We Are Going to Make It Chapter 16/16
She should have been happy.
Finally, after years of abuse and guilt and intangible standards, Quinn Fabray was free from it all. After weeks of knowing how she felt for Rachel, Quinn was finally allowed to show her feelings not only to the brunette, but to the world. If she wanted to, she could run around the town declaring her love at the top of her lungs and not care who heard; but all she felt like doing was sleeping or crying or lying in Rachel’s bed staring at the ceiling like she was doing right now. She should have been happy and she wanted so desperately to say that she was; but she wasn’t.
The week after her confrontation with her parents went by in a blur, a whirlwind of tears, sobs, and absolute misery. Mr. and Mr. Berry were extremely kind to the distressed blonde, offering her a warm home, feeding her delicious home cooked meals, and accepting her more than her own father had her entire life. Rachel did all she could, all Quinn would let her. When the blonde wasn’t crying, Rachel brushed her hair, changed her clothing, held her in her bed for hours until her girlfriend’s eyes finally closed after days without rest and stroked her as long as she could. Before the nightmares began, Quinn was fully content in Rachel’s arms, but night after night they were always the same.
Quinn had only a few nightmares in her arsenal of remembered dreams. All of them revolved around one central theme and they began the night she read that little pink plus sign on her pregnancy test: failure. The pregnancy was one thing; it was fixable, temporary. She definitely did not count on her father throwing her out nor did she predict loving the small life inside of her. Her father was a horrible human being, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t aspire to make him proud. They were the reason she dated Finn. They were the reason she joined the cheerleading team. They were behind her obsession with acceptance and popularity in high school. Her goals in life were molded into the perfect social hierarchy, just like her parents’ lives.
Still, the nightmares never ceased. Each one was exactly the same. She would stare at herself in a mirror. Her reflection glared back at her with tired eyes but otherwise the same. Then, suddenly, the woman’s stomach began to grow larger and larger until it almost jumped out of the mirror. The eyes turned to a dark black as the face wrinkled and distorted rapidly. Quinn felt herself scream in horror of the reflection and slam her fist into the glass, causing shards of glass to fall to the floor with a deafening clatter. Her hands bleeding, Quinn slowly, breathing heavily, gazed up at the broken mirror. There, in the one remaining shard intact was the one thing she feared most of all: nothing. The woman was gone and all that remained was an empty reflection. Every time she’d wake up screaming or crying or both and in Rachel’s strong arms.
She sighed as she rolled over onto her side to gaze at the one person who eased all of the pain. The woman that lay beside her had her hand underneath her smooth cheek and her hair splayed clumsily over her serene face. Her eyes trailed over her petite frame, drinking her long bare legs, loose pajama shorts, slightly exposed stomach chiseled from her vigorous workouts, and landed on her eyes. They fluttered occasionally, the long eye lashes dressing them flawlessly though the only flaw she could spot now were the dark circles residing beneath the normally bright brown eyes. Staring at Rachel made Quinn forget about her parents for a moment. She knew the brunette was concerned; Rachel was terrible at concealing her emotions around Quinn and it was obvious that she hadn’t slept well in weeks either. The blonde always noticed the anxious brown eyes that watched her every move; she was always ready to pick up the pieces should she fall apart again.
But Quinn was sick of falling apart. She was sick and tired of feeling like she was worthless, a disappointment, and a failure. And yet, she felt all of these things as she lay in Rachel’s bed. Her father had warped her mind, convincing her that loving a woman was sinful and that she was perhaps the biggest disappointment in the town of Lima, Ohio.
“Quinn?” a groggy voice asked suddenly, interrupting the blonde’s thoughts.
Her eyes met Rachel’s tired and worried eyes slowly, time seeming to be nonexistent, and she offered a weak smile.
“Hey,” she whispered back, their hands reaching out to touch.
Rachel didn’t buy the fake grin for a second; in fact, she knew it was coming before she alerted Quinn that she was awake.
“Are you okay?”
Quinn sighed as her index finger grazed over the back of Rachel’s outstretched hand.
“No.”
