I used to think that the term "seeing red" was just an expression, and when people say that they "black out" in anger, they're just finding a way to excuse the way they can't control their emotions. Tonight, however, I'm starting to believe that there's some truth to both of those euphemisms.

Because I can't really explain what happened to me when I saw the closed, clenched fist colliding with Rachel's cheek. And I don't really know what happened next, after I watched Rachel's head jerk violently to the side with her hair flying all over the place. All I can remember is hearing my girlfriend cry out in pain as she stumbled backwards, and that unleashed something inside of me that I didn't know how to control. I still don't know how I get from one phase to the next, all I know is that some time passed for a moment — a moment that I don't remember — and I found myself running through the hallways of McKinley High School with my shoes off and my bare feet shellacking against the floor.

I finally come to my senses when I hear the silver pin that was holding back my hair ping against the floor when it falls. My hair comes undone and unfurls in gentle curls against my shoulders, and I stop running for a moment so I can pick it up. Frannie gave it to me at my holy communion. It was hers for her communion and she gave it to me. I want my hairpin back.

But Santana stops running a few paces ahead of me when she hears my feet stop. Haggard and out of breath, she spins around in her flowy red dress and runs in a full out sprint back to where I stand, looking on the floor for a barrette that I probably won't find here in the darkness.

"Quinn, are you crazy?!" She grabs my arm and tries to pull me away, but my feet are glued to the ground and planted firmly as I scan the floor. "Why are you stopping?! We have to keep going, we have to —"

"I lost my barrette! I have to find it, I have to —"

"It's just a stupid barrette, I'll buy you another one! We have to go, NOW, or we're DEAD! We're DEADER than dead after that shit you just pulled!" She pulls my arm with so much force that I feel like she might pull it out of socket if she keeps it up. "Come ON!"

"It's not a stupid barrette! It's —"

"Look, I know it's Frannie's barrette, but we really have to go! Now!" How did she know it's Frannie's? I never told anyone that. I never told anyone except… oh wait…

I finally pick my head up from looking at the ground and turn to see who's speaking to me and grabbing my other arm and trying to pull me away, and I'm only a little bit surprised to see Rachel. Even in the dark, I can see a bruise already forming on her cheek, and there's a little bit of blood on the side of her lip where the fist must have collided with her teeth. And suddenly, I get angry all over again.

"But Rachel, I —"

She shakes her head at me, "No, come ON, Quinn! We have to go!"

With Rachel and Santana now both pulling my arms, I have no choice but to start running again. Brittany's standing by the double doors that lead out into the parking lot, holding them open so me, Rachel and Santana can run straight through them. As soon as we're outside, Brit follows us and lets the door slam. The cold winter air smacks me in the face, a stark contrast to the stuffiness of the gymnasium inside. My bare feet start to melt into the thin layer of snow on the ground, freezing and numb but I can't stop now. Not when we're so close to the car and I can't run in high heels.

As she passes me up with catlike swiftness and agility, Rachel shoves my car keys into my hip and I fumble with them as I take them from her. Both looking down and running like a madwoman, I jam my thumb into the part on my key fob to unlock the door. The lights of my car flash to let us know that the doors are open, and the four of us jump inside of it, never breaking our stride.

"Start the car, Quinn! Come on! Step on it!" Santana coaches from the backseat and no matter how hard I try, it's like I can't find my ignition. "Come on!"

"Gimme a minute, I can't find the —"

"SOMEONE IS COMING!" Rachel clicks her seatbelt into the latch and grabs the keys from my hand. "YOU'RE MOVING TOO SLOW!"

"I'm not trying to, I'm —"

"But you are!" Santana yells. "You are, and I'm not going to juvie tonight for sneaking a little bit of alcohol into a dance, now MOVE IT!"

Rachel somehow finds my ignition for me and starts my car and without it even being in reverse for two seconds, I back out of my parking space and floor the gas as we leave the parking lot.

"Where am I going?!" I glance over to the passenger's seat at Rachel, since she usually knows the answers to pretty much anything. "You guys are telling me to drive, I don't know where I'm driving to!"

"JUST DRIVE!" The three of them yell at me in unison, and I grip the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white.

