Sorry about the delay. Very, very busy week. I got it done though, and that's what matters. Hope everybody enjoys chapter two! (Special thanks to smashintoyou for being the first to review chapter one.)

Remember, this picks up directly where the first part left off. Quinn's mother has just abandoned our favorite duo.


Saturday, July 9th, 2011


I stare steadily ahead. The heat of Rachel's body is like a bonfire at my side. I'm not prepared to face her. Without my mother here to censor me, there will be nothing to ground me, to keep me coherent, to remind me that this is real, not a fantasy. Rachel and I have never been this close before, alone, and now that we're here, I have no idea what to do. I got what I wanted, but I'm terrified.

I silently curse my mother. It's so like her to get me into this and then abandon me.

Rachel waits patiently for me to look at her. She doesn't push or speak, content to simply sit beside me—and I know that she can see right through me. Without my mother acting as a buffer, I'm naked. I can't hide from her.

It's a struggle to bring my eyes to her face, knowing that I'll lose myself if I'm not careful. I have to force myself to breathe, and just as I expected, once our eyes have met, I can't turn away. The gray Lima sunlight sets on her shoulders, framing her face. I try to swallow against the nervousness building in my chest. You're so beautiful, Rachel.

Say something, I command myself. Don't just stare at her. Say something!

I try to formulate coherent words, but she beats me to it.

"I think your mom just ditched us," she says, and she laughs at the absurdity.

Despite the uneasy nausea in my stomach, I can't help smiling back at her. It's a thoughtless action, an instinctual habit.

"She does that," I admit—and I hope it doesn't sound as pathetic to her as it suddenly does to me.

If it does, she doesn't show it. She only grins, settling further into her seat, sinking back into the cushioned booth. Her eyes are soft and indecipherable. I try not to read too far into her complacency, attributing everything to the fact that my stiff, analytical mother has magically disappeared, but I wonder—against my better judgment—if there isn't another reason for it.

When I find my eyes drifting to Rachel's lips, my thoughts are quickly extinguished, and I'm reminded why I am always so afraid of lapsing into silence. She's magnetizing, like gravity, drawing me to her. I need her to talk; I need something else to focus on. She'll call me out if she realizes that I'm not paying attention to what she's saying, and I need the threat to pull myself together. The silence is dangerous. I don't know what I'll end up saying or doing if she doesn't distract me.

She doesn't seem in a rush to speak, but she drops her eyes, and the spell she has on me is momentarily broken. Thank God.

For a moment, I feel safe, but when she lifts her smoothie from the table, the cherry red straw settling between her parted lips, every nerve in my body comes alive, pulsing in time with the rhythm of her throat as she drinks.

This is infinitely worse than silence.

I swallow thickly, like trying to force down a bowling ball, and demand myself to look away. I concentrate on trying to breathe without attracting her attention and stare resolutely at my own smoothie, sitting untouched in front of me. If I don't get away from Rachel soon, one of two things will happen, and neither are good. I'll either drive myself insane trying to control myself, or I'll lose control of myself completely and jump her in the nearest secluded area—the nearest area that seems even moderately obscure. I reach out and grip the Styrofoam cup in front of me with a shaky hand, pulling it toward me and sucking the smoothie down desperately, heedless of the temperature. I'm immediately rewarded with a brain-freeze, but it's a welcome distraction.

Suddenly, Rachel laughs, and, internally, I cringe. What did I do?

I shift my eyes in her direction, unable to curb my curiosity.

"I just remembered that this is the first place I ever saw you," she says.

I blink at her dumbly. As far as I know, the first time I met Rachel was in ninth grade, in the hallway before lunch. I can remember that instant with agonizing clarity. She had bumped into me on accident, too focused on her sheet music to notice me at first, and, when we collided and all of her things had spilled onto the ground, because I was so high on the newfound power I had gained at McKinley, I had insulted her and laughed. I had mocked her navy and evergreen argyle; I had ridiculed her pleated skirt. The first time I met her, I saw tears well in her eyes.

I force myself to keep the guilt at bay. I can't deal with that right now. Not now. Please, not now.

The lingering confusion must be apparent on my face, because she continues without me asking her to.

"The summer before ninth grade," she explains. I'm exponentially relieved that she's talking; it helps me focus on something other than my own thoughts. "You were sitting up at the bar with your dad, and you were wearing a T-shirt from that year's Broadway production of Wicked." She laughs again, and I melt into her dark, umber eyes. "I was so jealous."

