How You Came to Leave (Part VIII)
Part I: An' Another Thing Part II: Last to Know
Part III: Wicked Game
Part IV: Talking to the Moon
Part V: Look What You've Done
Part VI: Knife Going In
Part VII: I'm Not Calling You a Liar
Part VIII: Told You So
I gather thoughts of you, and that’s what lovers do (The Guggenheim Grotto- Told You So)
“You told me the affair was over.”
Heather’s voice is cold, distant. Her entire body language is tense as she avoids looking at you, instead choosing to observe the view from her office. She has her back to you and just once you wish she’d look at you. You know what you’ll see if she does -anger, disappointment, frustration, maybe even also a little trace of pity- but it will be enough to convince you she is, at the very least, on your side. Right now, sitting at her desk, you are sure of anything but that.
“It is,” you say quietly. “The affair has been over for four years now. It’s over. It’s been over for a while.”
It’s breaking you, having to speak those words out loud, and you wonder if maybe that isn’t a deliberate play on Heather’s part. It doesn’t matter how many times you have had to convince yourself that Rachel meant nothing to you, now you have to convince others that the affair is over, that it meant nothing to begin with. You hadn’t imagined it would hurt this much.
Heather slams the manuscript down in front you, randomly flicking through the pages.
“Your entire relationship is here for the world to see,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “Do you get that? Everything that ever happened between you two is written on these pages. From the first kiss to what happened when you walked out on that pain in the ass club, it is all here. Every single memory you two share is in this manuscript. Your every thought, your every action, exposed for everyone to see.”
She shakes her head, moving away from you to look back out the window.
“I didn’t know,” you defend yourself. “I didn’t know she was going to write a Broadway musical about our relationship. No one could have anticipated that. She was supposed to make it on Broadway, you said so yourself. You’re the one who assured me she would make it big.”
“Don’t,” she snarls. “Don’t you dare turn this around on me. And don’t make this about her career aspirations either. Right now this is about you, and I mean that in every sense of the term.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” you argue. “This really wasn’t my fault. Heather, please don’t be angry with me, I really didn’t know…”
“You lied to me,” Heather snaps at you. “I asked you if the affair was over and you said yes. You told me you ended it.”
“I did!” You blink back tears of frustration. “Why won’t you just believe me?!”
Heather grabs the manuscript and waves it in front of your face, and now that you can see her eyes you just want to look away. Because you don’t see anger or frustration or even disappointment, and there is no trace at all of pity in her eyes.
In fact, there is no emotion at all reflected in her eyes.
“She didn’t even attempt the hide the fact it’s about you, you know,” Heather says, her tone suddenly void of emotion. “It’s blatantly clear to anyone who reads it, and it will be clear to everyone who goes to see the damn thing. It’s about you. It’s about her memories of you. And that’s what I have a problem with, Quinn. You don’t write a musical about someone you want to forget.”
“People don’t write musicals about someone who ended their affair,” she breathes out. “That’s why I don’t believe you. That’s why I don’t believe you when you say the affair is over. She wrote a musical about you, do you get that?”
You’ve come to realize writers are lying to you. There are no choirs of angels, no rays of light. Time doesn’t even stop. The world doesn’t fade away leaving you with just your heightened sense. None of that occurs. Writers, poets, artists, they’ve all been lying to you. The most epic romance novels are filled with eloquent words just put together.
Because the day you realize you’ve fallen for Rachel Berry, nothing was out of the ordinary. The weather wasn’t any different. Practice wasn’t any harder or easier, even though you knew as soon as you showered you’ll be meeting up with Rachel in the library. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Tuesday afternoon.
Nothing had changed. Except something had. You just hadn’t realized it yet.
You walk into the library, searching for Rachel. You have an idea where she’ll be -she likes the far-left corner of the room, close to the window. “You can see the courtyard, Quinn,” she had whispered one afternoon. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Personally, you don’t see the attraction of a courtyard, but, to each his own.
Eventually you spot her. She is leaning over some book -History? Math? You can’t remember and that bothers you. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet. But you have. You suddenly are aware of every detail.
You are aware of how the rays filtering through the window has captured her hair at just the right light, creating the illusion of rust bronzed by fire. With each movement Rachel makes, it captures a different streak, and all you can think of is running your hands through her hair and how you’ve never been more tempted on playing with fire.
You are aware of the rhythm she is keeping with the pen - write, write, tap. You hang back for a little bit, content with just watching the scene play out in front of you. You wonder what she’s writing, wonder what words she is bringing to life, wonder what art she is breathing onto the page in front of her. You’ve come to accept that Rachel is in her own way a form of art- everything she touches suddenly becomes better.
Midas, you think to yourself. The perfect Midas, sitting right in front of you.
And now, you realize what Rachel is so drawn to the window. You wonder if she knows the beauty is not in the courtyard outside but rather in how it plays into her hands. She’s the one bringing the courtyard to life, you think to yourself, not the other way around.
Something must have alerted her to your presence because she suddenly looks up and catches you staring at her.
“Quinn!” She exclaims happily. “I didn’t see you there. Come study with me! This calculus homework is really starting to confuse me…”
“It’s like music,” you blurt out without thinking. Rachel raises an eyebrow, confused at your explanation. “Calculus. It’s not that different from reading music. Once you learn how to read the music notes, music makes more sense, you know? Well calculus isn’t that different. Once you learn how to read the formula, the rest just flows with it…”
Rachel doesn’t answer you, but you can tell from her smile and the way her eyes suddenly light up that your explanation made sense. And suddenly you realize you’ve never been more acutely aware of your senses. You can hear the faintest hum of another student’s iPod, but it’s not loud enough for you to distinguish the song. You can smell Rachel’s coffee, can almost taste it on your tongue. You take a quick breath, trying to calm your racing heart, and Rachel must sense your sudden unease because she reaches out and touches your hand only to go back to work.