Truthfully? I shouldn't be driving. The lines in the middle of the road are squiggly in my eyes and I can't tell if they're double yellow or white dotted. There's a stop sign in front of me, but I can't tell if it's on the right side of the road or the left side of the road because every time I look at it and blink, it's doubled. My foot is on the gas and my hands are on the steering wheel, but I honestly don't feel like I'm driving my car. I feel like my car is driving me.

"Guys, I really need to know where I'm going!" I squint to try and make sense of the curves in the road ahead of me.

The only places I can go right now are home, Rachel's house, or to the movie theater. Those are the only three routes I know like the back of my hand, the only three routes I can drive with my eyes closed… which is what I feel like I'm doing. I'm used to driving home from school, that's a breeze. I'm also used to driving to Rachel's house from school, that's a breeze too. And I got accustomed to driving to the movie theater from school back when I was pregnant, because me and Mercedes went after school all the time. Asking me to go anywhere else with the way I'm feeling right now… I will wreck and we will die.

"Go to my house!" Santana yells. "Or no, wait, my abuela will know something's up. Go to Brittany's!"

"I don't know how to get to Brittany's house from here!" I'm trying my best to stay calm but honestly, I'm starting to panic. I really can't see the road and if I knew I was going to have to drive so soon after drinking, I wouldn't have drank. We're one wrong turn away from becoming a page in the back of the yearbook that says "In Memoriam." We're one wrong movement away from dying and I can't have killing everyone in this car on my conscience…

"Rachel…? Your house?" I ask, voice trembling and unsteady.

"Huh-uh," Rachel shakes her head. "My dad won't be home until later and I didn't bring my key. I didn't expect to be home so early!"

"We can't go to my house, either. If Mercedes' mom and dad find out I've been drinking tonight, I'm DEAD…. guys, I'm gonna pull over… I'm gonna pull over, okay?"

"Quinn, what?!" Rachel looks at me like I have lobsters crawling out of my ears. "We're in the middle of the street, there's nowhere to pull over right now!"

"Just to go to Brittany's house, I don't understand what's the big damn deal!" Santana leans up into the front seat. "I'll tell you how to get there from here, all you have to do is listen to me."

"Yeah, we can go to my house," Brittany says. "We can climb through the window like Spider-Man. My parents sleep like sloths up in their trees, they'll never hear us."

"So it's settled!" Santana yells at me. "We're going to Brittany's. Now make a left at this light!"

"Santana, I am NOT driving anywhere that I don't know how to get to right now! You don't understand!" I reach down and swat at my radio's power button to turn it off because I don't need the unnecessary distraction of music. "...I'm drunk, guys. I am so drunk I can barely see straight, I can't even see the light you're talking about. I'm drunk and I really need you three to shut the hell up and let me concentrate before we die because trust me, I've been there, I've almost died, and it's NOT fun! So shut up!"

Just like that, silence falls deaf throughout the car. Santana sits back, Brittany puts on her seatbelt, and Rachel reaches across the console and puts her hand on my leg for reassurance. I'm not saying that I don't care about Santana and Brittany, because I do. I care about them a whole lot and they're two of my best friends. We've been through hell and high water together, and they're my Cheerios sisters for life. I love them. But if I ever needed a reason to concentrate and focus all of my attention on driving this car as safely as possible, that reason is to my right.

My reason is sitting with her feet planted firmly on the ground and a seatbelt across her chest. Her hair is a little messy and her face is bruised, but I still think she could walk into a modeling audition and book anything on the spot. Her hand is on my thigh, her eyes are staring straight ahead at the road, but I can tell by the way she's touching me that she believes me. She's every reason in this world for me to live. She's every reason in this world for me to try and sober up behind this wheel and get us somewhere safe. Because the world needs her in it.

"...You guys wanna go see a movie?" I ask, cutting through the silence as I make the turn that'll lead us there.

To that?

The three of them just nod.


When I pull into the parking lot of the movie theater and turn my car off amongst the sea of other cars that were once full of people like us — people with nothing better to do on a Saturday night — the air inside between us is quiet.

