Dear Quinn,
I hope there are no hard feelings between us anymore. I know we were rivals for the better part of two and a half years, but I never hated you. Even with all of our petty drama over Finn, I still saw you as a person Quinn, and I'm sorry that our personalities and desires clashed so that we could never truly become real friends. Because I think you needed a friend as much as I did sometimes.
I hope that as you get older you find happiness. I hope that you come to terms with the decisions you've made in your life, that you deal with the things you're ignoring now. Even as I prepare to do what I must do, I know there are other options. Please, for your life, choose them. Seek help. Because I think you could use someone to confide in.
I know you'll probably take my position as head of the group now, and I can only ask that you lead them better than I did. They might listen to you more, take your advice more.
Have a good life Quinn.
xoxo, Rachel Berry

Quinn scoffed as she read through the letter Kurt had just handed her, throwing it in the trash on her way out of the bathroom. The last thing she wanted was another reminder of Rachel's death, another reminder that nothing in her life would ever go well.


Quinn wasn't handling anything well anymore. Rachel's death seemed to be the trigger that set off all her other emotions that she had kept so well hidden under wraps. She felt like she spent more time crying than breathing, and now that it had been a little over a month since it happened, she wasn't even sure what she was crying about anymore.

There was the whole babygate issue and giving away Beth. She had never dealt with that, instead choosing to work hard to pretend it never happened. She had this hole in her heart from that, one she was sure would never close. Giving away Beth was the right decision, she knew that, but it didn't change the fact that every day she woke up knowing she had given birth to a child she'd never get to know. A child she'd never get to hold, to comfort, to love. Puck had tried to talk to her about it, after the baby was born. She shut down though, trying to focus on herself and ignore all the horrible feelings that threatened to take over. After awhile, Puck stopped trying, and the two hadn't even spoken in what felt like decades. But talking to Puck reminded her of the fact that she had a child with him, and so she kept her distance.

Then there was her parents' divorce. Her father still refused to even acknowledge her existence, and when her birthday came and went without so much as a generic card from him she locked herself in her room and cried for a day straight. She didn't understand how one mistake could fuck up their relationship so much, but she supposed she never would. Her mother, for her part, tried. But she was either too involved, treating Quinn like her best friend, or too distant, pretending that Quinn wasn't even there. There was no middle ground, and Quinn just wanted a mom to cry to. Instead she felt like she was on her own, a 17 year old with a 50 year old's pain.

Lastly there was Rachel, and her death, and that only seemed to push her over the edge of relative sanity.


"Now, I know we weren't expecting to win Regional's," Mr. Schuester said the Monday following the event, the group quieter than ever as they waited to hear what the plan was. "But we did, because we do have amazing vocalists in this group-Kurt and Santana were excellent as our leads." Santana wasn't looking at Schue, instead focused on her own hands while Kurt stared straight ahead. Quinn, for her part, was sitting in the back of the class, pressing down on an old scar, a dull pain from the skin trying to heal satisfying her for now. She wanted nothing more than to quit Glee and never look back, but no one else had, even if no one had the same passion for it.

None of them had been as passionate as she had been anyways.

Thinking about Rachel made her feel guilty, and she tuned out whatever Mr. Schuester was trying to talk to them about as she stared down at her legs, the jeans she had worn scratching the long cuts she had made the previous night uncomfortably. She knew it was stupid to cut, heard that they had found marks all across Rachel's body, that she had slit her wrists. She knew it could become addicting, but it was just such a relief to have something to do to distract her from her thoughts. Something to take any bit of the emotional torment away from her.

Sometimes, when she was cleaning up after herself, she wondered if this was how Rachel felt. Trapped, scared, powerless, disappointed, miserable. She wondered if she was headed on the same track Rachel was, how long it took her to go from the almost annoyingly optimistic future star to the teenage tragedy. She wondered how none of them noticed it happening.

She wondered if any of them had noticed if they could have stopped it.


"Quinn, are you hungry?" her mom called up the stairs, and Quinn panicked, cutting deeper than she meant to from being startled.

"No mom!" she called out, probably sounding more alarmed than she needed to. Her mom didn't question it though, Quinn's tone had rarely been pleasant the past few months, and Quinn swore under her breath as she got a washcloth out and pressed it hard to her side, laying down on the bathroom floor to stop feeling woozy from the accidental amount of blood she was losing. The feeling of cutting wasn't becoming as satisfactory as it had once been, the pain not nearly as enough as it had been in the beginning. She was worried she was becoming numb to it, like she was numb to so much else.

She cringed as she looked at the washcloth, soaked through in a deep red, before throwing it away in her trashcan, letting her shirt fall back down. The fabric irritated it, but fabric irritated most of her skin these days. There were fewer and fewer spots on her body where she didn't have a cut in some form-whether new and fresh, in the process of healing, or almost done scarring over. The first one she had done, the day of Rachel's funeral, had left a deep scar-but it had been a new experience, she wasn't sure what she was doing, just knew that some of the girls on the Cheerio's mocked some of the 'emo' girls for their scars, for their cutting. Knew that the girls did it because they were upset, wanted to feel a different pain. She had panicked at first, scared she had done too much damage to herself, but tried her best to hide it nonetheless.