I don't particularly remember coming here with my father, but I know the shirt she's talking about. My father had taken me to see Wicked as a reward for good grades in my last year of middle school. After the show, a vendor outside on the corner was selling shirts and jackets and hats and everything Wicked I could've imagined, and I begged my father for a shirt the entire fifteen minutes we were waiting for the taxi. Right before we left, he finally stopped at the vendor. It has always been one of my favorite shirts, even though I could never wear it to school. I was too cool for musicals, and I grew out of it once I hit my growth spurt in the middle of ninth grade. It fits other than the fact that it's too short, barely reaching past my belly button. I still wear it to sleep sometimes, but I don't think I could ever admit that out loud—especially to her.

Unable to remember much of anything from the day we were both apparently here before, I'm not sure how I should respond. I search Rachel's eyes for the answer she's looking for, but, like always, she meets my gaze without any expectations.

Guiltily, I finally settle for saying, "I don't think I saw you…"

Rachel shrugs, unbothered. "It's okay. I didn't expect you to."

Of course you don't, Rachel. You don't expect anything from me.

"I honestly don't remember that day," I admit.

"Even if you did, I'm pretty sure I was hiding behind my dad."

She laughs and her face colors a gorgeous shade of pink. She's embarrassed—a particular facet of beautiful that doesn't often show itself where Rachel is concerned—and I am immediately intrigued. I want to know what makes her blush like that.

Searching her words for a hint, I pause.

She couldn't mean—?

"Hiding from me?" I ask.

She nods, and I swear I can see her blush grow deeper, spreading farther.

The strength to refrain is nowhere to be found. "Why?"

She drops her eyes briefly, then looks to the window, as if her reflection holds the words she's looking for.

"I'd just never seen someone so pretty."

My heart stops beating. What?

She turns back to me, finding my eyes. "You looked so mature for your age. So… cool, with your capris and your shirt twisted up into a knot, like all the popular girls." She grins, shaking her head. "And there I was, this minuscule dwarf of a thing in my saddle shoes and argyle and plaid—pretty much exactly the same as I am now," she adds wryly.

I can't help thinking that, in her summertime attire of solid hues and patterned lace, she looks nothing like the girl she describes.

Abruptly, the color lighting her cheeks begins to creep down her neck. My eyes follow the spreading warmth, riveted, but I snap back to attention before I lose myself completely. I find my way back to her face and realize that she's having a hard time holding my gaze. I've never seen her so shy. Is this really happening right now?

"I remember thinking you were a model."

My immediate response is the desire to laugh, but I'm afraid it'll offend her, so I bite it back.

I search her eyes, though the honesty in them is apparent. "Seriously?"

She looks down, her face pinching with embarrassment. "I was young and naïve," she complains. "I had no idea what I was thinking. But can you blame me?" She holds my gaze, and though she doesn't intentionally establish her intensity, it pours into me in a rush, the most thrilling warmth. She has no idea how captivating she is. She's lost sight of herself, because, for some reason, she's focused on me. "You're beautiful, Quinn," she says. "You were then and you are now—even more so."

I try to fight it, but my heart ignores my warning, pounding loudly in my chest. She's just being nice, I tell myself. She's trying to boost my fragile self-esteem, trying to be a good friend. Forget it. She doesn't mean it that way.

Reprimanding myself is ineffective; I struggle to find my voice. "Thanks, Rachel."

Before I sink even deeper into her eyes, I turn my gaze downward, studying the Styrofoam cup clutched in my hand.

Rachel bumps my shoulder with her own. "Can I tell you a secret?"

I raise my head to look at her, my nerves setting off like rapid-fire rockets when the bare skin of her arm touches mine.

She doesn't wait for me to answer her verbally. "It's cute when you get shy," she says, eyes like molten chocolate pinning me to the spot, "but you don't have to hide from me." My chemical structure gives way, spilling me into a thousand and one solitary atoms. I am weightless and ethereal; I'm convinced that I am delusional. "I know that there is a lot more to you that I haven't discovered yet—and it might take me a while, so you'll have to be patient—but I'm getting there."

Please, God, if this is a dream, don't ever let me wake up.

"I think I already know more than you realize."

The color drains from my face. Abruptly, I do want to wake up. I panic. Adrenaline condenses into energy in my limbs, preparing me for an imminent escape. Does she know? Have I really been as obvious as I thought? Is all of this just a prelude to her pity, where she tells me that she's flattered but not interested? If it is, I think I'll die.

"For what it's worth," she says, and I'm hanging desperately on every word that passes her lips, silently begging for mercy, "I think you're amazing."

Everything stops.

Am I dreaming?

Is this a virtual representation of my fantasy land, where the Rachel in my head is always waiting for me?

Is any of this real?

