Chapter 8:
December 31st
New Year's Eve snuck up on her the way it always did, quietly, in the night. It crept up behind her, delicately, in the way only a new year could, and it slapped her in the face only the way that the passage of time could. And with it came a deluge of unreasonable expectations and a frantic revelry that seemed to swathe every interaction with the sheen of false meaning.
Quinn had returned to Boston after Russell's funeral and the general mess that was that week in Ohio. And instead of making any real progress, she had returned to normal. Homeostasis was what it was called. But in this case it was not a healthy thing. There was no balance, or stability, just the usual panicked feeling of slowly crashing to the Earth.
Her friends – her law school friends, she had to remind herself – had gotten it into their heads that Quinn – or Lucy, she was Lucy to them, she had to remind herself – and her roommate, Katrina, would host a New Year's Eve party at their apartment.
Quinn had wanted to say "No," she had wanted to say, "No, we can't host this because Russell just died, and I've been ignoring my family for a month, and my whole existence is in tatters." But she had to remind herself that she had never explained to her friends, her law school friends, that Russell was dead, or that her family was crumbling, or that her heart was in pieces back in Ohio.
So she agreed with a shrug.
And just like that their already cramped apartment was made even smaller by the magic of adding 20 assorted classmates and acquaintances, a table of alcoholic beverages, and the din of a group of drunk people carrying on simultaneous conversations.
Voila! Instant torture chamber.
Quinn watched silently as the apartment filled with people she barely knew.
There was the girl who sat in front of her in Tax I last spring who had spent the class time playing some "Price is Right" game on her computer. Her name was Lydia and she was a whiny know-it-all – kind of the going rate for law school. She gave Quinn a hug as she came through the door with a bottle of cheap champagne, distractedly complimented her on her sweater and skirt combo, and then loudly declared, "The party just arrived!"
There was that guy who wore sandals year round, even in the winter. She thought his name was something classic and sturdy, like Fred or Frank, but she couldn't be sure, so she just smiled at him when he came in with a six-pack of Sam Adams and a pair of flip-flops.
Their apartment was swarming. The air was filled with the competing volume of the television and Juli's ipod (she had spent the morning tossing out playlist ideas, as everyone else cleaned and cooked. "It's not still in bad taste to listen to Chris Brown, right guys?") and 20 conversations about who was expecting to get which jobs with which firms after graduation, and another 15 about why Professor Winters' grades were always the last to be submitted.
Quinn couldn't be bothered with any of it. She couldn't muster the slightest enthusiasm to brag about how well she had done on the Trusts and Estates final, and she wasn't feeling indignant enough to complain with the group about the injustices of not getting into an upper level Criminal Law course as a 3L.
So she stayed hidden around the fringes of these groups, moving around chip bowls and collecting empty cups and beer bottles.
After a while, she weaved her way through the pockets of conversation and made her way to the kitchen to refill her blue solo cup with water.
Juli grabbed her arm before she could reach her destination.
"Lucy Fab, you need to try this. Graham just mixed me the most epic drink," she gushed, thrusting her cup in Quinn's face.
Graham looked on, a pleased look on his dopey face. Quinn knew that Juli and Graham had been dancing around their feelings for one another since they arrived at law school. According to Juli, tonight would be the night. "New Year's Eve is how it begins," Juli had explained to her earlier that day. After all, kisses at midnight were the catalysts for happily-ever-afters.
Quinn wanted to tell Juli that New Year's Eve was just another let down; another day to mark off on the calendar, in a never-ending line of days to come. But, if the look on Graham's face was anything to go by, he was on Team Juli, so maybe it was best to just leave them be.
Quinn raised her glass to Juli's, "I've got my own," she said before resuming her slalom to the kitchen.
New Year's Eve was always how everything began. There was a general consensus that a new year meant a fresh start. But Quinn couldn't be too sure of that. For her, the past always got dragged along, no matter how hard you tried to hold it back and everything just rolled into each other. There was no such thing as a fresh start because the past always informed the present.