Your heart continues to pound furiously as your mind struggles to comprehend what is happening to you, sitting next to this girl quietly working on calculus. No one is paying attention to you, and for that you are grateful.
You are not sure you could define it, if asked.
For the first time since you moved to Los Angeles, you go to church. You went occasionally when you were at Berkeley because it allowed you to think; you are going tonight to find a peace of mind, to seek refuge from the thoughts invading your mind. You don’t want to think. You want to forget. You want to forget Heather’s accusations -it’s over it’s over I swear it’s over apparently wasn’t convincing enough- you want to forget that she didn’t even try to believe you, and you want to forget there is an 85-paged manuscript sitting on the passenger seat of your car detailing your every confession.
Religion at its very best, or is it at its very worst? Because the trouble with religious inception is for every thought you try to forget, a new thought or concept replaces it. You want to forget, but what do you want to forget, exactly? Which thoughts or memories do you want to banish completely? Would you ever get it back? Would it change you at all? Forever?
What would happen to you, if you could suddenly control your memories?
If this guilt hadn’t consumed you the way it had over the past four years, would you be the same person? Would you still have wanted to be the best? Would you have pushed yourself as hard as you did, to the point where you almost stopped caring about your health if it meant getting ahead?
Would being the best have been enough, if you had stayed with Rachel?
You don’t know how to answer that because so much of your competitiveness came from being on the Cheerios, Rachel’s kryptonite. It was the prestige of being on a nationally-ranked team that pushed you, because when you are amongst the élites, there is little cause to believe you won’t always be a part of the club. Sue had engrained that into the Cheerios from the time preseason starts- you are amongst the best cheerleaders in the country. Use that power to your own advantage. Forget who you were, forget even who you are. All that matters, in the here and now, is who you will be: the best.
And for about 18 months you were the best. You cruised through freshman year, quietly building your alliances and making sure the right people were noticing you. Come sophomore year, you had taken control of the Cheerios, you had your perfect general in Santana, and you were dating Finn Hudson. You were the best, and Sue was still teaching you how to want even more.
Then one day Will came along with his hopes and dreams and it all fell apart. Your control, your poise, your competitiveness was slipping away from you. Then you got pregnant and Sue took the Cheerios away from you and everything that you had that defined you as the best was gone. You had to redefine yourself. Make yourself better. Prove to Sue and to the Cheerios that they needed you back as much as you needed to be with them.
You had to rebuild your empire, and for the most part you were successful. But you hadn’t anticipated Rachel and her quiet brown eyes, and her soft voice implying that maybe being the best wasn’t what defined you. That maybe there could be something greater than being on a nationally-ranked team.
“You could love Glee,” she had whispered to you, her lips lingering above your ear. “Maybe Glee could make you better. Would that be so hard to imagine?”
Even in the darkness of your own personal torment, Rachel’s voice sends a shiver down your spine, and it’s so easy to pretend she is actually right beside you. You grit your teeth, frantically trying to keep the memories, your senses at bay. You know if you lose control for even a second, you will be able to smell her perfume. You can almost feel Rachel’s hand brush over yours, and you stare at the cross, silently repenting for a sin you don’t know quite how to define.
One thing you are certain of: what you are feeling is wrong.
It is wrong to miss someone this much. You feel as though there is a part of you that has been ripped out of you, and the worst part is the pain is not physical. It is emotional, psychological. It feel as if there is a part of you missing, and whilst you are aware of it, you don’t know which part of you it is that is no longer there. Eventually survival instinct kicks in, and you somehow manage to function.
But even as you make it through the day, you know: there is something missing. You look into the mirror and you look fine, good even. You look healthy despite the fact you can barely sleep at night. You know you are torturing your body to give yourself a peace of mind, and the paradox is not lost on you.
It is a sin because the implication -no, reality- is that there is someone you love more than your God. There is someone you are willingly, consciously, putting above Him, and what does that say about you, what does that say about your faith? What does it say about your religious upbringing, that you are putting a common mortal, a girl, above God? What happened to your faith, that you are now putting it in someone else first?
The worse, though, is that you know Rachel didn’t take your faith in God- you chose, consciously at that, to give it to her. You deliberately chose to believe in her because Rachel represented -and still does, to a certain extent, even today- something that your faith has always lacked. It is not forgiveness, because your church still took you back even after the whole Beth fiasco was done and forgotten (or is it forgiven?).
Because Rachel is pure. Rachel is good. She is good in that I-want-to-be-better-when-she’s-around kind of way. It’s subconscious when you’re around her. Most times you weren’t even aware of how you were changing because all you knew is that you wanted to change. You wanted to be better because there was this girl looking at you with brown eyes and a shy smile and for reasons to this day you still can’t quite explain, her approval mattered to you.
Rachel made you want to be better. Rachel made you feel it was acceptable to be human when before, with the Cheerios, you viewed yourself as a God.
You have heard of phantom limbs before but you wonder if there is such a thing as a phantom memory, wonder maybe if that is what is really haunting you. Because while you can remember every detail perfectly, can replay the images and conversations so clearly in your head, you also rationalize to yourself not all of your recollections can be real. The details shouldn’t always be that clear, surely, surely if they were accurate, the senses and descriptions would fade over time.
