"I promise, after this time I won't try again."
Quinn always thought she knew the answers to everything in the universe. She was one of those obnoxious kids; one who believed she was always right no matter what anyone else said. Her parents could tell her that the sky was blue, and if she had decided that it was purple that day, it was purple and there was no convincing her otherwise. She would argue until she exhausted the other person — until they gave up with nothing more than a sigh of defeat and a wave of their hand and said, "whatever you say, Quinn." It wasn't that she wanted to argue, it was just that she was always right and nobody ever wanted to respect that.
When she was fourteen, Quinn had decided that underneath her skin, she was made of glass. It was just under the surface, deep enough so you couldn't feel it if she touched someone, but close enough to the surface to break. She knew this because something in her hand shattered. Nowhere else, just her hand.
She walked down the hallway of her new school with her hair newly bleached blonde, a white dress swaying from side to side with each stride. She kept her head down, blinders held close to her body. She didn't know it, but she held her breath when she walked. She held her breath, full of the familiar dread and anxiety that always accompanied her to school. This time, though, she wanted it to be different. She lost the weight, spent half the morning poking her eyeball to get the contacts in just right. High school was going to be the dawn of a new beginning, she was damn determined.
She finally found her locker and started twisting it to the correct numbers when she felt the rubber tip of a brown penny loafer nudge the heel of her foot. She looked up immediately, met with a curtain of luscious, deep brown hair clouding her vision as a small, petite body crashed into the locker beside her.
If she had been paying attention to her surroundings, it's very possible — perhaps even likely — that Quinn would have heard the thunderous laughter erupting in the hallway around her. But more pressing than the sound of bullies giggling from their newest target was the sound of the glass.
It shattered in her hand, and a bead of sweat rolled down her temple. It wasn't a bone, it didn't hurt… it just bubbled. Underneath the surface, even when she sat still in chemistry ten minutes later. Her hand shook. It shook and shook and shook and shook and she couldn't do anything about it except think about the pretty brunette that almost collided with her.
Her eyes roamed the room, then settled on her. Caramel skin, smooth, shiny brown hair. Quinn decided in that moment that she had never met someone quite like her, and took it upon herself to slip her a note.
In hindsight, maybe she came off a little strong. Maybe a piece of ripped notebook paper and loopy, cursive writing saying, "I'm Quinn. You're very pretty!" etched across it in green highlighter pen wasn't exactly what girls at McKinley High School wanted to hear. Maybe, just maybe, she should have toned it down a little on her first day. Because maybe being gay wasn't the first thing people in her new school should have known about her.
She wasn't surprised when the girl — Rachel, she learned her name was — didn't send a note back. Her hand just shook as she watched Rachel glance over it, offer a smile in her direction, then throw it away. She wasn't surprised, and she wasn't offended.
She just decided to tone it down for a while and try again some other time.
She broke the glass in her hand, she'd decided. It wasn't a bone that broke and made the anxiety shake her hand, it was the glass. It was the layer between her body and whatever lay on the outside.
Quinn was a sophomore when she decided that she wanted to be an actress, and she was very serious about her future plans. In fact, she'd even researched good drama schools on the east coast that she could get into, just to make sure she perfected her craft.
It was the only thing that made sense to her, and something she knew she should work hard to hone. She already knew she was good at it and she figured her talent shouldn't go to waste. After all, she'd been pretending to hate Rachel for a little over one full year. Everybody believed it, too. She had been so convincing, so damning in her role, that everybody in McKinley High School had accepted it as fact. Two plus two is four, water is wet, the square root of sixteen is four, Pluto is no longer a planet, and Quinn Fabray hates Rachel Berry. It was common knowledge at that point, something everyone just knew was true. Quinn thought that maybe they'd hand her an Oscar on the spot if they knew she'd been faking it.
She was pregnant when she first let the mask slip.
She was pregnant, sitting on a bench with tears dribbling down her chin when she forgot to put on her best facade and keep up her charade. Rachel approached her gently, apologizing for telling Quinn's secret before she even sat down. Quinn stopped her, though. She looked at Rachel with tears in her eyes and told her not to apologize for something that she was too much of a coward to say on her own.
They sat in silence for a while, just listening to the sound of each other breathing. Neither of them felt the need to speak, the silence wasn't awkward. Quinn's thoughts were racing, too fast to make sense of anything there buzzing. She was able to grab a hold of one thought, able to make sense of it, process it, and put it into action. She thought it was the perfect time to try again.
The glass broke again. All of it, everywhere, not just in her hand that time. She reached over to hold Rachel's hand — to send her a signal that maybe she likes her in a special kind of way — but Rachel pulled away. How could she be so wrong? She thought she felt it, that sticky hot connection between them. It felt like static electricity running through both their bodies, the same current hitting them both simultaneously. She thought Rachel felt it, too. How could she miss the mark so completely?
