"Drum Fills in Our Hearts"
Chapter 3 - In the Fog
Quinn arrived at Rachel's house at exactly 4:30. She was pretty sure they'd set the time at 4:30, but she hadn't talked to Rachel since Tuesday. No one answered when she knocked at the door. Just as she pulled the handle to climb back into her pickup, Noah Puckerman's beat-up minivan pulled into Rachel's driveway.
"Quinn, I'm so sorry. When Glee Club practice ended, I tried to find Noah, but he was not in our predetermined meeting spot."
"Rachel, again with the 'predetermined meeting spot' shit? I'm gonna stop giving you rides if you keep blowing me up about this." Puck ran his hand through his unkempt mohawk. This was the first time Quinn had seen it without the rock-solid styling gel holding it upright.
"I'm sorry, Noah. I was simply explaining to Quinn the reason for our tardiness. We have to remember that now that we're in a band we are accountable to all members." Rachel turned back to face Quinn as Puck joined Quinn unloading her kit from the car. "Quinn, I'm so glad you made it on time. Is there anything I can help with?"
Quinn shuffled by red-faced with the bass drum in tow. "Grab the door, would you?" she huffed.
It took less than ten minutes to set up this time. Puck was able to stack and grab a few of her toms and her snare, while Quinn grabbed some of the stands and cymbals. Rachel busied herself preparing lemonade and going through some sort of vocal routine that Quinn caught brief glimpses of as she came into and out of the basement.
When everything was set up they stared back and forth at one another for a moment.
"Huh," Puck muttered. "What are we gonna play?"
"I was just thinking that myself, Noah," Rachel responded.
"I mean, I love metal and classic rock." Puck plucked at his guitar strings.
"That's not really my style," Rachel said. "I wouldn't be averse to some popular music, like Taylor Swift or Kelly Clarkson. Quinn, what about you?"
"I'm up for whatever," Quinn said shyly.
"Oh c'mon, Quinn. You know you don't want to play any Taylor Swift or Kelly Clarkson. You wanna wail, don't you? Can you think of any classic rock songs that might suit our little Broadway babe here?" Puck's eyes darted between the girls.
Quinn felt her face flush as she was put on the spot. Both Rachel and Puck had turned to her. "I don't know. What about Heart?"
"Eh, they'll do. Obviously not gonna get anything as awesome as some Bon Jovi or Guns 'N Roses, but I'll take Heart. Let me look up some of the tabs for 'Alone.'" He pulled out his phone and quickly swiped away at the screen.
"Why don't we all do a little bit of research first? I don't think I've ever heard this song before." Quinn sensed a hint of nervousness in Rachel's voice. Usually she was all confidence.
"Really Rachel?" Quinn was dumbfounded but a grin crept to her face. "C'mon, let's go watch the video real quick. Where's your computer?"
They trio sprinted upstairs to Rachel's room. After three views of the video and a print-off of guitar tabs, keyboard chords, and lyrics, they set off back to the basement.
Quinn hadn't realized just how long it might take to master a classic rock song. It probably didn't help, she figured, that Puck knew the song so little and Rachel didn't know it at all. They'd had to go back upstairs to listen to the song at least four more times. By the end of a two hour practice, Quinn's muscles ached from the combination of sprinting up the steps and beating a steady rhythm against the drums. After the final play, Puck bid his goodbyes and left Rachel and Quinn to themselves in the basement.
"I never thought my voice would be suited for classic rock, but that was amazing." Rachel took a long sip from the straw of her lemonade then threw her body into a beat-up tan sofa that faced the basement's stage. Her feet hung over the edge of the sofa, just grazing against the carpet of the floor.
Quinn took a seat next to her, sweat still running down her back and soaking into her t-shirt. Not once had she felt dizzy, a feat she'd just realized.
"What did you think about practice? Did you enjoy yourself?" Rachel had turned to face her on the couch, pulling one leg up to turn her body less awkwardly. Quinn continued to face forward, feet firmly planted on the ground and back slouched against the couch, slowing down her breathing and hoping to cool off soon.
Quinn closed her eyes as she responded. "Yeah. I really, really did. I haven't had that much fun in a while actually. A really long time."
"Yeah? When was the last time you had that much fun?"
Eyes still closed, she took a moment to think. She hadn't had a real conversation about her past in ages, not counting conversations with Dr. White. But those conversations never counted. Her mom paid Dr. White to have those conversations with her. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd talked to someone her age about her past. "I guess actually being on the field playing soccer was the last time I really had fun."