Rachel rode the whole way with her hand on my leg, and Santana and Brittany were silent. A few miles before we made it here, my vision tightened up. It wasn't perfect, but I was able to see a little bit better and I know that I'm sobering up because my stomach was hurting before and now it's not. Not to be dramatic, but that was the scariest thing I've ever had to do and I fully intend on never doing it again.

I pull my keys out of the ignition and wait for someone to be the first to open their door. But maybe they're waiting for me to the ringleader, for me to be the one to break the stillness inside the car and pull the lever to open my own door… because nobody ever does. Not Rachel, not Brittany, not Santana. The four of us all sit, motionless and quiet, in my car.

It's awkward, silent like maybe we're all waiting for something that none of us will do. It's an awkwardness that I honestly can't stand, so I turn around in my seat to look in the back at Santana and Brittany, just to make sure they're okay.

And that's when whatever was holding us all together snaps and breaks.

Because as soon as I turn around and look at them, Santana's lips quiver and she looks over at Brittany. Brittany's lips are pursed together, trying to hold something back but clearly almost failing. Then I look at Rachel, whose head is geared towards the ground, but she has that look on her face that lets me know that she's waiting for someone else to do it first so she won't be the first one to crack. For once, I don't have a problem being the first one to crack, and I can't hold it in anymore.

It starts out slow, you know? Like thunder rumbling miles away but you know it's coming closer to you and all you have to do is get ready for it. It starts in the pit of my stomach, softly so all I'm doing is letting air out through my nose while my shoulders hunch. But as it builds up, it's too powerful for me to contain it anymore. So I open my mouth, and I let it all out.

Then the three of them all join me.

Laughter is like water running between rocks or the wind blowing between leaves. The breath drawn in, then the exhalation. It's like a force that pushes us all forward, past everything that happened tonight. It pushes everything forward in your body, too. The pulse, the blood, the heartbeat. It's the soul of everything.

Tears roll down my cheeks and my stomach is sore like I just did a thousand sit-ups, but man… I wouldn't trade this feeling for anything in the world.

"Your — Your f-face… Quinn, your face...when… when that girl… when she punched Rachel was HILARIOUS!" Santana holds her stomach as tears drip onto her dress. "Ahh, I wish I got that on camera!"

"And the way you just DOVE on her!" Rachel wipes her tears with her thumbs. "It was like a lion hopping on a gazelle or something! You went feral!"

"You were choking her!" Brittany shakes her head at me and snorts when she laughs. "You hopped on her back and choked her!" What? I did…? Oh my…

"Her eyes! Her eyes! She had the fear of god in her eyes!" Santana slaps the seat three times as she tries to catch her breath. "I saw the life draining out of her eyes… you just wouldn't let go!"

"Wait, guys, no," Rachel is able to compose herself for a moment. "You know in the cartoons when someone grabs someone by the throat? And their eyes pop out?!"

As soon as she says that, another wave of laughter comes over us and I swear we're laughing so hard that the car is shaking. Even I'm laughing, and I would never find it funny that I choked someone like they're saying I did… but man… you have to admit it! Me hopping on someone's back and choking them is a really funny visual…

"Her eyes were popped out! They looked so round and beady!" Rachel laughs so hard she accidentally hits her head off the headrest.

"And I lost count of how many times you called her a tramp!" Brittany snorts yet again. "All I heard was 'little tramp this' and 'little tramp that.' I can't even remember you saying anything else. Just that."

"And Rachel… you kept looking at me like 'should we pull her off? She's gonna kill her' and I was just like… let her!" Santana starts winding down. "You really thought Quinn was gonna kill her!"

"I did!" Rachel admits with a huge, amused smile. "I've never seen Quinn so angry! She didn't even care that Sue Sylvester was coming over to break it up! She just kept choking her and choking her and calling her a bitch! I was like 'dude, we have to do something!'"

"I don't even remember what I did," I shrug my shoulders and admit it as I wipe the tears from my own eyes. "I just saw her punch Rachel and literally, everything went dark. I was like blind or something."

"I didn't even know she punched me until like ten seconds after. I was in SHOCK. I thought Santana did it for a second. I was like… dazed or something. I thought Mercedes hit me hard when she slapped me but that was otherworldly," she shakes her head. "That was like, ridiculous."

