Chapter 8: She Walks in Beauty
Quinn said hi to the taller blonde sitting next to her and waited for the feedback from their last Calculus exam. She eyed the girl next to her. Brittany was drawing on her notebook again. Some colorful painting with rainbows, unicorns, and… surprisingly numbers. Don't get Quinn wrong. She loved Brittany a lot, but she always pictured the blonde with the innocent smile to become an artist, like cartoonist. She was too innocuous to be real for this worldly society. The world needed more innocent people like her and some unfettered imagination like hers. Thinking about that, scientists did seem like a reasonable job for her. Quinn smiled, but she also knew the girl wouldn't pass this test because the teacher in this school hardly appreciated any real talent. Having said that, Quinn was found by Sue as the head cheerleader, and Rachel was selected by Will as the captain of the glee club, which embodied that teachers in this school weren't completely blind.
"Quinn?"
"Yes, Britt?"
"Which song are you going to perform in glee?"
"Well, we haven't decided yet." Quinn blushed.
"I heard even Team DD made up their mind."
"Team DD?"
"Santy came up with that name! We made name for every team! No pressure. Yours is really cute."
"Which is?" Quinn asked.
"Faberry!" Brittany's whole face was about to split into two due to the huge smile. "Isn't that sweet! Your names are great together! Like meant to be."
Brittany clapped and was about to sing something out loud, like rewriting the lyric "we are Team Faberry" into the song "We Are The Champions." Fortunately, Quinn quickly distracted the girl by asking, "So who are in the Team DD?"
"Team Double Douchebag."
"Which I amuse is Puck and Sam?"
"Yup!" Brittany nodded and was about to turn back to her papers.
"Wait, how did you know what they are performing?" While she didn't even know? Quinn swallowed the last part of her words because she hated to show her weakness, which, in this case, was her dummy boyfriend, who failed to inform her of his activities.
"Puck was boasting about that to Santy, which made San livid and shoved the blonde boy's guts."
"Wait, I get the part which Santana was upset about Puck flirting with her." Quinn shivered when she thought about typically cheap pickup line Puck owned. "But why did Santana punch my boyfriend?"
"Santy said he was hitting me, but he didn't get near me. He was just having that creepy smile and his mouth was so big that I found it was like a trout's. Then the next second, he was screaming and down on the floor, and Santy dragged me away and warned me not to step close to him, because he loved to intermarry with his blonde cousins." With that, she went back to her drawing.
Quinn was offended not only about the "intermarriage" part but also about her boyfriend's behavior. She didn't need Santana this time to figure out Brittany's words: her boyfriend was trying to hit on the taller blonde when she was not around.
Sam was a nice, fair boy, but he always thought he was super charming or something. She still remembered about the rumor at the beginning of the school year not soon after Sam transferred to this school. The guys were talking in the locker room, and Sam claimed that Quinn was batting her eyelash to catch his attention, which became a rumor that Quinn was seducing Sam. Somebody even said that Quinn dumped Finn because of him. Finn confronted Quinn to demand the truth once or twice, and Quinn was too angry to reply. Just as she was waiting for the rumor to die down, Finn was kicked out of the football team because of his recent, uncertain temper. Luckily for Sam, he became the quarterback. He did manage to win a few games for the school, and he asked Quinn out.
Sam was a loyal boyfriend compared to Puck, and he was smarter than Finn. Since Quinn had a homecoming queen and a power couple image to fulfill, there was a win-win deal. Sam always had delusion that some girls were into her, and he told Quinn all the time, as if he was trying to get Quinn jealous. Quinn definitely felt something, something close to angry or upset because she hated the feeling of losing control of everything she possessed, even a replaceable boyfriend.
Quinn's calculus was good but not one of her best, but still she managed to keep its GPA above 3.8, like any other subjects. She glanced at her paper but didn't brother to correct the questions on the paper and put them into her text book. When she stood up and was about to leave, she noticed the girl next to her having a confused look on her face.
