"We're worried about you."
"Ew."
Santana rolled her eyes into the mirror as she applied a new layer of lip gloss. Quinn stood next to her refreshing her mascara. Brittany sat on the sink counter on the other side of Santana, peering at Quinn with her bottom lip stuck out slightly. "Shut up. You're our friend, no matter how hard you're trying to get us to fuck off. Yeah, we see that. Which, by the way, not cool. You're hurting Britt's feelings."
"You're making a big deal out of nothing."
"Q, you're a bitch, but you're my bitch so I'm really really trying not to punch you here."
"Your eyes are meaner than they used to be, even at us. And your hands are all shaky. Sometimes it looks like you're going to fall off the pyramid, so I mess up part of my routine so that Coach yells and you can get down for a bit," Brittany said with wide, concerned eyes. Quinn flinched and capped her mascara, looking away. Had she been letting it get so obvious? Wow, she really was pathetic. She'd have to fix that.
"Look, I get that you're in some kinda funk about giving the lizard baby away-"
"You don't get to talk about her," Quinn said quietly, but there was such hatred in her voice it was if she'd shouted it. Santana and Brittany both leaned back in fear. Quinn had a cold fury under her skin that intimidated even Santana.
"Whatever," Santana scoffed, feinting indifference. But Quinn could see something behind her eyes, something that looked suspiciously like pity. Quinn hated Santana for that look. Brittany chewed on her bottom lip and her eyes were moist. No matter how hard Quinn tried, she couldn't hate Britt.
But most of all, Quinn hated herself.
.
"Sup Baby Mama."
Quinn turned around to see Puck lumbering toward her. His smile had a touch of hope to it. She had to kill that straight away. Quinn fixed him with her most empty stare. Different from both caring or anger. Quinn needed him to think she felt absolutely nothing for him. The pain on Puck's face made something deep inside of her ache but she kept her perfect mask.
"What."
"I just wanted to make sure- You kinda attacked my Jew Rach out of the blue in Glee yesterday and-" Puck stumbled over his words. He wouldn't do that with most other people.
"So?"
"So…like I thought you were over the Rachel hate. I thought you two were cool. You started to lay off her with the insults and junk."
"Just because Berry isn't even on my radar any more doesn't mean we're in any way friends."
"I wasn't saying that, it's just that we're supposed to be a team."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "Some team. Everyone hates Berry, it isn't as if me being overt about it is any better than me being a sneak like the others."
"I don't hate Rachel."
It infuriated Quinn that he was telling the truth. Of everyone in the club, Puck was usually the nicest to Rachel in his own way. Even when Finn was dating her he had tended toward the jerk end of the spectrum. A completely oblivious jerk, but a jerk nonetheless.
But why did Puck like her? She was the most obnoxious person that Quinn had ever met. And she needed to keep her nose out of Quinn's business. Because for some reason whenever Quinn had something going on, Rachel was just there. Like an annoying gnat. One who cared too much about someone she should hate.
"So that's why you're talking to me? To defend her?"
Anger darkened Puck's face as he protested, "Fucking hell Quinn, you can be so frustrating. You know that isn't it. I'm worried about you."
"Well don't. It's a waste of your time."
Quinn got away from Puck as fast as she could because she was pretty sure if she stayed the guilt would kill her.
.
Because of her stupid outburst in Glee they started to pay attention to her more. Quinn was good at the mask thing. She'd perfected her technique all her life, but for the first time people who actually knew her were looking for the cracks.
When she had a dizzy spell in the hallway suddenly Artie was behind her, pretending to knock into her so that she could fall into his lap. Mike quietly slid up to her in study hall and made his fingers dance along the side of her text book in an attempt to make her smile. Kurt and Mercedes cornered her after school to ask her if she wanted to have a girls slumber party with them and when she had said no they'd tried to convince her that "at least a movie night is in order", which she had declined as well. At Cheerios practice Brittany had offered her her whole bag of goldfish because she hadn't seen Quinn eat that day. Quinn didn't think it would be a surprise to anyone that she had not taken then goldfish crackers, because it was essentially a bag of mush. Brittany thought that she was supposed to put her goldfish in an aquarium for storage before eating them. By the time Quinn left McKinley she felt like not only had she battled her way through another school day but she had narrowly dodged rounds of friendly fire.
Conspicuously, she hadn't seen Rachel's face all day. And that almost worried Quinn most.