4.
When Dr. Lopez had reset the bones in her hand and put it in a splint, and Quinn had enough ibuprofen and naproxen to dull the pain a little, it was easier to control the tears. She was emotionally and physically exhausted, but the way that Brittana were looking at her let her know that she had to give them some explanation sooner or later.
"She hates me," Quinn said when the three girls were finally left alone in Santana's room.
"She doesn't hate you, Q," Brittany objected kindly, lacing her fingers through her girlfriend's. "She's just upset because of the awful things that Cassie and Azimio said to her. They were lying, nothing they said was true."
The hazel-eyed blonde couldn't help but smile at Brittany's innocent and matter-of-fact tone. If more people were like her, the world would be a much nicer and less complicated place.
"No, trust me, Britt. She hates me," Quinn argued gently. Her eyes met Santana's scrutinizing gaze, "She thinks I was the one behind the ambush, that I set her up, that our entire friendship was just some senior scam I came up with."
Santana's eyebrows scrunched together, like she heard the words but didn't understand the meaning of them. "What? But you were with us the whole time," the Latina pointed out. "I mean, we busted in there and defended her, didn't we?" She huffed, "So what did you tell her?"
"That I tried to get to her," Quinn replied downtroddenly.
The Latina's eyebrows nearly rose into her hairline as she erupted, "You didn't use those exact words though, right?" like she really wanted Quinn to confirm that she hadn't.
"Um… yeah, I'm pretty sure I did," the hazel-eyed girl responded. To the looks of exasperation and horror on her friends' respective faces, she added, "What?"
"Q, you told her you tried to get to her," Santana emphasized. "So you pretty much confirmed that you were just trying to get close to her, so that you could do something like this. Take the hint, Goldie Locks, you said the wrong words to your Bear-ry."
Brittany nodded sadly, and then said, "All we've ever given Rachel were reasons for her to think it was us behind it. We've been mean to her for so long now that Rachy expects us to be up to no good. Maybe it's harder for her to believe we're really her friends now, than it is to believe we made her sad on purpose."
Realization struck Quinn like a freight train. "Oh. My. God. I am so stupid!" she exclaimed ("No arguments here," Santana interjected).
Why wouldn't Rachel take it that way? She didn't know that the reason that Quinn knew about the fight before she arrived on the scene was because Santana had overheard Cassie bragging and had told Quinn. Rachel didn't realize that Quinn's heart had been beating out of her chest as she practically ran toward Rachel, trying to get to her in time to stop Cassie and protect Rachel. And that stupid comment she had made when Azimio outright asked if she was messing with the star, how could Rachel have known Quinn was being completely sarcastic when she confirmed? Azimio was a blockhead, no doubt, but Cassie wasn't as stupid as she seemed and the lowly cheerleader would have played at every doubt and insecurity Rachel had about their new friendship until the petite girl was all but sure that Quinn's only love for her was the love to torture her.
"God, I am such an idiot," Quinn repeated obsessively. She grabbed her jacket and keys and started for the door. "I have to talk to Rachel."
"Q, your hand is broken, you have a cut on your cheek the size of South America, and you have a helluva load of painkillers in you, remember? You look like Jack the freaking Ripper got you," Santana reminded her brusquely as she and Brittany followed Quinn down the stairs of the Lopez home. "Besides, what are you gonna say now that you didn't say before? Tell her how you're actually in love with her?"
The moment the words were out of Santana's mouth, she knew she'd gone too far this time, because now she wasn't playing with meaningless insults; now she was taunting with the truth. The look in her best friend's eyes as Quinn stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked over her shoulder was enough to terrify 'Jack the freaking Ripper'.
The blonde's head had dropped and she was staring at the ground when she spoke, "I don't know what you're spouting off about now, Santana, but that's ridiculous. Me? In love with Rachel. Ha, as if."
"Don't try to BS me, Q," the Latina shot back. "You can fool a lot of people, but you've never fooled me. And I honestly have –no –fucking –clue –why you haven't told her yet."
Brittany gripped Santana's arm and tried to pull her away before her friends started really going at it. Brittany Pierce, always playing mediator. "San, it's not really any of our business," the blue-eyed blonde told her.
"The hell it isn't," Santana snapped, marching back toward Quinn and dragging Britt with her. Quinn had now turned around and her back was against the door, but she was still holding the knob behind her. Santana's dark eyes brought to mind the old saying, if looks could kill. "You mope around about how you can't find real love, blah blah blah, when really… you're just too much of a coward to admit that you're in love with her. You're in love with Rachel Berry. This is it, Q, no more hiding behind your image or your baby bump or your Bible or your stupid pink hair or this friendship crap!" Santana finally seemed exhausted of yelling and her tone evened out. "Because you can't hide forever. Whether or not you ever admit it to Rachel, now that's your business but if you ever try to lie to me about it again? I'll kick your ass, because I'm not gonna stand around and watch you lie to yourself the way that I did. Reality sucks, Q, but maybe it's a little easier if you're not going at it alone."
