How You Came to Leave (Part IX)
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
Part IX: I Gave You All
You rip out all I have just to say that you’ve won (Mumford and Sons- I Gave You All)
Sometimes, when everything else around you is completely silent, you can almost hear Rachel’s voice, whispering words, notes, into your ear. Sometimes the words blend together, and you can’t separate them at all. You become lost in the rhythm, in the way her breath brushes against your ear; the intimacy of the moment makes you shiver.
It is in those moments you remember your love was real. It is real because you remember the details surrounding it, and it’s all so clear that you convince yourself you can’t be making it up. The images, the senses, are all too vivid.
You remember the way the sun caught the streaks in her hair, and you know people don’t see that kind of detail unless they are looking for it. You remember the way she would look at you with quiet wonder in her eyes, as if she couldn’t quite believe you were real, as if she was expecting you to disappear any moment. You remember how the sound of her heart beating was so comforting to you.
But most of all, you remember the hushed melodies she would sing under her breath moments before sleep overtook you, but you could never quite make out the lyrics. The rhythm, though, has been burnt into your memories.
The rhythm haunts you, but in a manner that is more comforting than it is scary. And sometimes, late at night, you hum it softly to yourself, and if you close your eyes, you can feel your heartbeat slow down, you can almost feel Rachel’s presence next to you.
In other times, however, you can make out what she’s whispering to you, and her words keep you awake, robbing you of sleep you’ve come to realize you no longer depend upon. She asks you how you gave up so easily on your relationship, why you didn’t fight back when you had the chance. You can feel the heat of her breath on your skin, burning her words into your flesh.
“You taught me it’s ok to give up,” she hisses in your ear, and it’s not musical anymore, not with that much venom in her voice. “You took my dream away from me, how dare you? How could you do that to me, I thought you loved me!”
In the silence that follows, you defend yourself. You explain that you had never loved anyone as much as you love her, that after being with her you realize you could never love another person again, not like that. You say it’s natural to give up, really, that in some ways you gave up too when you lost her. You tell her that scientists have gotten it wrong when they say emotional pain only lasts for twelve minutes and anything longer is self-inflicted, because it’s been years since this affair came to its tragic end and you still struggle to fall asleep at night.
Sometimes, Rachel understands what you’re saying through the silence. Sometimes she listens, other times she doesn’t, and even though you’ve replayed this conversation so many times in your head you never know which side she will take. Sometimes you feel the warmth of her body as she settles down next to you, and she threads her hand through your hair, and the tranquility of the moment soothes your racing heart.
She whispers she wants to forgive you, but she doesn’t know how, because you took that away from her, too. You wish she would sound more bitter as she accuses you of taking her empathy away from her, but instead, she sounds almost contemplative. It’s as if you’re discussing an English assignment rather than the root of human empathy. She says that she knows it’s not entirely your fault, that she understands there were other forces at play, that maybe on some level it wasn’t even really your decision at all, but just once, she wishes she could have been enough of a reason to fight for something.
But your last shred of rationality, your last desperate grab on reality, hurls against the voice whispering to your subconscious, saying that you could be forgiven if you asked.
Rachel isn’t lying next to you. You should know that by now.
You realize a month or so into your affair with Rachel that you don’t know her at all. You know some of the details - you know her dreams, her ambitions, but the other facts, the intimate details that make Rachel, well, Rachel, that you have no idea. You don’t know why her favorite color is green, you don’t know which memories ‘Defying Gravity’ triggers, you don’t know why she has developed a habit of holding a microphone with her left hand and you don’t know when you started noticing any of this.
It frightens you.
The intensity of your emotions scares you, because you aren’t used to feeling something this strong, not without your Church telling you it is wrong. You want her as much as you need her, and you know the Church would approve of neither. They simply wouldn’t understand, and you can’t exactly blame them because you don’t understand either. You don’t understand why you feel anything for her at all, when all this time you were taught not to feel anything.
What does it mean, really, that this girl is becoming your humanity? What does it mean that your conscience is not your faith, as you believed all along, but rather an actual person who right now is nothing more than a welcomed, familiar stranger?
You know your affair with Rachel is wrong, and if you really tried, you could probably find a thousand reasons to end it. But there’s another part of you, the quieter part of you, that whispers there are a thousand and one reasons for you to continue this relationship. Instead of aggravating you, as you had expected, she soothes you. The world just seems more bearable when she’s around you, even if you’re still discovering what this new world is really about.
The quietness that surrounds you and Rachel says more about her than it does you. You constantly have questions lingering just beneath the surface, and more than anything, you want her to be the one to give you answers. You want her to tell you everything will be ok even though your own relationship is built on uneven grounds.
Rachel isn’t like that. Rachel is comfortable with silence because she already knows what she wants, and there is little -nothing?- you could say that would change that. You don’t know just how much she wants you around, but she doesn’t push you away, either. She’s just there, quietly lying next to you, and knowing that all you have to do is move your hand a little bit and you could lace your fingers together is enough. You’re not brave enough to take the first step -that has always been more Rachel’s thing- but knowing that you could if you needed to gives you a strength you didn’t know you had.
“Tell me something about you,” you say suddenly, breaking the moment. Rachel turns to you, confusion written all over her face. She is surprised at the sudden forcefulness in your voice, the desperation in your action.
“What do you mean?” She asks, confused. “Tell you what? What do you want to know?”
“Tell me something about you,” you repeat. “Tell me why ‘Defying Gravity’ means so much to you. Tell me why you like the color green, or even why you don’t like the color grey. Tell me about the song that changed your life, or you can tell me about the song that didn’t. Just… tell me something about you that nobody else knows. Tell me a secret about you.”
