notes– even though fabrevans and st. berry are 5ever my otps, i'm really starting to like faberry, and this one is a very belated gift for the flawless amy (foxfaced by nightlock), hope you enjoy it!
disclaimer – uhm, i don't own glee, or the notebook.
warning – possible triggers as this fic contains self-harm, and mentions of an eating disorder (bulimia) and depression.
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amaranthine
quinn/rachel
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"so it's not gonna be easy. it's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this every day, but i want to do that because i want you. i want all of you, forever, every day. you and me... every day."
—- the notebook
/
Nothing is permanent in this universe, so what's the point in even trying? You could be the smartest, work and read all your life, but then you reach a certain age and even that loses its magic and your mind starts going and this that seemed so easy, aren't now.
But right here, right now, even knowing that in fifty, sixty, seventy years, it will be over, it doesn't make you want her even less. You press another kiss to her, as if trying to heal her with your lips, and whisper in her hair, "I love you."
The whispers are rising again, like they always do, FAT, UGLY, SHUT, WHORE, BITCH, but her lips silence, them, and so do her words. "I love you, too." Because this may be the closest thing to perfection there is in this whole world, and you'll take it, you'll take it — whether for one minute or for eternity.
"Always?" FAT, UGLY —
"Forever."
The voices stop.
/
Her name is Rachel and she has the stars in her eyes and the moon in her smile; she has cuts on her wrists and sadness on her tongue.
She's just like you — lost in this fucked up world, and you wish you could change it, for her at least.
But the thing is — you can't, you can't.
How can you try to help someone if you are more messed up than they are? How can you calm someone when you are even more hysterical than they are? You can't — but, oh, how you want to.
You want to love the bags out from under her brown eyes, and kiss each of the cuts to get better, because a person like her doesn't belong in a place like this with its white — whitewhitewhite — walls, over smiling staff, and people that are really fucked up, people like you.
You don't like seeing her here, not at all, but there's nothing you can do.
"Welcome to Columbus Ohio Psychiatric Hospital, how may I help you?"
YOU CAN'T, you want to scream at them, YOU CAN'T HELP ME — LEAVE ME ALONE, but they don't — they never do. "I'm fine," you insist, the words, lies, falling from your lips easily. "I don't need any help. Really. It's not me, you see," and it's not — there is a rational explanation, "the voices — they tell me things, scary things. And I've got to make them stop, you see. Blame the voices."
They put you in a white room, by yourself, where smiling nurses come to visit you.
But the thing is — you weren't always like this.
There was a time that you were normal. "Normal," you try the words out on your tongue. It's foreign and weird and you say it again, "normal." Maybe if you say it enough, it'll become true.
"Normal."
It doesn't.
/
Inside this broken shell, there once was a happy girl — well, as happy as any teenage girl could be in these circumstances — with hair like a mountain sunset, and eyes like warm hazelnut. She was perfect, on the outside at least, but inside, inside was a broken girl. Her name is Quinn Fabray.
But what people don't know is that under the picture perfect smiles and porcelain expressions, you were crumbling like a day-old scone and I HAVE TO BE PERFECT, I DO and no one could know what was wrong with you, because you're Quinn Fabray, and you can't be imperfect, right?
"Quinnie, do you want pancakes?" Judy Fabray, your mother, asks.
"Okay," you say — you can't arouse suspicion, but the voices, those evil voices, the ones tearing you apart from the inside, whisper FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — and the words swirl and swirl inside you until they are a part of you ("Lucy Caboosey!") and you can't, you can't, you can't take it anymore, you have to make the words stop, you do.
It's hard, at first, throwing up in just the right way, but soon, like any art, it becomes part of you, and it's so easy to hide this from anyone and everyone, "Thanks, mom, for the breakfast," and you dash back to your room, right into your bathroom, two fingers already down your throat, so eager, so ready —
FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BIT — but finally, the voices stop, for now, at least – until you eat again, and they restart, more menacing than the last time. "Eventually," you say, looking at yourself in the mirror — you didn't even get any puke on your new white dress, pro — "I'm going to have to blow my brains out, just to get away from these voices."
You flush the toilet.