Whatever that was between her body and the outside, it completely shattered and she couldn't breathe. Rachel pulled her hand away and Quinn didn't quite know how to pick up the pieces.
Maybe someday, though, she'd have the strength to try again.
Everyone kept telling her that she was too young to know what love is. She'd laugh in their faces and tell them that loving someone has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with the kind of person you fall in love with. The only time she thought that maybe everyone else was right for a change was when Rachel came into the choir room and said that she was getting married to Finn.
What do they know about love? Quinn thought to herself as she watched Rachel nestle her hand deeper into Finn's. They're barely eighteen years old, they haven't even graduated high school yet! They're too young to know about love, she decided. Way, way too young.
They were in the hallway when she asked. Something about being stuffed inside of a too-tight vest and a skirt that barely covered her butt made her feel as confident as she needed to be to ask Rachel the important questions. There was no anxiety, no feeling of hopelessness or dread. She stood in front of Rachel, hands on her hips, and stared into her chocolate brown eyes that made her feel warm.
She wanted to try again right then, she wanted to try again while she wasn't nervous.
But as soon as the question fell between her lips, she immediately wished she never asked. She didn't think she really wanted to know the answer.
"You were singing to Finn… and only Finn… right?"
She winced as she watched Rachel's lips quiver, her brain forming a response. She didn't need an answer at that point, Rachel's face said it all.
"He really does make you so happy," Quinn managed to give another one of her Oscar-winning performances and held back tears.
It wasn't until Rachel hugged her that she felt the glass in her chest break. The glass over her ribcage shattered into sharp, jagged pieces. She knew because one poked through, pierced her heart straight through and left a hole. A huge, gaping hole that used to be filled with so much love that it amazed her that she could care about another human being that way… and now, it had nowhere to go.
Where did all that love go? Did it disintegrate into thin air? Did Rachel take it with her when she decided to walk down the aisle and marry him and not her? Whatever happened to it, Quinn knew it wasn't hers anymore. The glass over her heart had broken and she decided that love wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
And she decided that she never wanted to try again.
Her feet crunched through the fresh blanket of New York snow as she walked up to the bricked building. For once, Quinn had no idea what she was going to say. She wanted to start with an apology because she felt like she owed one, but the word "sorry" just didn't seem to cut it. How could she apologize for not being there when she probably needed her the absolute most?
She didn't know what she was going to walk into, either. She heard from Santana that Rachel never got out of the bed anymore, heard from Kurt that she goes days without eating. She wondered if she was going to walk into their apartment and see Rachel, a lifeless shell of who she used to be. Quinn doubted that she could pull her out of it, but she was damn well going to try.
Her fist rapped against the door twice before she pulled it away, stuffing her hands back into her pockets to keep them warm. She called Santana as soon as her train got to the station, but Santana warned her that neither she nor Kurt would be home. That's fine, Quinn thought to herself when Santana told her. I came to see Rachel anyway.
The words she wanted to say danced in her brain, but she couldn't find the right way to string them together. They flowed through her train of thought, chugging along and sputtering out smoke in jumbled up forms of "sorry" and "I wanted to come home for his funeral but I just couldn't." Rachel would understand, Quinn knew she would.
She brought her hand up to the door for the second time and prepared to knock, but the doorknob rattled and turned and the wood swung open.
As soon as she saw her, Quinn felt something different. It was like the glass had shattered when she saw Rachel's messy hair, clothes hanging off her body, eyes puffy. It felt exactly like the glass shattering, except maybe a little different this time.
They looked at each other, Rachel's eyes low and Quinn's apologetic. Everything that Quinn wanted to say just flew out of the window and her heart melted. She wanted to try again after all… and maybe it wasn't the right time since he'd only died a month ago, but if she didn't say it now while she had the courage, she'd never say it ever.
"I promise," Quinn started, voice thick and heavy with emotion. "After this time, I'll never try again."
Rachel closed her eyes and rested her head against the door because somehow… somehow, she knew exactly what Quinn was talking about.
"I love you, Rachel," Quinn cleared her throat. "I… I always have."
"I know," Rachel whispered. "I've always known."
"Can I come in?" Quinn asked.
And she couldn't explain just how it felt that time. It was like the glass shattered again, but not as intense. She noticed that everything felt so much better. She felt like maybe it would never shatter again.
"I love you, too." Rachel mumbled and stepped aside to let her in.
The words fell out like a secret. Brushed up against her lips, keeping them slightly parted as soon as they left them. Quinn stared at her for a long time, so sure she'd heard them wrong. What else could she have said? It had to be something else, anything else besides I love you too.
Quinn walked into the crowded apartment and felt different as Rachel closed the door.
She loved her with something deeper than anything she'd ever known. Even deeper than the broken layers of glass that she spent years trying to fix. She loved Rachel with every single piece, every single shard that she put back together inside of her.
She loved her so much that it made her whole.