See, I told you I would update again within the next day. :D A promise is a promise! Thank you all so much for the great response to the last chapter. Same angst warnings apply for this one, as well. You really should know what you're in for by now though. ;)
Also, random side-note, but whatever: DIANNA (AGRON, OBVIOUSLY) DYED HER HAIR RED, AND IT IS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I WANTED! Somebody should write a fanfiction wherein redhead!Quinn is the Mary Jane to Rachel's Peter Parker...or Petra Parker, eeehhh? xD Then, link me to it and I will totally eat that sucker up!
As always, please review! And as they say in my hometown: Don't forget to be awesome. :)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Wednesday
So far the day passes by without anything too awful happening.
Rick tries to trip me when I walk by his desk in English, but I manage to catch myself just in time. I retaliate by accidentally bumping into his desk when I go to hand the homework in, knocking my hip into the desktop hard enough that all of his papers and supplies fall to the ground. His pen lands in front of my foot, and as he bends down to reach it, cussing under his breath, I kick the pen all the way to the other side of the room.
"Oops," I say, stepping on his homework and twisting it beneath my shoe before walking off.
He's practically growling, but he should be grateful; I could have stepped on his hand instead.
Rachel makes good on her off-campus request for lunch; we end up going to her house and eating leftovers from last night's dinner, which is more than fine by me since I wasn't able to enjoy it before. I even get some of the dessert I felt too sick to eat last night.
When we get back to school, about ten minutes before lunch ends, we head to my locker first so I can switch out textbooks.
I see Brittany up ahead, walking toward us, swaying from side-to-side in her own little world.
"Hey! Brittany!" I call out, smiling and waving my whole arm at her. I don't even care that I'm drawing attention to myself. I'm in a happy mood, fresh off of quality time with Rachel and chocolate cake.
When Britt notices us, her entire face lights up. She breaks into a skipping run down the hallway, waving at me and giggling.
I realize too late that she's about to pass by Rick's locker, where he and his friend are standing, each holding a large Slushie.
The second Brittany comes into their path, they jump out and ambush her, throwing the bright blue, icy contents into her face and all over her Cheerios uniform.
She skids to a halt, yelping as her arms fly up to cover her head, but it's too late.
Rachel and I sprint over to where she is, and I catch Rick's words as he and his friend walk off. "Tell your girlfriend that's what she gets for punching me in the face, bitch."
I'm torn between chasing after Rick and slapping him or staying with Brittany, but Rachel's already tugging her off to the nearest girls' room, so I decide to go with them instead.
I start dampening paper towels for Brittany once we're in the bathroom.
"I'm so sorry!" I start babbling a mile a minute. "This is all my fault! If Santana hadn't punched Rick for me, you wouldn't be in this mess, and I wish I could do something, and I should have gone after him, and – "
"Whoa; whoa!" Rachel says. "Quinn, calm down. This is nobody's fault but Rick and his friend's, okay?"
"She's right," Brittany sighs sadly. "God, of all the flavors, why'd they have to go with blue raspberry? It's my least favorite, and it makes me feel like they threw a liquid Smurf at me." Her eyes go wide with horror. "Oh my God, what if this is a liquid Smurf, or, like, it's sacred blood or something?"
I smile a little at that. "Don't worry, Britt. It's not Smurf blood."
"Okay, good," she says with a relieved grin, and the whiteness of her teeth stick out bizarrely against the neon-blue froth dripping in chunks down her face. Her hair is matted down with it, and it trickles all down her cheerleading uniform. It looks ruined; I doubt even professional dry-cleaning can save it.
"I really hate Rick," Rachel seethes, bending Brittany over and taking out her ponytail for her. She starts rinsing out the Slushie from her hair, the water of the faucet turning blue as it runs down the sink's drain. "I mean, I really, actually hate him!"
"Preaching to the choir here," I say, my heart crumbling in sympathy at the state of Brittany.
She makes little whimpering noises. "I'm a sad panda. I wish Santana were here. She'd punch his nose again."
"Me too," I say. "But, hey, on the upside, at least blue is your color. It brings out your eyes."