Instead, though, you remember everything. Every detail, every sense, every conversation. Are those memories even yours anymore? Has someone taken control of your mind, implemented it with thoughts that weren’t theirs to take and aren’t yours to keep? What would happen to you, though, if those memories were suddenly taken away from you? How would you react if you woke up one morning and you couldn’t recall the angle of the light as Rachel played with particles of dust in the air? Would a late night confession just become an assembly of words put together with no real rhyme or reason?
Maybe, just maybe, that’s why you’re holding on so desperately to those moments. Because even though they may or may not be yours, they are also all you have left. What you are feeling is wrong because it may not be real, but you cannot bring yourself to separate the two. Closing your eyes, you reach out and touch the seat next to you, and for a moment, you can feel Rachel’s hand grazing yours, taking you back a quiet moment in Glee when she promised the world could wait for another minute.
“This could be real,” a memory whispers to your mind, and you swear you can almost feel the heat of Rachel’s breath on your throat. But when you open your eyes, there is no one next to you. No one is there to confront your sins. It is just you and your memories.
Phantom limb, you think to yourself. The act of feeling a limb that is no longer there.
You sink to your knees in front of the cross at the front of the altar. Without even fully realizing it, your right hand is above your heart. You don’t know if you are consciously trying to keep your heart in your chest or if you are doing something else entirely. In your head, Sue’s most revealing question is resonating at the brink of your subconscious.
“Is there a soul in there?” A voice asks you from the darkness of your mind. “After all this time?”
It was Sue who taught you not to beg. She originally claimed it was because you were now on the Cheerios, you were supposed to be above begging. Months later, you would come to understand what Sue had been trying to teach you- if you really want something, go for it. Don’t let anything get in the way of what you are trying to accomplish.
Sometimes, you feel Sue was the best teacher you could ever have asked for.
Not today, though. Not when you are sitting in her office, the trophies surrounding you. You have never felt claustrophobic until right now. It’s irrational, and you should really know better, but the trophies seem to have gotten bigger. You wonder if Sue had one of the freshman polish them before you came in.
Truth be told, you really wouldn’t put it past her.
“It’s not fair,” you say quietly, talking almost to the trophies than you are to Sue. “What you are asking me to do isn’t fair. It’s not fair on me, it’s not fair on the team, it’s not fair on anybody. It’s just not fair.”
“This has never been about fairness, Quinn,” Sue says, bringing your attention to her. “Surely you know that.”
“It’s about winning,” you say without the slightest hint of emotion. “It’s about being the best.”
“Indeed it is.” Sue smiles briefly, more for her benefit than for yours. You wonder if Sue has been practicing human emotions and then snort. The thought is completely ridiculous. Sue views emotions as a form of mortal weakness.
“She doesn’t bring out the best in you.” Sue interrupts your inner monologue. You jerk back, confused. Sue nods to herself, and you wonder what memories she is replaying in her head, what visions she is having of you. “I know you think the contrary right now but she doesn’t bring out the best in you.”
“She makes me want to be better,” you argue, a muscle clenching in your jaw. You are so tired from having to defend yourself, defend your relationship against actions you haven’t even committed yet. “That counts for something.”
“But there is a difference,” Sue counters, “between being the best and wanting to be better. Anyone can want to be better, but not everyone can be the best. Surely even you can understand a concept that simple.”
“Stop it,” you plead. You desperately want to feel something, anything, because right now you are feeling nothing. “Just stop, please. Stop putting all these thoughts in my head. Stop.”
“I’m just pointing out the truth,” Sue says, perhaps a little surprised at your attitude.
“No!” You snap, the anger suddenly present. “No! You are not pointing out the truth! You are putting these… these thoughts in my head, and I… Stop, please. Stop. You’re my coach, you know I’ll listen to you! You know how much I still want to impress you. You know that! So stop telling me to end my relationship because you know me well enough to know I will do it for you even though that will kill me!”
For the longest time Sue doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. You both know the implications of what you are saying - you will end the relationship if Sue really wants you to, even though it will kill you to do it.
“So you do have a soul in there, after all,” she muses, sounding almost intrigued. “Who would have thought?”
“What do you want from me,” you whisper to the cross. “What do you want from me? Is this punishment? Do you want me to repent?”
Silence. Complete and total silence.
You’re not sure why you were expecting an answer; after all, you are alone in the church at almost 3 a.m. The tranquility you were seeking when you came in has eluded you, and the memories continue to swirl in front of your eyes. You just want them to stop, and you’ll do just about anything, even if it means confessing to something you haven’t done.
It’s at that moment it comes to you. How to get your peace of mind, how to escape from the memories. You want to believe it’s a sign from God but maybe it’s more for the first time in a long time you can just think clearly, and that’s enough for now. Enough for you. A phone call, you think to yourself, one phone call and it will be ok again.
Yet your newfound confidence vanishes by the time you get to the beach. You’re not sure why you chose this location out of all of Los Angeles; anywhere really would have been sufficient. And you’ve never really felt anything in particular for beaches until you were in the church - beaches, sun, surf, that has always been Kelsey’s thing, not yours. You have no affiliation to it but there is also some comfort in the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore. You take a moment to watch the waves, the way the moon is reflecting on the water.
In this moment, you suddenly understand why people have fallen in love with nature the way they have. In this moment, it is all you have.
You dial a number you haven’t forgotten no matter how hard you’ve tried, but it takes you a while before you can press the call button. You’ve lost your confidence, and all of the doubts and insecurities and guilt from the past four years are swirling around inside of you, to the point that you can’t quite decipher one from the other.
