A/N hello my dears! Now, I know that some people wanted a longer chapter, but after finishing with the 6,000 word monster, I thought it was just a bit too long, and here was the only good place to stop it. Meaning the one-sided Brittana-ness has been moved to the next chapter. This one's also pretty dark, but the next chapter (Which is still fairly long, despite being split in half) is going to start lightening up. Now, it won't be all rainbows and happiness, but life will perhaps take a break from beating on our poor Quinn, right? I have the next chapter all typed, I just need to proofread it, meaning I'll probably post it tomorrow. So don't let me forget about it guys! Enjoy!

-Nightshade

I don't own Glee, if I did, Brittany would be getting real storylines that didn't consist of a) funny, yet insignificant one-liners, b) asteroids/meteors/meteorites/comets c) the Rapture, or d) Lord Tubbington's many addictions to illegal drugs. Not that there's anything wrong with those, I just wish Brittany could be appreciated as more of a dumb blonde used for comic relief! Ok, mini-rant over, long story short, it's not mine!

Schadenfreude

Chapter Eight

The rest of the day passed me by with little ceremony, not that I really cared about any of it. People stared, people whispered, a group of freshman Cheerios even started pointing at me. Everyone had seen Jacob's blog post, everyone knew, and they all seemed to be taking delight in the evidence that I was just further self-destructing. Oh, look at poor, sad Quinn, once the reigning monarch of McKinley High, now just as desperate and as easy as some disease-ridden hooker. Did people ever get depressed from watching my slow decline? Will people finally gain some shred of humility and perhaps look the other way, at least give me the small grace of falling apart in peace? As I left my last class of the day, I ran into the last person I ever wanted to see again. Perhaps if I just averted my eyes and shrunk back into the lockers like a chameleon he wouldn't notice me? But those mosaic-tile eyes, brimming with a steely contempt quite unlike them, sought me out and pinned me in place before I could even bother. My limber, toned muscles became harder than rock, trapping me in one spot and refusing to let me escape the humiliation I was about to face.

"Why?" I whispered, averting my eyes as he grew nearer. For a few seconds before I had spoken, Darrell just stood there, observing me I suppose, or perhaps just staring at the mess he'd made.

"Because we're one in the same." He muttered softly, almost delicately. Something about his voice made my insides itch and sting, that reminder that I'd once trusted its owner. I felt sick to my stomach. He cleared his throat slightly, puffing his chest out in an effort to seem tougher and bigger.

"You'd do anything for popularity, including using me. So would I. I mean come on; all I had to do to get well-known here is say that I slept with you. And as you know, being well-known means you're popular. I'm the new kid, being popular is like, how you survive here." He gestured around at the dwindling crowd of students. "So what does it matter if I take advantage of you so clearly using me, and climb a few rungs on the social ladder?" he asked coolly, forcing a curved smirk upon his face, glinting like the tip of a blade. It seemed so unnatural upon his boyish face; the only thing that didn't make it completely unbelievable was his reasoning. Beneath all my hurt and rejection, I could understand where he was coming from, and why he did it, because if I was in his position, I probably would have done the same. That likeness made me fill with even more self-disgust than I thought possible, spilling over and staining my hands a guilty shade of red. Because I would have done that in his position, and I would have caused that much hurt to someone else if I had. I truly was an awful person. When I managed to pull my mind out from burrowing in my self-hatred, I only caught the yelp of his sneakers against the floor as Darrell turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway. I followed, not out of any desire to chase him, but because standing there frozen in my spot was just too painful. Moving like a ghost, floating from place to place without any real destination in mind, I slowly meandered my way to the front doors of the school. Yeah, I know that I have Glee rehearsals after school, but I sort of needed the open space, the fresh air. Even if that open space consisted of the school parking lot, and that fresh air was tainted by the smell of exhaust and cafeteria food. It took me a second to notice what was different over the raucous hooting and hollering as students filed out of the school, but suddenly it clicked into place. Someone was standing beside my car. Someone was standing beside my car with a well-worn tow-truck. A tow truck that was currently groaning and spouting rope to be hooked up to the back of my car. My livelihood, my home away from home. Without even thinking twice I bolted down the front steps, nearly twisting my ankle as I tripped down a few cracked stairs, and dashed across the parking lot.