Brittany laughs at my joke but Rachel's still scowling about Rick, and I'm caught somewhere in between.
I want to drop-kick Rick in the head, but if I don't try to make light out of all these heavy situations piling upon my shoulders, I'm going to break.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
I wore a hat to school today.
It's a cute one, a tan fedora with a black band around it. I pair it with a loose-fitting tan sweater, some dark jeans, and a pair of black flats. I even wear some red lipstick for a stark contrast against the otherwise neutral palette.
I end up regretting this outfit during Spanish, fifth period.
Artie's in my class; he sits next to me, on the end of the row.
We're taking a quiz. Mr. Schuester is the teacher, and when he passes out the papers, he stops by my desk and bends down.
"Are you doing all right, Quinn?" he asks with a worried frown. "I haven't seen you in Glee, and after what happened on Friday…"
Of course his main concern is why I wasn't at practice, and the second one he mentions is the campaign poster debacle.
"I'm fine," I say. "I didn't feel like going to rehearsal. I'm not really in the mood for singing and dancing."
"Well, if you ever need to talk about anything, you know you can go to me or Ms. Pillsbury." He hands me the quiz and smiles kindly before continuing on down the row.
Artie leans over and pokes me with the eraser-end of his pencil. He ends up jabbing one of the bruises I acquired from getting thrown into the lockers; I wince.
"Forget Mr. Schue and Ms. P," he says. "You know your buddies in Glee have your back. If you need to talk about anything, you know I'll listen. I mean, most of my shock over finding out you're true sexual orientation has faded. At least now I know why you never wanted to go out with me; it helps to know it wasn't because I'm too ugly for you, but just because I'm too much of a man." He winks at that last part, earning a soft chuckle from me.
Mr. Schuester announces the beginning of the quiz and calls for silence in the class.
I'm one of the first to finish, and when I walk up to Mr. Schue's desk to turn it in, one of Rick's hockey buddies named Carl says in a loud whisper to another one named Rex, "Look, she even dresses like a lesbian."
Rex cracks up. "That hat really makes her look like one!"
I freeze like an idiot, my hand hovering above the desk with the paper flapping in the air like a captured wing.
My eyes go wide, skin gets warm, and stomach writhes.
A few people burst into laughter while some make scandalized noises and some shush them so they can concentrate on the quiz.
"That's enough!" Mr. Schue bellows. He rushes over to them and snatches their quizzes. "To Principal Figgins', both of you! And you'll be receiving a zero for your quiz."
"But that's not fair!" Carl whines.
"A zero?" cries Rex.
"Out!" screams Mr. Schue, pointing not just his finger but his entire arm at the door.
They grudgingly oblige, sending me glares as they leave the room.
I flip them off with both my middle fingers. Their eyes widen, and it makes me feel a little bit better.
After handing in the paper, I take my seat and nod at Artie when he whispers about what jerks they are.
When nobody's looking, I take off the hat and stash it in my bag.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
I skip today's Glee Club as well.
Rachel doesn't even try to convince me otherwise, and for some reason, this kind of offends me. If it were Finn, she would definitely guilt him into staying, but she didn't even try to with me.
Speaking of Finn, I've been doing an excellent job of avoiding him since the encounter on Monday.
Of course, right when I think this, who else to walk over to us at Rachel's locker than Finn himself?
He greets Rachel with a kiss, his arms clinging to her waist; I pivot on my heel and speed-walk out of the school and to the parking lot.
There's only so much I can handle, and seeing Rachel with Finn is too much for me right now.
The idea that a big dumb idiot like him gets to touch her and kiss her and take her on real dates is enough to make me want to scream at the top of my lungs until the whole world shatters.
I drive to her house and let myself in through the front door with the copy of the key the Berries had made for me.
I run upstairs to my room and change into my workout gear in record time: gray sports bra, black spandex shorts, socks, sneakers, and my hair up in a high ponytail. I put on a fresh coat of deodorant before grabbing my iPod and jogging back downstairs, making a beeline for the mini-gym.
Slamming the door behind me, I flick on the light and jog over to the stationary bike in the corner.