/
"Hey, Fabray, lookin' good," Puckerman says, leering at you with that look that makes you want to kill yourself — or him, either one is fine. But everyone is smiling and nodding and GOD, IT FEELS GOOD because you're on top again, and these people, they'll be working for you in the future, when you're rich and successful and skinny, and —
FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — the voices start up again, and you curse yourself for ever thinking that you could escape them. They'll always be with you, no matter where you go, and you try to ignore it, but they get louder and louder — FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH. FATUGLYSLUTWHOREBITCH, FATUGLYSLUTWHOREBITCH and it's taking over your mind, and you are ugly and fat and you can't think —
"Quinn?" the teacher glares at you, and you try to communicate, HELP ME, THE VOICES ARE BACK, but you can't, and she just stares at you reproachfully, like it's your fault her class is so fucking boring. "The answer to question 40?"
FAT, UGLY — "Which one was question 40, again?" you ask, cheeks burning. Someone, probably Santana, laughs — SLUT, WHORE — "Oh, the one with the trains?" — BITCH — "37. Can I go to the bathroom?" The teacher glares at you reproachfully, but she can't say anything because you answered the question right, and she nods her head.
"I am beautiful," you try telling yourself in the mirror, like your Guidance Counsellor told you to, "I am skinny." But you aren't because the voices — FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — are calling you again, and you stick your fingers down your throat even though you haven't eaten anything but the feeling after you've flushed the toilet, deleting all the evidence, is like a high for drug addicts.
You step out of the stall, and meet —
"Hey, Q," Santana says with a wicked gleam, "how are you?"
"I'm sick, okay?" the lies, excuses, tumble from your lips in a reflex, you're used to this, being questioned. "I think I have the flu. Must the cafeteria food, don't try it."
"Shut the fuck up, Fabray," Santana snaps, glaring at you. The look in her eyes is feral, lethal. "Listen — you're already as skinny as a fucking twig, so why don't you stop going all Mary-Kate Olsen on us, hmm?"
"You don't know anything, Santana!" you find yourself yelling at her. She steps back, shocked. You know, deep down, that she just wants to help you — but maybe you don't want to be helped. "Shut up! Not everyone is as skinny as Miss Perfect Body Lopez. I'm just sick, okay?" and you leave her there, staring at you, in the bathroom. The whispers are already starting again, FAT, UGLY —
"Quinn," says Sam, "I missed you this morning." You let him kiss your cheek, and wonder if he can see the ugliness that you see when you look in the mirror. "You look beautiful." HE'S LYING — the voices tell you. And how could he not be? You are fat, fat and ugly. "Want to go to lunch?" SLUT, WHORE, BITCH —
"Okay," you find yourself saying. "What's the special?"
Sam goes on, blabbing about something you don't care about, and the two of you step into the cafeteria, hand in hand. You like Sam, really, you do. He's kind and caring and comfortable. You kiss his cheek as the whispers grow — HE WILL NEVER WANT A FAT, UGLY, LUCY CABOOSEY, THE SECOND SANTANA SOMES ONTO HIM, YOU'RE DONE — but right now, you don't want to think about that.
You grasp his hand harder.
/
You don't usually speak during lunch.
You eat as the whispers grow, and let the group talk for you — they hardly notice. "What's wrong?" Sam asks, "why don't you talk at lunch anymore?" and Tina looks away from Artie, with the same question in her eyes, and Puck stops his story about something that you care nothing about, and Finn frowns, like he may actually care about you, and Santana doesn't meet your eye, and they do care.
"Shut up, Sam," you find yourself saying, "just leave me alone. Can't I be quiet and try to enjoy my food without the interrogation? Jesus Christ." You bang your tray on the table, the cafeteria goes silent. "What?" you bark at them, and they go back to their pathetic lives.
"Quinn, wait — " Sam tries to say something comforting, but you stand.
The voices are already unbearable. You dump your lunch — tray and all — into the trash can and run towards the nearest bathroom, you throw yourself into the first stall. Two fingers down your throat —
I CAN'T PUKE, I CAN'T PUKE, WHY CAN'T I PUKE — and what do you do now because you ate fries at lunch, and you can already hear the voices, blocking out all other noise, and you can feel the additional pounds on your hips, and there is someone else inside the bathroom. "Damn," you mutter because that's the number one rule: always make sure that you are alone. IDIOT.
"Quinn?" the person asks, and you know who it is — Rachel Berry.