"I know, I saw her hit you and I just snapped. I thought I punched her back but you guys are saying that I just choked her out, so like… I dunno!" I lean over to get a better look at Rachel's face.

"Oh no, you punched her alright," Brittany nods her head. "And I think you bit her too."

"I bit her?!" My jaw drops. "How did I bite her?! Why didn't you guys stop me?!"

"You went crazy!" Santana says. "She punched Rachel and then you sucker punched her back, like right in the nose, and was like 'how do you like it, bitch?!' Or something like that you said. And she like, fell backwards or something, I don't know. And then you just… dove on her."

"Someone pushed her into you." Rachel starts with the details that Santana couldn't remember. "You punched her so hard that she fell backwards into Rick Nelson and made him spill his drink. So he pushed her back and she fell into you and you took that so personally. Then you just jumped on her back and started choking her."

"Yeah, and then she was trying to get you off by smacking your face. So you bit her hand," Brittany chimes in.

"Whole time we were trying to get you off, and you were screaming 'not until she apologizes to Rachel!' It was wild, girl. Just wild." Santana laughs a little. "Then coach Sylvester started coming over so I pulled you away and we ran. I wasn't getting caught with booze."

"I can't believe you guys let me beat her up like that. I mean I know I overreacted, so you guys could've just been like —"

"I don't think you overreacted. Not at all," Santana puts her hand on my shoulder for a small moment of reassurance. "If I saw someone punch Britt, I would've gone crazy too."

"Yeah, same. I'm not gonna let someone punch Santana in the face. I mean I might not have choked her like you, but I definitely would've like, let Lord Tubbington scratch her or something."

"You know I don't fight, Quinn," Rachel sticks her tongue in her cheek and winces at the pain a little. "But I would fight someone for you. And I really do appreciate you doing that for me." She reaches over to hold my hand. "I love you."

I want to kiss her and I know that Santana and Brittany wouldn't judge me if I did, but it still feels wrong to kiss her in front of them for some reason. I know it's probably just the internalized homophobia talking, but it's loud enough to make me just smile at her back. And the great thing about Rachel is that I don't have to say it back for her to know that I mean it. I love her too and I know she knows it.

"So…" I exhale a deep breath. "Pet Sematary, It: Chapter Two, or that Curse of the Woman movie? All three of them have a 9:00 show that we can make if we run."


"It's sold out and so is Pet Sematary," Santana mumbles to me as the three of us look at the marquee scrolling across the ticket booth we're standing in front of.

From the corner of my eye, I see Rachel's shoulders relax a bit at the mention of the two movies being sold out. She doesn't like scary movies, but she's willing to go see one since we're all together and I promised her that I'd hold her hand the entire time. So even though there's a bunch of people around and some of them are already staring because the three of us are all dressed up in jazzy outfits with high heels, I reach over and hold her hand anyway.

"That one movie isn't," I suggest as I squint to see the marquee a little better. "The… The Curse of La Llorna. That isn't sold out. We can go see that one."

"Okay, works for me," Santana shrugs and walks up to the ticket vendor with confidence.

The older, white-haired lady looks up with an unamused look on her face and clears her throat before she starts to speak, "What can I get for you?"

"Four tickets to The Curse of La Llorna please," Santana uses her fake nice voice and steps aside to make room for me since I'm the one footing the bill.

"You're aware that the movie you want to see is an R-Rated movie, aren't you?" The lady looks at the four of us with squinted, annoyed eyes. "R-Rated means no entry for those under the age of 18. Can I see some identification?"

"Are you serious?" Santana asks her. "We're clearly all 18, here. What's your problem?"

"Yeah, I come to this movie theater all the time. I never have any problems. I'm 18, nobody ever cards me here," I lie so smoothly that I scare myself a little.

"I don't think I ever got an ID," Brittany sounds super confused, so Santana steps in front of her almost like she's protecting her.

"I just turned 18 on the 18th," Rachel chimes in and does her absolute best to lie, but a lie sounds weird rolling off her tongue. "We're all 18 here, ma'am. We promise."

