A/N: VERY mature language in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.

November 24

I went to the festival with Rachel yesterday and we were allowed to bring Beth. I think Beth enjoyed herself a lot, because she kind of just smiled the whole time. Granted, she wouldn't let anyone else but me touch her, but that's not really the point. She screamed when Rachel tried to take her off my hip and give me a break, then held onto me so tight that her nails dug into my neck when Mr. and Mr. Berry tried to talk to her. Even Shelby's mentioned lately that Beth is super attached to me, and I'm starting to believe in what everyone has been saying. I can count on two hands how many people have told me that babies know and remember their mothers. At first, I didn't really think it was true because Beth cried the first time I held her in JC Penney and any baby who remembers their mother wouldn't cry the way she did. But these days, I think it's true. I think she does remember me.

At the fair, she got tired before we left and me and Rachel were too excited to get going that I never bothered to ask Shelby for a stroller. I had to carry her around the entire time because she didn't want anyone else to carry her. The sun went down and the festival lights came on and really brought the place to life, and I went to a booth and bought her a lollipop. As me and Rachel were standing in line to get some fried dough, Beth put her head down on my shoulder and it wasn't until me and Rachel's place in line moved up that I realized she was sleeping. Her lollipop was still in her hand, but her eyes were closed and her lips were all purple from the lollipop. And her hand was stuffed down the front of my shirt and resting on my left boob like she was trying to feel my heartbeat or something.

At first, I thought it was just a coincidence. I thought that maybe her hand had somehow fallen down the front of my shirt because it had gotten colder outside and I took my jacket off to cover her up with. The blouse I had on underneath my jacket was very loose-fitting and not all that practical since I had never planned on taking my jacket off. I thought that Beth's hand fell down the front and just so happened to end up on my boob.

But when I had to shift her to the other side of my body because my back started to hurt, her hand came out of my shirt and she woke up whining a little. She got comfortable again and put her head back down on my shoulder, but her hand went right back to my chest and that's when I knew that it wasn't a coincidence. She likes to have her hand where she can feel my heartbeat. And I think that maybe it's because she remembers feeling it from inside of me.

A lot of people at the fair stopped us to tell us how cute Beth was, and it made me feel proud or something. I had her there on my hip and we were waiting to walk through the funhouse and the attendant said hi to her. Beth put her face in my neck and the attendant told me that she was cute and looked exactly like me. She does look like me, and that's not me being biased, that's me telling the truth. She's a lot prettier than me, of course. But everything on her face is like a scaled down, miniature version of my features and she is really stinking cute. Her eyes are doing this thing now where they're changing colors and while I wish they would've stayed blue forever, they're more green now than anything. I don't mean to turn this into a long journal where all I do is gush about my kid, but I can't help it. Today was my first real outing with her and everyone stopping to tell me that she's cute and she looks like me really made me feel something. I didn't have to explain to anyone that she's not actually my daughter. I could just tell them thank you for the compliment, kiss my baby, then walk away like it was normal or something.

Maybe it's the part of me that is still just a seventeen year old kid, but I caught myself daydreaming while we were walking under the lights.

Beth was on my shoulder sleeping and Rachel was holding my hand, unapologetically, and eating cotton candy from a paper cone. Nobody was staring at us and gawking and thinking that two girls holding hands was odd. Her dads were walking behind us and it was the same, nobody really cared. Because we're in Columbus and nobody knew who we were and nobody really cared if we were two girls or two guys. It was nice to feel like I didn't have to hide myself or water myself down.

At 8:30, the fireworks started and we all sat down at the picnic table to watch them. Rachel sat beside me and put her head on the shoulder that wasn't occupied by Beth, and he dads sat across from us. The sky lit up with fireworks and Rachel looked over at me and something came over the both of us and we just kissed. And my mind went crazy thinking about the things I haven't thought about since I was really little and me and Frannie were playing Barbies.

My Barbie married Frannie's Ken doll and Frannie made them kiss and get married and started talking about how she couldn't wait to get married and have a baby someday. She talked about all those things, about all her hopes and dreams, and the only thing I could think way back then was that I never wanted to get married. Being married just seemed so… blah to me. And that was the last time I'd ever thought about my life 20 years into the future and being married, which disgusted me.

