Disclaimer – Glee doesn't belong to me, folks. Shocking, I know.
I wish I was your favorite girl
I wish you thought I was reason you are in the world
I wish that without me your heart would break
I wish that without me you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake
I wish that without me you couldnt eat
I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep
And I wish that we could see If we could be something.
(Kate Nash – Nicest Thing)
You wake up naked at some late hour; you reach your arm to touch the body that's supposed to be beside you only to find still warm sheets. You don't open your eyes, maybe she went to the bathroom or drink some water. You wish. When you open your eyes, the room is dark, you look at the clock at the nightstand that informs you it's 3:14 am. You hear the sound of high heels against the floor getting closer.
"hmmm"
"Oh" you hear her voice. "Sorry I woke you up, I'm just looking for my purse."
"Why?" you know the answer, but you always ask anyway, you always wish you'd get a different answer.
Only this time she doesn't even bother to answer. You bite your lower lip and shut your eyes. And you just stay silent for other minutes while she goes to the bathroom. You know she's applying her make up, putting back her earrings, putting some perfume on so she doesn't carry your smell with her.
When she's back at your room she sits on the bed to put her shoes on and you ask.
"Stay."
She doesn't look at you.
"You know I must refuse your offer, but thank you."
"He's not even in town…"
"So?"
"So why do you have to go, you can stay…we can eat breakfast together or something…"
"You know I have a very straight routine, Quinn. I must get home, sleep, wake up, exercise, take a good bath then eat my breakfast, read the newspapers… I couldn't be able to do that here, but thank you anyways. I'm a very methodical person, you're aware of that."
"Yeah, I know." You feel pathetic at how much that hurts you, and it wasn't supposed to. You turn to the other side, you just don't wanna look at her. You just wish she would stay, you just wish for once you could wake up with her by your side. Just once, maybe then she could see you could be something, you could be more for her.
"So…I suppose I'm going." You don't say anything, but you wanna scream. "Quinn, look at me." You don't. "Please" She says in that tone and you do.
You can see her face and god…she's gorgeous. She comes closer to you and softly touches your face with her finger tips and for just a second you can see her face light up while she looks at you like she actually cared, like she adored you just as much as you adore her and then it's gone and she's just looking at you, but there's nothing there anymore.
"I hope you have a good night, Quinn." She smiles and you bite your lip because you feel like crying.
"You too."
"I'll lock the door behind me."
You gave her the keys so she would feel free to come whenever she wanted. Sometimes you feel violated by this, by how you allowed her to walk in and out; from your apartment, from your bed, from your life.
You don't say anything and she leaves, you can hear her steps on her way through your apartment and then you can hear the door shutting behind her and she's gone.
She leaves you to an empty bed that's just too cold now, to sheets that smell like her. You hold the sheets next to you, you smell them, you close your eyes and wish it was her in your arms as a single tear escapes.
I don't know where we're going
but I know we've gone too far and
I hope it isn't showing
but I think I love you and
I can't believe you're leaving
just when I let you in and
when you had me believing
I could feel again¹
You don't remember exactly how it started, how it got to this point. You moved to New York for a job and you struggled for months to go see her show on Broadway. You knew she made it big but that's all you knew about her and it suited you just fine.
Your life was crap back in high school. You got pregnant, you got dumped like garbage by the people that were supposed to love you unconditionally, you had no real friends, everybody hated you... Then you joined glee club so you wouldn't feel like a total loser and everything got even worse.
Because she was there and deep down she was the reason for everything that happened to you; because you always felt the need to be close to her, to touch her, to listen to her…since when you first met her at 4th grade when she moved to Lima. You needed her, you needed her in a way that was totally different than the way you felt for Brittany or Santana or any other person. A few years later you realized what those feelings really meant.
But you had religious parents and you grew up among narrow minded people; you couldn't just allow yourself to feel like that. So you decided that you would act like you hated her. You dated boys but they were not her, you dated Finn because she wanted him and somehow that made you feel like you had some weird fucked up connection with her. You had sex with Puck because you had drunk that nigh -you had recently discovered that alcohol kept her out of your mind for a few hours at least - Then you got knocked up and you got dumped, twice.
