when the lights come on i'll be ready for this, a glee fanfic

["You don't understand why you want to keep lying to everyone other than the fact that you've done it forever and no, it doesn't hurt that much and yes, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine." 50 times Quinn has to pretend, & a few times she doesn't. trigger warnings for everything, basically. a bit of fabrastings, but faberry endgame, frannie x robert. angst & fluff.]

[a/n: there's sixty little times here, so. 50 is actually a guess but the ratio is probably mostly accurate. yay.]

when the lights come on i'll be ready for this (i'll find my own bravado)

the bells again. you open up your eyes/ again. a gap. to be a person—/ human and then a woman./ to be one who has had/ enough./ they give everything they have. they sing.

—jorie graham, "waking (ecrammeville, 6 a.m.)"

…

The first line you ever say:

It doesn't hurt that much.

Frannie sneaks a tube of some kind of cream out of her lunchbox. You're in first grade and she's in sixth, and she says, You can't tell Mom or Dad about this, okay?

You don't know what it is but you nod. Frannie never hurts you.

Lift up your shirt, she tells you, pressing on your shoulder gently so you turn around. You do, and there's a sharp intake of breath.

It's fine, she says quickly. You're fine. This is gonna make things feel better. I guess it might sting and if it does I'm sorry and—

It's okay, you say.

Frannie sighs and you feel cool cream along your back. You can't really see but you've seen Frannie's since last night—your father was drunk; you were making too much noise; Frannie spilled paint—and there are bleeding welts everywhere along her pretty pale skin.

The cream stings a little bit, and you hiss as quietly as you can, and she says, It'll help, I promise.

When she's done you turn around and you say, I'll put some on your back.

Frannie shakes her head, long blonde hair falling out of her braid. It's for you, she says. Mine's not that bad.

You know it is, and you don't understand but you're too tired and you love her too much to fight, so you just give her a hug, press your nose into her thin stomach. She always smells so good. Your back does feel better, so you say, I'm sorry, and you say, Thank you.

You pretend to have friends. Max and Alice. Dorothy. Harry.

Everyone is so mean to you at school, so hurtful. They call you names. John Innis steals your lunch on a weekly basis because he says you're too fat to eat.

You don't tell anyone. You don't tell anyone about any of it.

When you get home you try not to cry and you take your books and go outside to the big tree in your yard. If you try hard enough and close your eyes hard enough, you can imagine a different Lucy, one much more magical than you.

But then your brain gets too exhausted, so you open your eyes. You're alone, and you stare into the floating opaque leaves drenched lighter and yellower by the sun. They flutter and shift in the breeze. Later you will realize they are the color and motion of your eyes, but for now you think they're beautiful, and they make your chest feel too small for how big your heart is, and you are out of breath from wonder.

It is lonely, to exist as yourself, but most days the leaves sing to you, and most days that is enough.

You don't really think any boys are in your class and you don't even have to pretend because no one is going to want to hold your hand and carry your books and walk you to class anyway.

You learn you Bible verses for Sunday School by heart. Frannie knows them too, because your father made you recite them on Saturday nights and you learned very early on that if you didn't know them perfectly wearing your dress for church soon—straight-backed and not as soft as a sweater—was a literal hell.

When you're nine, one night in October, Frannie spends more time in her room painting and when you go in to tell her that it's time to recite your verses for the week, the easy pink blush drains from her cheeks. Shit, she says.

You've never heard her curse before.

Oh, fuck, she mumbles, putting down her paintbrush.

You swallow multiple times. I'm sorry, you say.

God, no, Lucy, she says. It's not your fault, okay?

You waver in her doorway. I'll go say mine so maybe you can—

I don't know them, Frannie says. I forgot. She sounds defeated, hollow, horrified.

You try your best to not look scared.

Frannie bites her bottom lip. You can tell she's trying not to cry. Come, Lucy Q, she says. Let's go get this over with.

You say your verses and you're perfect.

And then Frannie stands in front of your father and says, I don't know them.

His eyes flash dangerously.

Frances Grace Fabray, he says, and Frannie amazingly stands perfectly straight and juts her chin out just slightly. She doesn't apologize.

