Okay, so "birth" was cliché but Quinn felt it was the truth. Not so much being born as it was who she was born to. Quinn was silent for quite some time, formulating her reply in her mind, its contents often being a revelation to her as she began realizing all of the actions in her past that had led to her present.
"My family," Quinn began, "is…outwardly the ideal family. Successful, rich,…obscenely good-looking" she winked and Mercedes laughed, "well-known, and by all appearances, loving and close-knit. But that's because inside we are perfectionists. We have a name and reputation and do all that we can to maintain it. There is no room for error in the Fabray household, its perfection and nothing less. Parents, of course, always want their children to do their best, but with my parents, they decided what my best was. No matter how hard I tried it was always 'try harder, study more, run faster', sort of the whole Ricky Bobby 'If you're not first you're last' mentality." Quinn chuckled but there was no real humor in her laugh, nor a trace of a smile. "And I remember, at a very young age, having this insane jealousy of my older sister. She did everything right. And I know parents don't have favorites but it sure felt that way sometimes. She just did everything they wanted, became the ideal daughter so effortlessly and they were constantly praising her. She made straight A's without studying, had all the right friends, did all the right things and I remember wanting so badly to be just like her. But I was always getting into trouble."
Mercedes watched Quinn intently as the blondes eyes picked a spot on the wall and stayed there as she spoke. Mercedes began to realize just how difficult this must be for Quinn because Quinn was one of those people that when she spoke to you her eyes didn't waver from yours. You always knew you had her full attention. Her voice was even growing softer and more distant as she continued her story, but Mercedes could still hear her every word very clearly.
"I had to study hard for my grades, and had a tendency to doodle during class. I can't tell you how many times I got grounded for making a "B" on a test. And that was in elementary school!"
"Now, Quinnie, you've got to focus. You start with grades like this, it will become your standard for the rest of your school years." Judy Fabray said sitting down with her 7 year old daughter. "You're never going to get into Ivy Leagues and be successful if you spend all your time drawing on your papers."
"I started working so hard to get their attention, to make them praise me the way they did Frannie but it seemed like an uphill battle, I felt like I could have used her halo for a night-light. And when you're completing with someone who practically seems perfect…have you ever seen 'A League of Their Own'?"
"Uh, yeah the women's baseball movie, right?" Mercedes said.
"The line, 'THIS is our daughter Dottie. And this is our other daughter….Dottie's sister.' Yep that was my life. I started trying to be Frannie, and in retrospect I realize she was always trying to be mom. Part of being a Fabray is your future is practically planned for you. Everyone in or who knew our family had expectations of what Frannie and I should do with our lives and we catered to those people without a second thought for if it was what we wanted. But it wouldn't have mattered if we had. Things like that never came up in conversation at home. Insecurities, doubts anything that wasn't warm and fuzzy was just brushed to the side and the bad would blow over. " If you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.
"If anything, we were told to pray about it and God would take care of it all, but they never did anything to help Him help us. And then along with the struggle for attitude and academic perfection, there was the physical perfection aspect as well"
Quinn finally paused to take another scoop of ice cream. "Like, this," she motioned to the carton, which was quickly emptying. "This wouldn't happen in the Fabray household, and I don't just mean eating in the bedroom. I think I can count on one hand how many times we kept sweets in the house. Daddy would take us out for ice cream every now and then, but there was always an occasion for it. And Frannie would promptly go home and do sit-ups after finishing hers. She was a Cheerio too, captain her senior year. So, yeah she was obsessed with body image. I became self-conscious as well, just from watching her. I knew if I was going to stay level with her I was going to have to be on the squad too when the time came. So I started early, counting calories, measuring all the time, trying to be my ideal weight and not a pound more, and I was only thirteen at the time."
Quinn paused and looked around the room once more, finding even more 'childish' things to complement the ninja turtles and dated gaming console. She smiled slightly at each one, suddenly finding herself nostalgic for a childhood she had enjoyed far too little, choosing instead to grow up and focus on the future. Mercedes had sat in silence, silently offering nods and warm comforting smiles. Quinn looked back to her and sighed heavily, before trudging on.
"Frannie graduated my eighth grade year and left for college so I was going to finally enter high school without having to compete with her. Now was my time to be the perfect daughter and I knew the way to do that was to accomplish things Frannie hadn't. I knew I had to get on the Cheerios or I had no chance, and I knew from Frannie's horror stories that just being the previous Captains little sister wasn't going to do squat to get me on the team. But I didn't just want to make the team. I knew it was a long shot but I absolutely busted my tail to impress Coach Sylvester and it paid off. She made me Captain. She had never made a freshman Captain before. My parents were, for once, ecstatic for me. But I knew I couldn't ride on just that for the next four years. The thing about living your life to make other people happy is that you're never done. I knew I had to keep topping myself, topping Frannie. I naturally started looking for the ideal boyfriend."
"High school rules say head cheerleader always dates the quarterback. Well my freshman year the QB was a senior and I knew my parents wouldn't go for that, plus he wasn't all that cute". She deadpanned as she cocked an eyebrow, finally smiling again. "Finn and I had been friends for a few years and I knew he was training to be the quarterback the next year. More than that, he was a nice guy. He had this…innocence and boyish charm," she said as she rose from the bed to toss the empty ice cream carton into the trash can under a cluttered desk. There was a stack of basketball trading cards being held down by a Hotwheels and beside it, an old picture of what appeared to be Bryce and a very young Mercedes. Quinn picked up the picture and studied it for a minute. "I could tell there was a gentleman in there and that my parents would like him." She sat the picture back in its place and made her way back to the bed, sitting down and, with some effort, tucking her legs beneath her.
"So I started flirting with him, and at first he was completely oblivious, but then he caught on. He never asked me out though; I think he was just insecure enough to think he might be misreading my signals. I didn't ask him either. I guess I kind of wanted to keep my options open. As it turned out, getting him to take the hint wasn't the biggest of my problems. That came in the form of Finn's best friend who was always around…Noah Puckerman…