And she was doing a good job of hiding this. Of keeping it inside like so many other things. There was only one time, an accident when her shirt sleeve had fallen down her arm a few days after that first incident, and Blaine had looked over at her, a little too concerned for her taste. But she had shot him a glare, pulling at her sleeve until her hand was basically invisible underneath it, and after that she had taken to cutting in an area less likely to be accidentally revealed. She was glad she didn't have Cheerio's anymore, or gym-as a senior, she was given the opportunity to skip that particular class. Changing in front of anyone else would have been a nightmare, a horror to explain to anyone. She didn't even like changing in front of herself-when she caught her reflection, she often was reduced to tears. She had spent so much time trying to turn into a 'pretty' girl, thin, clear skin, blonde hair. Now though, her hair was starting to darken without a desire to do anything with it, the ends split from a lack of a haircut. She was vaguely aware she was starting to gain weight, but she was wearing looser clothing to prevent getting rash around all her scars anyways so she was able to ignore the signs for that. The cuts though, they were the worst.

The lines that crisscrossed her body made her want to simultaneously add more, as if it was a painting she left half done, or cover up and never see them again. They were both beautiful and horrifying, something that showed the physical signs of her pain, the pain she could never seem to verbalize, while showing her biggest weakness. She wasn't able to communicate with people, she was isolated and alone, and no one had done that to her but herself.

Everything that had gone wrong in her life was her own fault, from her pregnancy to Rachel's death. And no matter what, she was sure she had played a hand in Rachel's death.


"Are you coming over to Finn and Kurt's?" Santana asked her as they all left the choir room the next afternoon, and Quinn had to focus hard on her words to even comprehend that she was speaking to her. No one seemed to speak to her anymore.

"I-I wasn't planning on it," she said quietly, her own voice sounding foreign to her. "Why? What's going on?"

"Well, Hudson hasn't left the house since Saturday night, so Kurt suggested that a few friendly faces might help," Santana shrugged. "I didn't know if he'd invited you or not."

"Not," Quinn responded, feeling despairingly lonely once more. "I'm busy anyways," she lied, the thought of going home and stuffing her face before marking her right thigh dangling in the forefront of her mind.

"Okay," Santana replied, glancing warily at Quinn before heading off towards where Brittany was waiting for her beside Kurt. Quinn watched as the three of them headed for the doors, Puck joining their group and leaving Quinn behind. She tried not to think about how in another life, it would have been her leading that group. How it would have been her job as Finn's girlfriend to make sure he was okay. How it would have been her job as secondary leader of the group to make sure the group was okay.

But Rachel dying had changed everything. It had made Kurt take charge, because Kurt was the only one who really knew what it was like to lose someone you cared so much about and still move on, still face every day. The rest of the group was still too young, too immature to handle something as real and scary as death.

Quinn stalked out to her car, climbing in and rolling down the window. It was still freezing outside, but the cold seemed worth it to not be sitting in a silent car. The radio was too much, songs reminding her of Rachel in the weirdest way. They hadn't even been close, had barely even been friends-frenemies, as Finn had coined them once. They had come to some sort of reasonable solution that year though, with Rachel and Finn back together and Quinn focusing on college, on getting out of Lima. She had no hopes on getting out of Ohio, but at least another town wouldn't hold as many memories, wouldn't hold as much of the heartache she felt being stuck in Lima. She cringed as she thought of the past year, the fact that they had even spent time together outside of Glee. All the Glee girls hanging out in Santana's yard while Rachel tried to explain their mash-up for the annual contest, Brittany laughing and twirling around Rachel as she lectured them, blowing bubbles all around the girls. Eventually even Rachel had to smile, giving in when Santana said she had more, all of them laying on the grass and blowing bubbles like they were children. It was one of the times Quinn had felt nice again, she had felt like just any other 17 year old girl. Sometimes when it was late at night, and Quinn couldn't sleep, she could hear Rachel's laughter from that day.

Quinn walked quickly up to her bedroom, not even thinking as she unbuttoned her pants, folding them and putting them on her dresser carefully, her shirt quickly following. She had a feeling that one wouldn't be enough today, and as she situated herself on the bathroom floor, knife in hand, she started crying.

Still, she had come this far, and she wasn't one to back down-the knife cut into her skin quickly as she opened up a healed wound on her thigh, taking a moment to soak up the hurt that it caused her entire body, shaking a little as she raised the knife to her arm-higher, above her elbow so that it would be covered completely by long sleeves, slicing and watching as the blood flowed immediately, the tears making her vision blurry as she placed the knife on the floor, one hand pressed tightly against both new cuts. The actual cutting wasn't as bad anymore, she supposed she was getting a higher pain tolerance, but the pure act alone made her cry, loudly, knowing her mom wouldn't be home for hours. She cried out her pain for herself, for her child, for her mother and father, for Rachel.

It wasn't until Santana held her closely that she even noticed anyone else was there. Santana whispered quietly in her ear, and as Quinn tried to calm herself down she noticed someone else-presumably Brittany-picking up the knife and throwing it away. "We're not going to let you do this anymore Quinn," Santana told her. "We're here for you now. We'll get through this together."