I clip my iPod onto the top of my shorts, put on the headphones, and crank up my 'Blow Off Steam' playlist loudly enough to drown out any other sound in the room.
The whole time I do all of these actions since arriving at the house, I focus hard on not focusing on anything at all. I concentrate all of my energy into each menial task, not allowing any heavier thoughts to float to the surface of my mind.
But now, as I sit down on the bike's seat, my brain starts to think.
It has the gall to actually tune out the music and start picking out much more negative frequencies, the memories of today beginning to blip on its wavelength.
My heart pounds erratically and I haven't even started the workout yet.
I put my feet securely on the pedals, turn the bike on, and place my palms around the handlebars; I find a bit of comfort in each action, honing in on their simplicity to ignore my stubborn mind.
I close my eyes and try to shut out the world, try to ignore everything from this past week, from this past month, from this past year.
So, I start to pedal.
And I never stop.
Rick's big mouth, smirking around the word as he says it, his eyes glinting like a wolf's: "Dyke."
My fingers curl tighter around the handlebars.
Dozens of tarnished campaign posters, hung up everywhere in sight.
I lean forward on the bike, keep my eyes shut, and move my legs faster.
'Vote Quinn FAG-GAY!' A speech bubble with 'I LUV VAGINA ALOT!' 'Lesbo' branded across my forehead, a permanent Sharpie tattoo I did not choose and cannot get off, no matter how hard I scrub.
Focus on the music, Quinn, focus on the music; don't think, don't think, just listen, listen...
I'm walking down the hallway, when: BANG! I pull away from the locker and clutch my shoulder, trying to ignore the shooting pain.
I turn up the bike's resistance from Low to Medium.
People are staring at me.
I go faster; my thighs are beginning to burn; sweat is starting to spring from my hairline, on the back of my neck.
They're whispering.
Faster.
They're laughing.
Faster.
Finn putting his arm around Rachel's shoulders, as if protecting her from me.
The resistance level beep, beeps, turned up as high as it can go.
I pedal as if my life depends on it, going forward and forward and forward, faster and faster and faster damn it, wanting the bike to pop away from the ground and fly like the Wicked Witch, fly out of this house and out of this godforsaken town and out of my fucked up life.
Flying, I am flying.
Burning, my legs are burning.
Sweat: pours from my palms, drips down my face, and plops out of every heated pore.
My heart slams against my chest, keeping pace with my brisk, circulating feet.
Breathe in and out; in and out; in and out...
I haven't worked out this hard since...ever. The closest I've ever had to this level of intensity was back when I was on the Cheerios...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no...
A stream of more nightmares trickles in, louder than my blaring music. The blackest of flashbacks.
So many girls. Athletic, toned, sexy girls. Blue bra, pink bra, white bra, and snug panties over muscled tushes. With their big boobs, small boobs; little boobs, tall boobs. Like a freaking demented Dr. Seuss poem.
Faster.
I want to keep looking, I want to touch, I want to feel – and now I know I am truly the freak I have always feared myself to be.
Lungs burn, turn shallow and icy.
"You're quitting?" Coach Sylvester has never looked so disappointed. Anger, disbelief, disgust: they're etched all over her aging face.
Hands grip the bike's bars so hard, like fists - my knuckles strain and stretch, and I can feel my pulse ticking in my tendons.
"I'm sorry, Coach." I can't look at her, can't meet her eyes. "It's just something I have to do."
Focus on the music, focus on the bass beat, let it fill your system like a second heartbeat, don't give in, don't...
Pages ripped from my diary, scattered like broken wings. My dad's revulsion. My mom's silence.
Faster. Eyes shut tighter. Breeeeaaathhe.
Paramore comes on: 'Turn It Off.' The lyrics provide a backdrop to the horrific scenes unfolding through my mind.
"I scraped my knees while I was prayin'
And found a demon in my safest haven
Seems like it's getting harder to believe in anything
Than just to get lost in all my selfish thoughts"
Running up the stairs, dry-heaving in my toilet, Buttercup barking. Packing my things, so hectically packing my things, Dad is yelling the minutes left, panic and panic and panic is all I know.