She takes her time in answering. You wonder what secret you will be privy too, what thought has been kept inside of her.
“I like the color green because it reminds me of your eyes,” she whispers quietly, turning away to look at the stars. You can tell though from where you’re sitting on the bed that she’s blushing.
“Your eyes are, well, they’re the prettiest color I’ve ever seen,” she continues. “They’re hazel, but of course you knew that. But it’s not just hazel, it’s more like green sprinkled with flakes of gold. I’ve never seen a color quite like it.”
She turns to smile at you. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. They might think I love you or something.”
“Or something?” You ask timidly, losing your confidence with every passing second. “Don’t you love me?”
You find yourself wanting to beg, and that frightens you because Sue has always taught you that everything you could ever want would come to you, that you’d never have to ask for it. And yet here you are, sitting next to her, prepared to beg for forgiveness or whatever it is she’s asking from you because you get it now, you’re not as strong as you thought you were, and you can’t do this without her. You love her, you’re desperately in love with her, and the idea that you are completely alone in all of this -that she doesn’t feel the same- is robbing you of breath.
You look into her eyes, desperately seeking reassurance that whatever you’re feeling, you aren’t alone, that this emotion lingering in your chest can be explained. Can be cured, even. Rachel smiles at you, out of fondness more than anything, and you can’t help but feel your control slipping from your grasp.
“Like I said,” Rachel whispers against your lips, “you have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
It’s not quite the answer you were looking for, but in this moment, with the stars outside and the warmth of Rachel’s body against yours, with her breath brushing against your lips, you figure it’s enough.
You sulk your way through the morning, choosing to hide out in your office instead of joining Kelsey and the receptionist for lunch. Your intern hesitates, and it takes everything you have to focus on your computer screen because you know if you even do so much as glance up, she will be able to read you. You just want to be left alone. What you don’t want is an inquisition as to why you look like you haven’t slept at all or why the guilt is so firmly written across your face.
“Stop blaming yourself,” Kelsey says, lingering in the doorway. “That amount of guilt isn’t healthy.”
She hesitates a little, and you know without even having to look at her that she’s fighting her own internal battle. Kelsey has been cursed with an eternal desire to fix people who are broken, and it’s so reminiscent of Rachel that you can’t look at her right now without breaking down. Kelsey is the hybrid of Rachel and Santana, and it’s painful to look at her and know the two people could probably save you are the two that won’t.
It’s not that Santana doesn’t want to. Your friendship, as bizarre and unhealthy as it might be, evolves around a ruthless competitiveness usually seen amongst politicians with presidential ambitions. In some ways the competition between the two of you was something Santana needed more than you did, because Santana was the one who constantly needed to prove herself. Sue effortless tapped into that streak, manipulated Santana until she was satisfied with the end result, and calmly watched the Cheerio self-destruct in a noble attempt to save Brittany.
You always knew who you were, until you found yourself having an affair with Rachel, and suddenly you lost your identity. It was a vulnerability, a flaw, that Sue had played to perfection. Because Sue knew. She knew your weakness was words, and all she had to do was whisper the right ones to you and you would start to doubt yourself, start to question how strong you could be without Rachel when it appeared Rachel could survive fine without you.
You growl, frustrated with this memories that slow but never really stop. You want it to end, you just want to end. Your frustration grows when you catch sight of the manuscript sitting at the edge of your desk, an ever present reminder that everything you held dear, Rachel had no hesitation in dismissing as trivial.
Your office phone rings and you reach for it without looking at the caller ID. In hindsight, you would count that as your first mistake of the day.
“What,” you snap, ignoring office etiquette. There’s a pause on the other end of the line and you scowl.
“San, if you’re prank-calling me, I swear it isn’t funny,” you snarl. “In fact, not only is not funny, it’s also somewhat immature. I’m sure you could find it somewhere in you to come up with new ways to make my work day more miserable. Now fuck off, some of us actually have work to do.”
“Well,” the voice says calmly, “I certainly hope you don’t greet all your callers like that, Quinn. Your phone etiquette is certainly cause for concern.”
Your second mistake of the day is not hanging up the phone when you realize the mystery caller is Rachel Berry.
“Why did you kiss me?”
Rachel turns to look at you, disbelief written all over her face. You stand your ground, trying to stare her down. For a moment you think you’re going to win, that she’s going to back down and answer the question that’s been bothering you for the past week. Something flickers in her eyes -curiosity perhaps? Or maybe pride?- but it is gone before you can define it.
“You’re not serious,” she stutters. “You can’t be serious, Quinn. We’re in the middle of rehearsal! This is important! Sectionals is coming up and we haven’t even decided on a set list! Our choreography is terrible! I know it sounds cliché but practice does make perfect!”
“Tell me,” you say, stepping closer to her. She takes half a step back. You glance around but no one has seemed to notice the tension rapidly rising between the two of you. For once, you are thankful that your friends have such a short attention span.
“Please tell me,” you repeat, softening your tone. “I just need to know why you kissed me. I won’t tell anyone, I swear, I just need to know why you did it, please just give me that, I really won’t tell anyone. It can be our secret, I swear…”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, taking a step back, away from you. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. I just… I wanted to know for myself.”
“Know what?” You ask, and this time you’re the one feeling confused. She doesn’t answer, she just continues to back away from you, dropping her eyes to the floor.
“Know what?” You repeat. “What did you want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, and she shakes her head. You open your mouth to argue but Will decides to attempt to bring order in the choir room.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rachel repeats softly, almost more to herself than to you. “You wouldn’t understand, anyway.”
