I don't own Glee, I just love it a lot!
A/N: Quinn's having a rough time, but I promise a happy ending is in store for her!
She feels like life moves by much faster than she can follow along sometimes. A bunch of the Glee kids are planning to go to OSU in the fall and she decides to go with them. She's had good grades, so she gets a few scholarships and she cashes in the savings bonds her parents have been buying since she was a baby.
Puck surprised them all and is using his pool cleaning money to pay for school. He's going to be rooming with Finn and Mike Chang. She and Tina will be sharing a dorm room too. Quinn thinks she'll have a lot of time to herself, but Tina is so excited for college life and invites Quinn everywhere she goes. They spend a lot of time at the guys dorm. She thinks it will be awkward around Finn, but unless he's eating or in class he's glued to his cell phone talking to or texting Rachel in New York. They all go to a football game together, and she's a little stunned when he throws an arm around her for a photo. He's seems willing to leave the past in the past and she's there for him a lot when he comes back from Christmas break and spends two weeks in a daze before he can tell anyone Rachel broke up with him without sobbing.
Her relationship with Puck is in an odd place. He tells her he loves her and she often spends the night with him, but more and more it's clear they have nothing in common. She doesn't want to lose him, there's so much about her he just understands without asking. She's not ready to tell a new guy that she's given up a baby or that sometimes she has to go home on the weekends to make sure her mom hasn't drank herself to death.
Quinn goes home for summer and she's appalled at the house. It hasn't been cleaned since she was there before finals. Her mom is a mess, drinking all day long. Its like having a child and it isn't long before she realizes her mom has lost her job and is about to lose their house. She calls the bank and sorts out a way to get the mortgage directly withdrawn from her mom's alimony payments and she gets a job as a bank teller to help catch up the late payments.
She doesn't have anytime for fun or a boyfriend, she cant even think about what Puck might be doing all summer long. When she's had a really bad day, she thinks this is all his fault anyway. If they hadn't had sex, her Daddy would never have left and everything would be fine. She knows that isn't true, but it's easier to be mad at him. He comes over one night at the end of the summer and asks her what's next for them. He still cleans their pool and he's seen the bottles by the lounge chair and watched her mom stumble around the house. He knows what she's dealing with, but she doesn't want his help. She says she doesn't know. She doesn't think she can go back to school, her mom can't be alone.
He nods, he understands. She thinks she'll have to transfer to the Akron campus and work at the bank. She doesn't think she'll be able to see him anymore. She says they both know this wasn't forever, and he looks a little wounded, but nods. He hugs her and says he's going to find Finn and get wasted. He says he'll tell them all it's his fault. She hides her face in his shoulder, so he won't see her tears.
She drives up a few weeks later, to pick up some of the things she's left at Puck's and finalize her transfer. Finn lets her in the apartment and offers to help her carry the box to the car. He sets the box in her trunk and shoves his hands in his pockets. She looks at his rumpled hair and the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, he has the same half grin from high school and she's frozen, thinking how much different her life might have been if she'd just stayed with him. She starts to ask if they'd ever be able to make it, but she stops and just hugs him instead. It all feels so final and she cries the whole way home.