Usually the blonde either answered with a weak mumble equivalent to a yes or she simply remained silent and let her eyes answer the question for her. Her mind had shut down since the morning she woke up with a tear-stained face in the backseat of Rachel’s car a week ago. Each and everyday without fail Rachel asked Quinn how she was doing, if she was alright, and received the same ambiguous answer. Today, she decided that the usual response wouldn’t do. She propped herself up onto her elbow, pulling away her hand in the process, and leaned her face into her palm.
“Are you going to tell me why?” she asked softly, neither angry nor frustrated.
Rachel was lost. Normally incredibly aware of Quinn’s emotions, the woman did not know how to convince Quinn that she was not a failure, that her father was wrong, and that she was allowed to and could be happy. The blonde wouldn’t leave the house, hadn’t left the house for a week, and spent hours curled underneath the covers occasionally coming out for the rare meal. Rachel tried hard to understand why Quinn was pushing her away, why she was refusing her arms, why she was refusing her help. Those once hazel eyes were dulled by depression and the once porcelain skin now paled like a cold winter. It had made the brunette’s stomach churn with anxiety, made her nights sleepless. Sure, it had only been one week since she had come out to her parents, but the change in Quinn’s behavior was drastic enough to cause Rachel’s anxiety.
“No,” she mumbled once again as she buried her head into the linen sheets.
Suddenly exasperated, Rachel ripped the blankets off of the blonde with a blunt swoosh.
“That’s it!”
The change in her tone was enough to grab Quinn’s attention.
“Why won’t you let me in? Why won’t you let me help you, Quinn? Can’t you see this is killing me to see you so upset?”
“I don’t want your help.”
It stung, being rejected by the one she loved. It was this moment that Rachel felt truly helpless. Nothing she could say would change Quinn’s mind and it was killing her to be so powerless.
“You’re upset with me? I am sorry that your father refuses to accept you but how is that my fault?”
Quinn’s eyes widened.
“How is this your fault? If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened!”
Rachel laughed hollowly.
“Yes, Quinn. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be miserable, living with a man you never loved and alone while you’re parents abused you day in and day out. Forgive me, Quinn! I am so sorry!”
The words rolled off of her tongue with an air of malice. Pain pierced her eyes but a glaze of indifference quickly concealed the hurt.
“Because of you my father hates me,” she uttered in a volume barely above a whisper.
But Rachel heard it loud and clear, and the tears she had been so desperately trying to hide fell silently down her cheeks.
“Because of me, your father finally can see who you are. He may not accept you but now he isn’t blinded by his delusions. Because of me you’re done pretending to love Sa-,”
“Don’t,” Quinn growled.
Rachel stood up and furiously wiped her tears as she had done so many times before when she and the blonde had fought. It brought her back to high school, how she’d force herself to stand tall, head held high, and take the high road instead of sinking to Quinn’s ignorance and torment.
“I am not going to sit here while you insult me and protect your homophobic father, Quinn. I love you and I don’t care about your father, or my fathers, or what anyone else thinks. But if you can’t love me because of how one person, the person who has beaten and abused you for over twenty years, thinks of you, then I can’t be with you.”
With that, the brunette stormed out of the room and down the stairs, cursing the tears that refused to cease falling and that son of a bitch Russell Fabray.
***
Quinn sat stoically on Rachel’s soft couch. It felt worn, but not in the bad
“we should replace this piece of junk,” way; she could feel just by sitting on the piece of furniture that it had been loved and used and that countless Berry Family Game nights had taken place on it and that Broadway Movie-Made Musical nights had been endured by the weathered material. It was so unlike her old furniture, the antique and delicate couches her mother spent hours picking out with no intention of actually sitting on. They were for display, proof that the Fabray’s were a wealthy family, a respectable family and that they could afford an ornate couch so unlike the one she sat on now.
The television was off. She stared off past the inanimate object, her mind far from the living room of the Berry’s.
“She’s upset,” a deep voice stated as Quinn felt herself sink into the cushion as Leroy Berry accompanied her on the couch.
“I know,” she sighed, her voice laced with guilt.
“You know, my daughter is much more fragile than she looks. I know she may be a fireball on the outside but after being hurt and let down so many times in her life, it’s hard for her to truly be herself anymore. To be honest, I miss the girl who could call someone out on anything and not care about the consequences. Now she’s such a good actress that I can hardly tell when I’m seeing the real Rachel, you know?”