You spend most of rehearsal messing up the choreography and missing notes you’re supposed to be able to hit in your sleep. Unable to concentrate on routines or singing, all you can think of is trying to figure out what Rachel had been trying to accomplish by kissing you.
“Focus!” Rachel snaps at you as Will assigns a fifteen minute break, more for your benefit than anyone else’s. “This is important, try to concentrate long enough so the neurons lingering under that flawless blonde hair of yours can actually connect and we can actually practice!”
“You’re the one who kissed me!” You hiss back at her. Rachel whirls around, rolling her eyes at you.
“That was over a week ago!” She exclaims. “Why are you so hung up on it? It was one kiss and I just said I was sorry! What more do you want? A restraining order?”
“No!” You step forward, invading her space again. “I want you to make it stop!”
“What are you talking about?” Rachel asks. “Make what stop? Are there other people kissing you now? Did Finn try something again?”
“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss,” you confess. “And I just need to get these thoughts out of my head, because that kiss is literally all I can think about, and these thoughts are wrong but they stay in my head and I can’t get them to stop.”
“Please,” you beg desperately, “please make these thoughts go away. I’ll do anything, anything you want me to, just please, please make me stop thinking about you. I swear, really, I’ll do it, anything, anything at all, just make these thoughts of you go away.”
“Quinn…” Rachel trails off, lost for words.
“Please tell me,” you whisper brokenly as you sit down on the edge of the stage. “Tell me why you kissed me and maybe I could stop thinking about that kiss and maybe then I will stop dreaming about it because I swear every time I close my eyes I can taste you again and I just need to be able to control my senses…”
For the longest time Rachel doesn’t say anything, she just sits down next to you. Out of the corner of your eye you notice Rachel’s hand shift just a fraction of an angle, and her pinkie finger softly grazes yours. It’s a quiet, stolen moment, meant for just the two of you, invisible to the outside world. You observe the organized chaos happening around you, these moments in time that you suspect ten years from now you will have forgotten but in the here and now you are convinced they will live in eternity.
You wonder whether this moment with Rachel will eventually fade in time, or will you remember it. You wonder if the miniature details - the way the light shines through the window, the sound of Brittany’s laugh in the corner, the sound of sneakers against the floor- you wonder if you will forget them, if days, months, years later you will forget it all.
“Everyone chooses you,” she says eventually. “Everyone always chooses you, and I just wanted to know why. I wanted to know what made you so special, because you’re the type of girl people write sonnets about in Paris, and I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss someone like that.”
“And?” You ask, staring straight ahead. “Did I satisfy your curiosity?”
“You’re…” She trails off, and moves to get up, but before she can, you move your fingers a fraction of an inch, and your whole hand is covering hers. She settles back down.
“You’re the type of girl people write musicals about on Broadway,” she says quietly, but her eyes are focused on the piano. “You’re actually pretty special, and I think you’re the only person in this room who hasn’t realized that.”
A psychology course your junior year at Berkeley taught you an important parallel between the senses and a person’s memory. Often people associate the two, and your professor pointed to Camus as an example. Just the scent of a bakery was enough to trigger a memory of his childhood. Steinbeck left Monterrey and was shocked to discover how much the fishing town had changed when his memories hadn’t faded.
Hearing Rachel’s voice triggers so many emotions inside of you, emotions you thought you weren’t capable of experiencing again, not with this much intensity. It’s strange because not so long ago you were the one calling the brunette and she had somehow known it was you on the other end of the line, and even after the silence she still knew exactly which words to say, still managed to say the one thing that could break you.
It’s not love you’re feeling in this moment. It is not love that stops you from hanging up the phone, nor is it love that makes you continue. Your heart is not fluttering in your chest. Rachel’s voice is bringing back the memories you have tried so hard to forget.
“Stop,” you whisper, and you’re not sure if you’re speaking to Rachel or to yourself. “Just stop talking.”
“Quinn?” Rachel asks, and finally, you hear what you’ve been waiting for: a trace of insecurity in her voice. “Is something wrong?”
“You have to stop talking,” you breathe quietly, “because otherwise I’m going to believe you. I will believe you when you say you love me, I will believe you when you say you never wanted to hurt me, and I will believe you when you say you wrote the manuscript because it was the only way you could keep the memories of what we shared alive. I will believe all that, and then you will tell me it’s all a lie.”
“I just need to believe in something,” you continue. “I need to believe that a first love never really leaves you. I need to believe that a song really can change someone’s life, I need to believe that words have always mattered, but most of all? I need to believe that color green can just be a color again, because ever since you took my heart captive I can’t look at it the same way.”
“I just need to believe in something again,” you repeat softly, your finger hovering above the disconnect button. “And I want to believe you still love me as much as you claim, so I need you to stop talking before you can convince me I’m wrong.”
Faith is such a fragile concept.
What we choose to believe, the fragments of reality - or is it really fiction our mind has managed to convert into reality? - are really merely that, just fragments. We choose to believe in bits and pieces because seeing the whole picture, seeing what we really are or what we are capable of, that can either save us or damage us beyond repair.
What happens, really, when we see what we are truly capable of? What happens to our perspective of the good, the type of good Aristotle so eagerly believed in, what happens to it when we are the ones who take it away? What happens when the good in us is the same thing as the bad? What happens to us when we would do anything to protect the one we love, only to discover they never loved us at all?
You kept her secret.
