GET IT RIGHT

(Rachel)

The visiting to my mother was truly inspirational. I spent the weekend thinking about various performances we could do for Regionals. We lost last year, but we don't have to worry about Vocal Adrenaline this year because they are the current champion and Carmel's team was already classificated to the Nationals. I knew that Mr. Schuester was more willing to get my ideas, so expect him to take into consideration that could be all the difference in this step: one that could lead us to Nationals. During our meeting in the choir room, I asked to speak in front of the team and suggested an original song.

I didn't understand why the reaction was so adverse, as if my Glee fellows didn't have the ability to understand the strategy of placing ourselves as complete artists before the jury. We could dance, sing and express our feelings in our own words, but the others didn't understand this way. And for those who weren't against, like my sister, Tina and Artie, they simply abstracted from any voice and accountability. That says a lot about their personality or lack of some.

I felt my legs heavy after my demise and I was dragging myself through the halls.

"Rachel!" I heard a voice behind me. It was Quinn.

"What?" I didn't know why, but hoped she would throw a slushie in the face. It would even be refreshing.

"What happened?" She asked with a worried way. This confused me, because everyone knew why I was so disappointed. That's when I remembered that Quinn was absent.

"Sam didn't tell you?" She waved negative. "I suggested doing an original song for Regionals. Say something in our own words and feelings. I think it is stronger than do the usual karaoke cover arranged for several voices. Unfortunately nobody supported me. They thought the idea was stupid."

"But this is a great idea." I opened my eyes. Quinn was agreeing with me? The world would end? "I believe we can do a better letter than many radio successes there. Something much better than... I dunno... 'I, I love you like a love song baby / and I keep hitting re-pe-pe-peat." Quinn did a funny imitation of Selena Gomez.

"Or even this: 'So i put my hands up / they're playing my song / and the butterflies fly away / noddin my head like yeah / movin my hips like yeah." I did an out of tune imitation of Miley Cyrus.

"And that is unsurpassed: 'It's Friday, Friday / Gotta get down on Friday / Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend / Friday, Friday / gettin down on Friday / Everybody's lookin 'forward to the weekend'" We laughed loud.

I had never paid attention before, but Quinn had a great laugh. Then there was an awkward moment. She stared into my eyes and I felt captured. She had beautiful hazel eyes, but they never stared at me with that intensity. It was always with a certain hatred and rancor. This time I could tell there was something different, but I couldn't say what.

"Well..." She broke the spell and I felt embarrassed not knowing exactly why. "We can meet after the classes tomorrow to work on an original song. What do you think?"

"Deal. We can start discussing some ideas at lunch. I'm sure we can use this time at home to think of something brilliant and appropriate."

"Perfect!" Quinn grinned.

Sam and Finn walked together on our direction. Sam grabbed Quinn's hands and they said goodbye to me and Finn.

"See you tomorrow!" I said louder. Quinn looked back and waved.

"Do you have plans with Quinn tomorrow?" Finn was curious.

"A project that we going to work together."

"Oh! Cool. You want a ride to home?"

"No, I'm driving my sister home today. It's my turn. But thanks. It's very kind of you."

"You're welcome." He put the usual half-smile on his face. "You know, Rachel, I didn't speak out there in the choir room, but I wanted to say that I find interesting the idea of an original song. And if there is someone able to show that Santana and others are wrong, it's you." What was the reason for him not having spoken up then? Was he ashamed to defend me even though the majority opinion? That's how he wanted us to dating again?

"Thank you, Finn. Your support means a lot to me, but it would be much better if you had done it in public."

"Rachel I don't..."

"Rachel" Santana yelled down the hall and her time was perfect. "Hurry up! I don't have all day."

"I have to go... my sister..."

"Yeah, I know how Santana is." he said mildly irritated. "See you tomorrow?"

"You're coming to school, right?"

…

(Quinn)

When Rachel said about the original song project, I found it amazing. What I didn't expect was her strange ideas. She wrote a song about the saga of her birth. The horror! Rachel didn't understand the proper meaning of the original song, so I introduced a line from a poem I made.

"What have I done / Wish I Could Run / Away from this ship going under / Just trying to help / Hurt everyone else / Now I feel the weight of the world is on my shoulders."

I didn't explain the circumstances that led me to write such things. It was something I scribbled in my notebook during the holidays as I absorbed the fact that I gave my daughter for adoption, my Beth. Rachel respected my silence, and said she liked that. It would be the beginning of a song full of drama, passion and other strong feelings.

On Friday, we started to work hard in the following verses. We wrote and rewrote several phrases within a primary pace until we came to something like this:

"All the things you can do When You are good enough/ but all that I touch tumbles down/ cause my best intentions/ keep making a mess of things/ I Just wanna fix it somehow/ but how many times will it take/ for me to get it right."

We were working on the rest of the song when Mercedes invaded the auditorium with Artie. These two were talking on the phone and then burst the pump: Santana left the cheerios and was promoting a commemorative party with the choir members at her house. Rachel panicked. She explained that the Dr. Juan Lopez went to a Congress and trust their kids to behave. I panicked because without Santana or Brittany, our presentation in the Regional with cheerios would be compromised.