"Hey!" I yelled, my voice as hoarse as sandpaper and somehow even louder than the disgruntled growling of the truck's engine.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" my dress fanned out behind me like a cape, blowing wind around my legs and making me feel ridiculously vulnerable. The man, wearing faded and shredded jeans, a baggy, sun-bleached t-shirt with a once-legible print of some sort of heavy metal band's name and logo, and industrial-looking headphones, gave me a confused look before grabbing for the chain.

"The owner of this car's stopped paying the bills, so it's gotta be repossessed." He muttered, a bored look on his sweaty, world-weary face. What does he mean paying the bills? I know I don't have money, but it wasn't even me that bought it! This car was a gift from my father, who was plenty rich enough to afford car payments. I mean, my father isn't the type of man to let things like these slide by unnoticed. No… he wasn't that type of man at all. He's the type of man who'd kick his own daughter out from under his roof because she got pregnant, and apparently, he's also the type of man who stops paying for said child's car, despite the fact that it was her only shelter available.

"N-no please, you don't understand, you can't take away my car! You can't take it away… I pleaded with the man, whose work jacket identified only as 'Cam'. No longer did I care that I was screaming and pleading and crying for the whole school to see, no, all I cared about was the fact that I was just about to lose yet another thing I so desperately needed to get by.

"Sorry Miss, but I'm just doing my job." He feebly excused, before continuing to hook my car up to the spiderweb-contraption of chains and cables and pulleys and hooks which would soon hoist it unceremoniously like a noose and carry it away.

"Please, you at least have to let me get my things first, please!" not to mention the fact that everything I owned, my schoolbooks, my clothes, all my belongings were stored in my little Honda. I'd be even worse off if I didn't own anything more than a change of clothes to my name. 'Cam' looked me up and down, staring at me warily as he judged whether to acquiesce to the pleas of a crazed, teary teenage girl.

"Fine. You've got five minutes." He gruffly muttered, stepping back a foot or two. Everything in this new life of mine had a time limit, as I was so quickly learning. Despite the fact that his voice was nearly sympathetic, and roughened up by years of either chain smoking or murderous yelling, the man's statement reminded me of what my father had told me the night I had been kicked out.

"You have thirty minutes"

Did I ever have any time anymore? Is this what growing up means, running out of time? I could practically feel the clock ticking in the back of my spine as I packed, deliriously shoving all my clothes into my Cheerios duffel bag while I wiped the tears from where they obscured my vision. I felt my stomach drop a little in self-pity as I realized that everything I owned fit into the bag, with space to spare. I literally had nothing. Everything in my life was spiralling out of control, flying away from my grasp, what have I done to deserve it? What's the point of trying any more, why do I keep fighting when the universe is content to repeatedly knee me in the gut over, and over, and over again until I beg for mercy? It all tracked back to my insecurity I suppose, if I hadn't been feeling fat that day, I definitely wouldn't have had sex with Puck, and I never would have gotten pregnant, and I never would have ruined my life! And I definitely wouldn't be feeling guilty for resenting that pregnancy for my ending up like this! I feel like such an awful person, essentially hating a child who hasn't even gotten the chance to live, but I can't do anything but lash out, and he-she-it is the closest thing to me, literally! No one else has to suffer like this? I'm sixteen; I'm practically a kid, up until 5 months ago I still slept with my little plush lamb keeping a watch over me through the night. My shoulders are too small for all this weight to carry, but why can't it hurry up and crush me already? Why do I have to keep slogging through each torturous day, participating in this loser's game known as life? Why, why was this happening to me?

"Q?" a familiar voice echoed within my empty, empty mind. The monosyllabic moniker dropped like a pebble into the turbulent shallow where my thoughts congregated like heavy, leaden summer rain, creating ripples that radiated to the very edge, disturbing every other whirlwind thought in my never-sleeping brain. I didn't want to stop though, or talk with whoever it was, I just wanted to go, to go anywhere and never, ever return.

A/N I apologize for the insanely long author's note at the beginning, just popping in to remind you to review!