But when Rachel's lips touched mine and I heard the fireworks booming and bursting all across the sky, the thought didn't seem so gross anymore. I thought about how that could be our thing.

In ten years after we graduated college and Rachel's won her first Tony, we would come back to Lima to settle down. I'd open my own practice where I would be a good therapist and providing affordable mental health services to everyone who needs it. Rachel would be taking over the Glee club for Mr. Schue and she'd be just as good a vocal teacher as Shelby is. We'd leave our apartment in New York City and buy a really nice house up on the other side of Wynwood Court, down the street from where the old Fabray house used to be. And then we'd have our baby. I'm not sure how, I haven't gotten that far yet. I don't know if Rachel would want to adopt or have a baby of our own. I don't know if she'd opt to just get inseminated with a sperm donor or if she'd want to do the whole all-immersive experience of taking my egg and putting it into her so it's my baby but she carried it or whatever. I just don't know how it would happen but the point is that it would. We would have mini Rachels or mini Quinns and we'd be married and we would be so happy and every year we'd drive our baby to Columbus to come to this very festival. This could be our thing. And suddenly the idea of marriage doesn't absolutely disgust me anymore.

I daydreamt the entire time the firework show went on. I lost myself thinking that Beth could be our baby and this could last forever. Rachel would be my wife, I could be hers. Beth could be our baby and we could raise her to be good and have decent values. I know it seems juvenile because me and Rachel are only in high school and she's the only girl I've ever been in a relationship with, but I know it could work. I know it could. People get married to their high school sweethearts all the time and when you love someone as much as I love her, you make it work. We will stay together. I know we will.

And maybe that's just me being a wishful little kid, but I don't care.

November 27

I wonder if it's possible that I don't let Rachel touch me a lot because of Puck.

Rachel seems to think that's the case and she seems to think that she has it all figured out and while I yelled at her and told her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, I wonder if maybe she does.

Mr. Schue let us out early today. The day before Thanksgiving break is always super hectic and stressful and today was no exception. I had four tests all back to back to back to back and the last thing I wanted to do was go to Glee club but Mr. Schue is starting his whole mandatory thing since it's so close to regionals. I swear, if Glee club wasn't mandatory today, I would've just gone straight home and took a nap because I was flat out exhausted. I guess maybe he's in the holiday spirit, because he let us go after we ran through our entire performance only once.

Mercedes took the after school bus home with Sam because she's supposed to go to his brother's basketball game with him for a little, so I told Rachel that I'd take her home since her car's in the shop. She asked me to come in and maybe watch a movie or two since we don't have school for the next four days, but I lied and told her that Mom wants me home tonight but in reality, I kind of just wanted to take a nap.

She kissed me goodbye and of course I kissed her back, but things started to get a little steamy. We were parked outside her house in the driveway, so I didn't know how long it was going to last or how far it was going to go, but she kept reminding me that her dads weren't home yet and I swear that almost made me get out of the car and take her up to her room to show her just how badly I missed her body.

But she climbed over into the seat with me instead. She took her seatbelt off, climbed over into the seat with me and sat on my lap with her back against the steering wheel. I kept kissing her and leaving little red hickeys on her neck and I wanted to take her shirt off and leave hickeys on her boobs instead because that's the one thing she always asks of me. She doesn't like it when I leave hickeys in places that are visible, so my go-to place is usually between her boobs or right on the tops of them. But my windows aren't tinted and even though her neighbors houses are a decent distance away on both sides, I was still nervous that someone would see.

When me and Rachel have sex, Rachel usually initiates but I'm always the one to actually start it. What I mean is that Rachel's always the one who moves on to my neck when we're just making out, and that usually lets me know that she's in the mood and wants to do something. But when we actually start the heavy making out and the dry humping and the leaving hickeys, I'm always the one who takes it a step further. It was totally my doing when we took it a step further.