But things would feel better when you'd look at her, most of the time you would repress your feelings with insults and sarcasm but sometimes you'd just look at her. She was so pretty and she was always smiling, no matter what. And you loved her. God , you loved her. And you hated yourself, you hated god, you hated everyone for that. Except her, no matter how much you faked you did, you could never hate her.
One day when the girls from glee club were supposed to dress like lady gaga she showed up with a bunch of stuffed animals hanging on her clothes and it was so hilarious. Because she was Rachel Berry, what would you expected? But your heart just melted, it was so cute. It was amazing how she could be just herself, through all that crap that was high school where people were anything but themselves, she was always herself. People laughed at her as usual but you just wanted to ask her to marry you right there.
But you didn't.
And 2 years later you graduated and so did she and you never saw her again.
You went to college, then you got a job, you got promoted and promoted again and then you moved to New York and to your own surprise, for a girl that got pregnant at age 16, you were doing pretty well. The job was great, the payment was even better. All was well.
And so was she, she was the star of the moment on Broadway and just got nominated for a Tony. And you wanted so much to see her, but you were afraid that if you saw her, even from the audience, it would all come back to you. You didn't want to feel that again. You couldn't allow yourself to feel that again.
But you went anyway. at the first time you got a seat that was really far from stage so you couldn't actually see her very well, but you could hear her, and when you heard her voice it was like something inside you just exploded, and all those feelings came back.
Your best friend Alex, who had heard you cry about your high school infatuation countless times one day invited to go see a photo exposition of a friend at a gallery of art that had just opened and you thought it was weird because Alex wasn't a very art person but you went anyway and to your surprise there you met Rachel Berry.
She greeted you and she looked like she was actually happy to see you. You told her you went to watch her show a couple of times which was a lie, because you went more than you'd like to admit, even to yourself, but you didn't want to sound like a stalker.
You exchanged phone numbers but she never called. One day you had just came home from the bar with Alex and some friends, and that much beer made you brave and you called her and asked her to have dinner with you, you heard nothing for a few seconds and then she spoke too quickly, you could barely understand what she was saying but was something like.
"I'm afraid I'll have to check my schedule but I'll call you back." You felt disappointed but a few minutes later to your surprise you got a text message with the name of an Italian restaurant.
At Thursday, 8pm, you were there. You tried to convince yourself that it wasn't a date because it just wasn't but you felt like a high school girl and it was embarrassing because you were a 25 years old woman.
Rachel had developed a great fashion style, you thought maybe it had been developed for her but she looked amazing anyway. She was a woman even more beautiful than she had been a girl, her big brown eyes, her beautiful lips, her porcelain skin that looked a little paler than you remembered, her hair that was kind of curly at the ends and smelled wonderful…everything made you want to just stare at her forever.
There was something so fascinating about the way she held the glass of wine, with her perfect manicured hands… hands that you always loved to death because they were small and cute and feminine and you wanted so much to hold them but you couldn't so you came up with "Manhands".
Her smile that made you feel warm inside and trivial conversations you don't really remember. But the sound of her laugh you remember and the way it made you feel and the realization of "oh god, I made her laugh" like it was something extraordinary. You discovered that making her laugh would make the top on the list of reasons why Quinn Fabray lives. It was actually extraordinary.
You both went out again, this time to a Chinese restaurant. Then you went for fondue on a ridiculously cold day, and Thai food that you've always really hated but you didn't tell her that because it just didn't mattered what you hated. You loved being with her, before anything else.
And thanks to 3 or 4 glasses of a really expensive wine, she was at your apartment.
And you were looking at her in awed, she was smiling goofly and she reminded you of that high school girl with no sense of fashion that you loved once. She was sitting on your kitchen counter, you had no idea why and then she said. "Come here." You went, because you would have jumped out of the window of your 27th floor apartment if she had asked like that. she took your hand and with her other hand she touched your face with her index finger, tracing patters on your skin, so gently it made you want to close your eyes but you didn't, because you couldn't stop looking at her. You wanted to look at it, to every detail of it so you would never forget.