"I thought you seemed athletic. I didn't know if it was from the drumming or something else. So soccer, is it? Was that when you were back at your old school?"
"Yeah. I wasn't great, but I loved it. I played before I started drumming. Kinda picked one up as I put the other down." Quinn could feel Rachel studying her so she kept her eyes closed but her heart thumped under Rachel's watchful eyes. She worried that if she met them, she'd lose her tongue and just stare awkwardly at Rachel instead.
"Why did you stop?" Quinn felt her heart continue to beat for another reason this time. A nagging fear sunk into the back of her mind.
"Just did."
She felt a hand rest on top of her knee. She opened her eyes to find Rachel with her feet tucked under her facing Quinn. "Well I have to say that I'm certainly glad you started playing percussion."
Quinn turned to look at her, "Me, too."
Quinn headed home shortly after. Rachel had offered her drum kit a home for the weekend if Quinn promised to drop by at some point for a short practice session. As Quinn climbed into her truck, she saw a corner of the blinds pulled back in Rachel's living room, and Rachel's face peeking out from behind, watching her get into her car.
...
Saturday's short practice session turned into a five hour marathon at Rachel's. Puck wasn't there, but that didn't stop the two from practicing what they could. Quinn started the morning at eleven, practicing different drum fills for those breaks that inevitably came in classic rock songs. She discovered very early on in her drumming that she lived for the fill. It was her center stage. She'd always be out of the spotlight - somewhere still hidden at the back of the stage, in the dark, behind the lead singer. And although she drove the rhythm and took a supporting role for most of the song, she was almost always afforded just one moment to show off for the crowd, emerging from the depths of the darkness at the back of the stage. The drum fill was it, and it was her favorite thing to practice.
Rachel let her be for the first two hours. In the second hour, she'd played through "Alone" a few times, working on the lead to the chorus particularly hard. Although it was one of the slowest songs she'd ever practiced, she especially liked the way that she got to pound on her drums. The rhythm of other songs usually moved so quickly that she didn't have the time to concentrate on a single hit like she did with this song.
Every once in a while she'd break from playing to hear muted voices or footsteps from Rachel's kitchen, just above.
In the third hour, Rachel called her upstairs to eat lunch. When she'd arrived at the top of the stairs and in full light, she'd felt her face redden. Her shirt was soaked through and, though her hair was pulled back, sweaty strands of hair had fallen out of her ponytail and were matted to her face.
"You must be Quinn." A tall, middle-aged man greeted her at the top of the basement stairs. He wore glasses and had very tan skin, like Rachel, but not much else in common that Quinn could see.
Quinn wiped her palm against her jeans and extended her hand. "Hi."
"I'm Rachel's dad," he turned back to Rachel and smiled, "well, one of them. You sounded pretty great down there." He then turned back to Rachel before the conversation deepened. "I'm headed off to meet Marty for our racquetball game, little lady. You girls have fun. Don't do anything crazy. Or do!"
Quinn quirked her eyebrow. Rachel's dad - or one of them, this one - was unlike any parent Quinn had ever met. Not that she'd met many, just the few that were on the sidelines at her soccer games. He swept out the door before either girl could respond, leaving Quinn dumbfounded.
"Sorry. I should have told you about my dad - er, dads." Rachel looked down at the pita sandwiches that were on the plates in front of her.
"Sorry for?" Quinn walked to the kitchen island to grab a plate. The pita had some vegetables sticking out of it. While she'd seen a pita before, she couldn't say she'd ever seen one in this form.
"Oh, just, I guess some people don't know that I have two dads. Some people like to be warned about things of that nature." Rachel looked up at Quinn, who had a wad of alfalfa sprouts sticking out of her mouth.
Quinn stopped chewing, then started again. She felt something get trapped in the back of her throat and sputtered. Truth was, she had no idea that Rachel had two dads. The only gossip she'd heard about Rachel was that she was kind of a loser. Hearing that she had two dads shocked her. She couldn't process it. But before she could even pretend to ignore it, or shuck it off with a simple, "It's ok," she was choking and Rachel was hitting her hard on her back.
"Are you ok? You need water?"
Quinn saw some of those tell-tale black spots as her heart sped. Rachel continued hitting her back. She forced down a gulp of water. Finally the vegetable dislodged itself and she gasped for air, the black spots receding.
"Sorry."