Faster.
The ripe smell of my depleting deodorant fills the air, tinging my nostrils.
"I wanna know what it'd be like
To find perfection in the pride
To see nothing in the light
But turn it off in all my spite, in all my spite
I'll turn it off"
Every one of my muscles tenses like a rubber band, almost at the breaking point, waiting for the right moment to snap.
A shriek like a banshee; my Bible hits the 'Jer' of 'Jeremiah,' this horrible crashing thud before landing on the floor.
My eyes fly open, desperate to escape my mind; my vision is too-sharp and blurry all at once, with strange shapes coming out of the lights in the room.
"And the worst part is
Before it gets any better
We're headed for a cliff
And in the freefall, I will realize
I'm better off
When I hit the bottom"
And then I think of her.
Rachel.
I sit in the back of the auditorium with Santana and Brittany, smoothing down my cheerleading skirt and trying not to be bored out of my mind. She takes the stage, this tiny little thing, no bangs back then and hair horribly unstyled. Her knee-socks are so bright white, I can see them from back here; San and I snicker, exchange a knowing look that this girl is a total dork. And then she opens her mouth. And then she sings. And I can't remember for the life of me what I was snickering about in the first place.
Faster.
"The tragedy, it seems unending
I'm watching everyone I looked up to breakin', bending
We're taking shortcuts and false illusions
Just to come out the hero"
She walks down the hallway, wearing a sweater with honest-to-God kittens on it. Not just any kittens, but kittens in a basket. Her skirt is shorter than you'd expect when paired with such a sweater, and her feet sport penny loafers with socks that reach her knees. And yet she struts down the hallway as if she owns the place, a smug smile in place. And when she passes by me, not noticing that I'm blatantly staring, she does this little wave to someone down the hall, and it makes my heart flutter like her fingers.
Thighs are cramping, lungs are screaming, but I don't feel it, I don't feel it, pain is so close to pleasure, pain is so close...
"Well, I can see behind the curtain
The wheels are crankin', turning
It's all wrong the way we're working
Towards a goal that's nonexistent
It's nonexistent
But we just keep believing"
She's in Glee Club, spinning and dancing and singing. She points to each of us in turn during the chorus, her smile lingering on me before going to the next person, but I want it back, again and again, I don't want her to ever stop smiling at me.
Faster.
I kiss her: her lips, her thighs, her breasts pressed against mine. I want more, I need more of her, but she shoves me away from her, onto the ground.
Faster, and I can't breathe; faster, and I need to breathe...
"And the worst part is..."
Her laugh. Her clothes. Her scent. Summer bells and knee-socks and lavender-vanilla.
Faster and the room is spinning around and around, twirling and smiling at me like Rachel when she's dancing, the room is turning black and it's spinning...
"Before it gets any better, we're headed for a cliff..."
RachelRachelRachel.
Fasterfasterfaster.
"Then in the freefall, I will realize I'm better off when I hit the bottom…."
Everything goes black for a moment. I am suspended in time, slipping sideways...
And then there's a crashing noise, and my headphones are torn from my ears, and the room is flipped upside down, and how did I end up on the floor? Why is my body so numb except for the pain smarting in my hip and across my arm?
"Quinn?! OhmyGod, QUINN!"
The sound of running footsteps rattles my head, and then arms slide under mine, propping me into a sitting position. Lavender-vanilla envelopes my nose like a hug, tickling me... Oh, that's hair in my face, making my nostrils almost sneeze.
Disoriented, I remain limp as the person hauls me all the way up to my feet. It takes me a few seconds to realize it's Rachel, letting me lean all of my weight into her side; she positions my arms around her neck and puts hers around my waist, struggling to keep me up even though I'm taller and heavier than she is.
"Rachel?" It comes out quiet and croaky.
"Oh my God, Quinn!" She sounds like she's about to cry, but I can't see her face to confirm this. "What happened?!"
She tries to walk with me out of the gym, but my legs give out after one step.
"I'm dizzy," I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut. I feel seasick.
She sets me down onto the thin carpet, as gingerly as if I'm a ragdoll; I hear her sniffling. "I'm going to get you some water, okay? Stay right here."