She was wearing a skirt, which made it easy for me to just slide my hands up there and move her underwear out of my way. She does this thing that drives me absolutely insane every time we have sex. I do a pretty good job at controlling myself and not going full crazy on her body the way I want to. I mean seriously, the way I want to just devour every inch of her is animalistic and she'd probably think I'm some kind of crazy sex demon if I ever stopped holding myself back. I hold myself back a lot. But she does this thing and she makes it so hard for me to control myself because every time she does it, something inside of me snaps and it makes me want to do crazy things like hold her legs over her head and use my tongue until she orgasms like fifty times in a row. I have dreams about this all the time, it's quite disturbing actually.

Anyway, she did it. I told myself that I wasn't going to let her drag me into her house and up the steps to have sex because I haven't been home by 4:00 in MONTHS and I had a nap in my bed with my name written all over it. But then she did it and I felt crazy and I really thought about following her inside and going at her right there on the rug in her hallway. I wasn't going to be able to make it up the steps.

The thing she does is whenever I'm fingering her and she did it in the car and I lost my mind.

I thought she wasn't going to do it because I was already two knuckles deep and kissing her neck and she just reached back to turn the radio down, which she did for me. She knows I love to hear her moan and the radio was loud and would have drowned it out so even when I had my two fingers stuffed inside of her, she was thinking about me and she turned the radio down. Then she started doing her thing. She had her face buried in my neck and she started moving her hips back and forth. I thought I could keep my composure this time, but she started rocking faster and faster and my wrist went back and forth with her movements and then I curled my fingers and she moaned and then I started thinking about how I couldn't make it to her house and I would have to lie her down in the backseat instead. She knows I lose my shit whenever she rides my fingers but she did it anyway and I fell in love with her a little bit more.

And everything was good. My car was rocking back and forth with her movements and my foot was pressing the brake to the floor because even though my car was in park, she was moving so fast that I thought we'd roll down the driveway. The windows were getting a little bit foggy and the sound of her moaning filled the air. And my hand was soaking wet so I knew she'd gotten there, but my record was making her orgasm twice in a row and I kind of wanted to beat that. Everything was good.

Until it wasn't.

She slowed down, probably because her legs were cramping since she usually does that in a bed where we have more room. She slowed down and kissed me and then she started to lift my dress up too. She wanted to return the favor and then I felt weird. I always feel weird when Rachel tries to touch me anywhere private, but I'm usually pretty okay with talking myself into letting her. I can usually build myself up to it with a series of internal peptalks and I have actually been able to let her finger me and go down on me twice. But she caught me off guard with that one. I wasn't done being inside of her yet, so I didn't expect her to move on to wanting to touch me so quickly. She caught me off guard and I felt really weird when her hands grabbed my underwear, so I moved. I moved and my legs kind of closed a little bit so she couldn't pull my underwear down and I made a noise. It was kind of like a grunt.

She tried pulling my underwear down again and I didn't want to make her feel bad, so I tried to start fingering her again but she just kept going. So then I put my hand against her chest and told her that I really needed to get home. She said "oh" and then climbed off of me and sat back in the passenger's seat while I wiped my hands on my dress. I knew when she didn't immediately get out that she was going to want to talk about it and I didn't want to talk about it.

She leaned over to kiss me goodbye again, so I kissed her back but then her hand went to my chest and I moved again. And that's when she got mad.

She looked at me and said, "Do I disgust you that much? Why do you recoil every time I touch you?" And hearing her say that really broke my heart in a way, because there is no part of Rachel that disgusts me. I did what anyone would do. I denied it and I told her she was crazy. I told her, "Don't be ridiculous, Rachel. I told you I have to go home today. I'm not recoiling. If you disgusted me, I wouldn't have just fingerfucked you."

Then she got really mad and told me to stop making her feel crazy. She started listing all the times I squirmed away or seemed uncomfortable when she starts touching me below my waist or below my neck and that's when I knew I hurt her feelings. She cried and told me that she just wants to touch her girlfriend and stop letting me do all the work but what she doesn't realize is that I'm happy doing all the work. I mean seriously, I am. I genuinely love watching her toes curl whenever I suck a certain spot and I love hearing her moan knowing that I'm the one making her do it. And when I get her to orgasm? It's like magic floating all around inside my body. I love making her orgasm. I genuinely do.