You understand, now, what it feels like to be human. It’s scary, this humanity, this soul of yours, because a part of you believes it doesn’t really belong to you at all. That maybe you are living someone else’s life entirely inside your dream, and you wonder, briefly, what will happen when that person wakes up.
You glance at your phone as if it holds the answers to your late-night philosophical musings, but instead of guidance, a series of 10 digits glare back at you. You have never felt more alone, more afraid, than you do when you press the call button.
It rings once, twice, three times. You’ve almost given up - some quick math in your head means it is a little after 6 a.m. so really she should be up by now- four rings, five rings, six rings.
“Hello,” Rachel says sleepily. You freeze, suddenly unable to form words. “Hello? Who is this?”
You want to speak. You want to yell at her, you want to demand answers, you want to ask how on Earth she could do this to you after everything that happened. You want to know why she wrote the manuscript to begin with, or even why she didn’t tell you about it when you were back in Lima. You want to snarl and ask if Finn knows what is written inside the pages, if he’s read those confessions, if he had the same reactions Heather did when she read it.
Did Finn accuse you of not being over me, you want to ask, the same way Heather accused me of not being over you? Did he read my words and say there’s no way you’re really over our relationship the way you wanted me to believe? Does the affair bother him when it’s written out like that? Does he even know it’s about me, or did you tell him it was about him, and he believed that? Does he know you whispered those words to me first?
Stop lying to me, you beg silently, please stop lying to me, stop playing all these games with me, I thought that ended all those years ago. I’m listening to you, I swear, I’m listening to you now so please just tell me why you are forcing me to relive every confession I ever said to you. I am haunted by you enough as it is.
Why didn’t you ever love me? Why wasn’t I ever enough for you?
You have so many questions, need so many answers, and yet… And yet you cannot speak a word. You just sit there, frozen, as the thoughts continue to run your head, and you want to, really, you want to find the words but you just can’t. You can’t find the words to express everything you are feeling because maybe there aren’t words for it. Maybe there are some things that aren’t supposed to be expressed. Maybe your affair with Rachel is one of those things.
On the other end of the line, Rachel stays completely silent. You wonder what she’s thinking, wonder if there is a part of her that knows you are the caller, wonder what that means if she does.
Does she know, on some level, what are you trying to say? Is she struggling to find the right words even though you both know they don’t exist for you? Is she trying to come up with a justification, answers, an explanation? What is running through her mind, and will she let you in? Will you be privy to her thoughts?
“I love you,” she whispers quietly into the phone, and in that moment you understand she knows you are the one calling her. “I’ve always loved you. I just thought you should know.”
You hang up before she can say anything else.
Rachel is asleep the first time you say it.
It’s early in the morning. Your house is quiet, peaceful. The only noise you can hear is the sound of Rachel’s breathing, you can feel the small puffs of air against your collarbone. You turn your head a fraction of an inch and your lips graze the top of her head. It’s not enough to wake her - Rachel, you’ve come to discover, is an extraordinary deep sleeper- but she still shifts closer to you and you end up with a mouthful of hair.
You shift again, trying to pull Rachel closer to you, and she ends up sprawled across your upper body. It’s a stupid notion, and you should really know better, but there’s a part of you that believes if you close your eyes, your heart will start beating in sync with hers. You wonder when you started wanting these sort of things, when you started feeling like Rachel was actually a part of you. That you wanted her under your skin, wanted to feel her in your bones.
You wonder if maybe it’s been Rachel all along, or if she just appeared in your heart one day, completely out of the blue.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” you whisper quietly, making sure not to wake her up. “I just thought you’d like to know.”
The memory ends and you’re sitting in your car, and it’s only now you have the courage to read the manuscript sitting on the seat next to you. Heather had given it to you yesterday after the confrontation in her office, snidely commenting you will understand the implications of your confessions coming to life once you actually read it.
The truth is, you don’t know. You don’t know what to expect and that, above all else, is what scares you. You don’t know what game Rachel is playing at, you don’t know if she remembers everything the same way you do, you don’t know if you’re meant to be some tragic hero or a common mortal or a mixture of both. You don’t know what to expect in the closing act.
What words, you wonder, what words did Rachel find to justify your relationship with her? How did she console herself? What was her reasoning? Was she truthful, or were certain facts left out for creative purposes? Will you find memories that aren’t your own? Words you had never uttered?
Your hand glides over the title, tracing the letters with your fingertips. It is almost a lover’s caress, you think to yourself.
How You Came to Leave stares back at you, impassive.
Not stealing if you acknowledge it (aka Disclaimers):
- Glee doesn't belong to me
- The title of the chapter is "Told You So" by Guggenheim Grotto
- special shout-out to kreia03, who was patient enough to edit and play along with plot/character development
- also special shout-out to letterstomaddie, whose line about "Who you are is fleeting, a shifting identity influenced by external factors, a compilation of facts and experiences. What you are is permanent and untouchable, the kind of thing I think religion references as soul" influenced a large part of this chapter
- the phone call between Rachel and Quinn is inspired by the scene between Ryan and Marissa in The O.C. (episode 2x01)
- phantom limb is pretty self-explanatory, but basically it's a medical term for when amputees claim they can still feel a part of their body even though it's no longer there.
