Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you for the reviews everyone! I'm loving them!


The smell of whiteboard marker overwhelms the room as the history teacher rambles to a class that has stopped listening to him a little more than an hour ago. Quinn stares down at her notebook and flicks her pen around her fingers as she thinks. A small, paper history teacher sits in the middle of her page. It sits completely still and looks up at its creator's cruel smirk in silent horror. With perfect precision, she guides her pen down to the paper and as if it were a deadly weapon, she stabs the pen into the flimsy paper, and watches as the ink sinks into the paper and corrupts its clean, white material with dreadful, blue ink.

Hazel eyes blink as Quinn appreciates her artwork. The poor, tortured drawing of the history teacher sits with a grim frown and wide, knowing eyes. His nose takes up the entirety of his face with its hideous lumpiness; unfortunately, for the drawing, this is not its only misfortunate feature. A vile wart sits on its chapped lips, deep sweat stains ruin its white shirt, and an embarrassing puddle of blue ink collects beneath the drawing's feet; and to top it all off, his dark, wispy hair is in a awful comb-over, completing an overall hideous profile of the history teacher. Quinn giggles maliciously at her drawing, embarrassing the poor creature even further; however, before she is able to increase its torment, a hand stills her movements and her artwork is quickly ripped from her notebook. The history teacher looks down at the paper through narrow eyes and blanches slightly. The man clears his throat and puts Quinn's creation out of its misery as he crumples up her paper and throws it towards the garbage. His weak voice trembles as he tells her that she should consider paying more attention in class, or leave. The girl only smiles and stands up, collecting her notebooks and backpack and in a flurry of red and white, she is gone.

Quinn walks through the school with her hands on her hips and her head tilted upwards as if she were a queen and this school is her kingdom. The campus was practically empty other than the occasional student hiding out in the bathrooms, so she walks to her hide out undetected.

She walks out of the football field, past the portable bathrooms and towards her destination behind the bleachers.

With a deep sigh, she throws her backpack on the dirt, collapses next to the post, and rests her head on her knees. She knows her history teacher will call her parents for getting in trouble and she groans at the thought of the argument she will have later…well…less of an argument and more of a…sit still and apologize while her father scolds her. Her smirk slowly turns into a frown as she thinks of her last arguments she has had. She always closes her eyes, because behind her red-faced father will be her mother, smiling sadly to herself as she pours herself another glass of wine. She hates those days; a shiver shudders from deep within her. It isn't her fault that her history teacher is so damn boring, she can't even remember the man's name; she zoned out on the first day. She never bothered to hear another weak, squeaky sound from him again after "Hello class". A dark chuckle rips Quinn from her thoughts and she throws her head back and sits straight, hating the idea of anyone seeing her in a position of weakness. She relaxes slightly when she sees her friend clad in the same Cheerios uniform, her hair pulled back tightly and a smoking cigarette held loosely in her bronzed hands.

"Hey Q, wanna have a smoke?" The girl says, dark humor glinting in her black eyes as she twirls the cigarette in her hands.

"No way Santana, my parents would figure me out the moment I walked through the door, I wouldn't even have time to open my mouth before I was kicked out." She huffs out in disgust, yet, despite herself, she can't help but glance at the cigarette longingly. It sets a certain thrill through her at the thought of taking it and pushing it past her lips. It's not exactly the thought of getting blackened lungs that urges her quietly, it's the fact that she can't have it, and that thought is poisonous enough to make her stomach to knot into gnarled ropes. Santana simply shrugs and puts the burning stick to her lips and inhales. "Besides, it's a sin to have impure thoughts and smoking is most definitely impure" Santana chuckles and blows out a puff of smoke in Quinn's face.

"Suit yourself" Santana falls down gracefully beside Quinn and runs the hand free from the cigarette through her silky black hair.

The two girls sit together like this for what feels like hours. The only thing that can be heard is the occasional bird chirping, trying to escape the upcoming storm and Santana's deep breaths as she inhales the burning smoke. Quinn stares at the black tip of the cigarette and watches as it slowly crawls up the white, rolled up paper. Little, red embers slowly eat up the cigarette, and with each deep breath the paper is slowly deteriorate until it is nothing but a shriveled up bud, no longer useful or wanted. Santana flicks the used up bud without a second thought and Quinn blinks, breaking away from her daze. The blonde cheerleader sighs as her expression prints into a discomforted grimace. She's doing it again, thinking too much.

"So why are you out here anyway?" Santana murmurs, the callous tinge to her voice having left with the thick, burning smoke.

"I drew another picture of the history teacher" She says just as softly, almost shamefully, the upcoming scolding already on her mind; however, a small smile pricks at her lips when Santana throws her head back and laughs. "I couldn't keep it though; he grabbed it with his tiny mouse hands." The darker girl beside her covers her face as she attempts to hold in her cruel laughter and Quinn manages a small giggle for the sake of entertaining her friend. "At least I know what to add to the drawing next time."

"Did he call your parents?" All the humor drains from Quinn's face and she kicks a loose rock and curses her friend silently.