You meant it, that day in Glee Club, when you told Rachel you’ll never tell why she kissed you. You never told anyone what it felt like, and it wasn’t because you couldn’t find the right words to describe what being with her was like, it was because you could. You knew exactly which words to use and when, and that’s precisely why you didn’t breathe a word of this affair.
It wasn’t because you didn’t know how to share it, it wasn’t because you didn’t want to. As selfish as it may have been, you didn’t want people to know, even though you could easily describe it if asked. A relationship is private, you reasoned to yourself, and that’s something you still abide by today. A real relationship doesn’t have to be justified to the outside world. It’s not that it can’t be explained, it’s that it doesn’t have to be.
Because a relationship is between two people, not two people and the rest of the world. Outsiders either can’t or won’t understand why trivial details matter, whether it’s an inside joke over a water bottle, a preference of a bottle of wine, or why a song on the radio can mean so little until it means too much. Why should you explain what others weren’t there to witness?
Rachel took all that away from you. She took those moments, she exploited your confessions, highlighted your words, and they’re all present in a pretty manuscript that makes it seem like you constantly chose her but fails to mention she never picked you. She was, still is in so many ways, everything that matters to you, whereas in Rachel’s eyes you are just a stepping stone towards something greater.
You realize it in the middle of AP History.
It’s a hot and humid day. The professor is speaking in a dull, monotone voice, and it’s only out of concern for your GPA that you find yourself actually paying attention. But your focus is not at 100 percent, there’s a part of you that is focused on the faintest hum of the students sitting outside, the clock ticking in the back corner, and, if you focus hard enough, you can just make out the sound of nature outside.
There are a dozen places you’d rather be than in a classroom, but just the concept of it is enough to make you stay. You aren’t one to stray from your routine. There is order, familiarity, in a routine. It’s part of why you are so good at picking up choreography but so bad at improvising: you like to know what to expect. You like to know what the future holds, because rolling the dice has never worked out in your favor.
Your phone vibrates against you, but you take a moment before looking at it. It’s as much as you don’t want to get caught by your professor as it is you enjoy the moment you’re currently trapped it: a moment of solidarity between you and knowledge, perhaps the greatest relationship of them all.
But eventually you look down, and you see the text is from Rachel.
You suppose you should be surprised, or maybe annoyed, but you find yourself feeling neither. It’s comforting, in a way, knowing that she’s reaching out for you even though neither of you quite know what to expect. You don’t know what the future holds, and while that has you a little on edge, Rachel doesn’t seem as fazed by it.
You’re still smiling to yourself when the bell rings, caught up in a world composed of Rachel and historical events people are starting to forget even though they should remember. Walking quickly, you make your way to the auditorium, and for a minute or two, it’s just you and the empty stage.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” you say quietly to the emptiness around you. “I can’t stop thinking about you, and for the first time in about three weeks, I’m beginning to think it’s ok, that God won’t hold it against me. What are you doing to my faith?”
“Do you know?” You ask the invisible audience. “Do you know what you’re doing to me? Because I can’t tell if this whole thing is deliberate or not, and that confuses me. You push me away to pull me back in, you say you can’t be around me anymore, that it’s too painful, but then on a cold, rainy night you end up on my doorstep. Are you playing games with me? Am I destined to lose or do you think I will win?”
“Do you love me at all?” You question. “Or am I something else to you?”
“It’s complicated,” Rachel says from behind you. “You and me, we’ve always been complicated. Haven’t you realized that by now?”
You turn around when you hear her voice. She’s standing near the back of the stage, and you wonder how long she’s been standing there, how much of your soliloquy she actually heard, how many of the words she thought were targeted at her.
“Here’s the thing,” Rachel continues. “I know I’ve been giving you mixed signals. I know I’ve been jerking you around lately, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry if you’re feeling confused, and I promise, it’s not because I’m trying to hurt you. I do care for you, you know.”
“Ok,” you say quietly. “It’s ok. I understand.”
“It’s complicated,” Rachel repeats, stepping even closer to you, invading your personal space. “I don’t think you really understand just how complicated it is. You and me… How do we even begin to define to this? Define us? What words are there that could even come close?”
“We could just be two people, you know,” you offer. “It doesn’t have to be anything else, not if you don’t want it to be.”
“But I do,” she counters. “I do want us to be something, and that’s what scares me. I want us to be something instead of anything. I want to be able to define us. I want to have these moments that are so hard to explain because those moments are the ones that could change the world, Quinn.”
“You want us to change the world?” You stutter, bewildered as to which way the conversation was suddenly heading. Rachel smirks slightly, her hand tracing the skin of your shirt.
“Actually,” she says softly, her lips barely grazing yours, “I just want to give people something to believe in. It doesn’t seem like so much to ask, does it?”
Not stealing if you acknowledge it (aka Disclaimers):
- Owning Glee wouldn't do my caffeine consumption any favors
- Title of the chapter is taken from Mumford and Sons' song, "I Gave You All"
- Special shout-out to kreia03, who again put up with my nitpicking and OCD tendencies and who was patient enough to give it a final run-through
- Quinn's musings about a relationship being private is partly inspired by Dianna Agron's Tumblr post where she claims her private life is, ideed, private, and implicitly raises the question of who a relationship actually belongs to: the two people are in it, or those who observe it.
- Emotional pain supposedly not lasting for more than 12 minutes is based on something I read for a Psych class. I disagree with it, partly because I believe there are variations of emotional pain, but I thought it was still an interesting fact. (Professor Schaler, look! I actually did pay attention!)
- I can't actually remember if Rachel ever says what her favorite color is, so it's probably not green, but for creative purposes, let's pretend it is...