- Quinn's musings about living a memory that doesn't belong to you is loosely based on the film Inception, which if you haven't already seen, you really should
Part IX: I Gave You All
Part X: I Adore You
Part XI: Love Is No Big Truth
Part XII: Escape
Part XIII: No Longer What You Require
Part XIV: This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday
Part XV: Our Love
Part III: Wicked Game
Part IV: Talking to the Moon
Part V: Look What You've Done
Part VI: Knife Going In
Part VII: I'm Not Calling You a Liar
Part VIII: Told You So
I gather thoughts of you, and that’s what lovers do (The Guggenheim Grotto- Told You So)
“You told me the affair was over.”
Heather’s voice is cold, distant. Her entire body language is tense as she avoids looking at you, instead choosing to observe the view from her office. She has her back to you and just once you wish she’d look at you. You know what you’ll see if she does -anger, disappointment, frustration, maybe even also a little trace of pity- but it will be enough to convince you she is, at the very least, on your side. Right now, sitting at her desk, you are sure of anything but that.
“It is,” you say quietly. “The affair has been over for four years now. It’s over. It’s been over for a while.”
It’s breaking you, having to speak those words out loud, and you wonder if maybe that isn’t a deliberate play on Heather’s part. It doesn’t matter how many times you have had to convince yourself that Rachel meant nothing to you, now you have to convince others that the affair is over, that it meant nothing to begin with. You hadn’t imagined it would hurt this much.
Heather slams the manuscript down in front you, randomly flicking through the pages.
“Your entire relationship is here for the world to see,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “Do you get that? Everything that ever happened between you two is written on these pages. From the first kiss to what happened when you walked out on that pain in the ass club, it is all here. Every single memory you two share is in this manuscript. Your every thought, your every action, exposed for everyone to see.”
She shakes her head, moving away from you to look back out the window.
“I didn’t know,” you defend yourself. “I didn’t know she was going to write a Broadway musical about our relationship. No one could have anticipated that. She was supposed to make it on Broadway, you said so yourself. You’re the one who assured me she would make it big.”
“Don’t,” she snarls. “Don’t you dare turn this around on me. And don’t make this about her career aspirations either. Right now this is about you, and I mean that in every sense of the term.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” you argue. “This really wasn’t my fault. Heather, please don’t be angry with me, I really didn’t know…”
“You lied to me,” Heather snaps at you. “I asked you if the affair was over and you said yes. You told me you ended it.”
“I did!” You blink back tears of frustration. “Why won’t you just believe me?!”
Heather grabs the manuscript and waves it in front of your face, and now that you can see her eyes you just want to look away. Because you don’t see anger or frustration or even disappointment, and there is no trace at all of pity in her eyes.
In fact, there is no emotion at all reflected in her eyes.
“She didn’t even attempt the hide the fact it’s about you, you know,” Heather says, her tone suddenly void of emotion. “It’s blatantly clear to anyone who reads it, and it will be clear to everyone who goes to see the damn thing. It’s about you. It’s about her memories of you. And that’s what I have a problem with, Quinn. You don’t write a musical about someone you want to forget.”
“People don’t write musicals about someone who ended their affair,” she breathes out. “That’s why I don’t believe you. That’s why I don’t believe you when you say the affair is over. She wrote a musical about you, do you get that?”
You’ve come to realize writers are lying to you. There are no choirs of angels, no rays of light. Time doesn’t even stop. The world doesn’t fade away leaving you with just your heightened sense. None of that occurs. Writers, poets, artists, they’ve all been lying to you. The most epic romance novels are filled with eloquent words just put together.
Because the day you realize you’ve fallen for Rachel Berry, nothing was out of the ordinary. The weather wasn’t any different. Practice wasn’t any harder or easier, even though you knew as soon as you showered you’ll be meeting up with Rachel in the library. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Tuesday afternoon.
Nothing had changed. Except something had. You just hadn’t realized it yet.
You walk into the library, searching for Rachel. You have an idea where she’ll be -she likes the far-left corner of the room, close to the window. “You can see the courtyard, Quinn,” she had whispered one afternoon. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Personally, you don’t see the attraction of a courtyard, but, to each his own.
Eventually you spot her. She is leaning over some book -History? Math? You can’t remember and that bothers you. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet. But you have. You suddenly are aware of every detail.
You are aware of how the rays filtering through the window has captured her hair at just the right light, creating the illusion of rust bronzed by fire. With each movement Rachel makes, it captures a different streak, and all you can think of is running your hands through her hair and how you’ve never been more tempted on playing with fire.
You are aware of the rhythm she is keeping with the pen - write, write, tap. You hang back for a little bit, content with just watching the scene play out in front of you. You wonder what she’s writing, wonder what words she is bringing to life, wonder what art she is breathing onto the page in front of her. You’ve come to accept that Rachel is in her own way a form of art- everything she touches suddenly becomes better.
Midas, you think to yourself. The perfect Midas, sitting right in front of you.
And now, you realize what Rachel is so drawn to the window. You wonder if she knows the beauty is not in the courtyard outside but rather in how it plays into her hands. She’s the one bringing the courtyard to life, you think to yourself, not the other way around.
Something must have alerted her to your presence because she suddenly looks up and catches you staring at her.
“Quinn!” She exclaims happily. “I didn’t see you there. Come study with me! This calculus homework is really starting to confuse me…”
“It’s like music,” you blurt out without thinking. Rachel raises an eyebrow, confused at your explanation. “Calculus. It’s not that different from reading music. Once you learn how to read the music notes, music makes more sense, you know? Well calculus isn’t that different. Once you learn how to read the formula, the rest just flows with it…”
Rachel doesn’t answer you, but you can tell from her smile and the way her eyes suddenly light up that your explanation made sense. And suddenly you realize you’ve never been more acutely aware of your senses. You can hear the faintest hum of another student’s iPod, but it’s not loud enough for you to distinguish the song. You can smell Rachel’s coffee, can almost taste it on your tongue. You take a quick breath, trying to calm your racing heart, and Rachel must sense your sudden unease because she reaches out and touches your hand only to go back to work.