But she got all defensive and hostile and she used words that Rachel would never use unless she was really mad, saying that she wants to "make her girlfriend cum." I looked down at my feet because I didn't want to make eye contact and I told her that she has. She asked me when. And I told her that I did the first time we had sex. And that really set her off, hearing that I haven't had an orgasm with her since the first time. I just didn't want to lie to her. I didn't want to lie to her but I also didn't want to make her feel bad and I knew that I did because she started crying and saying that she's horrible in bed which isn't true. I may not have had a full orgasm since the first time we had sex, but I've come really close and all it's about for me is getting to be close to her.

She kept trying to touch me and look at me and get me to open my legs and I kind of freaked out a little because it felt like she was doing what Puck was doing when he was trying to get me to tell him that I liked it. I was trying to close my legs and she was trying to open them and it made me think of how he did the same thing. So I yelled at her and told her to stop it and get out of my car, and then she just looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh Quinn." She put her hand on my cheek and looked at me the way everyone looks at me when they remember that I've been raped. She looked at me and said, "I'm so sorry."

So anyway, now Rachel is convinced that I won't let her touch me because of the rape and I just don't know if that's true.

What I do know is that there is some reason why I hold myself back when I have sex with Rachel, and there's some reason why I feel weird when she touches me. I know it's not because she disgusts me. So then again… maybe the rape is the only option there is?

It's the day before Thanksgiving and all I can think about is how me and my girlfriend's sex life is on the rocks. And I think maybe I should start talking to Bailey about it, because I really do want to start enjoying sex with Rachel. And I do think that it should be a two way street.

In other news, I'm nervous about Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Mercedes' grandma, two cousins and aunt are all coming to dinner and that means that I have to meet everyone. It's bad enough I'm meeting Mykel for the first time tonight, but meeting everyone tomorrow is going to really suck. I just don't know how to make sure that everyone likes me.

I hope that Thanksgiving is going to be better this year than how it always has been for me in the past. Every other year prior to this one, I've spent it eating some dry turkey and chocolate pie that mom made. Or Judy, I guess I can call her now. And then I'd sit in front of the TV and pretend to be interested in whatever football game that Russel was watching.

I miss that. I know it wasn't healthy and watching Judy drown her sorrows in a bottle of gin really sucked. Because when Russel told us that he'd be back after the game, somehow Judy knew that he was going across town to spend Thanksgiving with the other woman. Eventually Judy would get so drunk that she'd pass out and then I'd spend the evening eating the pie straight from the tin (then throwing it up later) and watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and putting up the Christmas tree alone. Maybe it was an unhealthy life and the one I've got now is going to be so much better.

But it was my life and I do kind of miss it.

Just as I put my pencil down and start closing my notebook for the night, Mercedes knocks on my already open door and waits for me to turn around and look at her before she starts speaking. I raise my eyebrows at her to let her know I'm listening, and I flex my fingers because they're cramped and it was a whole lot of writing I did.

"My brother's here," she hangs on the doorknob and waits for me to respond, which I don't. "...So you should probably come down and meet him."

"Right," I mumble and stand up.

Mercedes waited for me on the steps before I came down to meet Mykel, which I thought was really sweet. You know, I kind of thought that me and Mercedes lost our touch. We'd been arguing so much lately that I started to feel like our relationship had changed from best friends to strictly sisters and I really started to miss my best friend. But then I was coming down the stairs and I noticed that she waited at the bottom and I knew that she did that because she knew I'd be nervous to meet him. She didn't want me to walk into the living room alone.

And that's when I remembered that there's nobody in the world who knows me like she knows me. There's nobody in the world I can call my best friend like I can call her mine.

I had nothing to be afraid of, by the way. Mykel is just a bigger, hairier, more muscular version of Mercedes. I haven't gotten a really good read on his personality yet, but he seems really goofy and really playful compared to Mercedes. He's been cracking jokes and giving Mercedes wet willies and Mom's been yelling at him. I think he's good. I think I like him. I think he might be another man that I can possibly trust. I think my guard can go down.