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 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
Part IX: I Gave You All
You rip out all I have just to say that you’ve won (Mumford and Sons- I Gave You All)
Sometimes, when everything else around you is completely silent, you can almost hear Rachel’s voice, whispering words, notes, into your ear. Sometimes the words blend together, and you can’t separate them at all. You become lost in the rhythm, in the way her breath brushes against your ear; the intimacy of the moment makes you shiver.
It is in those moments you remember your love was real. It is real because you remember the details surrounding it, and it’s all so clear that you convince yourself you can’t be making it up. The images, the senses, are all too vivid.
You remember the way the sun caught the streaks in her hair, and you know people don’t see that kind of detail unless they are looking for it. You remember the way she would look at you with quiet wonder in her eyes, as if she couldn’t quite believe you were real, as if she was expecting you to disappear any moment. You remember how the sound of her heart beating was so comforting to you.
But most of all, you remember the hushed melodies she would sing under her breath moments before sleep overtook you, but you could never quite make out the lyrics. The rhythm, though, has been burnt into your memories.
The rhythm haunts you, but in a manner that is more comforting than it is scary. And sometimes, late at night, you hum it softly to yourself, and if you close your eyes, you can feel your heartbeat slow down, you can almost feel Rachel’s presence next to you.
In other times, however, you can make out what she’s whispering to you, and her words keep you awake, robbing you of sleep you’ve come to realize you no longer depend upon. She asks you how you gave up so easily on your relationship, why you didn’t fight back when you had the chance. You can feel the heat of her breath on your skin, burning her words into your flesh.
“You taught me it’s ok to give up,” she hisses in your ear, and it’s not musical anymore, not with that much venom in her voice. “You took my dream away from me, how dare you? How could you do that to me, I thought you loved me!”
In the silence that follows, you defend yourself. You explain that you had never loved anyone as much as you love her, that after being with her you realize you could never love another person again, not like that. You say it’s natural to give up, really, that in some ways you gave up too when you lost her. You tell her that scientists have gotten it wrong when they say emotional pain only lasts for twelve minutes and anything longer is self-inflicted, because it’s been years since this affair came to its tragic end and you still struggle to fall asleep at night.
Sometimes, Rachel understands what you’re saying through the silence. Sometimes she listens, other times she doesn’t, and even though you’ve replayed this conversation so many times in your head you never know which side she will take. Sometimes you feel the warmth of her body as she settles down next to you, and she threads her hand through your hair, and the tranquility of the moment soothes your racing heart.
She whispers she wants to forgive you, but she doesn’t know how, because you took that away from her, too. You wish she would sound more bitter as she accuses you of taking her empathy away from her, but instead, she sounds almost contemplative. It’s as if you’re discussing an English assignment rather than the root of human empathy. She says that she knows it’s not entirely your fault, that she understands there were other forces at play, that maybe on some level it wasn’t even really your decision at all, but just once, she wishes she could have been enough of a reason to fight for something.
But your last shred of rationality, your last desperate grab on reality, hurls against the voice whispering to your subconscious, saying that you could be forgiven if you asked.
Rachel isn’t lying next to you. You should know that by now.
You realize a month or so into your affair with Rachel that you don’t know her at all. You know some of the details - you know her dreams, her ambitions, but the other facts, the intimate details that make Rachel, well, Rachel, that you have no idea. You don’t know why her favorite color is green, you don’t know which memories ‘Defying Gravity’ triggers, you don’t know why she has developed a habit of holding a microphone with her left hand and you don’t know when you started noticing any of this.
It frightens you.
The intensity of your emotions scares you, because you aren’t used to feeling something this strong, not without your Church telling you it is wrong. You want her as much as you need her, and you know the Church would approve of neither. They simply wouldn’t understand, and you can’t exactly blame them because you don’t understand either. You don’t understand why you feel anything for her at all, when all this time you were taught not to feel anything.
What does it mean, really, that this girl is becoming your humanity? What does it mean that your conscience is not your faith, as you believed all along, but rather an actual person who right now is nothing more than a welcomed, familiar stranger?
You know your affair with Rachel is wrong, and if you really tried, you could probably find a thousand reasons to end it. But there’s another part of you, the quieter part of you, that whispers there are a thousand and one reasons for you to continue this relationship. Instead of aggravating you, as you had expected, she soothes you. The world just seems more bearable when she’s around you, even if you’re still discovering what this new world is really about.
The quietness that surrounds you and Rachel says more about her than it does you. You constantly have questions lingering just beneath the surface, and more than anything, you want her to be the one to give you answers. You want her to tell you everything will be ok even though your own relationship is built on uneven grounds.
Rachel isn’t like that. Rachel is comfortable with silence because she already knows what she wants, and there is little -nothing?- you could say that would change that. You don’t know just how much she wants you around, but she doesn’t push you away, either. She’s just there, quietly lying next to you, and knowing that all you have to do is move your hand a little bit and you could lace your fingers together is enough. You’re not brave enough to take the first step -that has always been more Rachel’s thing- but knowing that you could if you needed to gives you a strength you didn’t know you had.
“Tell me something about you,” you say suddenly, breaking the moment. Rachel turns to you, confusion written all over her face. She is surprised at the sudden forcefulness in your voice, the desperation in your action.
“What do you mean?” She asks, confused. “Tell you what? What do you want to know?”
“Tell me something about you,” you repeat. “Tell me why ‘Defying Gravity’ means so much to you. Tell me why you like the color green, or even why you don’t like the color grey. Tell me about the song that changed your life, or you can tell me about the song that didn’t. Just… tell me something about you that nobody else knows. Tell me a secret about you.”