"Probably" her voice sounds small and she clears her throat and tries to sit straighter, always trying to come off stronger than she felt. Quinn pauses as a soft and warm hand grazes her shoulder, patting it lightly and rather awkwardly.

"I'm sorry" Santana murmurs, her voice is as gentle as it will ever be and they both sit in the silence once again. The weight on Quinn's shoulder becomes uncomfortable; she doesn't like being sympathized with, especially by Santana. She coughs, trying to break the sudden silence and shifts away from the other girl, hoping to end the soft moment as quickly as possible.

Quinn hates the silence; it is the only time the truth can be heard. The truth that, despite the girl's most obvious differences, in the silence, all that can be seen is their blaring similarities. They are both Lima Losers with terrible, over-bearing parents and a dreadful destiny that with every breath they take, they are one-step closer of becoming old, useless, shriveled up shadows of the woman they are now.

The silence becomes unbearable so Quinn shoves Santana's hand off her shoulder

"Get your dirty hands off me." The cruel words slip from her lips without permission, her desperation to fill the wordless void ends with malice. With a sigh, she smoothes out the imperfections in her Cheerios uniform and stands straight; after a long moment, she holds her hand out to the girl beneath her. Santana's ebony eyes are ablaze as they bounce from the outstretched hand towards her grim expression. With a sneer, she jumps up on her own and smacks away Quinn's hand. The sympathetic glint in her black eyes is all gone and replaced with an angry glare. While brushing invisible dirt from her uniform, Santana sneers at her friend and shoves her while moving away from the bleachers.

"Whatever loser, see you in Cheerios practice, hope you don't fall" Her best friend's harsh tone is once again laced with threats.

Quinn stands beneath the bleachers and watches her friend leave her, the girl clad in a red and white uniform quickly leaving Quinn alone with her mind and that horrible silence that makes her say awful things. A few stray raindrops fall from the ominous, cloudy sky, making it past the protection of the bleachers, hits her straight on the cheek. She groans and falls back to the ground, wiping furiously at her cheek. God she hates the rain.

After what feels like hours, a consistent bell rings throughout the school grounds, and within seconds, the campus swarms with desperate students as they try to escape the school grounds.

It is the harsh bump of impatient students swarming past her that knocks Quinn out of her thoughts, and with a sigh, she kneads her temples and walks towards the field for practice.

~~ X ~~

Everything aches.

Quinn groans as her hands attempt to work out the knot forming in her neck and curses as her sneaker clad foot lands on the cement strangely and shoots jolts of pain up her leg. Quinn stares blankly at the path in front of her, palely illuminated by the crescent moon hanging lazily above her, as she walks through the school grounds. The temperature has gone down with the sun, leaving the night air brisk and wet with the occasional sprinkle of water from the ominous clouds above. All her mind can process is the warmth of her car and curses herself for parking so far away today.

That is when a soft hum of sound breaks through the haze of Quinn's mind; subconsciously she drifts towards the sound and soon finds herself in front of the auditorium. The soft hum of sound turns into a chorus of voices, Quinn walks into the auditorium and sees a gawky group of misfits and her boyfriend on the stage, singing their hearts out to a cheesy song. They all wear red shirts and dance around like a bunch of idiots. She sneers at the group performing on the stage; she never understood why Finn just had to be in Glee club. He had blabbered on and on about expressing himself and being a leader; she understood all of that, she just didn't know why he had to drag their social status down for it.

Despite her thoughts, she doesn't leave; instead, she sits down in the back of the auditorium and crosses her arms across her chest, making sure that nobody could see her in the dark room. Finn is singing the lead; Quinn can see his dopey grin as he raises his hand to the almost non-existent audience. After a few moments, a dark, hefty girl steps up, faces him, and belts out a few lines about a city boy born and raised in South Detroit. Strangely enough, she feels her limbs begin to relax at the melodic sound; the song breaks through the torturous silence surrounding her mind.

She stays until the end of the song, watches as the man steps in front of the group, and claps; she recognizes the man as her Spanish teacher and she rolls her eyes, of course, it would be him, he was always preaching about how special it was for people to express themselves through Spanish. She isn't surprised that he would take up something as horribly crippling and emotional as the Glee club.

Quinn shifts uncomfortably in her seat at the sight of the Glee club's exuberant happiness, as if they didn't mind that they were at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Since the song ended, the group was standing in the center of the auditorium doing a group hug. Quinn sniffs snobbily and stands up to leave, having no other reason to be there other than the music.

The last thing she can see of the group is Finn's massive arms reaching around to reach out for each member in the stupid little club.

This leaves her furrowing her eyebrows stubbornly as she walks towards her car.

She doesn't understand why anybody in their right sense of mind would want to be different. Being different means being out in the open and vulnerable to people who may have cruel intentions and being vulnerable means having a weak spot. She cannot possibly understand how someone could willingly subject themselves to weakness.

With a sigh, she shakes her head, dismisses the thoughts swarming her head, and gets into her car, escaping the sharp, piercing frost of the cold day. With a weary groan, she drives herself home and hopes her father is to tired from work to bother lecturing her and possibly letting her go to bed one night without having to wipe tears from her eyes.