Rachel reaches for my hand, and a surge of white-hot electricity breaks me free of my paralysis.

My heart is a battering ram; my chest is caving in.

She just smiles. "So don't try to hide," she says. "I'll find you eventually."

I can only nod in response. I don't trust my voice.

What in the world would I say, even if I could?

She holds my gaze, her smile fixed and permanent. Our polar magnetism pulls me toward her tenfold, and I grasp desperately for a distraction.

"How's your smoothie?" My voice is high and rushed.

She laughs. She hasn't touched her smoothie for nearly five minutes, and it's a little ridiculous to ask her about it all of the sudden. I flush, but she's merciful, as she always is, and she doesn't comment on my blatant attempt to change the subject. She draws her hand back from my arm, settling it in her lap. Her warmth remains, a tangible remnant.

"It's good," she says. A tease lingers on her lips, entirely too exciting for me to handle; imaginary Rachel wears that smile frequently. She lifts her cup from the table and tilts it in my direction. "Want to try it?"

The only thoughts circulating through my brain revolve around the fact that that straw has been in Rachel's mouth. Her lips have been on that straw. Though, somehow, I manage to ask, "What's in it?"

She peers down into the pulverized fruit thoughtfully, as if she can actually see the individual components she names. "Strawberries, oranges, and pineapple, and I always ask them to add peaches." She glows with a genuine joy that I wasn't prepared for. "It's my favorite thing in the whole world," she admits, laughing. "It's pretty much me in a cup."

And you're asking me to taste it? Just kill me now, Rachel.

I swallow my nerves as she tilts the cup back in my direction. Before I have a chance to talk myself out of it, I lean forward and place my lips tentatively on the straw. The second the flavor hits my tongue, I melt.

God, she tastes amazing.

I'm not sure, but I think I groaned out loud. I pull back hastily and exaggerate a follow-up. "Wow," I rasp—unintentionally. "That's…" I can't find the right word to describe it. Heavenly? I'm too embarrassed to say it. "Wow."

"I know," she says. I can't help but notice that her one of her dimples is hiding, the other readily visible in the corner of her satisfied smirk. It almost seems to say: I told you so. She leans toward me a fraction of an inch. "What about you? What's your flavor?" She laughs, and I wonder briefly if she's thinking of the song she unintentionally quoted.

I drop my eyes to the cup in my hand. While Rachel's smoothie was a shade most closely resembling a succulent peach mingled with the red tones of strawberries, the contents of my cup are a pale, bland pink, not much to look at—much the same way I feel when I compare myself to her. I'm a popular choice, run of the mill, and she's an exotic anomaly, beautiful, unique, and completely intoxicating.

She's still waiting patiently for my answer.

I turn the cup in my hands. "Strawberry kiwi," I mumble finally.

Rachel nods with measured acknowledgment. "Can I tell you another secret?"

You can tell me anything you want to, Rachel.

She waits until I meet her eyes before she continues"I've never tasted a kiwi before."

The urge to clear my throat rises. This conversation is too ironically symbolic, and not a word of it is lost on me.

"Really?" I ask her, pushing the thought away. For some reason, the notion at hand is surprising.

"When I was little, I was afraid of them." She laughs openly at her childhood self, and I can't help it; despite the numerous complications of my inadequacy complex and neuroticism, I laugh too. "It's true," she insists. "They freaked me out. I was a highly logical child, and it just didn't seem natural for a fruit to have fur." Her laughter is light and medicinal, melodic when it mingles with mine. "I wouldn't touch them. I barely let my dads bring them into the house. They were kept in the bottom drawer and they didn't come out until my dads ate them or threw them away."

She shifts in the booth next to me, turning to see me more directly, her knee more firmly pressed against my own, but I've been captured by her indiscriminate happiness, and I don't allow myself to register the distraction.

"I think I've gotten a little better about it now," she says. "I can tolerate seeing them in the refrigerator, at least. I still haven't had the nerve to taste one though."

I offer her my cup. "Do you want to try it?" I ask. Half of me expects her to say no, so when a brief flicker of hesitation passes across her face, I'm not surprised. But, for some reason, I keep talking. "There's no fur, I promise."

I think I just made a joke…

Rachel laughs then—my joke apparently successful—and takes a breath. "If I was by myself, I wouldn't even consider it," she says, "but you make me feel braver than I really am." She nods decisively. "Okay."

While I'm pondering the meaning behind her words, she leans forward to sip from the cup in my hand, which hums faintly in response as she draws on the straw and allows the foreign flavor to grace her tongue. Pins and needles pinball up my arm and resonate throughout my entire body. The collective experience is somewhat maddening. This is the first time I can recall ever wanting to be an inanimate plastic straw—specifically, the one that Rachel Berry's lips are currently occupied with.