He tells her to go into his study and you go outside.

You start to cry and you count all the way until 649 before you go back inside. Your father is sipping scotch in front of the news. You figure your mother is cooking dinner because you hear her in the kitchen, and it smells lot pot roast.

You walk up the stairs as quietly as possible, and you hear Frannie before you even get to her room: she's sobbing.

You go into her room and you want to walk right back out, because there's your big sister's pretty, pretty back, and this pretty purple bra she'd gotten for her birthday, completely soaked with blood. Frannie is facedown on her bed, and you can see her ribs contract with each breath, and you know she's really just trying to get her breathing under control.

You go to your shared bathroom and run warm water over a towel, and you take the cream out of its secret hiding spot in Frannie's box of tampons, and then you walk back to her room, climb up on her bed. She shifts over slightly to allow you more room, but neither of you say anything.

You open the cream and you know it's bad because Frannie doesn't even protest you using it for her, and you put some on the towel and then lay it as gently as you can on her back and she fights off a scream, which you are immeasurably grateful for.

I have a soccer game tomorrow after church, Frannie says. Her voice is rough and so, so sad.

You don't say anything. Instead you start to sing, one of Frannie's favorite song by this cool band called The Beatles. You play with her hair gently, because that was always nice when she did it to you.

After a while your mother calls you down for dinner, and you kiss Frannie's cheek and say, I'll bring you some, okay?

She's exhausted and in so much pain, but she shakes her head. I don't want you to get in trouble, she says, and sits up slowly, eyes closed, and the towel drops off her back, spotted with so much red. She stiffly puts on a black sweatshirt from her soccer team and shakily climbs down from her bed.

You hold her head, and she kisses the top of your head.

She has a fever the next day, but she makes it through church and she tries to play soccer before her back starts bleeding through her uniform, and when her coach pulls her out she says she fell playing with you on the swings the day before, and that she's sorry, she probably should go.

He nods and pats her on the back once, and she holds back her tears, although her jaw clenches tight.

You walk home from the school field with her—slowly, because she's not having the easiest time breathing—and you say, You'll be okay.

You are both so, so good at lying, so she nods. We'll both be okay, she says.

You see Frannie kiss a boy one day after a soccer game.

You see Frannie kiss another boy one day after another soccer game.

You see Frannie smoke a cigarette once outside her bedroom when neither of your parents are home.

You see Frannie wobble home one night and you figure she's drunk; so are your parents, so none of them notice at all.

The summer before Frannie's senior year you're both sitting on the edge of your pool after your parents have gone to bed; you snuck out of Frannie's bedroom window.

She's wearing a bikini and you're going to be in seventh grade so when you look at her, you see only the ways you are not beautiful.

Frannie's hair is long and blonde and it gets wavy when it dries out of the pool. She's thin—really thin, and you know she doesn't eat a lot and she plays soccer still and she smells like cigarettes more and more. You can see Frannie's ribcage; her stomach has defined muscles; her cheekbones and her jaw and her nose are like women's you see on movies.

You are not like this.

Frannie splashes her feet a few times and says, Lucy, you know I'm going to apply for colleges, right?

You nod.

Not all of them are close to here, she says.

You nod again, and your heart drops. She's your best friend—she's your only friend.

I'm really so—

No, you say. You deserve to—I don't want to—

She takes your hand, squeezes. Okay, she says. She splashes you gently and then stands and dives gracefully into the pool. Her head pops up and you see her back, even more shining with scars in the slights reflecting through the chlorine, and for a moment you forget to keep breathing.

And it's then that you realize—That is how you and Frannie look most alike.

The day she gets into Stanford she's so happy you celebrate with her.

After she leaves to celebrate with some friends, you leave and go outside and watch the leaves, and when you cry the blur so much you cannot even hear them.

The day Frannie leaves for university is the first day you run; you run for miles and miles until your chest seizes and blisters bleed through your shoes.

But you're used to being breathless, and what's a little more blood anyway?

Frannie talks to you on the phone every week, and you don't really tell her how bad it is.

You don't really know a whole lot about drugs, but on occasion Frannie calls you and her voice slurs and sometimes she says things that don't make any sense.