Your heart continues to pound furiously as your mind struggles to comprehend what is happening to you, sitting next to this girl quietly working on calculus. No one is paying attention to you, and for that you are grateful.
You are not sure you could define it, if asked.
For the first time since you moved to Los Angeles, you go to church. You went occasionally when you were at Berkeley because it allowed you to think; you are going tonight to find a peace of mind, to seek refuge from the thoughts invading your mind. You don’t want to think. You want to forget. You want to forget Heather’s accusations -it’s over it’s over I swear it’s over apparently wasn’t convincing enough- you want to forget that she didn’t even try to believe you, and you want to forget there is an 85-paged manuscript sitting on the passenger seat of your car detailing your every confession.
Religion at its very best, or is it at its very worst? Because the trouble with religious inception is for every thought you try to forget, a new thought or concept replaces it. You want to forget, but what do you want to forget, exactly? Which thoughts or memories do you want to banish completely? Would you ever get it back? Would it change you at all? Forever?
What would happen to you, if you could suddenly control your memories?
If this guilt hadn’t consumed you the way it had over the past four years, would you be the same person? Would you still have wanted to be the best? Would you have pushed yourself as hard as you did, to the point where you almost stopped caring about your health if it meant getting ahead?
Would being the best have been enough, if you had stayed with Rachel?
You don’t know how to answer that because so much of your competitiveness came from being on the Cheerios, Rachel’s kryptonite. It was the prestige of being on a nationally-ranked team that pushed you, because when you are amongst the élites, there is little cause to believe you won’t always be a part of the club. Sue had engrained that into the Cheerios from the time preseason starts- you are amongst the best cheerleaders in the country. Use that power to your own advantage. Forget who you were, forget even who you are. All that matters, in the here and now, is who you will be: the best.
And for about 18 months you were the best. You cruised through freshman year, quietly building your alliances and making sure the right people were noticing you. Come sophomore year, you had taken control of the Cheerios, you had your perfect general in Santana, and you were dating Finn Hudson. You were the best, and Sue was still teaching you how to want even more.
Then one day Will came along with his hopes and dreams and it all fell apart. Your control, your poise, your competitiveness was slipping away from you. Then you got pregnant and Sue took the Cheerios away from you and everything that you had that defined you as the best was gone. You had to redefine yourself. Make yourself better. Prove to Sue and to the Cheerios that they needed you back as much as you needed to be with them.
You had to rebuild your empire, and for the most part you were successful. But you hadn’t anticipated Rachel and her quiet brown eyes, and her soft voice implying that maybe being the best wasn’t what defined you. That maybe there could be something greater than being on a nationally-ranked team.
“You could love Glee,” she had whispered to you, her lips lingering above your ear. “Maybe Glee could make you better. Would that be so hard to imagine?”
Even in the darkness of your own personal torment, Rachel’s voice sends a shiver down your spine, and it’s so easy to pretend she is actually right beside you. You grit your teeth, frantically trying to keep the memories, your senses at bay. You know if you lose control for even a second, you will be able to smell her perfume. You can almost feel Rachel’s hand brush over yours, and you stare at the cross, silently repenting for a sin you don’t know quite how to define.
One thing you are certain of: what you are feeling is wrong.
It is wrong to miss someone this much. You feel as though there is a part of you that has been ripped out of you, and the worst part is the pain is not physical. It is emotional, psychological. It feel as if there is a part of you missing, and whilst you are aware of it, you don’t know which part of you it is that is no longer there. Eventually survival instinct kicks in, and you somehow manage to function.
But even as you make it through the day, you know: there is something missing. You look into the mirror and you look fine, good even. You look healthy despite the fact you can barely sleep at night. You know you are torturing your body to give yourself a peace of mind, and the paradox is not lost on you.
It is a sin because the implication -no, reality- is that there is someone you love more than your God. There is someone you are willingly, consciously, putting above Him, and what does that say about you, what does that say about your faith? What does it say about your religious upbringing, that you are putting a common mortal, a girl, above God? What happened to your faith, that you are now putting it in someone else first?
The worse, though, is that you know Rachel didn’t take your faith in God- you chose, consciously at that, to give it to her. You deliberately chose to believe in her because Rachel represented -and still does, to a certain extent, even today- something that your faith has always lacked. It is not forgiveness, because your church still took you back even after the whole Beth fiasco was done and forgotten (or is it forgiven?).
Because Rachel is pure. Rachel is good. She is good in that I-want-to-be-better-when-she’s-around kind of way. It’s subconscious when you’re around her. Most times you weren’t even aware of how you were changing because all you knew is that you wanted to change. You wanted to be better because there was this girl looking at you with brown eyes and a shy smile and for reasons to this day you still can’t quite explain, her approval mattered to you.
Rachel made you want to be better. Rachel made you feel it was acceptable to be human when before, with the Cheerios, you viewed yourself as a God.
You have heard of phantom limbs before but you wonder if there is such a thing as a phantom memory, wonder maybe if that is what is really haunting you. Because while you can remember every detail perfectly, can replay the images and conversations so clearly in your head, you also rationalize to yourself not all of your recollections can be real. The details shouldn’t always be that clear, surely, surely if they were accurate, the senses and descriptions would fade over time.
