rdm_ation

Fandom: Glee (really would I write anything else?)
Spoilers: 3x01
Warnings: vague references to depression
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 690
Beta: the lovely

tamakito and

thalia03 read it through for me as well

A new year, a new look, a new personality. Somehow, Quinn still felt lost.

Not for the first time this summer Quinn took in her surroundings and wondered how the fuck she got there. She liked the utter ridiculousness of joining a pseudo-gang that called themselves the ‘skanks’, and she liked that they just didn’t care about what anyone else thought of them. It was kind of refreshing, even though she wasn’t quite there yet. Nevertheless, the change from the girl she had been for the past few years was a little jarring.

She still wasn’t sure how exactly that change came about. It often felt like she was still pretending.

So when Sheila held out her pack of cigarettes in a wordless offer, Quinn hesitated for a split second before taking one.

Naturally, she choked and spluttered with the first drag, making the other girls laugh hysterically. Once she got past the initial shock to her system though, all she felt was release.

Quinn Fabray, perfect princess, now with pink hair, smoking like it was going out of fashion.

She knew her peers would scoff at her, and wonder what went wrong, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she just didn’t give a shit.

It felt like freedom.

It really was a pity that the feeling never lasted.

--

A few weeks later, school was back. Sure enough, everyone at school was confused at her seemingly sudden personality change.

She had continued to smoke, continued to hang out with the skanks, and continued to ignore what those around her thought of her. Her mom was horrified by this change in her ‘little girl’ but was silent on the matter – Quinn thought that their explosive fights about what went down when she was pregnant had bought her as much leeway as she wanted. In a way she was right. She was confident she could guilt her mom into ignoring everything this time around.

When Santana and Brittany cornered her about rejoining the Cheerios it took all she had not to scream at them. Besties .Really, Santana? Quinn wanted to ask what kind of friends abandoned someone when times got tough. What kind of friends stabbed each other in the back constantly? What kind of friends told you to cut your hair and that it would magically make you loved? Quinn was calm, monotone, but she really wanted to tear into them. The Unholy Trinity was dead and buried, Quinn had no desire to try and fit herself to that particular model again.

--

The one thing that plagued her constantly was the feeling that there was still something missing. Quinn liked her new persona, her new attitude towards other people, her new wardrobe and the freedom that came with it but sometimes she still broke down. Everything she did was still tinged with a calm sort of sadness – and still nobody saw it.

It felt good, but it didn’t necessarily feel real.

--

Then, of course, Rachel fucking Berry had to stick her nose in.

I’m sorry you’re so sad, Quinn.

Six words, and Quinn felt like her heart had been torn out. Quinn wondered, again, how it was that Rachel always managed to say exactly the wrong and the right thing. Why was she the one who saw through her? Rachel was so unashamedly herself, all the time, she’d always made it look easy.

Her smile faltered, and she couldn’t find the cutting words that she had used on Santana and Brittany.
She couldn’t find any words at all.

There was no way she could deny the truth of what Rachel said, not even to herself. It cut like a knife.

--

Quinn often wonders if anything she ever did would stop feeling like a persona. Half the time, she thinks that this new person she’s created for herself is finally the right one.

The other half of the time she wonders if she’s deluding herself like she’s always deluded everyone else.

She knows, better than most, that everyone will see exactly what they want to see. Let them.

Maybe one day she’ll figure out how to tell someone what it’s really like to be Quinn Fabray.

Today is not that day.