Neither of you really say what you mean, and you don't understand what's happening, and you don't think Frannie does either. The calls get less frequent.

You dye your hair blonde; you start gymnastics; you keep losing weight.

Then in a few days you get your nose broken and reshaped, and there are black circles growing under your eyes, and and you bite down and you figure Frannie probably does too, because when drugs get pumped into your body, you can forget all of the blood the pooled in your mouth.

Everything but your eyes looks like Frannie.

Call me Quinn now, you say.

You start ballet. When you're dancing you are a paradox: completely aware of your body and completely outside of yourself. It's the only thing that doesn't feel like a lie.

Santana and Brittany confuse the hell out of you. They're constantly taking their clothes off around each other, and they hold hands sometimes, and aches in the pit of your stomach and pools between your legs.

You meet Finn the first day of school.

You're really pretty, he says, hesitantly.

You look away from your eyes drifting toward Santana's hips and meet his eyes. You smile.

He smiles back. Do you want to—maybe we could—

You've never been asked out before, and you should think he's cute, and you should stop looking at skirts, and so you say, Yes.

He's your first kiss. You don't really know what you're supposed to do but he doesn't seem to care.

You keep kissing him because maybe odds are, you'll enjoy it more eventually.

Fuck, Quinn, he says, and he sticks his hands under your uniform top, moves from your hips to close to the small of your back.

You panic because you really do not want to fuck but also if he touches you any further, he'll touch your scars and they are not for him.

Stop, Finn, you say, and tug his hands away from you as you sit up from where you're straddling him.

He frowns. Come on, he says.

You shake your head. Sorry, you tell him.

You're not.

Frannie comes home for Christmas and she's so thin, and she cries when she sees your new nose, and she smells like cigarettes and her eyes aren't always clear.

She's different, and so are you, and neither of you expose your backs to one another the entire time.

When she leaves you eat less, because she's still the most beautiful girl you've known, and her shadow is so looming, even if she is merely bones.

And then you meet Rachel.

You do not understand why your stomach twists around her, why her voice makes you want to close your eyes.

You dream of her multiple times.

You pretend you do not remember them.

You've never been drunk before, and you 're desperate for your racing thoughts about Rachel to just stop, and no one has ever looked at you like Puck is right now.

Tell me I'm pretty again, you say.

You're pretty, he says. He leaves your clothes on.

And then he's blurring above you, and things are spinning, and he doesn't ask yes but you don't say no, and then everything hurts.

You lie to Finn about sleeping with Puck.

You lie to yourself for about two weeks before you drive four towns over and buy six pregnancy tests.

You lie to yourself all the way up until all of them say yes.

Finn is a moron. Not only do your hormones make you hungry all the fucking time, but they also make you irritated at everyone.

But you see your baby during your first ultrasound and you've never loved anything more in your entire life, and that's the moment you tell yourself you don't and that you cannot keep this child as your own.

You find out it's a girl.

Finn tells your parents, and your father kicks you out, and you're distraught but you are also relieved because you think of yourself as disposable, and your back is so scarred by now it doesn't matter, and you don't matter, and he's hurt you so much you'll still feel it but you won't notice a difference.

But your daughter is holy. She will be beautiful and you will give her more than scotch and belt buckles and ghosts.

You don't understand why you want to keep lying to everyone other than the fact that you've done it forever and no, it doesn't hurt that much and yes, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine.

Your mother holds your hand and you feel like your body is ripping open.

It is, actually.

Santana, you say, and you're over at her house on the floor of her bedroom and you can't stop crying and you're tired, so tired, and you don't really know what's happening to your body and your brain but it hasn't stopped tearing right down the middle.

Quinn, she says, it's going to be okay.

You want to believe her, and you want something to stop the bleeding, and so you put your hand on the back of your head, lace your fingers through her pretty hair, and you kiss her.

After a few seconds she kisses you back. She's so soft.

It only makes you shred yourself further, but this time you don't stop.

You hate your body more than you've ever hated it before.

You run and run and run, all summer, but the stretch marks don't go away.

All you get out of bed for is to run. Santana makes you eat whenever you're with her, and she makes out with you sometimes.