Instead, though, you remember everything. Every detail, every sense, every conversation. Are those memories even yours anymore? Has someone taken control of your mind, implemented it with thoughts that weren’t theirs to take and aren’t yours to keep? What would happen to you, though, if those memories were suddenly taken away from you? How would you react if you woke up one morning and you couldn’t recall the angle of the light as Rachel played with particles of dust in the air? Would a late night confession just become an assembly of words put together with no real rhyme or reason?
Maybe, just maybe, that’s why you’re holding on so desperately to those moments. Because even though they may or may not be yours, they are also all you have left. What you are feeling is wrong because it may not be real, but you cannot bring yourself to separate the two. Closing your eyes, you reach out and touch the seat next to you, and for a moment, you can feel Rachel’s hand grazing yours, taking you back a quiet moment in Glee when she promised the world could wait for another minute.
“This could be real,” a memory whispers to your mind, and you swear you can almost feel the heat of Rachel’s breath on your throat. But when you open your eyes, there is no one next to you. No one is there to confront your sins. It is just you and your memories.
Phantom limb, you think to yourself. The act of feeling a limb that is no longer there.
You sink to your knees in front of the cross at the front of the altar. Without even fully realizing it, your right hand is above your heart. You don’t know if you are consciously trying to keep your heart in your chest or if you are doing something else entirely. In your head, Sue’s most revealing question is resonating at the brink of your subconscious.
“Is there a soul in there?” A voice asks you from the darkness of your mind. “After all this time?”
It was Sue who taught you not to beg. She originally claimed it was because you were now on the Cheerios, you were supposed to be above begging. Months later, you would come to understand what Sue had been trying to teach you- if you really want something, go for it. Don’t let anything get in the way of what you are trying to accomplish.
Sometimes, you feel Sue was the best teacher you could ever have asked for.
Not today, though. Not when you are sitting in her office, the trophies surrounding you. You have never felt claustrophobic until right now. It’s irrational, and you should really know better, but the trophies seem to have gotten bigger. You wonder if Sue had one of the freshman polish them before you came in.
Truth be told, you really wouldn’t put it past her.
“It’s not fair,” you say quietly, talking almost to the trophies than you are to Sue. “What you are asking me to do isn’t fair. It’s not fair on me, it’s not fair on the team, it’s not fair on anybody. It’s just not fair.”
“This has never been about fairness, Quinn,” Sue says, bringing your attention to her. “Surely you know that.”
“It’s about winning,” you say without the slightest hint of emotion. “It’s about being the best.”
“Indeed it is.” Sue smiles briefly, more for her benefit than for yours. You wonder if Sue has been practicing human emotions and then snort. The thought is completely ridiculous. Sue views emotions as a form of mortal weakness.
“She doesn’t bring out the best in you.” Sue interrupts your inner monologue. You jerk back, confused. Sue nods to herself, and you wonder what memories she is replaying in her head, what visions she is having of you. “I know you think the contrary right now but she doesn’t bring out the best in you.”
“She makes me want to be better,” you argue, a muscle clenching in your jaw. You are so tired from having to defend yourself, defend your relationship against actions you haven’t even committed yet. “That counts for something.”
“But there is a difference,” Sue counters, “between being the best and wanting to be better. Anyone can want to be better, but not everyone can be the best. Surely even you can understand a concept that simple.”
“Stop it,” you plead. You desperately want to feel something, anything, because right now you are feeling nothing. “Just stop, please. Stop putting all these thoughts in my head. Stop.”
“I’m just pointing out the truth,” Sue says, perhaps a little surprised at your attitude.
“No!” You snap, the anger suddenly present. “No! You are not pointing out the truth! You are putting these… these thoughts in my head, and I… Stop, please. Stop. You’re my coach, you know I’ll listen to you! You know how much I still want to impress you. You know that! So stop telling me to end my relationship because you know me well enough to know I will do it for you even though that will kill me!”
For the longest time Sue doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. You both know the implications of what you are saying - you will end the relationship if Sue really wants you to, even though it will kill you to do it.
“So you do have a soul in there, after all,” she muses, sounding almost intrigued. “Who would have thought?”
“What do you want from me,” you whisper to the cross. “What do you want from me? Is this punishment? Do you want me to repent?”
Silence. Complete and total silence.
You’re not sure why you were expecting an answer; after all, you are alone in the church at almost 3 a.m. The tranquility you were seeking when you came in has eluded you, and the memories continue to swirl in front of your eyes. You just want them to stop, and you’ll do just about anything, even if it means confessing to something you haven’t done.
It’s at that moment it comes to you. How to get your peace of mind, how to escape from the memories. You want to believe it’s a sign from God but maybe it’s more for the first time in a long time you can just think clearly, and that’s enough for now. Enough for you. A phone call, you think to yourself, one phone call and it will be ok again.
Yet your newfound confidence vanishes by the time you get to the beach. You’re not sure why you chose this location out of all of Los Angeles; anywhere really would have been sufficient. And you’ve never really felt anything in particular for beaches until you were in the church - beaches, sun, surf, that has always been Kelsey’s thing, not yours. You have no affiliation to it but there is also some comfort in the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore. You take a moment to watch the waves, the way the moon is reflecting on the water.
In this moment, you suddenly understand why people have fallen in love with nature the way they have. In this moment, it is all you have.
You dial a number you haven’t forgotten no matter how hard you’ve tried, but it takes you a while before you can press the call button. You’ve lost your confidence, and all of the doubts and insecurities and guilt from the past four years are swirling around inside of you, to the point that you can’t quite decipher one from the other.