"Manhands," you kick open the door with a sneer. She looks at you for a second, and the only thing in your mind is SHE KNOWS, because she does — somehow, she does. You raise an eyebrow, daring her, challenging her — and yet, a part of you wants her to scream it to the school, to shut up the voices, (FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH) for good. "What are you doing here, freak? Perving on me, tranny?" but your eyes, they scream, HELP ME and maybe she hears.
"Quinn, are you okay?" she asks, and you realize, for the first time, that there is blood on the floor, a puddle that gets bigger with every passing moment. And in her hand is a razor. You're not the only one who's broken.
"I'm just sick," you say, your eyebrows asking for a challenge, PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP ME, SAVE ME — but she just looks away. "Freak," you mutter after her as she runs through the door, but part of you wishes that she'd stay.
PLEASE, I NEED HELP —
Her hand pauses on the handle. "Quinn —"
"Get out of here, Berry," you sneer because finally, the food is coming back up, and it has more to do with the blood on the floor, and Rachel, than your fingers.
She leaves.
/
The voices never stop.
Every time you take a breath, the voices urge you — no, they force you — to stay skinny. The whispers are ugly in your head and you're so horrible, why does anyone even like you. FAT —
"I am skinny," you lie to yourself. UGLY — "I am pretty." You always lie like this, they say you have to tell the truth, but you aren't pretty, you aren't, and the sooner they realize this, the sooner they will ditch you like last year's outfits. SLUT, WHORE, BITCH —
You stand on the scale, and are surprised that it doesn't break — FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — but it reads 105, and that's not good enough for you — it's not, and the word fat is on your tongue, and maybe those diet pills that your mom has aren't a bad idea after all. She hardly uses them anymore, so she won't even notice — and it won't matter if she does, not really.
You take one, feel nothing. FAT, UGLY —
You pop another. SLUT, WHORE —
This must be what taking ecstasy feels like, you think as you take another, then another, then another, and then countless more, and pop them in your mouth. You feel invincible, like you could jump off the Empire State building and not break a bone, and you are weightless. BITCH —
The voices stop. In fact, it's almost like the whole world has gone silent and a bit fuzzy around the edges. You feel brave, daring. "I am invincible," you shout, you want to scream it from the rafters, but your legs feel heavy.
Your eyelids droop, "I — am — invinci — " The door opens, Santana, your mother, and, looking quite out of place in your pink room, Rachel burst in, screaming words that you have no care of to listen.
Your mother shouts something, but you can't hear because your ears are going fuzzy, and you want to sleep, and —
/
"She'll be okay, Miss Fabray — " There is a doctor standing right above you. You open your eyes a bit more, the lights above you are blinding, and they almost make you close your eyes. You're in a hospital, you realize, by the smell of hand-sanitizer. But why?
"Please, call me Miss McQueen, I'm no longer married to Russell Fabray," it's your mother, and she stands above you, looking pale and tense in the stark light. She looks like she hasn't slept in days. It's funny, you think, 'cause she never goes out without makeup and a well-crafted ensemble, and it's so absurd that you laugh. You like that, laughing, and you do it again.
"Quinn," your mother breathes, and the colour floods back into her face. "Oh my God, honey. I thought — I thought — if Santana and Rachel hadn't called me — " The words Santana and Rachel sound funny together, 'cause they kind of hate each other, but there they are, you notice, sitting together like the best of friends.
"Sannie and Rachie," you slur, grinning sloppily at them, "mommy, don — don't worry, I was invincible, you see," and you try to explain yourself, "at least the voices have stopped." And they have, finally, but your mother begins sobbing, and the doctor escorts her to the waiting room.
"What the fuck, Fabray?" Santana snaps at you the second the doctor and your mother disappear. "If Manhands — if Berry hadn't come to me, worried to fucking hell about you, and literally annoyed me into calling your mom and visiting you, and you were on the floor, oh my God, Quinn." There are tears shining on her face, and, whoa, you didn't know that she cared about you enough to cry — after all, Santana Lopez doesn't cry.
Rachel doesn't say anything, just puts an arm around Santana and squeezes.
The ringing in your ears stops. "But why, Manh — Berry? I've been a bitch to you, even today, and you saved my life," you hiccough.
"I didn't want you to die," Rachel says, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. You smile at her, and feel warm. "It's just — you scared me today, you know."
"I'm sorry," you say to both of them, "but the voices — the voices."