She is the loveliest kisser.

You hate your body more because of this, and you wonder how far your small infinities can explode.

You don't feel anything other than that, and your father is not here any longer, so the first time you take a razor and slice across your stomach in the shower, and the red drips down in diluted release, and you think more scars really can't hurt.

When you see Rachel after the summer she says, You look lovely, Quinn.

You roll your eyes because you cannot stand that you want to kiss her instead.

Frannie seems to be doing better. Or at least she's trying to talk to you a little bit more. She tells you about a woman she's interested in painting, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, so you go to the library and find some books about her at lunch.

You learn she was a poet.

You learn she was probably queer.

You've been writing lately, and sometimes when you sing the world feels slightly more bearable, and Frannie is an artist so you think it might be okay if you were too.

But you are not allowed to want anything anymore.

You're a dancer so your pain tolerance is high, and you're a WASP so you have safety pins upon safety pins in your sewing kit—a Christmas present from when you were small—and you pull one out.

You hate your hands more than anything.

They shake when you press a safety pin into the soft skin on the top of your left hand, and it hurts.

But you keep going because you cannot offer any more penance for just how much you want soft lips, just how tilted the world seems, than holes in your very own palms.

Things unravel all around you.

You kiss boys because you want to kiss girls, and you keep expecting to feel something other than pain and nothing.

You only do when Rachel sings, and you really, really hate her for that.

On prom night, after she touches your face so gently, and tells you, You're the prettiest girl I've ever that but you're more than that, you are completely shattered.

You go with Finn and Santana and Brittany and Sam and Puck to an afterparty, and someone puts a red cup of something in your hand, and you drink until things go black.

Finn says you don't feel anything anymore.

You want to tell him, Fuck you, because he'd never ever understand what's happening in your head, but instead you get out of the truck and run until you can't breathe, and then you run some more.

You go to New York and you actually cry in front of Santana and Brittany, which is mortifying but also very lovely, because they let you.

They don't run away.

You cut your hair because you desperately want to be different.

It doesn't work, but you squish in between them in a hotel bed that night, and Brittany rests her head against your chest and Santana fits her hips against the side of your body, arm over your stomach, and they fall asleep breathing so much life connected to you.

It hurts so much that none of the books you can read and none of the songs you can sing and none of the things you can write and nothing you can ever dance will make it stop.

You dye your hair pink and you pierce your nose and you keep wondering if anyone will fucking really care about you.

You go to a lot of parties. People put a lot of pills in your palms, which you take because your hands are usually littered with bloody pinpricks anyway.

Someone stretches a pretty white line out in front of you, and you really just sort of want to die, so you breathe it in and think, just for a moment, that you might get to finally drown.

You don't, and Beth comes back, and Rachel looks at you flick your cigarette so desperately that you have to try.

Suddenly things aren't so bad. You feel something other than pain. You feel dullness and you feel anxiety and your brain is constantly racing, but you do fabulously in school and you never get tired on runs, and all of your schemes seem perfect with Beth.

You don't sleep very much.

You read very fast and it's almost frantic until—

You promise Rachel you'll stop.

You apply to a few different schools, because you think you might be even smarter than Frannie, and she got out, and she's with a boy she really, really loves, and her art is beautiful and everyone loves Frannie.

You get into Yale and Rachel gets engaged, and your heart has never broken this much.

For a while you cannot pretend because you're not awake to tell everyone you're not dying.

You can't remember things sometimes. You remember the big things, like that Rachel didn't get married and that you can't walk and that Frannie and Robert are really very lovely, but you can't remember where you last left your pen, or the last time you took your meds.

You write lots of post-its to yourself, and the doctors say your brain is still just recovering from all of the bleeding.

You forget words all of the time, and you think maybe you want your brain to keep bleeding until there aren't any more words left.

You have a headache for two months. Your legs struggle to work, but then they do.

You still can't really dance like before, but it's something.

Your headache fades.

But you still can't breathe, and they tell you that's probably never going away, and now you have more scars than anyone you've ever known, and you kind of think none of them are going to really save your life.

You're valedictorian and the summer spins everywhere. Your brain goes so, so fast. When you go to Yale and you haven't been entirely sober for weeks.

