Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 32nd cycle. Now cycle 33!

Hear that little bird twitter! Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!

"If Only I Could Hide"
Quinn

It started the night before. It wasn't much at first, she thought maybe it could be a cold. She crashed into bed early enough, after she'd fallen asleep on her history textbook. She didn't even remember getting up from the chair to the bed, but she must have gone, because the only other option would be that her mother had carried her… Judy Fabray did not have that strength in her.

When she woke up the next morning, her body felt so heavy, like she carried slabs of stone on her back. Even her eyes felt heavy. It would have been one thing if she had no idea what was going on…

It had happened, once before. It was before Finn. No one knew, and there was good reason: She'd hidden it. As far as anyone else knew, she'd gone to visit her grandparents in Florida for a few days. Truth was she laid out in bed, at home, with mono. If being sick hadn't been enough, she had her parents to contend with.

She didn't want her mother knowing about it this time. Even with her father gone, out of their lives, it would have felt like she was letting her down… After they'd managed to mend their relationship, she didn't want to reopen the cracks.

But it didn't change the fact that she felt like hell, for more than one reason. She had to move, get up… make herself move… easier said than done. She had to convince her mother she was sick enough to stay home, but not enough that Judy might understand what was really going on.

Walking made it worse… Oh why did she have to think this was in any way a good idea? She couldn't just wait until her mother left and stay home… her mother wasn't going anywhere… Now apparently she was…

Whatever she'd done to mask her true illness from her mother, it had apparently worked so well as to fool her into thinking she was just fine to go to school. She tried to argue, she did, but Judy wouldn't have it. Quinn was going to school.

Marching up to her room again, Zombie Quinn wondered if someone had stretched the staircase… Had it always been that long? And then she was at her closet. She was so not in the mood to stop and think up a 'proper' outfit, and she just grabbed at what she saw… Shirt here, skirt there… This was as good as it was going to get, unfortunately.

Her mother had gone so far as to drop her off at school, and Quinn hadn't said a word the whole way, scared somehow it would get her to throw up. But her mother just wished her a good day and sent her on her way.

Quinn didn't have class with any of them that morning… Thank goodness for small favors. Now she just had to live through class… She could barely manage to pretend she was paying attention.

He would know… Sam would know about her and Finn, what they'd been doing behind his back. She should have been happy, to no longer have that secret to keep, but then what was going to take its place? She couldn't make up her mind, which one she wanted… Even the words came off ridiculous…

No, she knew what would happen… She'd lose one of them… Maybe both… That was the kind of thing that would happen to her, wouldn't it? Made to be alone by her own messed up heart…

She didn't want it to happen like this though… She couldn't look Sam in the eye now… She could barely see shorter people at that moment, with the way her head drooped with heaviness, but then… There was a difference between exhaustion and shame. Oh, why couldn't her mother just let her stay home? She had lied about the true nature of her illness so she guessed that was her own fault. But she'd play innocent on the matter where she could… No need to have everyone rummaging in her business… In her mind.

She had to have this coming though… That was what she thought, whether she liked it or not. Like what had happened with Finn and Puck last time wasn't enough, she'd gotten her cosmic smack down now with this, happening… and she wasn't dumb, she could tell what was wrong with her situation, with Finn, with Rachel. She wasn't letting go though… and that brought problems… always.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!