"Here Quinn," Mercedes says as she passes me another peach that needs peeled, pitted and cut.

My fingers are all slimy and covered with peach juice, but I start cutting the skin off of the new peach anyway after I put the pieces I already cut into the bowl. Mercedes tosses the pit of her peach into the plastic bag in the middle of the table, and Mykel puts the stem of an apple inside the bag too. I can already tell my Thanksgiving is going to be significantly different this year. I could have never even dreamed of sitting at the kitchen table and helping my mom cut up fruit for the desserts.

"This is so nice," Mom brings a glass bowl over to the table and starts putting the chunks of apple that Mykel cut into it. "Havin' all my lil ducklings up under one roof and helpin' me make up some apple pies and cobbler."

"If you call slave labor "helping," then yeah. Sure. We're helping." Mercedes mumbles and starts cutting her peach into quarters.

"If I have to see another peach after tonight, I'm going to throw up." I toss the slices of peach into me and Mercedes' bowl and grab another one from the bunch.

"I'm just sayin' ma, you could at least pay us." Mykel helps her by sprinkling some brown powder into the bowl with the apples. "I'm a poor, broke, college kid."

"I pay your tuition, boy. That's payment enough." Mom starts spreading the apples into the pie crust she made homemade.

"You know, back when Irish came to america, they got paid like two cents for their work." I chime in. "I'm kinda feeling like the Irish right now."

"Yeah, well at least they actually got paid." Mykel mumbles under his breath and me and Mercedes both laugh so hard that we snort. I feel horrible for laughing because it's not funny and I don't feel like I should actually laugh because it's terrible but that was truth. He just spoke so much truth and it's hilarious how he said it.

He starts sprinkling the brown stuff into me and Mercedes' peaches, too.

"What are you doing?" I ask, part genuine curiosity but also part needing to strike up conversation with Mykel. He better not be ruining it. We worked hard on these damn peaches. "What did you just add to our peaches?"

"Five Spice?" He looks at me like he just told me the capital of Ohio is Columbus and I should have known that. "You ain't never heard of Chinese Five Spice?"

"I mean, I have. In home ec, we cook with it sometimes. But why would you put it in our peaches?"

"'Cause that's the way it goes?" He raises an eyebrow, clearly even more confused than before. "You gotta season the peaches. What did you think, you just throw the peaches into the cobbler and let it bake?"

"Don't you, though?"

"...And this is why you ought to be so glad my mama rescued you." He sits back down and holds back laughter. "Lemme ask you this. Did you just eat boring, bland food for the entire seventeen years you've been alive? Was your food just bland and gross until you came here?"

"My mother could burn water, and I'm not joking." I pick up the spoon and start mixing the peaches up so that the spice gets distributed. "She made like… three good things. She made good pot roast that she just threw into the crockpot and let sit, she made good homemade red sauce, she fried a mean hot dog and baked some really good sugar cookies. That's the extent of it."

"Oh, Quinn," Mercedes laughs and finishes cutting up the last peach to throw into the bowl. "That chicken stuff was really good when I ate dinner at your house that one time. It was like chicken and alfredo sauce and vegetables. It was really good."

"It came from the freezer, Mercedes! It was a frozen dinner! She just put it in the skillet with some water and let it go! And it needed salt!" I carry the peaches over to where Mom is standing at the counter and finally wash my hands. "Do you understand how much weight I've gained since I've been living here? I didn't even know what Tilapia was. And I swear I didn't know there was such a thing as homemade macaroni. I thought you just got that shit from a box or the freezer."

"Well you're in for a treat tomorrow." Mykel starts weaving the lattice on the apple pie like he's been doing it all his life. "I'm telling you, the ladies in my family can throw down in the kitchen. Just wait."

"Our family, 'Kel," Mom mumbles and stirs something that smells horrible inside of a big pot.

"Huh?" He asks.

"It's Quinn's family too. So say our family." She blows on whatever is in the pot and takes a bite.

