"I showed him all around the bottom floor, then we moved upstairs to the bedrooms. We still had my sisters and the guests' room to go after mine but for all intents and purposes the tour stopped at my room."

Puck helped himself, walking right in and sitting on the bed, placing the half consumed pack of wine coolers on the nightstand. He put his hands on either side of him and bounced a little on the bed gauging its firmness.

'What do you think you're doing?' Quinn asked, a single brow arched.

Puck looked up at her and, deploying every ounce of his formidable charisma, said softly, 'I want to talk some more…I'm worried about you, Quinn.' He beckoned her with an outstretched hand.

She didn't take his hand but she did join him on the bed. He was near the end with just enough space for her, far too close for comfort so she moved past him and sat about a foot away near her nightstand. She began speaking, looking anywhere but at him though the weight of his gaze on her was making the air around her seem heavy and thick, and she forced herself to take a deep lungful, trying to seem calm before she spoke. 'I just don't know what to do anymore. Everything's falling apart and I'm worried I can't fix it. And if I can't fix it, how do I keep from being dragged down with it. I've taken a big risk joining Glee and so far it hasn't been worth it, it hasn't fixed anything, it's only made things harder. And the longer I stay the more it'll affect my rep. Everyone just expects me to be this…' she trailed off.

'That's your whole problem, Q. You worry too much about what people think about you.' He inched closer to her and she met his gaze, and immediately regretted it. 'Tryin' to be somebody for everybody else, you just need to do what you wanna do, and screw what they think.'

"That was easy for him to say. You can't disappoint anyone if they have no expectations of you. Puck's never had a golden reputation so he had no idea what it's like seeing it teetering on the brink. He likes people thinking the worst of him. He doesn't know how much maintaining peoples rose-colored perception of you can become an obsession. But I didn't say anything about that to him. He was offering the only advice he could and I appreciated that. He was talking again anyway…."

'Come on, have you ever done anything just because you wanted to?' he asked, his voice still soft, his eyes still intensely gazing into hers. He ghosted his fingertips across her forearm and she cursed silently to herself as her tiny hairs stood on end. She knew she shouldn't allow him to have this effect on her, Finn didn't nor any other guy she had liked, but Puck was…different. She could do nothing to stop the reactions, her body a traitor to her minds better judgment. She scooted slightly away just beyond the reach of his fingers.

'Yes, I have,' she confessed, 'all this summer, remember?' She said this icily, hoping he would take it as disinterest…hoping he would leave…hoping her brain would win out over her body before she let him back in.

"There was this goofy photo of me and Finn on my nightstand" Quinn sat up straighter in the bed and began speaking to the comforter, her eyes growing increasingly sadder with each sentence. "It was taken at a pep rally. He was, umm…he had his arms wrapped around me from behind, and he had the biggest, cheesiest, dorkiest…most adorable happy smile on his face," she sniffed. "We both did. It was back when he still wanted me…" her voice slightly trembling, "instead of her. Before I started trying to control everything he did. Anyway, I tried focusing on that picture, on him: the good sweet guy, not the sexy delinquent in the wife-beater sitting on my bed. I kept focusing on it trying to remember that day, how we felt, how happy we were with each other, but it only made me realize even more how much I had screwed up. That if I had treated him better and just let him be who he was, we could still be that happy couple in the photo. That it was really my own fault that it was Puck that was in my room, and not him. Not that Finn had ever been in my room at four o'clock in the morning," she began rambling off, "just you know, figuratively speaking."

"Yeah, I knew what you meant," Mercedes said gently, smiling softly, supportively.

"I looked at that picture and thought about Rachel, how I humiliated her, put her down, tormented her, all in the name of making myself look better and try to feel better. And not just her but all kinds of other people at school that I deemed inferior. Somewhere in my life something got horribly confused, where instead of being a good Christian girl and doing unto others blah blah blah, I became this… person who could only be happy by putting other people down. I didn't include God in anything in my life anymore. Sure I still went to church and prayed but not for myself. Celibacy Club wasn't even for Him, it was to make me look good, to get one up on my sister. I used all my anxieties and self-doubt as fuel for my persecutions of others. That's all I could think about looking at that picture and I just had to ask…"

'Puck...am I a bad person?'

"I of course knew what I thought the answer to that question was, but I felt pretty certain Puck would disagree and reassure me, try to make me feel better, and he didn't let me down."