Quinn was crying again, but this time it wasn't about Rachel being mad at her, it was about Quinn being in love with her. "She's happy with Finn, Santana," the blonde croaked out, still looking at the carpet floor of the foyer. "All I want is for her to be happy, to be treated the way she deserves– completely the opposite of how we treated her all those years. The opposite of how Cassie and Azimio made her feel today. I just want to protect her." Quinn finally looked up and drew in a long breath, flicking tear drops from her eyes. "But first I need to get her to talk to me. And maybe someday? If she's single and I still feel the same? Yeah, I'll tell her the truth. But right now all I want is for her to be happy, even if that means hiding behind this 'friendship crap'."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :
Tears had been silently leaking from Rachel's eyes for hours now, even after her earth-shaking sobs had subsided. Her fathers were clearly concerned, especially when she wouldn't disclose any information on the event that had made her so inconsolable, but she was sure that by now they had talked to Sam (who had half-carried her broken form into the house afterschool) and gotten the gist of it. Maybe Sam hadn't made Quinn looked half as bad as Rachel would have made the blonde out to be in her fathers' eyes.
Song-writing had been her first coping mechanism, but everything she wrote turned into something like 'Get It Right', where she crooned about how she wasn't good enough, or even more embarrassing, a ballad about unrequited love.
Of course she knew she loved Quinn, this much had been true since first setting eyes on the blonde the first day of freshman year. She could still remember clearly; Quinn had obviously been wearing her Cheerios uniform under a gorgeous pink dress with a pink rose braided into her long, blonde hair which had hung over her shoulder. Rachel even remembered the light lipstick Quinn had worn and the way her summer sun-kissed skin revealed tiny pale freckles.
Quinn was the first and only girl that Rachel had ever had any more-than-friend-type feelings for. Even now, all these years later, after all that Quinn had put her through, she still loved Quinn Fabray as much as she had at first sight. Whether or not she was in love with Quinn remained to be seen, and it didn't matter either way; she was (sort of) with Finn, and Quinn had now proved how little she cared for Rachel.
A knock on her bedroom door halted her thoughts, and a second later, her Dad Hiram's head became visible. "Rachel, honey, Finn is here," he told her cautiously. "Is it alright if he comes in?"
Sighing in resignation, Rachel nodded. Of course Finn would have heard from Puck what had happened and be concerned for her. It wasn't like she could avoid everyone forever, even if she wanted to.
Her lumbering boyfriend stepped into her room, looking at her with an unreadable expression. "I heard about Quinn. You alright?" he asked her cautiously, eyeing her like she might attack him.
Rachel scoffed unintentionally. "Yes. No. Maybe… I don't know," she answered undecidedly. Rachel glanced to her hands in her lap as she perched on the edge of her bed. "It wasn't something I was expecting, you know?"
Now it was Finn's turn to scoff, and he did so unabashedly. "It wasn't?" he asked her in a skeptical tone.
She looked up at him with indignation on her face. "No," she replied curtly. "It was not. I trusted her, I thought she cared about me."
"Rachel, the only person Quinn Fabray cares about is herself!" Finn nearly shouted in exasperation. "I told you before: you can't trust her!"
"That is not true!" Rachel leapt up and shot back at her boyfriend.
"Isn't it?" Finn demanded angrily. Why was Rachel defending Quinn? "She cheated on me, she got knocked up and lied to convince me I was the father, she ditched her kid as soon as she could—"
"Because she loved Beth enough to do what was right for her!" Rachel shouted at him, as if he were deaf or incompetent.
"Her?" Finn repeated. "Which 'her' are you talking about, Rachel? Beth? Or Quinn?"
This question left Rachel momentarily stumped before she answered, "Both of them!"
"You're being ridiculous!" Finn spat accusatorially. "Even after what happened with her today, you're still willing to forget about it and defend her! You let her walk all over you, Rachel. She's friendly with you when she wants something, she uses you to get it, and then she shows her real face again. And you fall for it every single time!"
They were both fuming and Rachel was having mob-boss fantasies about calling Santana to 'take care of' Finn Hudson.
Finn shook his head. "I never should have let you be friends with her," he said.
There was a beat of silence in which Rachel could hear blood rushing through her ears and her vision momentarily went red. Then all the hell inside of her broke loose. "You shouldn't have LET ME BE FRIENDS WITH HER?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, FINN? YOU DON'T LET ME DO ANYTHING! I AM MY OWN PERSON AND YOU DO NOT OWN ME!" Her screaming must have been intelligible in New York from how loud she was yelling, and she was blindly throwing objects at Finn.
"Rachel, come on, you know that's not how I meant it," Finn tried to defend himself.
Rachel set the object that she had been about to throw at Finn down and stalked toward him. "No, Finn, you never mean it. You say whatever you want and then take it back and expect me to forgive you, and I do! You expect me to forgive you but you condemn me when I forgive Quinn."
"That's because I'm your fiancé and forgiving Quinn is, like, the stupidest thing you can possibly do," he retaliated. Then he realized the mistake in what he had just said.
"You are not my fiancé," Rachel spoke in an eerily calm voice. "And I am not stupid, I am forgiving, which has been lucky for you, because if I weren't, we might never have been together at all." The brunette girl pulled her bedroom door open and stood aside. "But I am done forgiving you, Finn, and I am done being made to feel like I am the one at fault for not forgiving you on the rare occasions that I am not quick to do so. I cannot remain in a relationship with someone who tries to control me and make me feel guilty for having my own emotions. I'm afraid we are over, Finn. Please respect my decision and leave now."
The incredulity on Finn's face was like nothing Rachel had ever seen before. "You know what?" he exclaimed loudly, throwing his hands up. "Fine. Call me when you can be reasonable about this."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::