I was angry and went to take satisfactions. As soon I met her, the pushing started: how could she do that to the team? Santana pushed me back, again and again until I hit the floor. Then she said with an eerie calm:

"I have to study for the admission test to Stuyvesant and I had to give up an extra activity to gain time. Among the cheerios and coral, I get the New Directions."

That's when I knew that Brittany was moving to Los Angeles. Santana really had no reason to stay in Lima if she had a safe escape route. I was jealous of her. I wish I had a chance, no matter how small, to get out of Lima and leave behind all this hell. So, the best thing I could do was getting drunk with her at the party.

…

"Q." The coach shouted me. It was six-thirty in the morning, it was freezing at the bones. Too cold and early to listen orders and problems, but I was the captain.

"Alisha." I shouted at one of the major cheerios now that Santana and Brittany were gone. "Take the girls."

I followed the coach's heavy steps to the office. I was in no mood to hear anything after an atypical weekend when we spent in that alcoholic party at the Berry-Lopez's house. The one that I slept on a sofa, went cold, and I woke up with a sore body and a house full of people having the mother of the headaches.

"Sit, Q" I hated that voice tone of calm and full of venom, but I obeyed. "Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce betrayed the team."

"Yes ma'am, I know."

"I thought so, since you are frenemies. Santana gave up her uniform and said she would take a test to another school."

"It's a fair reason, coach."

"Turns out that the girl with indefinite ethnicity remained in the choir despite her fair reasons. Worse, she made our main dancer do the same."

"You want me to convince Brittany to come back?"

"No, Q. Their case made me establish new rules for the cheerios team. Those involved in other school clubs, mainly in the choir, will no longer be accepted."

"Coach, do you want me to leave the choir?"

"The example starts with the captain."

"But I can't!" I got up. "I set appointments. Furthermore, I am aware that I can juggle all the activities I disposal to do. I am captain of the cheerios, but I also belong to the choir and it still work. It is not fair to ask me to leave the activity that I consider to be a pleasure."

"Very touching, but my decision is irrevocable and I have no exceptions. If you want to stay with us and guarantee your scholarship next year, give up the choir."

"I need to think about it. Give-me some time, please."

"You have until the end of the day. Now get out of here."

My head went into a tailspin. My choice was obvious because I needed that scholarship to get out of Ohio. But I was so in pain to leave the choir just when I was in reasonable peace with the group, including Rachel. We were doing a song together, Christ. I ran to the locker room of cheerios to think and give some pounding on the lockers. Instead, I kept quiet and hidden in a secluded corner to cry alone. A few minutes later, I saw that someone get in. I checked my watch and the training hadn't finished. I heard known voices and laughter. Brittany and Santana. I didn't want to talk to them, much less they noticed me.

"You know." Brittany began. "I think Blaine will date Rach. The two worked so well at the party. "

"Britt, Blaine is gay!"

"No he's not. I would have felt it. "

"Your gaydar sucks, Britt!" Santana laughed loose.

"But I swore that Blaine was all in love with Rachel..." I also thought that when I saw that two kissing. I hate Blaine Anderson, and I hate he clued his lips on hers.

"How could you not feel that Blaine is gay? Even drunk, I notice it. Kurt is the one who wants to get in his pants."

"But my gaydar is pretty good. Was I the one who find out that Alisha is gay."

"No... you found out because we saw that stupid trying to kiss Demi at that party."

"See? My gaydar is perfect. You could do a test."

"Hmm... let's see..." Santana looked like she was having fun with the game. "Mercedes?"

"That's easy. She likes men despite never having a boyfriend!"

"She dated once... or almost..."

"How so?"

"She made out with my cousin Julio. I know he's all delighted about Mercedes, but the two can't legally date. Yet."

"Wow!" Brittany cheered. "Shoot another!"

"Fabray?" My ears pricked.

"Quinn is gay or, at least, bi-curious!" My heart soared with the response of Brittany. She couldn't know. I've never given signs in school and always behaved myself as the heterosexual queen. I got pregnant and I was with three popular kids. How could she realize I am gay?

"No way! She is, at most, a repressed."

"Yes, a repressed gay who likes to check out all the cheerios."

"Yeah... I've seen her checking out my boobs sometimes... But I've never felt anything different about her, unless the particular peeve with my sister. First, I thought it was because of Finn. Then I thought it could not just be that. But the way she is with Sam, hanging on his neck, I think she is really heterosexual."

"There's something that tells me she is gay. I can't explain." Thinking coldly, I could not be impressed with Brittany's good perception. Sometimes she understood things much better than the rest of the group.

"Ok. And Rachel?" Santana continued the little game.

"That's easy. She likes men, more specifically Finn Hudson."

"Right and wrong!" My heart raced for the second time.

"How so?" That was the question I was mentally doing with Brittany.

"Rachel was with a girl in London last summer, and it wasn't anyone ordinary: She made out with a beautiful young woman who had a tattoo and everything else."