"Isn't that lovely?" She smiles like she gets genuine pleasure from denying us. "Unfortunately, you four aren't going anywhere until I see some ID. You're welcome to try a G rated movie or a PG-13."

I'm a roll tonight with my anger, but luckily for this bitter old bat, I've gotten myself under control. And she didn't hit Rachel, so I can call off the rabid dog inside of me.

The plan formulates in my head smoothly, like when a knife cuts through soft butter. It's moments like these where I wonder if maybe the original sneaky, conniving old Quinn Fabray is actually still inside of me somewhere. It's moments like these when I can actually feel her coming out and oozing through my pores. I thought I'd given up my devious ways. But the way this cunning little smile wipes so easily across my face, I know I'm wrong.

"Okay, fine," I sigh to feign genuine disappointment to the stupid woman. "Four tickets to Frozen 2, please."

"What?!" Santana exclaims and tilts her head at me like she can't believe I would betray her. "I am NOT about to go see some kiddie movie all because this hag thinks that we're —"

"I know, it's annoying, but seriously guys," I look at the three of them and I'm playing this off so smoothly that I really do think I deserve an Oscar. I'm really killing it right now. "It's Saturday night and we came here to see a movie. We have nothing else better to do… why not spend our Saturday night watching a stupid little kids movie that we can all make fun of and throw popcorn at the screen?"

"I'm in," Rachel shrugs. "I mean, she's right. What else better do we have to do?"

"Fine," Santana rolls her eyes.

"Wait guys, I'm really confused. Is the movie theater frozen?" Brittany stares blankly ahead and she makes me laugh without even trying.

"Four tickets for Frozen, please," I say as I hand the old bitch my credit card that my parents will probably stop paying on any given moment.

The bitch gives us an evil, satisfied grin as she hands me back my credit card and the four slips of paper she calls tickets.

"Enjoy your show," she says with such a splash of arrogance that it takes everything in me not to reach across the counter and slap her silly.

But I'm still playing it cool, so I just take my card out of her old, skeletal hands and smile back, "We will."

As we move past the ticket booth and on to the snack counter, I can feel Santana's annoyance. It's so palpable and so crystal clear that it shines through when she asks the concession stand worker for a medium popcorn and a large blue raspberry slushie.

"You want anything?" I ask Rachel as I gently pull a piece of fuzz from her hair. "Candy? Popcorn? A drink?"

"Whatever you want, Quinn," she puts her head against my shoulder. "I'll pay this time."

"Don't worry about it, I got it," I whisper to her and step up once Santana is done ordering. "Popcorn?"

"Mhm," she nods.

"Slushie or pop?"

"Either," she shrugs. "...How about a pop-flavored slushie?"

"Coke slushie okay?"

"Perfect," she giggles. "...Reese's Pieces?"

"Reese's Pieces," I nod and step up to the vendor. "I'll have a small popcorn, a large Coke slush, a box of Reese's Pieces, and a box of Junior Mints, please."

"That'll be $40.79," the guy says with his hand held out for my card.

"I'm also paying for the medium popcorn and the blue slush the girls ahead of me got," I let him know as I fish my card back out of Rachel's wallet again.

"Okay, it's $57.83 now," he says again and takes my card when I hand it to him.

"Thank you," I say as I take it back after he swipes it.

After me and Rachel get our food, we meet Santana and Brittany over at the straw station, as they're both already stuffing their faces with popcorn. I didn't realize how hungry I actually am until I smelled the buttery goodness that Rachel's holding. I can't wait to sit down and eat it.

"I can't believe you've got me going to see a stupid little kid movie," Santana grumbles at me as we walk through the ropes to hand the host our tickets. "We could have gotten into that other movie if you let me go at her a little longer. All I had to do was accuse her of discriminating against me because I'm Latina, then threaten to call the League of United Latin American Citizens on her and that would've gotten us in."

"Oh, shut it Santana," I roll my eyes playfully at her. "Just because we got tickets to a stupid little kid movie doesn't mean we're actually going to SEE a stupid little kid movie," I smile at her as I lead the three of them past the theater for Frozen and straight to the theater of our R-Rated movie.