'What? No way. You're like, one of the best people I know. A total freakin' goody-two-shoes.' Puck said inching ever-closer.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. Did Noah Puckerman seriously just say goody-two-shoes?

'And I mean that in the sexiest way possible,' he quickly recovered.

'How about Finn? I've been a total Nazi to him lately.'

'No way, he's just not tough enough for a girl like you. He doesn't know how to handle you. He needs to be set straight, I swear he's turning into a wussy girl. I'm thinking about getting him a training bra for his birthday'

Quinn knew she should laugh at that, but she just didn't feel like it. 'What about to other people? Am I terrible to them?'

'Well, n-ye-no well yeah, but no, I mean…you're the HBIC and all so yeah, but no one, like, hates you for it. A lot of 'em are scared of you, so you're scary...but in a totally hot way! But what I mean is…you're the one all the other chicks in the school wish they were.'

"It totally didn't answer the question that I had asked, but it was still nice to hear. Then he said the magic words…"

'I bet even Rachel Berry wishes she was you.'

Quinn scoffed 'Yeah only because I have Finn…well…technically anyw…'

'Screw Finn,' Puck cut her off, and she eyed him incredulously, surprised he would be so brusque about his best friend. He reached out his hand and grazed her cheek tenderly before cupping her jaw in his warm palm. She looked down at what she could see of his hand on her face opened her mouth to say…she wasn't sure what…but any words that may have been forming were stolen away as she looked back up to find his face, his eyes, his lips several inches closer than they had been just seconds before. Then his soft voice and warm breath skimmed across her lips, 'he's an idiot not to see what he's got, how lucky he is to have you.' She could feel the gentle tug of his fingers on her jaw, pulling her in, slowly closing the distance between their lips. 'The girls wish they were you, and all the guys wish they were him…because of you…'

'Even you?' her voice sounded small and strained in her ears, her throat barely able to expel the words as her eyes which had been intently resting on his lips began to feel heavy.

'Especially me.' His pink tongue quickly darting to wet his lips was the last thing her eyes saw before her lids drifted shut and she allowed him to pull her in completely.

"This time…I didn't stop him." Quinn once again fell silent, taking a deep breath. She looked up at the ceiling, fresh tears in her eyes, blinking, trying to fight them back so she could continue. "I let myself believe so many things that night. I let myself believe that Puck was right and that Finn just needed to be stronger. That he was the one messing our relationship up and not me. That making out with Puck was totally justifiable since he was going to be with Rachel all day long doing who-knows-what in the name of Glee Club.

"Kissing him again was…perfect. I'd forgotten how good a real kiss from a guy like him could be. Finn's kissing is just like his dancing: clumsy, lumbering, unsure, he wasn't a bad kisser, just….awkward. There were a few times he got a little forward and showed some initiative, but mostly it was me setting the tone. There was nothing unsure about Puck at all. He knows exactly what he's doing. I enjoyed kissing Finn because it was sort of a power trip for me, he would let me take charge, but Puck's confidence, his um ,skill…it was a totally different kind of enjoyment….this isn't making you uncomfortable, is it?"

Mercedes shook her head 'no' and hummed "uh-uh", but Quinn could see in her eyes that she had not been expecting quite so much detail about Quinn's love life, nor a scorecard on two of her fellow Glee guys. Quinn only hoped Mercedes could look them in the eye when she was done. And that she would still accept Quinn after she got done telling her exactly all the contemptible things she had done the months following the night she was now speaking of. "Besides, my comfort isn't important. This is about you, if you need to let it out then let it out."

"Okay 'cause it's going to get worse."

"Great," Mercedes said dryly.

"I mean I'll cut to a commercial break when it gets to that part, but there are things afterwards that might be a little weird for you." Quinn explained.

"Commercial break?"

"Yeah, you know how television shows show you just enough to let you know that it's going to happen then they cut to a commercial and when the show comes back on its over and now they're just cuddling?"

"Ahh, okay. Thanks, yeah, I think I can do without those specific details." Mercedes smiled.

'Great, okay….where was I?" Quinn asked.

"Pucks awesome amazing to die for kissing skills."

"I did not say all that, now," Quinn said smirking. "Okay," she said steeling herself to dive back in. "Here we go…"