I curl up in the fetal position; my body feels both light and heavy, as if it's filled in some places with feathers and others with stones. I keep my eyes closed to keep the room from tilting every which way.
The sound of pounding footsteps again, and then Rachel's voice is right above my ear. "Quinn, honey, please sit up," she sounds funny, like she's faraway or underwater, and her tone is filled with a desperate kind of pleading.
I groan in response, though the sound barely leaves my lips.
Rachel's arms scoop under me and hoist me into a semi-sitting position, my head lolling onto her chest. Fat drops of moisture split-splat down my face, blending into the layer of sweat.
I peel my eyes open and realize they're tears.
I blink up at Rachel's face and realize they're not mine.
"Don't cry, Rachel," I try to say, my eyelids fluttering shut again. "I'm fine." My mouth won't work and the words don't come out.
"Drink," Rachel says, thrusting a glass up to my lips. I obey, but most of the water dribbles down my chin. It's cold and refreshing against my skin; it makes me realize how hot I am, feeling like I'm burning from the inside-out.
About half of the water goes down my throat; the other, down my body.
Rachel sets the glass aside, reaches over, and turns off my iPod, which is still blasting Paramore from the headphones. She slides an arm around my waist and pulls me to my feet; my legs are wobbly, weak, but the room is no longer spinning, so I'm able to slide an arm around her shoulders and remain relatively upright.
Rachel chatters nonstop as she half-walks, half-drags me out of the gym, into the living room, and toward the staircase. She goes back-and-forth from blaming herself for not getting home fast enough and trying to ask me questions that I can only provide grunting answers to.
My heart thuds out a sickly beat as my head pounds, and my skin feels like every inch is on fire, licked by a sweaty heat. We make it up the first step of the staircase before my knees buckle and I collapse again.
"Quinn!" Rachel shrieks as my chin smacks against the step above us, rattling my teeth so hard that I see stars burst behind my eyes.
I think I passed out, because the next thing I know, we've somehow made it up the staircase and into Rachel's room. There's so much pink, so many happy colors, and it makes my stomach churn and churn as bile sneaks up my throat.
Rachel leads me into her bathroom and flicks on the light, and I stumble my way over to her toilet, where I fall to my knees and promptly throw-up into the bowl.
I'm whimpering and moaning and puking, and Rachel is at my side in a blink, stroking stray hairs out of my face and rubbing my back with circular patterns and whispering. "Shhh, shhh, it's okay, Quinn; shhh, shhh…."
I wipe my mouth off with toilet paper and flush the toilet when I'm done. My field of vision narrows into a tunnel, my mouth is dry as sandpaper, and I'm succumbing to an inky blackness…
…Until I jerk upward, lungs sputtering and heart racing and muscles shivering awake.
Freezing-cold water pounds down on me, and it takes a few seconds of groggy, scared confusion until I realize that I'm sitting in Rachel's bathtub and the showerhead is on above me.
"Quinn?"
I turn and see that Rachel is sitting on the tile beside the bathtub, tracks of dried tears on her face and desperate hope loud in her eyes.
Panicked, I look down at my body, but thankfully I'm not naked. I'm still in my sports bra and work-out shorts, though my shoes and socks have been taken off for me.
"I-it's c-cold!" I scoot as far away from the showerhead as I can but still get pelted by falling water.
Rachel releases a long, relieved breath. "Right, right, sorry about that," she says, turning the 'Cold' handle one way and the 'Hot' one the other, so that soon the water turns blissfully warm.
"What happened?" I ask. My voice is groggy. God, I feel like absolute shit. Every single muscle in my body strains and aches as if a lead weight is attached to it, dragging it down.
"I don't know," she says gently. "You tell me."
My head throbs. I rub my temples and ignore her request. "Can I get out of the bathtub now?"
"Don't you want to wash yourself off first?" Rachel inquires. "I'll leave the room to give you some privacy. No offense, but, uh, you could really use a shower." She smiles apologetically.
Somehow, impossibly, I manage a small smile back. "Are you saying I stink?"