Quinn didn’t know. Sure, she knew and imagined the repercussions of her torment and torture; but she never thought that it would damage Rachel nearly as much as it apparently had. Of course she noticed on the first day they met again since high school that her eyes lacked the luster she remembered unusually well, but she never thought she had anything to do with it. A searing pain pierced her heart as the remorse just kept piling up inside of her.
“She loves you,” he said quietly, “She wants to make you happy again.”
“Again?” she asked sardonically, “When was that?”
Leroy understood Quinn’s anger. His parents and Quinn’s father and practically the entire population of Lima, Ohio shunned him and tried so hard to make him believe that he was a freak and a loser, an ugly gay loser freak. He understood the pain of the disappointment, how it hurt worse than a knife to the heart to see your parents reject you, refuse care and love all because you love someone. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Can I tell you something?” he asked calmly.
Quinn nodded as she felt the stress slowly dissipate with the simple touch of his hand.
“When I was sixteen, I was a running back on the football team. Michael’s world never seemed to meet up with mine. I was a jock. He was a genius or as my fellow teammates called him a nerd. It really is a miracle that I was terrible at math because junior year I was in desperate need of a calculus tutor. I assume you know who I was assigned to. God bless that man. We spent three months drilling formula after formula, problem after problem, until finally my grades were almost as good as his. It wasn’t until the end of the first month that I realized that I was falling for him. And it scared the shit out of me. Imagine what the guys on the team would say if they found out that I loved Michael Berry? But one late night we were up studying at my house. It was a Saturday night, my parents were out and it was raining. He told me how much he loved the rain. I remember he said he loved it because it sang music only a true listener could hear. And we sat on the floor and listened to the rain patter against the window until suddenly we moved closer and closer together. And then we kissed. And it was incredible.
“I knew from then on things weren’t going to be easy so we decided for both of our safety to date secretly. It was going great until Russell Fabray caught me kissing him in the boys’ bathroom. Before I knew it, the entire school knew that Michael and I were an item, that I was gay. The team spray painted fag on my locker and broke Michael’s glasses. At the end of the day, Russell kicked me off of the team and brought me and Michael into the parking lot. For three hours he forced Michael to watch as they beat me up. When it was finally over, Michael brought me home; finally I thought I’d be safe. But Russell had told our parents and before I could even clean off my bloody nose I was homeless, parentless, and miserable. My mother cried; my father yelled, called me things I will never repeat and threw me out.”
Quinn’s breath caught in her throat, horrified by the actions of her father; he truly was a monster.
“Have you…” she began but couldn’t find the voice to finish the question.
“I haven’t seen them since that night. They moved out of town by the end of the week. I guess they couldn’t stand living in the same town as their gay son.”
Quinn’s heart wrenched as she sympathized with sixteen year old Leroy; but then her eyes lifted as she made a vital realization.
“But you’re still with him?” she asked incredulously.
A proud smile pervaded his lips.
“Yes, Quinn. Forty-three years later and I am still with him.”
“How?”
He smiled at her innocence, at her disbelief. Sometimes he still could not comprehend how he and Michel had managed to make it out alive and still in love.
“Well, after my parents threw me out, I was severely depressed. Michael’s parents took me in and he took care of me for a long time. For a while I hated him. He was the reason I had lost everything. I wasn’t popular anymore. Everyone hated me. My parents hated me. I hated me. So I refused to let him in for all of those weeks he took care of me. But even though I treated him so poorly and so unfairly, he never left. He just stayed with me and held me when I slept, and calmed me down after the nightmares, and held onto me until I was okay again. And that’s when I knew.”
Quinn was hanging on his every word.
“Knew what?” she breathed as she shed a few tears.
“That’s when I knew that I loved him. You see, Quinn, you and I are more alike than you’d think. I lost my sight after my parents kicked me out, after I lost everything. I was so hung up over my father’s words, your father’s words, and the hatred I was receiving from my peers, that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. I realized that as bad as my situation was I had Michael. And he was worth it. He is worth every minute of pain I have ever gone through because I am gay.”
Quinn sighed and gently wiped her eyes.
“How are you so okay with it? I mean Rachel never even had to think twice about it. She-,”
“That is where you are wrong. You terrify her. This terrifies her. When she told us about how she felt for you, how she feels for you, she was a wreck. I’ve never seen her so upset before. She is terrified that you will hurt her again.”