"My bad." He nudges me with his elbow to say sorry and I shake my head at him to tell him that it's nothing. "But just you wait til tomorrow. You're gonna be in a coma."

"I know I can't wait." Mercedes starts cleaning up the bag of apple stems and peach pits. "I need deviled eggs in my life."

"What all do you guys have?" I dry my hands and ask because I'm getting excited too. I mean they're talking all this food up and even though I'm probably gonna go to the bathroom and throw it all up after I eat it tomorrow, I'm still excited to taste it. "Like, turkey and stuff?"

"What do you usually eat?" Mom finishes the lattice on Mykel's pie and puts it in the oven. "What does Judy usually make you? And who do you celebrate with?"

"Well sometimes Frannie comes home for Thanksgiving, but she hasn't been home in a couple years. We usually just eat turkey. Sometimes she'd make mashed potatoes and green beans but that's really it." I sit back down in my seat and try not to get sad at the memory.

"Well tomorrow, we've got all the goods!" Mykel sits down too. "Aunt Reenie's making the turkey, Mom's got the ham, there's gonna be sweet potato casserole, potato salad, baked macaroni, dressing… help me out, 'Cedes."

"Deviled eggs, mom's making the collard greens, I think Nana's making baked chicken… just wait, Quinn. We all get super full and then go back for seconds and then just pass out. It's great."

"Passing out sounds like a plan," I nod. "So what do you guys like… do? Do you just eat dinner and go home? Or."

"Go home?!" Mykel looks at me like he told me the capital again. "Yeah right!"

"You two gotta get her hip to what goes down in the Jones house on Thanksgiving," Mom laughs and sprinkles the crumble on top of the cobbler. "She don't know. Y'all gotta tell her."

"So we basically get together and sometimes we drink. Sometimes Mom and Dad lets us have a couple wine coolers if it's gonna be like, just us and we're gonna be safe. Only sometimes though. After dinner, we go to the living room and we play trivia for a little bit and then we sing karaoke. It's SO much fun, Quinn. Just wait."

"Really?" God their family is so cool. They actually do things as a family. They get drunk and sing karaoke and enjoy each other's company. I would have never thought that I'd come into a family like that…

"Yeah, it's so much fun. Sam's gonna come and 'Kel, did you invite Bianca?" Mercedes asks.

"She said she might slide through for a little bit after she has dinner with her parents." He replies.

"You should have Rachel come," Mercedes shrugs and I know that her suggesting that is a big deal considering that Rachel was the entire reason her solo got taken away for a moment. I appreciate her trying to take the high road. "We're singing karaoke, she'd be all over that."

"I dunno…" I pick up one of the knives me and Mercedes were using to cut the peaches and stab one from the bowl that mom hasn't used. I pop it into my mouth and chew. "I probably won't invite her."

"Why not?" Mercedes picks up a peach with her fingers instead of a knife or a fork. "If you think I'm still mad, I'm not. It's water under the bridge. It's Rachel, you just gotta take her with a grain of salt. I'm fine. She can come."

"It's not that." It's that I don't really think that I want your family to meet my girlfriend the first time they're meeting me. I don't think being gay is the first impression I want to make on them. And I don't want to have to act like me and Rachel are just really close friends the entire night. "...I just don't… like… I don't want your family thinking of me as the gay one as soon as they meet me. I want them to get to know me first. And it's not really fair to Rachel if I ask her to not hold my hand and just act like we're friends for the entire night."

"Oh, stop it," Mom picks up a peach with her fingers too, so now I ditch the knife and being civilized and I eat with my fingers too. "You and Rachel ain't gotta act like nothing in this house. The fam ain't like that. You tell 'em she's your girlfriend and they ain't gonna look at you no different. They gonna love you for who you is, same way we do."

"How'd you know you're gay?" Mykel asks me, blunt and straight up. He even has a mouth full of peach when he asks me, which is how I know that he doesn't think it's a big deal. Mom rolls up a dish towel and smacks him in the back of his head with it. "Aah, ma! I'm just askin'!"