You cannot get Rachel out of your head, and sometimes your brain seems so frantic you have to take a few shots of vodka before class just to get coherent words out.

You go to a house party one night and you lose track of drinks because you have so many, but they don't really get you drunk at all, and then you see a boy in the corner leering at you. By all accounts he's very handsome—deep skin and broad chest, sharp jaw—and you walk over to him and smile.

You take his hand and find an empty bedroom, and the only thing you care about is that he has a condom on.

He fucks you, and you hate it, but you still don't say no.

You have absolutely fabulous grades, and one night you discover that seventeen shots of vodka and two joints doesn't even make you feel any different.

You know something is wrong but you don't say anything.

There's a string of boys, these pretend orgasms that you've gotten great at faking, and then one night you're holding a beer in your hand and you look at this girl who is really, really beautiful.

You've known you're gay for a long time, and you walk over to her and you feel something different at that moment, just for a second, when she smiles back.

That night a pretty girl with big brown eyes asks you for verbal consent before she fucks you.

You say yes, and you really, really try not to cry.

You're terrible at wanting things and your first year passes mostly in a blur of lots of drugs and sex and alcohol.

You're absolutely sure something is profoundly wrong with your brain, though, because you have, to date, eight As and four A+s on your transcript, and nothing about that you actually remember.

You see Rachel again when you go home for the summer.

She's grown up and really, really beautiful. She frowns at you when you smoke cigarettes, but she doesn't say anything.

You spend a lot of time together, increasingly, during the months you're home. It's hot, and maybe your brain calms down a little bit, and one night you're sitting out by your pool—you refuse to swim, and you don't think she's ever seen your scars and Rachel Berry is the last person you ever want to—but the water is reflecting the stars, and you say, I've loved you for a long time.

She looks at you, and then she kisses you.

This time you are honest. This time you do cry.

You try for Rachel. You really, really try.

When you go back to Yale you do your very best to actually focus on your studies, not just haphazardly get As because your brain is fucked up.

You don't talk about your brain being fucked up, though, and she doesn't know how many times a week you stick your fingers down your throat to throw up after you've not really eaten anything, and she really doesn't know that you're still using, but only sometimes, when it gets too bad.

You take her on sweet dates, and you write her things. You try to listen to her, to remember things she says that are important. You tell her she's beautiful.

But it doesn't work. You don't remember important things. You don't let her take your shirt off. Most days you are so thin, in so much pain, you cannot be good to her.

You're pretending, performing, always, always fine always performing always okay, okay, yes, I'm okay.

Quinn, she says, baby, and her face falls, I can't—

Get out, you tell her, and she nods, and it hits you then and there that Rachel is scared of you.

The second she leaves your dorm you are so angry at yourself that you punch the wall with your left hand, and it hurts, but you certainly deserve the pain, and you take out gin from you fridge and drink it from the bottle, rummage around in the box hidden behind last term's books and find downers.

You take them all.

That night you realize you've ended up in Boston, and you're sitting with Robert on he and Frannie's couch, and your hand is in a yellow cast, and you really can't think of any reasons to stay alive at that moment other than you're at Frannie and Robert's beautiful brownstone, and that Frannie has gotten so much better, and mostly the fact that Robert looks at you so kindly, so sadly, that you think one day you might deserve some of this.

You meet Spencer that fall in one of your seminars, and when you mention Lacan she scoffs and rolls her eyes.

She's beautiful, wispy thin and as tall as you are, with brown hair and brown eyes and a very WASPy wardrobe, and you end up bickering after class and getting tea so you can bicker longer. She makes you laugh, maybe more than anyone you've ever met.

She's also smarter than anyone you've met, you think, and you spend all night talking about poetry and jazz and neuroscience. She explains astrophysics and you quote Pynchon.

You kiss her on the roof of the rare books library.

She kisses with her eyes pressed shut, and she kisses like any minute she might jump.

You fall in love with Spencer fast. She has a lot of terrifying dark parts, but so do you, and right now your brain is going fast but not so fast you can't have coherent thoughts sometimes.