She takes her time in answering. You wonder what secret you will be privy too, what thought has been kept inside of her.
“I like the color green because it reminds me of your eyes,” she whispers quietly, turning away to look at the stars. You can tell though from where you’re sitting on the bed that she’s blushing.
“Your eyes are, well, they’re the prettiest color I’ve ever seen,” she continues. “They’re hazel, but of course you knew that. But it’s not just hazel, it’s more like green sprinkled with flakes of gold. I’ve never seen a color quite like it.”
She turns to smile at you. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. They might think I love you or something.”
“Or something?” You ask timidly, losing your confidence with every passing second. “Don’t you love me?”
You find yourself wanting to beg, and that frightens you because Sue has always taught you that everything you could ever want would come to you, that you’d never have to ask for it. And yet here you are, sitting next to her, prepared to beg for forgiveness or whatever it is she’s asking from you because you get it now, you’re not as strong as you thought you were, and you can’t do this without her. You love her, you’re desperately in love with her, and the idea that you are completely alone in all of this -that she doesn’t feel the same- is robbing you of breath.
You look into her eyes, desperately seeking reassurance that whatever you’re feeling, you aren’t alone, that this emotion lingering in your chest can be explained. Can be cured, even. Rachel smiles at you, out of fondness more than anything, and you can’t help but feel your control slipping from your grasp.
“Like I said,” Rachel whispers against your lips, “you have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
It’s not quite the answer you were looking for, but in this moment, with the stars outside and the warmth of Rachel’s body against yours, with her breath brushing against your lips, you figure it’s enough.
You sulk your way through the morning, choosing to hide out in your office instead of joining Kelsey and the receptionist for lunch. Your intern hesitates, and it takes everything you have to focus on your computer screen because you know if you even do so much as glance up, she will be able to read you. You just want to be left alone. What you don’t want is an inquisition as to why you look like you haven’t slept at all or why the guilt is so firmly written across your face.
“Stop blaming yourself,” Kelsey says, lingering in the doorway. “That amount of guilt isn’t healthy.”
She hesitates a little, and you know without even having to look at her that she’s fighting her own internal battle. Kelsey has been cursed with an eternal desire to fix people who are broken, and it’s so reminiscent of Rachel that you can’t look at her right now without breaking down. Kelsey is the hybrid of Rachel and Santana, and it’s painful to look at her and know the two people could probably save you are the two that won’t.
It’s not that Santana doesn’t want to. Your friendship, as bizarre and unhealthy as it might be, evolves around a ruthless competitiveness usually seen amongst politicians with presidential ambitions. In some ways the competition between the two of you was something Santana needed more than you did, because Santana was the one who constantly needed to prove herself. Sue effortless tapped into that streak, manipulated Santana until she was satisfied with the end result, and calmly watched the Cheerio self-destruct in a noble attempt to save Brittany.
You always knew who you were, until you found yourself having an affair with Rachel, and suddenly you lost your identity. It was a vulnerability, a flaw, that Sue had played to perfection. Because Sue knew. She knew your weakness was words, and all she had to do was whisper the right ones to you and you would start to doubt yourself, start to question how strong you could be without Rachel when it appeared Rachel could survive fine without you.
You growl, frustrated with this memories that slow but never really stop. You want it to end, you just want to end. Your frustration grows when you catch sight of the manuscript sitting at the edge of your desk, an ever present reminder that everything you held dear, Rachel had no hesitation in dismissing as trivial.
Your office phone rings and you reach for it without looking at the caller ID. In hindsight, you would count that as your first mistake of the day.
“What,” you snap, ignoring office etiquette. There’s a pause on the other end of the line and you scowl.
“San, if you’re prank-calling me, I swear it isn’t funny,” you snarl. “In fact, not only is not funny, it’s also somewhat immature. I’m sure you could find it somewhere in you to come up with new ways to make my work day more miserable. Now fuck off, some of us actually have work to do.”
“Well,” the voice says calmly, “I certainly hope you don’t greet all your callers like that, Quinn. Your phone etiquette is certainly cause for concern.”
Your second mistake of the day is not hanging up the phone when you realize the mystery caller is Rachel Berry.
“Why did you kiss me?”
Rachel turns to look at you, disbelief written all over her face. You stand your ground, trying to stare her down. For a moment you think you’re going to win, that she’s going to back down and answer the question that’s been bothering you for the past week. Something flickers in her eyes -curiosity perhaps? Or maybe pride?- but it is gone before you can define it.
“You’re not serious,” she stutters. “You can’t be serious, Quinn. We’re in the middle of rehearsal! This is important! Sectionals is coming up and we haven’t even decided on a set list! Our choreography is terrible! I know it sounds cliché but practice does make perfect!”
“Tell me,” you say, stepping closer to her. She takes half a step back. You glance around but no one has seemed to notice the tension rapidly rising between the two of you. For once, you are thankful that your friends have such a short attention span.
“Please tell me,” you repeat, softening your tone. “I just need to know why you kissed me. I won’t tell anyone, I swear, I just need to know why you did it, please just give me that, I really won’t tell anyone. It can be our secret, I swear…”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, taking a step back, away from you. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. I just… I wanted to know for myself.”
“Know what?” You ask, and this time you’re the one feeling confused. She doesn’t answer, she just continues to back away from you, dropping her eyes to the floor.
“Know what?” You repeat. “What did you want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, and she shakes her head. You open your mouth to argue but Will decides to attempt to bring order in the choir room.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rachel repeats softly, almost more to herself than to you. “You wouldn’t understand, anyway.”
