Thanks for all of your lovely reviews, I always appreciate them. I am continuing this, of course! Now two chapters in and I'm fully invested, my passion for this only growing as I type. Life gets in the way however, so please be patient if I ever seem to be drifting from writing this. I'm already trying to get a head start on typing it up. Please know that if the waiting time between updates is long, it means that my home life, school, ect, is taking over, not that I'm losing interest!
xoxo,
littleredwrititnggleek
October 15, 2009
One week. It had been one week. And, admittedly, it was a week of both total shock and denial. Quinn put on her uniform everyday, pulled her hair into a high pony, and walked down the halls as if nothing had happened. Brave-faced and confident as ever, it was as though tragedy had never even struck. People looked, even if she didn't know it. They were confused, watching the pretty blonde carry on as if she didn't have a brace on her wrist and a scar down her collarbone. As far as she knew, nothing had happened.
Maybe it was because she didn't know what had happened.
Of course she knew that Finn was gone, passed on, but it didn't register fully. She didn't tell anyone, but she couldn't remember anything from that night. Aside from lights and that voice, the one calling out about, get the boy, she had no idea about anything or anyone during the accident. The details were gone. Her memory spanned from what she was doing before to the lights and then nothing. Quinn had never felt so scared in her life. But she pushed through, leaving that night in the past. She went to class, did homework, and ignored Sue when the coach gently told her that she couldn't risk Quinn cheering after all the trauma her body had sustained. In the blonde's mind, she'd be back on the field for the next game, as if the last one was simply a thing of the past.
Now, she currently stood in front of her mirror, her hair curled and her makeup done. She wore a simple black dress and kitten heels. She looked calm, collected, as if nothing were wrong. She pretended the black brace on her left wrist wasn't there, and had taken careful time to even;y conceal her scar the best she could, the dress hiding the bandage on it, powder and foundation blended around it as though it was a permanent fixture, nothing out of the was the Fabray in her, the part of her that could hide pain and emotion. Today, she was going to be like Jackie O, strong, poised, and graceful. She would sit through the service, accept hands and hugs, and watch with an even expression, up until the crank lowered the coffin in the ground. She was fine.
Her mother and sister walking out to the car with her was a blur. The small service before the actual funeral was a blur. The faces of every student, teacher, and faculty member at McKinley were blurs. Deep down she knew that she should be taking everything in. Her mascara should run, she she crumple at the sight of Carole's weeping, falter as she spoke an incredibly emotional speech in front of the congregation. But she did none of that, only standing and sitting when necessary, not noticing the confused glances her mother and Frannie, her sister, exchanged.
Subconsciously, she was only searching for one person, and upon entering the church, had yet to find him, still.
She heard the preacher talk about Finn, about his dad, his love for football, his recent membership of the glee club, and how him being there brought them all together. Carol wept, girls wept, boys tried to hold back tears the best they could, but Quinn was so calm, even as everyone filed out of the church to head towards the cemetery, she was perfectly fine, not a single tear shed.
Until she saw him.
In a suit.
Mohawk, gone.
Life wasn't like the movies, if it was, she would've been a mess by now. And even if not, she would have crashed at the sight of him, tears falling as she ran into his familiar arms, squeezing him for all he was worth. hey would rock each other and cry, dramatic, painful tears. But it didn't happen that way.
The whole thing was unsettling, disturbing, actually. He didn't look sixteen, he looked like a man. He stood, hands folded in front of him, and, almost as if he felt her stare, locked eyes with her for a fleeting moment. He was calm, just as calm as her, but how could she see that when she didn't even know that she herself was eerily calm? If she could see everything clearly, Quinn would've noticed that Puck and she were the only two that were so composed. She would've seen it coming, seen the meaning behind their matching composure. The blonde's mind was elsewhere, however.
It was instantly filled with all of their memories.
Every part of Finn was with him, Puck with Finn, and both of them with her.
Growing up, it had always been the three, Finn, Quinn, Puck. Finn's dad died when he was a baby, but Quinn and Puck held onto their families until Puck's dad left when he was eight, Quinn's father cheating on and divorcing her mother even earlier, when she was only five. But from the get-go, it was always them. They'd grown up together, sneaked out together, went to their first party together. Quinn's sister being ten years older than she, those two boys were all she had. Eventually, at age fourteen, Finn and Quinn finally started dating. Puck was ominous, the one who always had a different girl, a loner, but with them. He never followed into the whole girlfriend and first love route that every other jock and cheerleader did. It was a mystery to Quinn. Puck never held out for only one girl, something she couldn't a bad boy, Puck broke almost all stereo types but remained their close friend. Even when Finn and Quinn made their relationship official, Puck never strayed, if only a little. Quinn didn't ever really notice the small distance, though. When all three were together, nothing felt different. Yet, things still were the same, up until the end. Their laughs, their music, their everything, rarely faltered.