The blonde winced recalling every insult she ever threw at Rachel.
“But she’s still here, remember? Even though you have treated her terribly, she hasn’t given up on you. She is still here taking care of you and trying to make you happy. Don’t be blind, Quinn. Don’t be blinded by your father’s hatred. She’s still here.”
And then it clicked. She nodded furiously as her bottom lip quivered; before she could fall apart, two strong arms enveloped her in a tight hug, pulling her into his warm chest. It was the safest she had ever felt in a man’s arms. She felt such an overwhelming sense of security that she was content to stay pressed up against his soft knitted sweater forever; but eventually, she emerged with a soft smile and a new conviction.
“Thank you,” she choked out as his soft thumb wiped away her tears.
He kissed her cheek.
“Take care of her.”
Quinn nodded once more before running back up the stairs stepping two steps at a time. She burst into the brunette’s room to find Rachel in the middle of her bed with a wooden box opened at the base of her crossed legs. Her eyes trailed up the bed and noted the dried rose and worn out piece of paper held in two shaking hands. Tears flowed down flawless tan cheeks. Quinn felt her heart break.
“I was so scared when we went to New York,” she began shakily, the brunette’s head snapping up at the sound of Quinn’s voice.
“You see, I had this grand master plan that I was determined to see through. I was a bitch in high school. I was the meanest girl in school. And I tormented this one girl who, though I never admitted it, was the most beautiful girl in that hellhole. She was smart and talented and ambitious and yet I tore her apart to the point where she believed that she wasn’t any of those things. But senior year, after I had moved back in with my parents, something changed. I allowed myself to see her, I mean really see her. I found myself staring at her whenever I could. I found myself getting goose bumps whenever she sang in Glee Club. Countless times I wanted to approach her and apologize and beg for forgiveness and ask to be her friend. But I was a coward. And I still am. I was terrified of her rejecting me. I was afraid that she truly hated me. And she had every right to hate me. She still does.
“So I flew under the radar for most of the year until Nationals finally came around. Graduation was coming faster and faster and I was running out of time. After I had gotten my acceptance letter, I had noticed that something changed with the girl. Her eyes sparkled less. I noticed, when no one else did, that she never smiled the same; it never reached her eyes. That’s when I knew it was my fault. I was responsible for her misery. So I decided to make up for it in some way or another. We went to New York and the second we landed I ran to the nearest florist. I bought her favorite flowers, roses with baby’s breath, and hid them in my bag. The night of out performance I saw how nervous she looked. We all knew she’d be incredible but for some reason she didn’t believe it. I snuck into my room and grabbed the bouquet and an empty white card -,” she took the card gently out of Rachel’s unsteady hands, “I wrote everything I ever wanted to tell her on that card. I wanted her to know the truth. So I placed it on her dresser and ran out. I was a coward. I didn’t have the guts to say those things to her face then. But it’s different now. I thought that I hated her because of what my father told me; but let’s face it. It is impossible to hate her. I spent four years trying so hard to hate her but I ended up falling for her, the one person I was forbidden to like. And then I saw her, years after that night, and I couldn’t believe it. She was-is still the same beautiful, talented, woman I fell for my senior year in high school.”
Rachel’s eyes were wide as clear tears streamed down her cheeks. All of this time the person who wrote the note she read everyday when she woke up and every night she read before she fell asleep was the same person she had once believed hated her with every fiber of her being. The note reminded her of someone who once believed in her. It was all she had had to keep her going before she met Quinn.
“It was you,” she breathed in shock.
The blonde shook her head and dropped the note and the rose onto the bed to take Rachel’s soft hands.
“It was me,” she whispered with a small smile.
“But your father and -,”
“Rachel,” Quinn said soothingly, “remember what you told me.”
The confused brunette thought for a moment before her puzzled expression transformed into a full fledged Rachel Berry beam. She lifted herself up onto her toes and quickly, desperately, took Quinn’s lip with hers. They fused together and immediately their eyes snapped shut. Quinn’s heart was pounding loudly in her ears as she felt the blood rush to her head. A tongue grazed over her bottom lip causing a rush of electricity to ripple through her body, a ripple of life that could sustain her forever.