You spend most of rehearsal messing up the choreography and missing notes you’re supposed to be able to hit in your sleep. Unable to concentrate on routines or singing, all you can think of is trying to figure out what Rachel had been trying to accomplish by kissing you.
“Focus!” Rachel snaps at you as Will assigns a fifteen minute break, more for your benefit than anyone else’s. “This is important, try to concentrate long enough so the neurons lingering under that flawless blonde hair of yours can actually connect and we can actually practice!”
“You’re the one who kissed me!” You hiss back at her. Rachel whirls around, rolling her eyes at you.
“That was over a week ago!” She exclaims. “Why are you so hung up on it? It was one kiss and I just said I was sorry! What more do you want? A restraining order?”
“No!” You step forward, invading her space again. “I want you to make it stop!”
“What are you talking about?” Rachel asks. “Make what stop? Are there other people kissing you now? Did Finn try something again?”
“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss,” you confess. “And I just need to get these thoughts out of my head, because that kiss is literally all I can think about, and these thoughts are wrong but they stay in my head and I can’t get them to stop.”
“Please,” you beg desperately, “please make these thoughts go away. I’ll do anything, anything you want me to, just please, please make me stop thinking about you. I swear, really, I’ll do it, anything, anything at all, just make these thoughts of you go away.”
“Quinn…” Rachel trails off, lost for words.
“Please tell me,” you whisper brokenly as you sit down on the edge of the stage. “Tell me why you kissed me and maybe I could stop thinking about that kiss and maybe then I will stop dreaming about it because I swear every time I close my eyes I can taste you again and I just need to be able to control my senses…”
For the longest time Rachel doesn’t say anything, she just sits down next to you. Out of the corner of your eye you notice Rachel’s hand shift just a fraction of an angle, and her pinkie finger softly grazes yours. It’s a quiet, stolen moment, meant for just the two of you, invisible to the outside world. You observe the organized chaos happening around you, these moments in time that you suspect ten years from now you will have forgotten but in the here and now you are convinced they will live in eternity.
You wonder whether this moment with Rachel will eventually fade in time, or will you remember it. You wonder if the miniature details - the way the light shines through the window, the sound of Brittany’s laugh in the corner, the sound of sneakers against the floor- you wonder if you will forget them, if days, months, years later you will forget it all.
“Everyone chooses you,” she says eventually. “Everyone always chooses you, and I just wanted to know why. I wanted to know what made you so special, because you’re the type of girl people write sonnets about in Paris, and I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss someone like that.”
“And?” You ask, staring straight ahead. “Did I satisfy your curiosity?”
“You’re…” She trails off, and moves to get up, but before she can, you move your fingers a fraction of an inch, and your whole hand is covering hers. She settles back down.
“You’re the type of girl people write musicals about on Broadway,” she says quietly, but her eyes are focused on the piano. “You’re actually pretty special, and I think you’re the only person in this room who hasn’t realized that.”
A psychology course your junior year at Berkeley taught you an important parallel between the senses and a person’s memory. Often people associate the two, and your professor pointed to Camus as an example. Just the scent of a bakery was enough to trigger a memory of his childhood. Steinbeck left Monterrey and was shocked to discover how much the fishing town had changed when his memories hadn’t faded.
Hearing Rachel’s voice triggers so many emotions inside of you, emotions you thought you weren’t capable of experiencing again, not with this much intensity. It’s strange because not so long ago you were the one calling the brunette and she had somehow known it was you on the other end of the line, and even after the silence she still knew exactly which words to say, still managed to say the one thing that could break you.
It’s not love you’re feeling in this moment. It is not love that stops you from hanging up the phone, nor is it love that makes you continue. Your heart is not fluttering in your chest. Rachel’s voice is bringing back the memories you have tried so hard to forget.
“Stop,” you whisper, and you’re not sure if you’re speaking to Rachel or to yourself. “Just stop talking.”
“Quinn?” Rachel asks, and finally, you hear what you’ve been waiting for: a trace of insecurity in her voice. “Is something wrong?”
“You have to stop talking,” you breathe quietly, “because otherwise I’m going to believe you. I will believe you when you say you love me, I will believe you when you say you never wanted to hurt me, and I will believe you when you say you wrote the manuscript because it was the only way you could keep the memories of what we shared alive. I will believe all that, and then you will tell me it’s all a lie.”
“I just need to believe in something,” you continue. “I need to believe that a first love never really leaves you. I need to believe that a song really can change someone’s life, I need to believe that words have always mattered, but most of all? I need to believe that color green can just be a color again, because ever since you took my heart captive I can’t look at it the same way.”
“I just need to believe in something again,” you repeat softly, your finger hovering above the disconnect button. “And I want to believe you still love me as much as you claim, so I need you to stop talking before you can convince me I’m wrong.”
Faith is such a fragile concept.
What we choose to believe, the fragments of reality - or is it really fiction our mind has managed to convert into reality? - are really merely that, just fragments. We choose to believe in bits and pieces because seeing the whole picture, seeing what we really are or what we are capable of, that can either save us or damage us beyond repair.
What happens, really, when we see what we are truly capable of? What happens to our perspective of the good, the type of good Aristotle so eagerly believed in, what happens to it when we are the ones who take it away? What happens when the good in us is the same thing as the bad? What happens to us when we would do anything to protect the one we love, only to discover they never loved us at all?
You kept her secret.