Quinn was counting on the New Year too though. Not in the same way as Juli. Not in the way you count on family to be there through the tough times, or the way you count on your professor to ask that one question you didn't prepare for.
She was counting on it the same way she counted the number of miles between Boston and Ohio. She counted on the New Year the same way she counted the number of calls she had ignored from Santana and Brittany. She counted on the New Year the way she counted the days since she had last seen Rachel's retreating form.
She kept an eye on her watch, and counted on the seconds between here and there. She counted the temporal distance between how things were and how she wanted things to be.
But the heaviness of that thought was too much to bear, so she settled into her chair in the corner of the living room and started counting other things. She counted the number of guys who were foolish enough to try to initiate a conversation with her (four), the number of drinks offered to her that she inevitably turned down (she lost count after eight), the number of times Katrina or Juli or Kate asked her if she was okay (a mess of times that got messier the more drunk they got).
She counted on these things as the time ticked down to that magical witching hour when dreams came true.
Around 10:30 the party reached a new height of manic festivity. A game of beer pong had been set up on the kitchen table and Kate was dancing with her friends from the Women's Law Association. Lydia was among them. She was shouting about how the current song was her "jam." Quinn wanted to tell her she had no rhythm, but she said nothing instead.
She just sat motionless in the corner. A sober voyeur taking in the bacchanalia. She turned to the television, which was now muted, as Ryan Seacrest interviewed the latest in a long line of boy bands to consume the airwaves. She kept an eye on the time and her agitation only grew when she realized there was less than an hour and a half until midnight. Her agitation grew because no matter how hard she tried she couldn't help it that her thoughts kept returning to Ohio.
She rolled up her sleeves, trying to escape the heat that she had just noticed had been trapped under her sweater. Maybe it had to do with the fact that her apartment had been invaded by strangers, or maybe it was the fact that as the seconds ticked by she became increasingly more angry with herself and could feel the heat of that anger building under her collar, trapped between her skin and the wool of her shirt.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of another guy preparing to talk to her. He steeled his courage by draining his cup of beer and then sauntered over to her.
She bolted before he could get out his first, carefully chosen line.
Once again she threaded her way through the sea of people, but this time she didn't stop at the kitchen. She walked off down the hall to her bedroom.
She carefully closed her door and turned to rest against it.
The sounds from the party were still loud, snaking their way under the door, but at least they were not assaulting her anymore. At least there was a buffer between her and the revelers.
She tried to slow her breathing. She took a sip of water and then pushed off the door and set the cup down on the edge of her desk. She stood in front of her desk and looked at the empty corkboard above it. It stood in stark contrast to the board she had back at her parents' house, covered in the bric-a-brac of youth.
She turned to the rest of her room with its empty, white walls and nondescript comforter. The only place that looked lived in was her bookcase, but that was filled with law school textbooks and she couldn't help feeling a little resentful of that fact.
How had she let this become her life?
She stopped herself short of going over to them and throwing them off the shelves and onto the floor.
She felt her rage bubbling up, so she started pacing back and forth in the small space in front of her bed, trying to displace some of the energy she could feel coursing through her body.
What was she so angry about?
She knew it was probably a simple answer.
But she couldn't admit that to herself – wouldn't admit it.
Turning to her nightstand she spotted her phone.
She grabbed it and started scrolling through her contacts. She stopped at Santana's name. She should call her. She should really call her, because Santana could talk her down off the ledge she had found herself on. But she hadn't spoken to her since that Sunday after Thanksgiving, just like Santana had predicted. So, just to prove Santana right, Quinn wouldn't call.
She knew who she wanted to call, who she needed to call. But she didn't have that number. What would she say anyway?
So she called another number. She waited as the phone rang. She checked her watch and mentally calculated the time difference.
It picked up on the fourth ring.
"Hello? Quinn?"
She could hear music in the background.
"Quinn?" The music got softer, like she was moving away from the source.