The doctor walks in with your mother, still crying, beside her. "Miss Fabray, you're awake," he says and you fight the urge to roll your eyes — oh, so that's what it is when your eyes are open and you're conscious! — but he doesn't seem to notice. "You need help, Miss Fabray."
"Help with what?" you mumble but the voices, they're coming back. YOU ARE UGLY, YOU ARE WORTHLESS, TOO BAD BERRY SAVED YOUR MISERABLE LIFE — and, oh, you thought you were free, you thought you were free. "The voices," you whisper and everyone stops, "they're back."
Your mother sobs harder.
/
You feel fat, bloated. The damn doctors won't leave you alone long enough to do anything — even when you do go to the bathroom, there is a nurse with you, whispering things like, "How are you?" and "How much do you weigh?" But the words, those voices in your brain, FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — still scream at you.
"You're so skinny," the nurses lie — but you're not, all you see is mountainous rolls of fat and crooked teeth and Lucy Caboosey, and you can't, you can't deal with this.
Except Rachel visits you a lot, so you kind of can.
"Hi, Quinn," she smiles at you — treats you like normal. "How are you?" HOW CAN YOU EVEN BE NICE TO ME AFTER I'VE BEEN SUCH A MONSTER — you think, but you just lie through your teeth.
"Fine."
"No you're not," she argues, and you sag against her, "you're not. But that's okay. You'll get better."
And here, sitting with your head on her shoulder, you kind of believe her.
You don't hear the voices when she's with you.
/
The day you leave to Columbus, Ohio, is an overcast one.
The only people who come to see you off are Santana and Brittany, your eyes ask Santana WHERE'S RACHEL — but she shrugs and looks away. "Please, mom. I don't want them to think I'm insane — "
"But you need help, Quinnie, and your school needs to be involved," your mother says firmly. "So they understand." You want to curse, scream obscenities, but you're just so tired, and you give up.
"Bye, Quinn," Brittany says in that dreamy voice of hers, "I hope San and I visit you soon." You hug her, and she feels warm, solid, under your bony grasp.
"I swear to god, Q," Santana snarls, but there is another layer under the hostility — fear, "if you ever do that again, I will go all Lima Heights Adjacent on you, and you know I will." She cares about you, you smile. "Bye, bitch. Britt and I'll visit you later, 'k?"
You offer both of them a fake smile, nod, "Please don't tell anyone."
"What about Trouty Mouth?" Santana asks you, her eyes like lasers pinpointing you.
You can't bear to think it — what Sam will say when he finds out, how he will react, and the look he'll give you, how tightly he'll hug you, so you answer, "Especially not him. Please." Your mother sits in the car, honking the horn. You hug them, look back for Rachel WHERE ARE YOU — you ask the world, begging for her. Nothing.
You get in the car and drive away.
/
"Welcome to Columbus, Ohio Psychiatric Hospital, how may I help you?" she smiling receptionist asks. You glare at her. YOU CAN'T HELP ME, you say, but you don't.
"Mom," you hiss, "I don't need help — I'm fine." FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH —
She doesn't believe your lie. "My daughter is Quinn Fabray."
The receptionist smiles — can she do anything else but smile? — typing at her keyboard. "Ahh, I see; the referral of Doctor Powell's." A nurse leads you by the arm into a white hallway — enclosing you, trapping you — and smiles at you.
"You'll be living here for a few weeks, honey," she smiles at you with her garish pink lipstick. "Just press this button any time you need a nurse, okay? Don't worry — we'll help you."
"But I don't want help — I don't need help — I need a scale," you yell, and the nurse smiles indulgently and wanders off, probably to go torture some more people. You feel your normally hard belly — now there is only fat.
YOU ARE UGLY — your mother walks in, wiping her eyes delicately. "Quinnie, listen, this is for your own good, okay? I love you." You glare at her.
YOU ARE STUPID — "Thanks for nothing," slips from your lips and she steps back, hurt. "Bye, mom." FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH —
Maybe, you concede, you do need help.
/
The next time they allow guests, Rachel visits you, dressed in her long sleeved dresses and fake show smile. "Rachel," you breathe and it's the first good thing that's happened here, "why didn't you see me off?" She sighs, guilty.
"I had a show, sorry."
"It's okay," you find yourself saying because she's here now and that's all that matters. She looks pretty, by Rachel standards, in a long-sleeved, pale blue dress, and while to most, it was a normal ensemble, you know it hides the cuts on her wrists and arms. "It's okay."