"Come on, San. You're lying. Rachel would never cheat on Finn that way."

"I'm not lying! I don't remember her name... looks like Lauren... Laura... Well, we went to Reading Festival with some friends and this girl. They got close and on the second day of the festival, what I see? Rachel and the girl in question trying to tie a knot with their tongues. They were together until the day before we get back to the United States."

My blood boiled and I couldn't think straight. All this time containing myself, thinking that Rachel was unable to be with another girl. Why not me? Why Rachel had to get involved with a girl before? Santana and Brittany left out the lockers room and so did I of my hiding place. I screamed.

Rachel had no problem staying with girls but could never be me. Our history was lousy: the slushies, the swearing, the shouting matches, threats. And the love, in our case, was unilateral and secret. Who could ask for rationality to someone in the midst of a crisis of jealousy? I wanted to take it out on someone. I walked into the rehearsal room and saw Rachel sitting at the piano with the letter that we were composing.

"Quinn!" The girl in question said cheerfully and gaily. "I made some adjustments in the first verse and I think this song deserves one more verse to merge with the chorus..." She stopped when she saw me gasping. "What happened? Do you fight with Sam?"

"Why to be angry I would necessarily have fought with some boy? Oh yeah! I'm a Barbie. I only make sense if I have a Ken!"

"Quinn?"

"You know Rachel? You aren't the center of the universe. You stay here giving blood for a ridiculous song thinking it can bring Finn back into your arms. But do you know the truth? You'll never get him back!"

"You still want him? Quinn, be sincere."

"And if I do?" I lost my cool and screamed.

"You'll have a good fight ahead." Rachel got up from the piano and approached me, looked determined, but she still showed fear.

"Why? Why bother to fight if in the end you will leave this town? Will you live your dreams on Broadway while I'm staying here to be, maybe, a public school teacher, perhaps married to Finn with five or six kids?"

"It won't be like that!"

"No? Then you will stay in Lima with the love of your life?" My hysterical laughter mingled with my tears. "Wake up, Rachel!"

"Finn and I are destined to be together!"

"Finn in New York? A no-talent idiot in the big city? You'll never make it right! You can't have everything you want."

Rachel collected her things.

"I'll finish the song alone." Her voice was hard and she left the room. I was still in there trying to catch my breath. What had I done? How stupid not having uncontrolled myself.

Then I went to Sylvester's office and quit the Glee.

…

"I know you chose the cheerios, but I hope you came to the choir as my guest." Rachel walked on me in the lockers.

"Why should I go?"

"Because you deserve listen our song." And she turned her back.

It seems that I was numbed. I had to digest the revelation about Rachel, my stupidities and cowardice. I was a closed lesbian too afraid to come out to the closet. I was in love and terribly afraid to fight for her. But I accept her invite mostly because I was curious to listen the song. At the choir room, I sat next to my boyfriend and wait. Then, Rachel stood up.

"I know you refused my suggestion of doing an original song, that my idea was ridiculous as my dear sister said as I record well." I look at Santana, who noted to Rachel. "Still I did a song with Quinn Fabray, one that says a lot about what I'm feeling right now. If you don't want an original song, at least you could do a favor to hear this. Santana." Everybody was surprised when Rachel sits to play the piano while her sister got up and stood beside her.

She wasn't a good pianist, but she knew how to find the notes. The arrangement was very rudimentary and I could do something better because I more skilled at the piano than her. Anyway, Rachel began to sing beautifully with Santana doing the second voice. My heart was pounding.

I have also noticed that she made some changes. Instead of "All the things you can do When You are good enough", she changed to "What can you do When your good is not good enough." Then, she added the verse: "So I throw up my fists , throw a punch in the air / And accept the truth That sometimes life is not fair / Yeah I'll Send Out a wish , yeah I'll send up a prayer / then finally , someone will see , how much I care."

I tried so hard to hide the tears. At the end of the performance, I saw that Finn seemed moved by the words. Idiot. I can't speak for Rachel, but the verses were for me and it wasn't a love song. I saw how Rachel looked at the jerk. How could I let him win so easily? Then it come a realization: my time was running out, my chances too. I decided I would fight. I needed to face that friendship with Rachel would never be enough. Or tried to fight for my own happiness or would be frustrated for life. What I have to lose?

While the rest of the choir warmed to the idea of presenting an original song, I left the room and went straight to the office of Sue Sylvester.

"Q?" The coach said without even looking up from his notebook. "If you come to discuss the Regional Plan, I won't give up the cannon idea."

"No, coach. I'm here to quit."

"What?" Sylvester finally lifted her head and stared at me in amazement. She didn't expect this response, for sure. "Do you really aware of everything that you will lose, Fabray? Your scholarship, your chance to get out?"

"Yes I do. But I choose the Glee Club. I'll Return the uniform tomorrow morning."

I turned my back and out of the office. I heard the sound of something heavy being fouled inside the room. Glee's Regional happen in nine days and there was much work to be done: a new song, rehearsals, choreography, arrangements with the band. Even more... I had a heart to win.