And here he was, the only other piece left. And he never seemed like more of a stranger to her. It was like she didn't know how to simply be without Finn. Of course, Puck had always been there. And things never changed, up until recently. But now, she could feel the slight distance created ever since she and Finn became a couple flooding through the room. Puck's lack of presence on their dates, the way he wasn't there every single moment like before. All of it added up, weighing down her chest and making her head throb. This boy, the one that usually was so bright just for Finn and Quinn, was now the solemnest she'd ever seen him. When he was with the coupe, he always smiled.
Now, he wasn't smiling just for her. Could he?
Lost in her delusional world for the entire past week, Quinn couldn't even recall seeing or talking to Puck at all. But now, lo and behold, their eyes locked. And it was like a light bulb clicking on as what felt like the entire population of Lima, Ohio, moved out of the building. Puck followed them out, still calm and collected.
But it didn't last long. Their gaze had been broken, but once their eyes found each other for the second time as the last words were said, it was done. Done, done, done. Finn was gone. What were they supposed to do without him? How could a mother ever bury her son, how could a town lay a teenager into the ground? Where did they go from here, with him gone? He was like Puck and Quinn's glue, completing them effortlessly. What was life going to be like without the goofy, tall and awkward boy that seemed to mesh all of their differences together and make them complete? This was the boy that felt so much sympathy four a couple of nerdy singers that he took his voice and horrible dance skills and joined glee club. Puck and Quinn were the bad ones, but not Finn. Finn was innocent.
Only the good die young.
It echoed through her head as time stood still and Puck's hazel eyes held her in for what seemed like an eternity. How was Quinn taking this? Why was she not truly listening, crying, mourning like everyone else?
And why wasn't Puck?
And before she knew it, she was running, simultaneously taking off her shoes and holding them in her hands, her heart pounding. He first chased after her head start, but quickly fell in stride with her as they wove through the pathways of the cemetary, not hearing anyone behind them. In an unspoken pact, they both ran, willing their bodies to feel something, anything. Lima was eerily still and quiet, but yet, their feet pounded on the sidewalks, gaining ground like crazy, almost as loud as their beating hearts. Maybe they could run forever, she thought, circling all the way through time until they came back around to that night, to change it. If she could just keep going, nothing would be real. If she never saw Finn's coffin in the ground, then it could be like it wasn't even there at all.
Finally, she needed to stop. She leaned up against a building downtown, out of breath. Puck stopped beside her and went to run his fingers through his mohawk, only to find it gone. After their panting subsided, they just sat, sinking down on the ground, their nice black clothes dirtied by the dusty sidewalk.
"I don't feel anything." she said. Weren't people supposed to feel? Weren't they supposed to cry, at least by the time of the funeral? Weren't they supposed to sob and ache and hurt? Why didn't she? Why could she not feel the textbook symptoms of grief?
"Me either." It came a beat later, indifferent yet an agreement nonetheless.
"I feel like I'm supposed to feel something." She said. What was this? Why did Puck feel ten thousand miles away from her, when he'd been there her whole life? And why did she suddenly feel like every thought and question in her head was repetitive, a broken record? That's all anything was, questions. So many question marks it made her head spin.
He sighed, dejected, as he stood up. She desperately wanted to be inside his head, to see what he was thinking. From the outside, it appeared as though he wasn't thinking at all. She wanted that, to find a way to drop the questions and just feel, something, anything.
"I'm going to get a drink." He said, looking at her, eyes inviting her. His expression was a little glazed over though, tired and weary. She knew what she should do, turn the other way and go home, figure herself out. She should leave him to get drunk alone, she should leave him to wander off and spiral down while she drifted through a life full of denial. Because even drinking was admitting there was a problem, because it was away to ignore it. Left to her own devices, she could forever pretend that her former best friend didn't even exist, that he really was a stranger. Quinn could pretend that she didn't even have a reason to drink at all. But her instincts were telling her that this numbness, this lack of feeling, wasn't just a short step to healing. They told her that this numbness was out of control, and that only fueled her desire to create her own numbness, to be in control and to make herself feel. Since when did she lose control over anything? They were only feelings, they couldn't be touched or seen. So why shouldn't she just make her own? The thought alone of losing anything else made her heart beat in an anxious angst.
"Okay." She stood up, brushing herself off, and followed him as they walked unknowingly down what was actually the long road that they would use to search for feeling and control.
Just one drink, just something to ease the pain. That's all that was, at least in that moment.
That was the first step.
That was how it began.