She sits down, facing you. You notice how pretty she is — not the glamorous kind, like Santana, but a wholesome, more natural kind, and how could you not have noticed how shiny her hair was before, or how bright her eyes were? But maybe you did, a voice inside you ponders, that's why you pushed her so hard.
"How's school?" you ask her, because you are quite curious and Brittany and Santana obviously haven't had time to visit yet.
"Everyone was so worried about the disappearance of the mysterious Quinn Fabray," Rachel says, smiling, and you like it — you like the way she says your name, like it's a melody. "Santana, obviously, was the first choice for interrogation, but well, you know how intimidating she can be" — you nod, grinning — "and then people went to Sam, but he doesn't know anything."
"How is Sam?" you ask, just for the sake of asking, because, really, you haven't thought about Sam at all, despite the fact that he's left 43 voicemail messages on your phone. Rachel frowns.
"Hurt, angry, annoyed. He thinks you're avoiding him," she says.
"I think I am, too," you admit to her and she smiles at you.
"Why? I thought Ken and Barbie were paradise in heaven," Rachel says, and you stare at her — the way she says it is strange, almost spiteful.
"That may be the problem," you admit sheepishly, "dating Sam is just so ordinary. But why do you care, anyway?" But she doesn't say anything, and you two just sit in silence for a while.
"You should at least call him," Rachel points out. You don't answer.
"You know," you say eventually, "when you're here; you make the voices to go away." Rachel smiles at you, and everything is right —
Her lips, they taste like strawberries. Her lips taste like young love. The voices try to say something, but you just kiss her harder.
For once, the voices have no control over you.
/
The doctors pump you full of liquids and literally shove food down your throat.
Every minute, the voices get louder, YOU ARE FAT, YOU ARE WORTHLESS — and only Rachel can stop them with her moon-bright eyes, and dapper smile that lights up the room. You know you're gaining weight, you can literally feel the pounds accumulating, "Can I have a scale?" you ask, but they do not comply.
"It may trigger you," they say. "You're improving. You're healthy. That's all you need to know."
On the third weekend you're in this hellhole, Santana and Brittany drop by. "Hey, Q," Santana says with a smirk. "How are you here in Crazy town?"
"Shut up, S," you grumble, but all three of you smile because this is real, and this is good, and this is familiar. Then the smile slips off Santana's face and you know you're going to hear some bad news.
"Q, sorry, but Principal Figgins told everyone that you're in here." And you feel your world wasting around the edges, you can barely make out Santana's face and you're falling, and the voices are screaming, YOU ARE WORTHLESS, EVEN RACHEL WON'T WANT YOU —
There's a knock at the door. "Quinn?" It's Sam. You're not ready for this, you're not ready for this, you're not ready, you'renotready —
You sigh, opening the door. He engulfs you in a hug that seems to tight. "Quinn. Oh, Quinn." And that's why you didn't want to tell him — because he'd overreact. He kisses you, but you pull away, because Rachel, and —
"What do you want, Sam?" your voice comes out flat, impatient.
"I — I came to visit you, Figgins told us what happened, and I thought — "
"You thought what?" you snarl because he doesn't deserve this, but you don't want him here. "You thought that it would be nice to visit me — even though I purposely didn't tell you I was coming for a reason?" He flinches back, hurt, while Santana whistles. "I'm sorry, Sam. You're a good guy, but — "
"Quinn, I love you," he says, looking at you with those eyes that could get you to agree to anything, but then you remember Rachel's eyes, and they're even more captivating.
"Sam, I'm not interested anymore. You're a great guy who deserves a girlfriend who can love you, and I'm not her." He gives you one last long, searching look.
"Okay, good bye, Quinn Fabray," and with that, he's gone.
Santana and Brittany hug you, but the only thing you say is — "Where's Rachel?" because the voices are returning, and there's nothing you can do.
"You love her," Santana states, and it's not a question, and you don't deny it. After all, you see the way she looks at Brittany, and she knows how you feel.
"I do," you confirm, and it feels glorious, saying that in the open air, letting the words spill into the room, into the world.
"Since when?" Santana asks you.
"She always has," Brittany says matter-of-factly, "that's why she worked so hard to tear her down, because it was easier to hate Rachel."
