotuned duet, no matter how ironic it was in her situation.
"Q, I heard about Yale." He confessed and cooled himself down.
"Oh." She shrugged and pulled her legs closer to her chest in effort of trying to protect herself from his eyes that seemed to see through her armor of happiness. "I'm sorry." She looked reluctantly up at him. "I didn't notice it was that late. I think I might've dozed off for a while. I should've checked what's the clock."
"Quinn." Puck said determinedly but surprisingly gently. She avoided his look and gulped the words that were about to come out of her mouth. It would break her attitude that she had taken up after applying to Yale. So she closed her eyes and bit her tongue.
And suddenly Quinn felt strong arms around her. She felt how he pulled her halfway onto his lap and squeezed her a bit, whispering to her ear. "Tell me."
That broke her walls. The way he said those two simplest words and the way he just knew she wasn't truly happy – and never had been – with this situation made her finally cry. She sobbed like she hadn't cried ever before and like it would make everything okay again.
"I-I can't stay… stay here in Lima!" She cried and leaned to Puck's shoulder, wetting his shirt with her waterfall of tears. "I- I- I need to get out of here! I-I worked so hard but now it's all for nothing because of a- a- a wheelchair! Yale! My dream college, it's all gone…"
Puck held her in his lap tighter, and she felt how he placed his chin to the crook of her neck, hushing her gently. "Judy told me you would get in if you'd walk by graduation or somewhere around that, so it's not over yet. You still have hope."
"No!" Quinn wailed and another spasm of sadness shook her body like a storm. "I lied to you! I lied to everyone. My physical therapy ain't going anywhere. Joe didn't help me at all so I lied to him too. I- I said that he didn't need to come anymore and that I didn't need a ride home anymore."
"Why did you lie?" Puck asked. She hadn't expected that, so it was easy to blurt out the truth than repeat her already figured out speech.
"I've been there, I've been sad, I am sad, I don't want anyone else to be sad for me. I'm so selfish usually, and I didn't want to people try to nurse me or something!"
"You're not selfish." Puck whispered steadily to her ear, putting his other hand up to her messy hair, rubbing her head a little. As Quinn snorted with teary eyes, he chuckled. "Anymore." She pulled away from his upper body and looked at him, not believing this was the same Puck that had knocked her up and had left her alone for a year.
He moved his hand from her blonde hair placed it under her chin, raising it softly as she gulped her tears, her throat still feeling like it had been torn apart. "It's not over. I'll get you everything you need to get up to your feet again."
"Really?" Quinn sniffed, eyes brightening by his optimism, but then she remembered what Joe had said about him; he was about to get F from almost every subject, and everyone tried to get him concentrate in school. "Shouldn't you study for your finals?"
Puck shook his head, eyes darkening. "No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"I'll still help you with your exams."
"Only if I can help you in your problems."
"Deal."
"What you need then? I promised you, after all." Puck questioned her, not wiping her last tears away, but letting them slide down her face drop to their feet. Quinn looked at him, wondering what she truly needed. Not many things could help her forward, but she noticed something she had needed all along.
"I could use somebody."
Puck raised his eyebrows, seeming to be surprised. Maybe he had wondered if she needed money, and now would break his promise, so she closed her eyes, afraid of what he would say. "Someone like me?"
Her eyes flew wide open and a smile rose to her face, and she blushed, a rosy red color turning her pale face to a warmer shade. They searched each other with their eyes for a second before noticing they were both serious. "Yes."
"I'll be that somebody, then." He nodded determinedly, and played with a strand of her hair.
"Do you really want it?" Quinn checked for the last time. "I don't want you to be unhappy."
"I've always wanted to be that somebody for you, Q. Always."
I hope you liked it.
If you have time, check my other story, Strawberry Swings: Story of A Family. It's Multichapter. Oh, if there's readers of that fic, don't worry, I'll update it soon.