You understand, now, what it feels like to be human. It’s scary, this humanity, this soul of yours, because a part of you believes it doesn’t really belong to you at all. That maybe you are living someone else’s life entirely inside your dream, and you wonder, briefly, what will happen when that person wakes up.
You glance at your phone as if it holds the answers to your late-night philosophical musings, but instead of guidance, a series of 10 digits glare back at you. You have never felt more alone, more afraid, than you do when you press the call button.
It rings once, twice, three times. You’ve almost given up - some quick math in your head means it is a little after 6 a.m. so really she should be up by now- four rings, five rings, six rings.
“Hello,” Rachel says sleepily. You freeze, suddenly unable to form words. “Hello? Who is this?”
You want to speak. You want to yell at her, you want to demand answers, you want to ask how on Earth she could do this to you after everything that happened. You want to know why she wrote the manuscript to begin with, or even why she didn’t tell you about it when you were back in Lima. You want to snarl and ask if Finn knows what is written inside the pages, if he’s read those confessions, if he had the same reactions Heather did when she read it.
Did Finn accuse you of not being over me, you want to ask, the same way Heather accused me of not being over you? Did he read my words and say there’s no way you’re really over our relationship the way you wanted me to believe? Does the affair bother him when it’s written out like that? Does he even know it’s about me, or did you tell him it was about him, and he believed that? Does he know you whispered those words to me first?
Stop lying to me, you beg silently, please stop lying to me, stop playing all these games with me, I thought that ended all those years ago. I’m listening to you, I swear, I’m listening to you now so please just tell me why you are forcing me to relive every confession I ever said to you. I am haunted by you enough as it is.
Why didn’t you ever love me? Why wasn’t I ever enough for you?
You have so many questions, need so many answers, and yet… And yet you cannot speak a word. You just sit there, frozen, as the thoughts continue to run your head, and you want to, really, you want to find the words but you just can’t. You can’t find the words to express everything you are feeling because maybe there aren’t words for it. Maybe there are some things that aren’t supposed to be expressed. Maybe your affair with Rachel is one of those things.
On the other end of the line, Rachel stays completely silent. You wonder what she’s thinking, wonder if there is a part of her that knows you are the caller, wonder what that means if she does.
Does she know, on some level, what are you trying to say? Is she struggling to find the right words even though you both know they don’t exist for you? Is she trying to come up with a justification, answers, an explanation? What is running through her mind, and will she let you in? Will you be privy to her thoughts?
“I love you,” she whispers quietly into the phone, and in that moment you understand she knows you are the one calling her. “I’ve always loved you. I just thought you should know.”
You hang up before she can say anything else.
Rachel is asleep the first time you say it.
It’s early in the morning. Your house is quiet, peaceful. The only noise you can hear is the sound of Rachel’s breathing, you can feel the small puffs of air against your collarbone. You turn your head a fraction of an inch and your lips graze the top of her head. It’s not enough to wake her - Rachel, you’ve come to discover, is an extraordinary deep sleeper- but she still shifts closer to you and you end up with a mouthful of hair.
You shift again, trying to pull Rachel closer to you, and she ends up sprawled across your upper body. It’s a stupid notion, and you should really know better, but there’s a part of you that believes if you close your eyes, your heart will start beating in sync with hers. You wonder when you started wanting these sort of things, when you started feeling like Rachel was actually a part of you. That you wanted her under your skin, wanted to feel her in your bones.
You wonder if maybe it’s been Rachel all along, or if she just appeared in your heart one day, completely out of the blue.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” you whisper quietly, making sure not to wake her up. “I just thought you’d like to know.”
The memory ends and you’re sitting in your car, and it’s only now you have the courage to read the manuscript sitting on the seat next to you. Heather had given it to you yesterday after the confrontation in her office, snidely commenting you will understand the implications of your confessions coming to life once you actually read it.
The truth is, you don’t know. You don’t know what to expect and that, above all else, is what scares you. You don’t know what game Rachel is playing at, you don’t know if she remembers everything the same way you do, you don’t know if you’re meant to be some tragic hero or a common mortal or a mixture of both. You don’t know what to expect in the closing act.
What words, you wonder, what words did Rachel find to justify your relationship with her? How did she console herself? What was her reasoning? Was she truthful, or were certain facts left out for creative purposes? Will you find memories that aren’t your own? Words you had never uttered?
Your hand glides over the title, tracing the letters with your fingertips. It is almost a lover’s caress, you think to yourself.
How You Came to Leave stares back at you, impassive.
Not stealing if you acknowledge it (aka Disclaimers):
- Glee doesn't belong to me
- The title of the chapter is "Told You So" by Guggenheim Grotto
- special shout-out to kreia03, who was patient enough to edit and play along with plot/character development
- also special shout-out to letterstomaddie, whose line about "Who you are is fleeting, a shifting identity influenced by external factors, a compilation of facts and experiences. What you are is permanent and untouchable, the kind of thing I think religion references as soul" influenced a large part of this chapter
- the phone call between Rachel and Quinn is inspired by the scene between Ryan and Marissa in The O.C. (episode 2x01)
- phantom limb is pretty self-explanatory, but basically it's a medical term for when amputees claim they can still feel a part of their body even though it's no longer there.
- Quinn's musings about living a memory that doesn't belong to you is loosely based on the film Inception, which if you haven't already seen, you really should
Part IX: I Gave You All
Part X: I Adore You
Part XI: Love Is No Big Truth
Part XII: Escape
Part XIII: No Longer What You Require
Part XIV: This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday
Part XV: Our Love