"Brittany, what's wrong?"
The taller blonde fixed her eyes on the paper, "Your school is weird. Why you have exams like this? This is so different from our school in M.A.."
Quinn frowned and realized that she never knew which high school the three girls coming from. Just as she was about to ask, the teacher's voice interrupted their conversation.
"Ms. Pierce, would you come here for a moment?"
Quinn bit her lips to consider if she should wait for the other blonde. In the end, she stayed at the last row of the classroom to give some private for their conversation. Quinn knew they would probably talk about Brittany's poor performance in the exam, so she didn't want to be in the earshot to embarrass the other blonde.
After she finished previewed the next two chapters, she heard Brittany was arguing with the teacher over some issues about "Brittany" and "code."
She shook her head and went back to reading. When she looked up to check the clock in the next second, she met up with a pair of baby blue eyes.
"It's so sweet of you to wait for me for so long."
Quinn smiled but said nothing. Brittany needn't to know she waited for her partially because of the Latin's menace.
"I know Santy and Rachel asked you to keep my company, but thank you anyway. Let's go to find them in the cafeteria!"
Which was more wired? The fact that Brittany was really good at reading people or the fact that Quinn was used to it?
Literature was always Quinn's favorite subject, even before Rachel became Quinn's partner in the Literature class. They often smiled towards each other, and then they would turn their heads to listen to the teacher. They may shyly exchange some eye contact during the period, but nothing more. They were not in the same social circles, and one of the only intersections of their friends was from the glee club.
Santana and Brittany had convinced the diva thousands of times to seat with the rest of the cheerios, but the diva, like always, declined their invitation by stating that she wanted to get to know the rest of her clubs better.
Quinn had to admit that she was kinda jealous of that glee table at cafeteria, because that was always the one full of laugh and talk. Cheerios and football teams were boring as usual, since they hardly found anything as collective interest to talk about.
When Quinn turned left to face the brunette after Mr. Black signed them a class work to work out the literary devices in this excerpt, the brunette was writing on her notebook instead of listening to the teacher's instruction. This is not the first time that Quinn noticed the diva's beautiful Copperplate handwriting. Quinn noticed that the diva loved to write some stanzas or sayings on every notebook she owned.
Quinn took a peak at the diva's writing.
"She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies."
"And all that's best of dark and bright. Meet in her aspect and her eyes," Quinn couldn't help whispering the following line. "George Gordon Byron."
Rachel was fairly surprised and excited, "Have you read it? Silly me, of course. Otherwise, you wouldn't tell."
"I didn't know you are a fan for poem," Quinn smiled.
"There are lots of things you don't know about me." Rachel winked at Quinn. "And I didn't expect you to read this poem, either."
"Why? Because I am so blonde?" Quinn teased.
"No, no, no," Rachel shook her head and hands quickly. "It's just hardly any high school students read this anymore, I think."
"I love reading poems, actually," Quinn got little embarrassed.
"What else do you like? Any instrument, my majesty?" Rachel teased. She found the blush in Quinn's face was rare and adorable.
"Don't call me that." Quinn gave Rachel a dirty look. "And to answer your question, I do play the piano."
Rachel awed, "I am impressed. I didn't know that, but I would like to hear it."
"I started with the enforcement of the parents, and then it becomes my passion. I don't like singing as much as you do, but I do play a little piano."
"Hi, I think I get an idea for our duet! Maybe we should have a duet."
Quinn couldn't help noticing that the brunette loved to use her body language a lot when she got intrigued by some of her passions.
"You can play the piano, too?"
"A little, but that was not what I meant. I…"
"Ms. Berry and Ms. Fabray, it would be very lovely if you can stop socializing and focus on my assignment."
"Sorry, Mr. Black." Rachel and Quinn replied simultaneously.
Quinn was embarrassed that she forgot about the class when she was talking to Rachel, but she still returned the brunette's smile, when she looked at her direction a second later.