"No, you being nosy. Get out Quinn's business. That ain't none of your concern."

It's as if Mom smacking Mykel released some sort of signal out into the house, because as soon as she smacks him, Dad comes into the kitchen. He goes immediately over to the pot on the stove, which I now know has collard greens inside of it, and takes a fork to taste test them.

"Why you harassing Quinntessential?" Dad chews. "Leave her alone, boy. How'd you know you were straight?"

"I was just wondering! Jeez!" Mykel keeps rubbing the spot on his head where Mom smacked him and I think he's being dramatic because there's no way it actually hurt that bad.

"Guys, it's okay," I giggle and eat another peach. "Seriously, it's okay." I turn to Mykel so I can answer his question. "I was in therapy one day. I was in therapy and my therapist told me that some of the things I was saying… like how much I hate Rachel and stuff… she said that it could stem from me being like, repressed? And thinking that I hate her when I'm actually like, crushing on her. She said that and it all kinda just clicked. I was raised in the church really heavily, so I just didn't like… want to think about myself like that but once I started to, I always kinda knew."

"So it wasn't like… like you slept with a guy and realized that it just wasn't it? You didn't sleep with him and was like 'damn, this ain't it'? You just realized one day that you liked girls?"

"Well I was raped, so." Everyone who already knew holds their breath when I say it, but Mykel's jaw just kinda drops a little. "Yeah. I don't think so, but that probably has something to do with my… non-preference for men. It kinda put me off."

"So… what?" He seems like he's having a hard time processing it and I can't say I blame him. Even I haven't really processed it yet. "Wait… were you… you know… was that before or after you had your baby?"

"I got pregnant from being raped." Everyone in the room seems a little uncomfortable hearing me talk about it but they need to know that it's okay. It's okay to talk about it. I'm not broken anymore. I can talk about it… "Yeah, like my first time having sex with a boy was being raped and then I got pregnant from it, so. My first sexual encounter with a boy pretty much sucked. But my first sexual relationship with a girl was with my current girlfriend and it was very different, which is how I know that I am what I am. Gay."

"So you… had a baby… by your rapist… and he's not… in jail? He's still alive? You had a baby by your rapist and your real daddy ain't kill him? Our daddy ain't kill him? He raped you and —"

"That's enough of that kinda talk," Mom picks the empty bowl that the peaches were in up off the table and her voice cracks when she says that, but it's very firm and it lets me and Mykel know that we shouldn't talk about it anymore. If I'm not mistaken… I think she might have tears in her eyes. "We ain't talking like that no more. I ain't hearing nothing else about that. I ain't —"

The sound of my phone ringing and buzzing like crazy interrupts her talking, so I spring up and go over to the counter to pick it up.

And I'm surprised when I see that it's Shelby calling me.

"I know I can't keep dropping by like this but I seriously was over this way. I had to stop at the pharmacy and get Beth's medicine and I was just gonna call you later but then I thought that the conversation might go over better in person." Shelby holds sleeping Beth against her chest and continues to rock with her on the rickety porch swing.

I lean against the railing that wraps around the porch instead of sitting beside her because for one, I can look her in the eye from where I'm standing and for two, I don't think that swing can support us both.

"What kind of medicine did Beth get?" I forgot she had a doctor's appointment today… "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She just has a little bit of baby bronchitis, which is why that cough she's got won't go away. They gave us something to help with her breathing — a breathing treatment. She has to do it twice a day for ten days, and then they gave her another antibiotic. She's okay."

"Well that's good. Did you give her the treatment yet? How does she take it?"

"The doctor gave her one at his office and she did really well, actually. She didn't mind having the mask on her face. She sat really still and kept it on while I was holding her." Shelby cranes her neck to the side so she can check and see if Beth is still sleeping and she is. Her eyes are still closed and her cheek is still smashed against Shelby's chest. "So yeah, look. The reason why I needed to talk to you is because I have something to ask you."

"Okay, go ahead. I'm listening." Please don't ask me to stop seeing Beth… please don't take her away from me.