"Are you ok? Do you need anything?" Rachel's hand rested against Quinn's sweaty back.
"I'll be fine," she said hoarsely.
They sat in silence for the rest of the lunch, Quinn slowly chewing and swallowing her food like a horse, while Rachel took tiny bites from the edges of her sandwich. When they were finally done, even the crumbs on Quinn's plate were gone, while Rachel had a half a sandwich leftover.
"You sounded really good down there." Rachel was looking up at her again with those big doe eyes that she seemed to get when she was saying something nice to Quinn.
"Uh, thanks, I guess." Quinn met her eyes once but forced herself to look in other places. She wound up staring at the tip of her shoe pushing itself against the hardwood floor of the kitchen.
"How did you get so good so fast? I mean," Rachel sputtered, a little ashamed to have complimented Quinn so outright, "I mean, you just started playing and you're already very good. I've been practicing vocals my whole life."
"Just practice I guess. I practiced a lot in Columbus after I quit soccer." Quinn was still staring at the tip of her shoe. She felt Rachel's eyes on her. She knew what was coming next. She couldn't tell if she'd revealed the information to Rachel so that she could probe deeper, or if she regretted saying so much.
"It seems like you really loved soccer. Why'd you stop?"
Quinn weighed the story in her mind. Nothing was worth telling the truth. "Just had to," she said, with some finality. Rachel's head tilted to the side and it looked as though she was going to press further, but she just swallowed air. "Been playing in my mom's house for a while, so I'm glad I have a real reason to play now."
Obviously dissatisfied with the soccer line of questioning, Rachel shifted to another angle. "You live just with your mom?"
Quinn started to tap the foot that wasn't digging into the hardwood floor. It fell into the rhythm of the bass drum from her practice session. "Yeah. Dad left when I was a little kid. Since that's what you were gonna ask next."
"Sorry," the hand that was on her back was now covering her fingers. Quinn pulled her hand back and Rachel's back straightened. "Sorry."
"Look, do you wanna go practice or something downstairs? Or we can look up more songs to play?" Quinn needed for Rachel's attentions to be shifted.
For the final two hours of Quinn's time at the Berry household, they found themselves alternating between looking up music videos on the computer, laughing at haircuts from the 80s, and tooling around on the different instruments that were in Rachel's basement. Rachel sat down behind Quinn's kit and played an unsteady rhythm as Quinn coached her. Quinn pounded out a few melodies on the keyboard while Rachel hummed alongside.
Quinn wasn't sure who exactly she'd found in Rachel, but she left hoping that she'd at least found someone that she might tell the truth. It was the first time she'd had hope since her early Columbus days.
...
Saturday night, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning slowly ambled by. When Quinn wasn't texting back and forth with Rachel, she found herself thinking about what Tuesday's practice would be like. She pondered the songs they'd looked up on Saturday afternoon in Rachel's bedroom. She thought about Rachel's tone and whether it would fit with the songs she had in mind. She thought about whether Puck might be ready for a more complicated guitar melody, or what they would do without a true bassist. Even though Dr. White told her not to, she thought about the possibility of a concert - maybe an open mic night, or a battle of the bands type thing, nothing more.
Tuesday's practice started much the same as Thursday's. Puck and Rachel arrived a few minutes late, as Quinn sat on Rachel's porch. Puck's mini-van sputtered to a stop in the driveway and Quinn silently reminded herself not to take too many rides in that thing.
About thirty minutes into their session, Rachel took a quick break. It sounded like one of her fathers was upstairs. She'd never been alone in a room with Puck, at least not to her best recollection. She wasn't sure what to talk about and she hoped that Rachel would return soon.
Puck broke the awkward silence, staring in Quinn's general direction without actually staring at her. "She really likes you, you know." He let that sink in for a while. Quinn panicked: like how? What's that supposed to mean?
"She doesn't have a lot of friends. I mean, she's popular and shit. She's involved in a lot of stuff. But that doesn't mean that she has friends. On the way over here, all she could talk about was how you guys hung out this weekend."
Quinn could only nod. She wasn't sure what Puck wanted her to say.
"Rachel's like my little sister, man. We met in temple when we were little kids. I was a dick to her. Still am sometimes, but I care about her." Then Puck looked her square in the eye. It made Quinn uncomfortable and she looked away. "I hope you actually are trying to be friends with her and not screw her around. Cause if you're screwing her around..." Puck didn't finish the sentence, but Quinn could see from the clench of his jaw what he meant. Her heart picked up.