Quinn hesitated. She could still hang up and feign a pocket dial.
She settled on saying, "Hi Brittany. Happy New Year."
"Oh, okay." Quinn could hear her confusion. "Is it midnight in Boston already?"
"Not yet," Quinn replied, sitting down on her bed.
The line remained silent for a moment before Brittany spoke again. "Are you okay?"
Quinn ran a shaky hand through her hair.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you," she started. "I'm just…sorry."
"No worries, Q," Brittany tried to laugh. "But that doesn't really answer my question." She paused for a second. "Santana told me you probably wouldn't call until you hit rock bottom."
And that was a punch to the gut. She could feel the air rush out of her lungs.
"Are you there?" Brittany asked when Quinn didn't answer.
And Quinn really had to think about that question. Because even though Brittany didn't mean it that way, she had to wonder if this was rock bottom.
"Quinn?" Brittany asked again, and Quinn could imagine her looking at her phone, a finger to her ear, trying to hear her over whatever party she was at.
"Yeah, I'm still here," she said, her voice fracturing between the 'still' and the 'here.'
"You should really call her," Brittany chirped.
"Who?" Quinn asked. Because honestly, the list of people she should call was growing by the day.
"Santana. Who did you think I meant?" Brittany asked. Quinn could hear shuffling in the background and someone talking to Brittany. "Yeah Tina, I'll be there in a sec, I'm just talking to a friend."
"Tina's there?" Quinn asked, a little surprised.
"Yeah, of course she's here."
"Tina Cohen-Chang? I didn't realize –" Quinn was cut off.
"Oh no! Tina. My roommate Tina," Brittany exclaimed with a laugh. "I'm sure I've told you about her."
Quinn was sure she had too. But in that moment she felt the distance. Boston to California was just so many miles, but Quinn to Brittany, or Quinn to anyone for that matter, that was an endless abyss.
She thought of all the things that make a person, and all the things that she had missed because the sadness had always been all-consuming. She thought that this Brittany was not the Brittany she had known, or the Brittany she remembered. All because of the years in-between and the things she never bothered to find out. And that just made her sadness deeper.
"Right, sorry, I wasn't thinking," she tried to apologize. "Well, I'll let you get back to your party."
"No, it's fine," Brittany brushed off her last comment. "It's like, what? Eleven o'clock there? So you're still good."
"Okay…" Quinn trailed off, slightly confused.
"It's not 2020 yet." Quinn could faintly make out the sound of a bottle being opened on Brittany's end. She listened as Brittany drank and proceeded to slurp into the phone. "2020's going to be a good year for you. I asked a psycho."
"A psychic?" Quinn asked after a beat.
"No, there's this psycho in my dance class, but she also reads palms and tarot and that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure she keeps rats in a box under her bed."
"That's…that's the creepiest thing I've ever heard," Quinn said with a shake of her head, as she tried to make sense of what Brittany was telling her. "So you're trusting that this psycho psychic is a reliable soothsayer?"
"I'm a little drunk. I don't know what that is. Is that something to do with dragons?"
Quinn could only laugh in response.
"No, you need to make a New Year's Revelation," Brittany said excitedly.
"Do you mean a resolution?"
"No, I mean a revelation. Resolutions always last a week and then you lose interest and nothing changes. You need a revelation. I'm pretty sure those are long-term."
"So what's my revelation?" Quinn asked, picking at a loose thread on her sweater.
"I don't know. Listen, you've had like a decade to figure things out? Maybe the revelation is that you just have to go after the things you want and be kind to yourself for once."
"I'll try. Thanks for talking. I feel…"
She wasn't sure what she was feeling. A fraction lighter. A little less hopeless.
"You should call her though," Brittany offered offhandedly.
Quinn thought about Santana. She was probably in Chicago with Cassie. Celebrating the New Year with friends Quinn knew nothing about.
"Maybe," Quinn hedged.
"She has a boyfriend though. I just thought you should know," Brittany added quickly. "But after the way you left things…" Brittany trailed off.