Like you never forgot the look on her face when she lied on your bed.
Clothes were on the floor and you touched her skin for the first time. Your hands were shaking because god for how long you've wanted that? And you'd touch her so delicately like she was something so precious and fragile it could break at the lightest touch.
You kissed almost every inch of her skin and you discovered all your favorite places of her body. She'd moan and say your name and whisper sweet nothings and touch you like you were special. And you felt special. You felt special when she whispered "Don't stop… please" and a few seconds later you saw that look on her face and she collapsed in your arms, you held her close and you whispered her name, you needed to hear her name, to make it feel real. It wasn't just a dream. It was real, she was in your arms…naked, beautiful, covered in sweat, breathless. Yours. At that moment, she was yours.
Now you wish you could have stopped that moment, and all the other moment when she was in your arms.
You remember falling asleep, your head lying on her chest and she stroking your hair and for the first time in your life you felt whole. It sounds cliché and it is, but it's also true. You never really believed you could feel like that, basically through your life all you had were some shitty relationships, some casual sex with people you would never call back and that was it. Falling asleep in the arms of the only person you ever actually cared about was a dream.
But your life was never a dream, and when you woke up some hours later you woke up from the dream.
Rachel was dressed and was collecting her earrings from your floor.
"Where are you going?"
She didn't look at you and when she answered; her voice was dry and cold.
"I have to go, I'm sorry."
"But why don't you stay? It's like…5 in the morning."
"I have a fiancée waiting for me at home, Quinn."
It felt like someone had literally stabbed you because it physically hurt. So it was just a game? You meant nothing? You were just some fuck? But you didn't ask it aloud because you were to hurt to speak. It wasn't like you didn't know she had someone but some part of you wished that she could be actually yours.
You went to the bathroom and stared at your naked self in the mirror. You felt used.
When you went back to bed you hugged the pillow she slept on.
Were you lying all the time? Was it just a game to you?
But I'm in so deep. You know I'm such a fool for you.
You got me wrapped around your finger.²
She called a few days later, said she wanted to see you. You said yes. You couldn't say no. you told yourself that it wasn't like she promised you anything, by making love to you she wasn't promising you a happy ever after – you ended up convincing yourself.
You saw a movie with her and then you went to McDonald's because she said she wasn't in the mood for something fancy.
You told her about your days and she told you about hers and you both laughed and she excitedly told you about her dads that were coming to visit and would stay in town for a week or two and you wondered if that meant you wouldn't see her for a week or two.
She didn't mention that night neither did you but she ended up in your apartment that night and many other nights.
She was always sweet and caring and funny. You'd still go out to dinner, catch a movie or something and then go to your apartment, to your bed, to the living room floor, the table, the shower and you'd taste her and smell her and have her in every possible way.
But she'd always leave in the middle of the night. Sometimes you'd see her leaving, sometimes you'd just wake up in the morning in an empty bed, sometimes you'd pretend like you weren't seeing her gathering her belongings and leaving and you wishing that she would just stay.
Sometimes she would kiss your cheek before she left, sometimes your forehead or your neck, your hand, your lips … and whisper something like "goodnight" "hope you have good dreams" and then leave.
But you've always wanted more… you wanted good morning kisses and snuggling and the whole cliché thing. You wanted her, all of her, to yourself, everyday.
You've always hoped she would just stay.
you're the pill I never wanted to take
an anti-misanthrope
mine was the heart I never thought you would break
my one hope was that I'd survive you.¹
I wanted to write something very angsty but I'm not sure I've succeeded, this just doesn't seem angsty enough for me…but anyways.
Sorry for eventual mistakes, it's unbeta'd. Maybe I'll continue and maybe it will stay as a one-shot.
But I would really really love to know what you guys think.
¹ - jay brannan – half-boyfriend
² - the cramberries - Linger