Author's Note: The title comes form the song Can't Fight This Feeling, because I really couldn't even help myself. Also, the song that Rachel sings is called Through Any Window by Wisely. Look it up, great song.
It's like this ache. This never ending ache in my gut that I've only associated with how certain I am that someday there will be an entire theater of people paying money to see me on stage. That kind of ache. The kind that gives you so much hope that you just want to burst out into tears at any second because of how uncertain you are of that hope. And it makes me feel so selfish, just all the time. So selfish because I feel like I've lead them all on. Finn, Noah, Jesse… They put up with me. I know I am not the most tolerable person to deal with, but they did it. And it's not enough. It just really isn't enough. But now I do understand what they all see in her. This blonde girl who has tortured me endlessly with her name calling. The one who dulled everything I used to feel. But something has clicked inside me and as much as I want to, I can't click it back. I can't turn a switch and make it go back to the way things were before. So now I just push them all away. And I pull them back, realizing that I am just being dumb and emotional and moody. I am forever wanting what I can't have. Like I have this need to always be wanting something that is just out of my reach. I can't keep pushing them all away like this. They're all I have. Because I don't have her.
I used to make Puck turn around whenever I was changing into my pajamas or getting ready for school. When he wants to have sex and I'm actually in the mood for it, I make sure it is pitch black in his tiny bedroom. He says he doesn't mind, that I'm still super hot or whatever but he's Puck and I rarely listen to his compliments. It's just easier that way. They're the only ones I get lately, but that's okay. I try not to think about much anymore. Anything I can do that makes my life easier needs to be accomplished. I get over the fact that I miss bacon so much that when Puck and I watch TV, I start drooling with ads for breakfast come on the screen. But then, we go to Glee practice. And I see her there. And she sings and something inside me fidgets. Old Quinn would roll her eyes and ignore the dramaticness that is Rachel Berry. But I'm like this forever changing person. Accepting that Puck is never going to be tied down. Accepting that this baby growing inside of me won't know what I look like or what Puck looks like. Accepting that when Rachel sings, something inside of me is touched to a point that later I fight with Puck just to get an excuse to cry and then he feels bad and gets me the ice cream that I wanted in the first place. And it's still not enough.
I finally get up the courage to say it. I can tell she doesn't hear it enough and if she's smart, which I know she is, she doesn't listen to Noah when he says it.
"You look pretty today, Quinn." She turns her head and I think she's going to snap her neck with how suddenly she does it. I freeze for a second, sure she wants to bite my head off. I brace myself for the name calling. What will it be this time? She hasn't called me a transvestite in a while. But after looking at me, with the strangest look on her face, I kind of see a smile twitch at the corners of her mouth.
"Thanks… Rachel." It takes a lot out of her to actually say my name but my breath catches in my throat when she says it. I'm not sure she's ever said it before.
Doodles in my notes in class start off as hideous drawings of her, like I used to do, and suddenly I'm drawing hearts and writing her name over and over. And when I step back, snap out of it, and look at what I'm drawing, I pretend to be disgusted with myself and rip the page out and crumple it up into a ball. Then I feel ridiculous for ever trying to pretend that I'm ashamed. I'm the only person who knows. I'm the only person who feels this way. But I'm so insanely paranoid about it that when I know people are whispering about me in the hallways, I forget that I'm the pregnant ex-cheerleader outcast now. All I can worry about is… what if they know? Is it obvious? I should stop staring at her when she sings. It's the only time I let myself actually look at her, though. It twists something inside of me. I want her to only sing to me. Because I'm selfish like that.
"Berry? Can I talk to you?" I'm hugging books to my chest in my now-habitual effort to hide how tremendously pregnant I am. Sure, I'm probably still smaller than older pregnant women but this is the fattest I've ever been and I hate it so much. Rachel turns around from some conversation she's having with Jesse and just stares at me. Deer in the headlights.
"Yes… Sure, Quinn." She waves goodbye to Jesse and we are alone in the choir room. I look down and I can't see my feet. Oh well. Rachel waits.
"I was wondering…" I pause. It's really hard for me to ask. I don't ever want to ask her for anything. But I have to do this. I just have to. "You're, like, a really good singer and… Just, would you maybe want to give me lessons?" The last part comes out pretty fast but I think she understands because she kind of straightens up a little, her ego inflating. Pathetic Quinn Fabray is asking for her help.
"Sure, Quinn. I have told you, you are a good singer. You just lack my training, of course." I feel like she's said this a hundred times but I know it's only because I've replayed the moment in my head over and over again. I nod quickly, wanting this to be over and the same time wanting it to be forever.
"Thanks. So, can we just meet tomorrow or something? After Glee practice?"
"That works out perfectly for me." She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder and I look up at her for the first time. "And Quinn, don't worry about payment. Usually I would ask for a nominal fee but I understand that you and Noah are strapped for money, what with the baby and all that." And then she's retracting her hand and grabbing her bag and heading out the door. I watch her leave.
She asked for my help. Quinn asked for my help and I couldn't do anything but put up that front, that offputting and strong front that has driven away so many people. All I want is to show her I'm not always like that, that I have other sides. But all I can do is offer to give her lessons for free and then practically run out of the room without so much as a goodbye. How incredibly dumb. She must think I'm a child. But she asked me for help. She asked for my help. And I'm oddly excited about spending time alone with the one person who makes me want to go home to my room and belt out sad slow jam into my hairbrush.
After everyone leaves, Rachel and I sit awkwardly in our respective seats. We haven't moved since Mr. Schuester dismissed us. I kiss Puck goodbye and he tries to feel my up a little, which is a new thing, what with my new bra size, but I push him away and he winks at me before he leaves. Rachel waits until the door is closed, snapping shut before she stands from her front row seat to where I'm sitting in the top row.