Terror strikes me. What if she doesn't like it? Symbolically, that would be too much to bear.

After a moment, she pulls away. She settles her shoulder against the cushion at our backs, bearing an expression of intense concentration. Her mouth is closed, but I can tell by the subtle working of her jaw that she's testing the lingering remnants of the flavor on her tongue. Her eyes search the ceiling before falling to meet mine. She laughs.

"I couldn't really taste it," she admits.

I laugh with her instinctually. Her happiness is infectious.

At least she didn't hate it.

"It's always more strawberry than kiwi," I tell her.

"Kind of like you."

My laughter dies abruptly, washed away by curiosity. "What do you mean?"

She shrugs, a secret, enigmatic smile on her lips.

I could conjure a thousand and one fantasies with that look.

"Mostly strawberry, a little bit of kiwi," she says.

The intensity of my desire to know what she's talking about pushes through my straying thoughts, steadying my voice. "Would you care to elaborate on that?"

Her grin never wavers as she shakes her head. "That's all you're getting."

Imaginary Rachel said that to me once. It turned out, eventually, that she was lying.

This Rachel, however, seems to be serious. I grasp wildly for a comprehension that eludes me, reduced to slouching back against the booth, utterly lost. What in the world does that mean—'mostly strawberry, a little bit of kiwi'?

She bounces once in her seat before settling again, inwardly pleased about a secret I am not allowed to share. "So, what do you need to get from the mall?" she asks. Even though she's changed the subject, teasing secrecy lingers in her eyes.

For the first time today, I don't want to answer her; my response will likely lead us down a path that I am desperate to avoid.

I had convinced my mother earlier this morning to take me to the mall so I could pick out a new swimsuit for the party she's throwing next weekend, the locale of which is our pool, of all places—Hawaiian theme, of course—but the last thing I need is to get stuck modeling the potential options for Rachel—or even worse, having her model them for me.

Rachel in a bikini is almost too much to envision.

I clear my throat. "My parents are throwing a party next weekend. I was going to look for an outfit to match the theme."

It's not exactly a lie. A bathing suit is an outfit, kind of.

"What kind of theme could you possibly not already have an outfit to match?"

I know immediately that I've trapped myself. While I'm not opposed to withholding or bending the truth, I can't outright lie to her. I don't have it in me. Even if I did, she would know, and she would find her way to the truth eventually.

"Hawaiian," I admit.

Her eyes light up. "Grass skirt then," she decides. "A flower for your hair, a couple of leis—green, of course, to bring out your eyes—a new bikini."

Just hearing her say the word is enough to make me shiver.

There is an entire list of words that the real Rachel should never say to me.

"Yeah," I croak. "That's the plan."

Rachel's attention has been drawn back to the utter ambrosia that is her smoothie. While I'm contemplating begging her for another taste, she plays idly with the straw. "I've been thinking about looking for a new bathing suit too," she says.

Why am I not surprised?

"I think the last time I bought one was the summer I first saw you." She laughs, shaking her head at herself. "If you can't tell, I haven't grown much since then. Anywhere."

Her last comment causes my eyes to widen. I cannot believe she just brought up something like that.

And then I realize that this is all headed exactly where I feared and desperately wished it wasn't. I'm going to end up melting and plastered to a greasy polycarbonate waiting chair in some department store with Rachel twirling and dancing and baring her body, dipped in all flavors and shades of bikinis, in front me. I'll mutter unintelligible responses when she asks me my opinion and I'll drown in my fantasies of ripping each and every one of them away.

"Would you mind if I looked for one too?"

Her eyes are patient and unassuming, without any hidden intentions.

Say yes! Do not let her come with you! If you see her in that bikini…

I feel like the scum of the earth for thinking so inappropriately of her.

Don't do it, Quinn. Don't do it.

My voice pitches when I try to assure her that it's okay. "Not at all."

I just don't know how much longer I'll be able to resist you.


Note: Rachel's smoothie is based on the Sunrise Sunset from Tropical Smoothie. I switched the words intentionally.

Note: I have no idea whether or not they actually sell T-shirts for performances of Wicked. It just seemed to fit.

Note: Their friendship seems starkly intimate, no? Well, we've missed a big portion of the true beginning, by this time. (The first random meetings and whatnot.) Perhaps to be remedied with a prequel one day, if I ever get around to it.

Note: In retrospect, Quinn has an even dirtier mind than I realized while I was writing it.

To the mall, anyone? Cover charge: one review per person. Ha!