"Kind of," Rachel says with a half-hearted giggle.
"Okay, I'll wash off then."
"Here's some towels." She lifts up two big, fluffy pink ones that had been set behind her all along. "I'll leave the room to give you your privacy, but please don't stand up while you're showering, except for when you have to get out, and even then, be careful. I don't want to risk you fainting again and busting your head open."
I nod, empathically enough to satisfy her; she exits the bathroom and shuts the door.
I take off my soaking wet sports bra, shorts, and underwear, roll them all into a ball, and place them behind me in the bathtub. There's a bottle of body wash on the shower ledge; I barely have to reach at all before I'm lathering myself up with Rachel's signature scent. The smell makes me able to breathe properly for the first time in what feels like hours.
I take my ponytail out and use the body wash to scrub my hair, too. I rinse everything off, watch the bubbles go down the drain, and then just sit there under the showerhead for several minutes, letting the warm water wash over me.
The whole time I've washed off, I've stared at random spots around the room, barely letting my eyes graze myself to assess the damage. But the blend of curiosity and dread sharpens so much that soon I can bear it no longer and have to look at myself and see how I'm faring.
First, I poke myself at the spot between shoulder and shoulder blade; it tenders enough to make me wince. I twist my neck around to see a purplish-black bruise blossoming like a demented flower. It's the spot from where I hit the lockers the other day.
I stare at it for several seconds, watching as water-drops spill down it until they merge into rivulets. I imagine the bruise unfurling into a giant rose shape, with long, snaking vines of deepest black to twist all around my body.
Shaking my head to knock myself out of my trance, I check the damage from today. There's a small bruise forming on my other shoulder, which I landed on when I fell off the stationary bike. It's tinged with greenish-yellow all over, like something sickly and diseased. There's a matching one on my hip.
Scrapes shallow enough to already be turning into scabs are all over me, particularly on my knees and elbows. I feel my chin and find a narrow gash slicing over it, already healing.
The human body is such a miraculous thing, so resilient; you can bend and break and pummel it a thousand times, and still it will dust itself off and come back swinging.
The human spirit is another thing entirely.
"Quinn, you okay in there?" Rachel calls out.
"Fine," I call back. Her voice is enough to pull me from my almost hypnotic state of mind.
I turn off the water and climb carefully out of the tub. I turban my hair with one towel and use the other to wipe off before wrapping it tight around my body, up around my arms like a cloak. It hides my back from view this way.
I think about how funny it would be to wear this fluffy pink towel as my dress to prom, and I smile.
But then I think about how there's no way in hell I'm actually going to prom, and it falls right off.
My legs are sore and each step is an effort as I walk out of the room.
Rachel's sitting on the edge of her bed, flipping through a magazine. She looks up when I pass by her.
"Feel better now?" she asks, setting her magazine aside and standing up.
I nod; it feels like my neck is going to fall of my body, heavy and limp at the same time. "Yeah." My voice is croaky, tone is listless. "Thanks."
"Do you need anything?" she asks quickly, hurrying over to me. "I already put a fresh glass of water in your room. I could get you some food, if you'd like. Or I could – "
My head is starting to pound again, and I am just too damn exhausted to deal with this right now. "I'm fine, Rachel," I say as firmly as I can without it being too harsh. "Really."
I side-step her and walk out of her room as fast as my limp-noodle legs will let me. I'm too drained to feel any emotions right now, too tired to want anything but to succumb to the siren song of cool sheets and soft pillows.
When I step out into the hallway, Rachel calls after me, "Okay, but make sure to let me know if you need anything, anything at all! And if you get too weak to leave your room, you can always text me."
I close the door of my room, drop the towels, and put on my comfiest pajamas. I turn off the light, turn on the fan, wring the few drops of water left in my hair onto the carpet, and then finally, mercifully, climb into bed.
Cuddling with Tony, Rachel's lion stuffed animal, and hidden within the warm covers and a dark room, it's easy to pretend like I'm a child again, no real worries, parents that still love me, and my whole life stretched out before me for the taking.
My body throbs at a rhythm, and I focus on it until the pain ebbs away and is replaced by sleep.