"So… Do you wanna practice?" I nod, not saying anything. I'm very scared of what will happen if I say anything so I just stand up. I don't want to blurt out that this is just a ploy to hear her sing and know I'm the only one hearing it. I want to be the only one to hear it always. Rachel goes to sit at the piano and I carefully descend the bleacher-seating and stand by the piano with my hands on my stomach. She makes me run through these vocal warm ups I've never heard of and we actually share a laugh when she recites a tongue twister and I get tongue tied and am unable to repeat her. Alone, stigmas fall to pieces and she is not harsh or berating. She makes jokes, more than often unfunny ones, but it's okay because no one but me is there to hear it. And she doesn't act scared of me. Well, no one does anymore, but I would've pegged her to hold on to that fear. Maybe she's fallen into the category of those that feel sorry for me now. I'm okay with that.
Quinn is a good singer. Eventually I become suspicious. She lacks training, but it doesn't take long for me to teach her how to hold herself, project her voice. In half an hour, she can sing better than before. And when she realizes this, too, it's like she has nothing to hide behind anymore. She fidgets for a second and looks down at her stomach. My hands leave the piano.
"So, uh… that's pretty much all I know how to teach you, for now at least. Maybe you could practice and we could meet again…" I desperately want to be able to teach her something else. I almost make something up to teach her before she speaks again.
"Do you think… Would you like, sing something? For me?" She has a look of such seriousness on her face that I'm taken aback for a moment. But she wants me to do it and I would do whatever she asked me. In a heartbeat.
"Yeah… Yeah, I could." I'm barely finished with my sentence and she's dragging a chair across the floor to sit beside the piano. She sits so she's facing me head on and she looks from the piano to me a few times. Then I realize I have no idea what song I can sing her. I think of so many but they all seem trite and silly and overdramatic now. I want it to be perfect. I want so much for her to like what I'm about to sing that I choke. But my fingers go ahead and start playing and I'm singing a song I'm not entirely sure she knows but I play it anyway and I'm singing it with such emotion that I'm sure I seem ridiculous.
Blue is the color of her bedroom eyes,
green is the envy I can't hide.
Red is the color that she lays so bare
in early morning, through any window.
And when I sing the last note and let it hover in the air, I look over to see that she's crying.
Rachel sings and she sings Wisely and it's a song I haven't heard in so long but my heart swells up for it and the fact that she's singing it right now. And I know she's not exactly singing it to me but she's singing it for me, because I asked and that's enough. I don't even realize I'm crying until she's leaning over, me her hand on my shoulder. Where she had put it just yesterday in what seemed like a casual gesture.
"Oh my god, Quinn… are you okay?" I take a few shakey breaths and try to pretend that I'm composed but it's almost like a relief to actual just let myself cry when she sings.
"I'm fine… I'm… fine." My words are choppy and short and after a while I realized that Rachel is kneeling on the floor beside me and rubbing my back. Sometimes, when my baby hormones get the best of me and I wake up crying in the middle of the night, I wish Puck would do exactly what Rachel is doing now. I can tell she doesn't know what to do next though and it's obvious that the next words out of her mouth are unexpected and come from not knowing how to deal with a sobbing pregnant girl.
"Do you wanna go get ice cream?" I process what she's just said and laugh a little.
"Actually… Yeah. I really do."
And suddenly, we're friends. Not like real friends that talk to each other in the hall and joke around during Glee practice, but secret friends that text each other and meet in the park when Quinn wants to get away from the monotony that is Noah and his obsession with Super Mario Brothers. And I'm fine with the secrets, I'm fine with it. I understand. I'm too blindsided by the fact that I share inside jokes with her to even care that she still doesn't want to be seen in the hallway with me.
I hate it. I hate having to pretend like she doesn't exist, still. I overcompensate. I barely look at her the entire day. I force myself not to search every hallway for her. I don't even look at her during Glee. Even when she sings. And I hate it. I hate that, inside, I'm still that self-centered Cheerio who wanted nothing more but to humiliate Rachel Berry. I want to change so badly. I want it more than anything. I don't even have sex with Puck anymore because I feel so guilty that sometimes my mind wanders to her. I am so tired of hanging out with anyone but her.
I finally get up the courage to ask her. I've been so entirely scared of what will happen but one day, I just feel it. I know what might happen and I do it anyway. This is what courage is. We meet at the park again and I sit down next to where she's reading a book on the bench. I take note that it's the Chronicles of Narnia, which she's been reading again and she's told me before that she's read them all multiple times.
"Hey." She looks up and smiles brightly and it's the smile that I've been wanting for so long for her to grace me with. I file it away in my brain every time she does it.
"Hi, Quinn." She goes back to reading, but sometimes she does that. She wants to finish her sentence or page or something before talking to me. I'm patient. She finally closes the book.
"So, uh, what did you want to talk to me about?" I'm suddenly very nervous, though I have rehearsed exactly what I wanted to say to her exactly how I wanted to say it to her. That's the only way I know how to go about this. I take a deep breath and let it come out of me.
"Well, I know that you've been kind of aggravated with Noah recently and we're friends and I was just wondering if maybe tomorrow night you would like to spend the night at my house. You know, just to get away from living with a boy for a while." I inhale, having not taken a breath through this entire speech. There is a nervously tense silence between the two of us and I watch her hand slide over the cover of her worn paperback copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as she thinks.
"Yeah. I would really like that." Quinn turns to look at me and I look back at her. The corners of her mouth turn up at the ends and I now know that this is her genuine smile. Not the one she uses when she's trying to manipulate you or lie to you. But when she's actually happy. I nod.
"Cool."