You meant it, that day in Glee Club, when you told Rachel you’ll never tell why she kissed you. You never told anyone what it felt like, and it wasn’t because you couldn’t find the right words to describe what being with her was like, it was because you could. You knew exactly which words to use and when, and that’s precisely why you didn’t breathe a word of this affair.
It wasn’t because you didn’t know how to share it, it wasn’t because you didn’t want to. As selfish as it may have been, you didn’t want people to know, even though you could easily describe it if asked. A relationship is private, you reasoned to yourself, and that’s something you still abide by today. A real relationship doesn’t have to be justified to the outside world. It’s not that it can’t be explained, it’s that it doesn’t have to be.
Because a relationship is between two people, not two people and the rest of the world. Outsiders either can’t or won’t understand why trivial details matter, whether it’s an inside joke over a water bottle, a preference of a bottle of wine, or why a song on the radio can mean so little until it means too much. Why should you explain what others weren’t there to witness?
Rachel took all that away from you. She took those moments, she exploited your confessions, highlighted your words, and they’re all present in a pretty manuscript that makes it seem like you constantly chose her but fails to mention she never picked you. She was, still is in so many ways, everything that matters to you, whereas in Rachel’s eyes you are just a stepping stone towards something greater.
You realize it in the middle of AP History.
It’s a hot and humid day. The professor is speaking in a dull, monotone voice, and it’s only out of concern for your GPA that you find yourself actually paying attention. But your focus is not at 100 percent, there’s a part of you that is focused on the faintest hum of the students sitting outside, the clock ticking in the back corner, and, if you focus hard enough, you can just make out the sound of nature outside.
There are a dozen places you’d rather be than in a classroom, but just the concept of it is enough to make you stay. You aren’t one to stray from your routine. There is order, familiarity, in a routine. It’s part of why you are so good at picking up choreography but so bad at improvising: you like to know what to expect. You like to know what the future holds, because rolling the dice has never worked out in your favor.
Your phone vibrates against you, but you take a moment before looking at it. It’s as much as you don’t want to get caught by your professor as it is you enjoy the moment you’re currently trapped it: a moment of solidarity between you and knowledge, perhaps the greatest relationship of them all.
But eventually you look down, and you see the text is from Rachel.
You suppose you should be surprised, or maybe annoyed, but you find yourself feeling neither. It’s comforting, in a way, knowing that she’s reaching out for you even though neither of you quite know what to expect. You don’t know what the future holds, and while that has you a little on edge, Rachel doesn’t seem as fazed by it.
You’re still smiling to yourself when the bell rings, caught up in a world composed of Rachel and historical events people are starting to forget even though they should remember. Walking quickly, you make your way to the auditorium, and for a minute or two, it’s just you and the empty stage.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” you say quietly to the emptiness around you. “I can’t stop thinking about you, and for the first time in about three weeks, I’m beginning to think it’s ok, that God won’t hold it against me. What are you doing to my faith?”
“Do you know?” You ask the invisible audience. “Do you know what you’re doing to me? Because I can’t tell if this whole thing is deliberate or not, and that confuses me. You push me away to pull me back in, you say you can’t be around me anymore, that it’s too painful, but then on a cold, rainy night you end up on my doorstep. Are you playing games with me? Am I destined to lose or do you think I will win?”
“Do you love me at all?” You question. “Or am I something else to you?”
“It’s complicated,” Rachel says from behind you. “You and me, we’ve always been complicated. Haven’t you realized that by now?”
You turn around when you hear her voice. She’s standing near the back of the stage, and you wonder how long she’s been standing there, how much of your soliloquy she actually heard, how many of the words she thought were targeted at her.
“Here’s the thing,” Rachel continues. “I know I’ve been giving you mixed signals. I know I’ve been jerking you around lately, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry if you’re feeling confused, and I promise, it’s not because I’m trying to hurt you. I do care for you, you know.”
“Ok,” you say quietly. “It’s ok. I understand.”
“It’s complicated,” Rachel repeats, stepping even closer to you, invading your personal space. “I don’t think you really understand just how complicated it is. You and me… How do we even begin to define to this? Define us? What words are there that could even come close?”
“We could just be two people, you know,” you offer. “It doesn’t have to be anything else, not if you don’t want it to be.”
“But I do,” she counters. “I do want us to be something, and that’s what scares me. I want us to be something instead of anything. I want to be able to define us. I want to have these moments that are so hard to explain because those moments are the ones that could change the world, Quinn.”
“You want us to change the world?” You stutter, bewildered as to which way the conversation was suddenly heading. Rachel smirks slightly, her hand tracing the skin of your shirt.
“Actually,” she says softly, her lips barely grazing yours, “I just want to give people something to believe in. It doesn’t seem like so much to ask, does it?”
Not stealing if you acknowledge it (aka Disclaimers):
- Owning Glee wouldn't do my caffeine consumption any favors
- Title of the chapter is taken from Mumford and Sons' song, "I Gave You All"
- Special shout-out to kreia03, who again put up with my nitpicking and OCD tendencies and who was patient enough to give it a final run-through
- Quinn's musings about a relationship being private is partly inspired by Dianna Agron's Tumblr post where she claims her private life is, ideed, private, and implicitly raises the question of who a relationship actually belongs to: the two people are in it, or those who observe it.
- Emotional pain supposedly not lasting for more than 12 minutes is based on something I read for a Psych class. I disagree with it, partly because I believe there are variations of emotional pain, but I thought it was still an interesting fact. (Professor Schaler, look! I actually did pay attention!)
- I can't actually remember if Rachel ever says what her favorite color is, so it's probably not green, but for creative purposes, let's pretend it is...
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