"Rachel." Quinn said simply.
"Huh?" Brittany asked.
"You're not talking about Santana," Quinn clarified. "I thought you were talking about her."
"Oh." Brittany let that hang in the air.
"What would you know about how I left things with Rachel?" Quinn asked, her voice harsh even to her own ears.
"Well, we all got together at Christmas and she said some things," Brittany said carefully.
"It wasn't her place to say anything!" Quinn exclaimed, jumping up from her bed.
"No, no, calm down. She just was asking if anyone had seen you, or heard from you, she said something about a letter," Brittany said quietly. "She just seemed upset, that's all."
"Well, she has her boyfriend. I'm sure he can fix that," Quinn said bitingly.
The static of the phone line absorbed her words after a moment and she imagined them traveling through the air to wherever Brittany was drinking a beer.
"You do realize that someone can have a boyfriend and still have feelings for someone else, right?" Brittany asked carefully. "I'm just saying, I've been there. I mean, you've been there too. You should call her."
Quinn deflated, thinking about what Brittany said. Perhaps she was right. "This isn't high school, Brittany. Plus, I don't even have her number."
"Well that's easily solved. I'll email it to you and you can think about it," Brittany said. "Hey, I have to go. We're going to play Twister now," Brittany said in a rush. "Are you going to be okay?"
"Yes. Thanks Britt," Quinn said quietly. "Happy New Year."
With a quick "Happy New Year," Brittany hung up.
For the first time, Quinn's room felt truly silent. But that was a trick of physics or something since the party was still raging on the other side of her door. Maybe it was that she had gone from feeling not so alone to feeling really alone in the space of milliseconds.
She looked at her phone again and made the quick decision to call Santana. She couldn't justify it as a drunk dial, and she wondered if there was such a thing as a pity-party dial. She waited for the regret to come.
"Hello?" She picked up on the second ring.
"Santana? Hey, it's me," she started.
"Oh, Quinn? Hey Quinn this is Cassie. Hang on, let me get her for you."
Quinn thought about hanging up during the phone shuffle, but before she could hang up Santana was on the other end of the line.
"Quinn?" Santana said quietly. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Quinn replied as nonchalantly as possible.
"Brittany texted me that she was talking to you," Santana said.
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh," Santana mimicked, pointedly. "What the hell Quinn? You don't come home for Christmas, you ignore all my calls, all my emails. I was this close to calling your mother to see if you were still alive."
"I'm sorry."
"You're always sorry, but you know what, nothing ever changes with you."
Quinn was at a loss. "I'm sorry," she repeated.
Quinn could hear Santana sigh across the line.
"I don't want to do this," Quinn said suddenly. "I don't want to be that person who brings everyone down – which clearly I am."
At that moment the door to her bedroom swung open.
"Lucy!" Kate exclaimed, bringing the noise from the party into the stillness of her bedroom. "Lucy, we found you. Stop talking to your secret boyfriend. The ball is going to drop in ten minutes!"
Quinn froze. Santana couldn't hear this.
"Come on Luce!" Kate called to her as she headed back into the fray.
"Oh Quinn," Santana whispered. "What are you doing?"
And those were the saddest words Quinn could ever hear. The tears came without warning.
"Okay Quinn. It's okay," Santana tried to soothe, but her voice came through all garbled and static-y, probably a by-product of the heightened cell traffic on New Year's.
"I don't know anymore," Quinn tried to say. But it just came out as a sob.
"You're okay Quinn," Santana said again a little more forcefully, like she could demand it and it would be true. "Hey, listen, we've made it through worse. Right? We survived Sue Sylvester and what passed for discipline with her. Fuck. We survived fucking Lima, Ohio. We'll get through whatever this is too. I'll get you through this. Just say the word."
Quinn thought about what Rachel had said, about how she couldn't fix her, but here Santana was saying she could – that she would. But deep down she knew she could never ask that of Santana, but maybe it was enough that she offered.