"Quinn…" Rachel stops dead in her tracks and freezes up. "Are you sure we should be doing this?"

"It's fine, babe, people do it all the time," I hold the door open for them and Santana and Brittany file right in, laughing at how rebellious we are. "Me and Mercedes did it all the time when I was pregnant. It's fine."

She thinks about it for a split second, and I can see the decision calculating on her beautiful face.

Before long, she shrugs her shoulders and walks to the door right along with me.


For the second time tonight, I find myself running barefoot through a parking lot with three of the best people I know, trying to get to my car before some dark, unseen force catches up with us. The difference this time is that the dark, unseen force actually has a flashlight and is actually chasing us and is actually right on our heels.

I know it was that old woman's fault that we got caught. I've snuck into at least a dozen movies in my day and never once have I been caught until tonight. Security doesn't usually scan the theaters and try to check tickets, they only did that tonight because that old woman was onto us and sniffed us out. Twenty minutes into our movie, when Rachel was hiding her face because that movie was indeed the scariest shit I've seen in a long time, the door whistled open. And flashlights streamed into the theater. And guards came down every aisle asking to do ticket checks.

As soon as we saw a couple three rows away from us scrambling to pull out their tickets, the four of us ditched our popcorn and candy and slushies (that were almost gone thanks to how much we scarfed down our throats during the previews), and quietly exited the theater. We were almost to the door when we heard the old woman tell someone that we were "right there!", and that's when we all kicked our heels off once again and ran through the parking lot to get to my car.

This time, I'm sober and not woozy anymore, so I'm able to shove the key right into the ignition and step on the gas before Brittany's door is even shut in the backseat. She has to pull it closed as my tires peel off the asphalt and onto the highway that led us here.

"I swear to god I am SO done hanging out with you three!" Rachel breathes heavy, trying her hardest to buckle her seatbelt again. "I am done! I am done, I am done, I am done! I'm tired of running from people, I'm tired of getting in trouble, and my feet are FREEZING!"

"Oh shut it," Santana pulls her flask from her boobs in the backseat and throws the stray pieces of popcorn that fell down her dress out the window. "This is the most fun you've had in your entire life!"

"Santana, you have anymore alcohol in that flask?" I ask, purely out of curiosity.

"No, it's empty," she sighs. "The night is still young and I'm not drunk. And I don't even have a clue where we could get more."

"It's fine," I shrug. "I was just gonna say that we could go to the park and get shitfaced together, but we don't have anymore alcohol."

"We still can!" Rachel beams, but I can tell that she regrets the statement as soon as it comes out of her mouth. "Get… drunk I mean…" her voice fades.

"How are we getting drunk with no booze, dumbass?" Santana whacks the back of Rachel's seat and that kind of annoys me. "I can't steal anymore from my abuela, she'll notice."

"I can get it," she mumbles and twirls her thumbs nervously. "I can get it from my dads…"

"Rachel," I shake my head. "Don't. I don't want to —"

"It's not like they'll notice," she interrupts me. "I'll just sneak inside real quick, grab a bottle out of the liquor cabinet, and bam. We've got alcohol. They won't notice. They don't notice anything anymore."

"Yeah, but what if —"

"Quinn, please," she closes her eyes like she does when I'm frustrating her. "Let me do this. I… I don't want tonight to end, okay? Lemme do this."

"Fine," I mutter.

"So then it's settled," Santana claps. "We're going to the park and getting drunk!"

I still don't like the idea of Rachel stealing alcohol from her house, but she's pretty married to the idea of doing it and I know she's going through some rough times right now with her dads separating. I don't want to argue with her or anything, so if she wants to steal the alcohol, fine. It's not worth arguing with her and ruining a great night. Especially whenever she's right. Her dads won't notice. They don't even notice that their daughter is acting out and defying them. Why would they notice alcohol missing?

Since I'm not drunk this time around and I can actually see the road, I turn my radio back on and turn it up so loud that I could probably blow out my speakers. A song is already playing without me having to even connect to my Bluetooth, so I glance down at the screen for a moment just to see what's going on. lol and behold, my car recognized Rachel's phone first since she was the first one to get into the car, and it's her phone that's playing the music.