Maybe Brittany isn't as dumb as everyone says she is, you realize.
FAT, UGLY — "Shut up!" you yell and the two girls stare at you. "I was telling the voices to shut up. I am not fat, nor am I ugly."
For the first time, you feel hope.
/
Rachel comes with you and your mother when you are finally discharged from the hospital, and the two of you sit in the back and secretly hold hands for the two and a half hour drive back home. You like it, the feeling of her hands and yours, together.
When you get home — and you never knew you'd be this excited to go back home, you and Rachel go into your room, and she holds you, and everything is right.
"Want me to walk into school with you tomorrow?" she asks, tracing patterns onto your ivory skin, and you smile at her.
"Please do."
"You can do it, you know, you're invincible," she smiles at you, and you believe everything she says.
"But I'm not — I'm not," you say truthfully. "I'm broken."
"I'm not, either," she says, lifting for the first time, the hem of a sleeve to show her scars. "Let's be broken together — promise?"
You say nothing, just trace her scares — both the scabbed over old ones, and the fresh new ones, and whisper, "Promise you won't hurt yourself if I don't hurt myself?"
"Promise," she whispers.
You kiss every scar on her wrist, and she lets you be the strong one, for once. But you have to know, "Did I do this?" you ask, eyes begging her to tell you the truth.
"No," she says, and you believe her. Her tears fall onto the carpet, making dark spots, and you say nothing.
/
As promised, she walks into school with you — and Santana and Brittany, as extra protection — but people are staring and they're whispering, and YOU ARE WORTHLESS — but then her hand finds yours and squeezes for just a second, and you can do this.
"I heard she OD'ed on drugs, too," a girl whispers, casting you a disgusted look.
"God — I always wondered why she was so thin," another girl, this time a Cheerio — one of the girls you used to command — mutters.
FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH — the teachers give you sad, pitying looks, wondering where the perfect Lucy Quinn Fabray went wrong, and everyone is staring. You lock eyes with Sam and he mouths, Good luck, Quinn, and you smile because he really was a great guy — and he'll make some girl really happy. YOU ARE HORRIBLE, YOU ARE WORTHLESS, WHY DO YOU EVEN WAKE UP IN THE MORNING —
"Fuck off, losers," says Santana and you've never loved the girl more. She gives everyone a well, what the fuck are you still doing here look, and they scatter the hallways.
"Thank you," you say, smiling.
She grins nonchalantly, "Don't say I never did anything for you, Q."
"Good luck, Quinn," Brittany gives you one more hug and flounces off with Santana, linking their pinkies together.
"They're so obviously in love," Rachel says, and you have to agree with her.
"I know," you nod, a bit sadly. "I wish — " you let the sentence hang between yourselves.
"Me too," she smiles. "I'm with you, you know? Every step of the way."
And she is, she is.
/
You two go stargazing one night, long after the rumours of your various escapades have faded to a dull murmur. You still haven't told your mother about you and Rachel, but she already seems to know, and her dads have known for a while, actually. "Look," Rachel says, and her hands grab yours, "a shooting star."
"Make a wish," you whisper, taking her tanned arm in yours. The scars, even the newest of them, have started to fade, as she promised you, she doesn't cut herself any more.
"Why? I already have everything I need," she whispers, and her hand is in your blonde hair, tangling in it, another snaking behind this pale yellow dress — proudly size two — and her lips are on yours, and stars be damned, because it's Rachel, and she's been with you every step of the way, and there's nothing like a slow caress under the stars.
"Quinn?"
"Hmm?"
"I love you."
The voices are getting dimmer, maybe you aren't worthless; maybe you are somebody. FAT, UGLY, SLUT, WHORE, BITCH. "The voices," you whisper, because you can't deal with them now — or ever again.
"What do they say?" she asks you, lips ghosting over your throat.
You hesitate, saying it aloud makes it real, but this is Rachel. "Fat, ugly, slut, whore, bitch. That I'm worthless," you whisper.
"Thin, beautiful, pure, perfect, kind," she counters each of the negatives with a positive, "you are worth everything. Quinn Fabray, don't ever call yourself worthless."
You open your mouth to argue, but she jumps you, and you both fall on the grass, and her lips are on yours, more urgent than before, and there is no time for insecurities, so you just whisper, "I love you," and you've never meant anything more in your life.
/
fin
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