"I don't know that you can." The words barely made their way out of her mouth.
Santana was quiet for a moment, and in that quiet Quinn could hear her sniffle and she knew that there was no static. It was just that Santana was crying too.
"Will you at least let me help you? Will you at least let me be your friend again?" Santana finally asked. And Quinn could hear the tears in her voice.
And that was all it took for Quinn to surrender to yet another wave of sobs.
Santana let her cry. She stayed with her on the line. After a while she said, "Happy New Year Q."
Checking the clock on her nightstand, Quinn saw that it was midnight.
"I should go," Quinn said, trying to rub her eyes without devastating her mascara, although it was probably too late for that.
"Call me tomorrow?" Santana asked expectantly.
"Sure," Quinn replied, and it wasn't a lie. "Go enjoy the rest of your evening. You still have an hour left."
"You should call Brittany. Tell her you're calling her from the future," Santana laughed, trying for levity.
"Goodnight, Santana," Quinn said.
"Goodnight, Quinn," Santana said.
From down the hall Quinn could hear the familiar strains of "Auld Lang Syne" and a chorus of drunk people trying to sing along to words they didn't know. It made her think of Charlie Chaplin and the loneliness of silent, black and white films.
She thought about her sister and how she always repeated the old cliché that, "How you spend New Year's Eve is how you end up spending the year." If there was any truth to that adage, Quinn feared it would be a long year, and that thought was the stone that would sink her.
But she remembered what Brittany had said. She just needed a revelation. She rushed over to her desk and pulled out a notebook. She opened up to a fresh page. Across the top she scrawled, "New Year's Revelations." She moved to the first line.
1. Fix things with Brittany and Santana.
She allowed herself to smile because she had already started that, and it might prove easier than she had believed. She continued.
2. Fix things with Mom and Frannie.
That one would be a little more difficult, but she felt hopeful for the first time in a long time that she could make things right with them.
She took a deep breath and wrote down the next item.
3. Fix myself.
She wasn't sure what she expected, but a flood of relief was not one of them. But just by writing down those words she felt relieved; it was the first step. The world hadn't caved in. That box in her chest hadn't exploded.
She quickly moved onto the last part of her list.
4.
She didn't know what she wanted to write. She could put down "Fix things with Rachel," but there wasn't anything to fix. Not really. Rachel had made it perfectly clear that they really didn't know each other anymore, so there wasn't really anything to put right.
She could write, "Figure out how to get Rachel," and she almost wanted to, but that wasn't completely honest. It was an oversimplification of things.
So she simply wrote, Rachel.
She'd figure out the rest of it later.
She didn't return to the party.
Instead she turned on her computer as the sound of fireworks from outside melted into the ambiance of the party noises.
She signed onto facebook, and after a few failed attempts at remembering her old password she reactivated her account. She had deleted it her Junior year of college, but now this was part of her plan to set things right.
She checked her email and saw that Brittany had emailed her Rachel's phone number.
Here it is…use it wisely. That was all she had written.
She considered sending Rachel a message on facebook. She went so far as to look at her profile. But then she saw her picture, and she couldn't justify doing that to her on what was arguably the happiest night of the year. Especially not when she looked so happy in that picture with her boyfriend.
So instead she updated her status.
Happy New Year.
She tore her New Year's Revelations list out of the notebook and pinned it to the corkboard in front of her.
It was a start.
a/n: I apologize for the lengthy wait between updates, real life has had plans for me that do not include writing. But thanks for sticking with it and continuing to read this story. I promise there is more to come, and I think I can manage more reasonable update intervals from here on out. I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday season and that you all have a happy and healthy New Year!
a/n (6/10/13): Hello all - Unfortunately I will not be finishing this story. Sorry to leave it here, but I just don't have the time to write and I can't see how it ends anymore. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts on the story though - this was my first attempt at putting anything down in words, so it meant a lot to see that people were responding to it and that it was resonating with a lot of you.