"Rach, your phone's connected to my car," I mumble and bank a right turn to get to a gas station before I run out.

"It's playing from my Pandora, I think. It's on Fifth Harmony radio. I can change it if you guys want me to," she offers.

"No, this is fine," Santana says. "Just turn it up, I actually love this song."

Rachel leans forward and turns it up even louder than it already is, and I have that tingly feeling that I had at the homecoming football game. Charlie in my favorite book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, described it as feeling infinite. I have that infinite feeling again, where it's like nothing else in the world will ever feel quite as right as this feels right now. It's just good people and good music… and a few Glee kids singing along to the final chorus of a really good song.

"SHOUT OUT TO MY EX! YOU'RE REALLY QUITE THE MAN!" We all scream the lyrics at the tops of our lungs and somehow, we still sound amazing. Maybe Mr. Schue should give us a song to sing so the four of us can blow the entire club away… "YOU MADE MY HEART BREAK AND THAT MADE ME WHO I AM! HERE'S TO MY EX! HEY LOOK AT ME NOW! WELL I'M ALL THE WAY UP I SWEAR YOU'LL NEVER, YOU'LL NEVER BRING ME DOWN!"

When the song ends and the next one starts, I find it really hard to believe that it's on shuffle. Shuffle means that it's a pure act of destiny playing this song right now, it means that the stars all aligned perfectly and some measure of fate decided that this is what I need to hear right here, right now, in this car with three of the people who know some of the darkest, ugliest sides of me.

This song playing right now makes me really believe that everything is going to be okay.

"I'm breaking down gonna start from scratch…" Rachel starts singing first and I love how it's just understood that we're all going to take turns here. "Shake it off like an etch-a-sketch. My lips are saying goodbye, my eyes are finally dry."

"I'm not the way that I used to be. I took the record off repeat. You killed me but I survived, and now I'm coming alive…" Santana sings next and I feel tears coming on, but I'm able to pull myself together enough to sing the chorus with all of them.

"I'll never be that girl again! I'll never be that girl again! My innocence is wearing thin, but my heart is growing strong! So call me, call me, call me… Miss Movin' On!" The four of us sound amazing together, even though my voice is cracking because these words… they just mean so much to me.

"I broke the glass that surrounded me. I ain't the way you remember me. I was such a good girl, so fragile but no more…" Brittany sings this time, so I know next time is my turn.

And I open my mouth, tears rolling hot and thick down my cheeks… "I jumped the fence to the other side. My whole world was electrified. Now I'm no longer afraid. It's Independence Day… Independence Day!"

"I'll never be that girl again!" The four of us start again but louder this time, with more confidence. "I'll never be that girl again! My innocence is wearing thin but my heart is growing strong. So call me, call me, call me… Miss Movin' On!"

I take my hand off the steering wheel for a moment to wipe my tears because again, it's understood between us that we're all going to join in for this next part, just like the real Fifth Harmony does.

"Everything is changing and I never wanna go back to the way it was!" We all sing. I don't… I never want to go back to the way it was. I really don't. "I'm finding who I am and who I am from here on out is gonna be enough! It's gonna be enough!"

I'm so glad Rachel takes the next part by herself because I'm crying too hard to really be of any assistance to anyone right now. It's just so true… I am finding who I am. And I really, really, really think that who I am is going to be great. I think she'll be enough for me and everybody. I really think the world is going to like her. I think I am going to like her.

"I'll never be that girl again… no…" Rachel sings soft and pretty. "I'll never be that girl again…."

"My innocence is wearing thin but my heart is growing strong," I still can't join in when the three of them sing this next part hard, like the beat is hard when it drops. "So call me, call me, call me… Miss Movin' On!"

"Miss Movin' On!" Santana and Brittany harmonize while Rachel sings the back up parts.

"On and on and on and on. On and on and on and on…" Rachel does some really pretty vocal runs and makes me smile.

"Yeah, I'm movin' on…" I sing the last part all by myself and it's quiet as the song winds to a close.

And I don't think I need to look around and tell anyone for the three of them to know that we did something magical in this car

I can tell by the way everyone puts their hands on my shoulder that they know they did something special for me.