"So Rachel invited me to have Thanksgiving dinner with her dads tomorrow. And I know it's really short notice and I know that it's Thanksgiving, but I could really use your help with watching Beth tomorrow. I just don't think it's a good idea for her to be there when it's the first time I'm seeing the Berrys in sixteen — almost seventeen — years. I don't really think she should be there for that. I know it's super short notice and I'll pay you extra, I just —"

"Are you sure?" I ask her that because it kind of feels like I'm dreaming. Is she really telling me that I can have Beth on Thanksgiving?

"I… what?"

"Are you sure? Sure that you want me to watch her tomorrow, I mean it's... it's her first Thanksgiving and of course I want to see her and have her with me, but are you sure? That you don't mind missing it?"

"I think it's important for me to go be with Rachel for a couple hours. I think she could benefit from seeing her fathers and I having a civil relationship. It's only for a few hours and I'll still be with Beth, just later in the day." She presses her lips to Beth's forehead. "Besides… I think she should be with you for Thanksgiving, too. Even if it's just for a couple of hours."

"Shelby, I… thank you." I shake my head, still in disbelief. "Thank you."

"You're really doing me a favor, Quinn. It's nothing." She waves her hand at me. "So it's gonna be early. I told Rachel I'd be there around 1:30 because me and Beth do have plans to go to my friend's house later in the day. So it's gonna be early. Around 11:00-12:00 I'll be bringing her to you so I can get ready and stuff. Is that okay?"

"Well why doesn't she just…" I start saying it before I actually think about it and now that I think about it, I'm almost certain that she'd say no…

"Why doesn't she just what?"

"...I was gonna say…" I take a deep breath. "I was gonna say why doesn't she just stay the night with me? Since 12:00 is around her nap time and she wouldn't have to be woken up. And it's early, so… I don't know. It was just a thought."

"Quinn…" she shakes her head. "I don't think Beth's ready for that just yet. I'm sorry, honey. I just don't think she's ready for that just yet. I'll just bring her to you. It'll be fine." She keeps shaking her head.

"I just thought that it would be easier since it's gonna be an early morning and then 12:00 is her nap time… and then you wouldn't have to bring her to me and then go home to get dressed, you could just god to Rachel's from home. But it's fine, I was just thinking."

Shelby looks at me when I say that it's fine and I think she can sense the heartbreak in my voice.

But it really is fine… I knew she'd say no.

"Stop tasting everything!" Mom yells at Dad as she holds the spoon over her head like she's going to smack him with it. "Get out my kitchen, Jared."

"Just lemme taste the ham, 'Tricey. Just one little taste!" Dad opens mouth and grins when Mom shoves a piece of ham inside it. "Where the kids at?"

"'Cedes and 'Kel went down in the basement to give Whitney and Bobby a bath before everyone come over here tomorrow. Quinn went outside to talk to Shelby about something." Mom eats a piece of the ham herself. "I'm worried about her."

"Why so? She seemed alright to me when we were talking earlier."

"Yeah, but I bet she's missing her mama. I mean I don't understand how she can miss someone who be treating her like that but it is her mama and it's Thanksgiving. I bet she's missing on her."

"Well why don't you go talk to her? When she comes inside, sit her down and talk to her. Let her know you understand if she's missing her parents and let her know that we love her and stuff. Just talk to her. What's the worst that can happen?"

"I just don't wanna push her too hard, yanno? I mean, she's my baby and of course I wanna protect her but I don't wanna push her away from her mama. It might make her hate me. You think I pushed too hard? You think I shouldn't'a told her she can't talk to Judy?"

"I dunno, love," Dad wipes some of the ham glaze off Mom's lip with his thumb. "I know we just try to do what's right for her. We try to do what's right for all our babies."

Finally, when I feel like it's a good place to interrupt, I clear my throat to let them know I'm standing here. They both look at me at the same time, but their eyes don't fall on me. Their eyes fall on the person that I'm carrying on my hip instead.

Beth has her head on my shoulder and she's still a little sluggish from having just woken up, but Mom and Dad both gasp when they see her.

"We're having a sleepover tonight," I smile whenever I tell them the good news.