Just as Puck was finishing his threat, Quinn heard the rattle of footsteps coming into the basement. It wasn't just Rachel, but her dad from the other night - the racquetballer.
"Hey guys, my dad's home early from work and he wanted to hear our song. Can we do it for him?" Before Rachel could finish her sentence, Quinn started seeing the black spots. Her heart pounded harder and her body warmed.
"I just loved Heart back in the day, guys. I've been so looking forward to this song. Rachel's been telling me all about your rehearsals. I always knew the little lady had some good ol' classic rock in her somewhere beneath all of her father's Broadway pizzazz," he gave Rachel a beaming smile, which Rachel returned, but Quinn could barely hear their conversation.
She wished she would have known that Rachel's dad would have been coming down. She could have practiced just one more time to really make sure her parts were perfect. If Puck missed a chord or Rachel missed a lyric, it was ok, the show would go on, so to speak. But if Quinn missed a beat, it would throw off the whole performance, and it would obviously be her fault.
Before she could think any further, she heard Rachel voice through the fog and black spots.
"Quinn, count us off?" Rachel stood center stage, smiling and playing with the hem of her skirt. One of the track lights from the ceiling combined with Quinn's fuzzy vision gave her a halo. Quinn shook it off and counted off.
Apparently, the song went off without a hitch. Her dad clapped up a storm and called for an encore. Rachel even tried to give him his encore. Quinn didn't remember. Nor did she remember running up the stairs - both flights - and closing herself in Rachel's bathroom. Or turning on the shower and stepping in with all of her clothes on. She doesn't remember Rachel entering the bathroom. She certainly doesn't remember Rachel screaming. At that point, she was face down in the bathtub, blood running from a split in her lip and clouding the water a light pink hue. While she wasn't out cold for long, her blacked out state persisted. Rachel's scream had awakened something, but not her memory. She doesn't remember forcing the girl out of the bathroom and wrapping herself in a warm white towel, blood still staining everything she touched.
The next thing she does remember is her mother standing over her, tucked beneath a pink comforter in Rachel's bed, in a blood-stained white towel. Rachel wasn't in the room.
Judy Fabray whispered through gritted teeth, "Get up this instant and stop embarassing me."
Quinn's whole body felt sore as she pulled her feet out from under the comforter.
"I can't believe it's gotten this far. Do I need to..." her mother's voice raised until she checked herself back down to a whisper, "do I need to call Dr. White?"
She wouldn't even let Quinn answer. Not that Quinn was going to.
"Let's get this straight," Quinn's mother pulled at her jaw until they looked one another in the eye, Quinn from bed-level, her mother standing over her. "We are not moving again because of some mistake you make. You make a mistake here, you live with it. Understand?"
Quinn wasn't sure she wanted an answer.
"Understand?" She repeated.
Quinn nodded her head.
Her mother tossed a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt on her lap. "I'll see you at home. Apologize to the poor girl and her father on the way out."
Quinn changed in silence, hoping that Rachel hadn't heard the conversation. When she opened the bedroom door, she found Rachel sitting outside on the carpeted floor.
"Your mom said she'd see you at home." Rachel wasn't making eye contact with her. Quinn started to see the spots again. Rachel knew. Rachel'd seen her. In the shower. Rachel knew. Quinn felt the urge to run.
Before she could move, Rachel's hand reached up to grab her own. Quinn looked down at her and found Rachel with tears in her eyes. "I was so scared, Quinn. What happened?"
"I don't know. I mean, you know more than I do, I think." The mere act of Rachel taking her hand made Quinn figure that Rachel couldn't possibly know. If she knew, Rachel wouldn't even be able to look at her right now, much less touch her.
"You were in the shower and you were bleeding and it looked like you were knocked out and then the next thing I knew you pushed me out of the bathroom. And then you come out of the bathroom wearing a towel and just climb into my bed." Rachel pulled at her hand until Quinn was sitting next to her on the carpet. She felt Rachel squeeze her hand. If Rachel was a boy, she'd have a broken hand. Instead, it pained her knuckles just slightly.
"You scared me so much, Quinn," Rachel said between sobs. "This medicine is doing terrible things to you."
Quinn sighed heavily. Maybe you're right, Quinn thought. If she wasn't careful, Rachel would end up uncovering her secret even with the medicine doing its trick. She was glad that the next day was Wednesday - another session with Dr. White.