Spencer gets drunk a lot with you, and she hates noise sometimes. You watch a lot of movies in your dorm, and you kiss almost constantly.

You're sober one day after your seminar, and you walk hand-in-hand back to your dorm, and when she tugs on your pants, you nod. She tugs at your shirt, and you breathe deeply. She knows so many things about you but not this, no one knows this, but Spencer is straddling with, and she only has a thong on at this point, and she is so lovely and gentle and she says, I love you, Quinn.

You say, I love you, and you nod, and she lifts your shirt gently over your head. The only scars she can see are the ones on your stomach from razor blades and a portion of the scar from your thoracotomy, and you're relieved she can't see the warzone that is your back.

She doesn't do anything but trace the scar on your ribs before she kisses you deeply, and then she takes one nipple in her mouth and the other between her fingers, and the world isn't tilting so much anymore, just for this moment.

You and Spencer fight all of the time.

There are good days. There are days when you think you would spend your entire existence with her. There are days when she gets you to eat absurdly big brunches, when you laugh for hours. You finally start to see a therapist because Spencer walks you there without any fuss, and she sits with you calmly, and it's really not the worst thing in the world. You adore her on days like this.

But then there are days when you yell at each other and Spencer leaves and fucks anyone she can. Some days you have never hated anyone as much as you hate Spencer.

But then your brain absolutely explodes. You do not understand what is happening to you or the world around you but the collisions between the two are constant and violent.

You have hallucinations. The first one happens while you're in Spencer's shower and all of a sudden there are literal bombs going off around you, and they are real, they have to be real.

Spencer tugs your hands away from your ears and yells at you, still in her clothes and soaking wet, kneeled down to reach you at your curled position in the corner.

Quinn, she says, Quinn.

You're crying, and your heart is hammering everywhere so much you think your ribcage might splinter.

There were bombs, you say, and then it clicks that Spencer isn't scared of anything but what's happening to you in the shower, not bombs.

What? she says.

You're embarrassed and horrified. I heard bombs going off. I felt bombs going off, you whisper.

Her eyes get big, but she swallows and tugs you up with her to give you a tight hug under the water. It's going to be okay, she whispers. It's all going to be okay.

Your hallucinations get more frequent.

They're of bombs, always bombs and shaking and all of these deafening explosions.

You get better at recognizing them, and you tell your therapist about them and you get diagnosed with Bipolar I, and Spencer seems to expect this.

But they don't stop. They turn into absolutely horrific night terrors, and they turn into as many drugs and as much alcohol as you can hold down because the medication your therapist tried doesn't work.

Spencer promises it will get better. She says it every single day, over and over again.

You're both pretending at this point, though, because she's getting tired and there are still bombs going off inside of your head.

Frannie gets married. She asks you to be her maid of honor, and Spencer helps you stay sober for exactly three days before her wedding so you don't look drunk in pictures.

Frannie is beautiful. Her hair is short and light and her dress hits all of the right places and when Robert sees her his eyes fill with tears and he grins.

The whole thing makes you profoundly sad, but you make sure to smile perfectly anyway.

You overdose in the spring. You're by yourself in your dorm room, and Spencer is studying for an astro final, and you haven't slept in days, and you're just exhausted, and you get drunk and then take an entire bottle of vicodin.

You call Spencer after that. You don't know what you say but she comes over and you fall asleep within a few minutes.

You don't remember much in the morning other than that she cried.

You want to say you're sorry but you don't know how in the world to apologize for something like that. She shakes her head when you open your mouth and she says, Let's forget about it, okay? It's in the past.

You cannot forget about it because you're sort of regretful it didn't work, but you nod anyway and you say, Okay.

It hurts too much and you're drunk and high and it still hurts too much.

You pass out after one wrist, which actually saves your life.

When you wake up you're in the hospital, in restraints, and your left wrist is loaded with gauze. Spencer is asleep in the chair next to your bed, and you lay back and cry with absolutely no noise.

Santana comes to see you while you're in the psych ward for the weekend on suicide watch.

She keeps glancing at your wrist even though you can tell she's trying not to.

I don't really know what to do in this situation either, you say.

Her eyes snap up to yours.

You say, Believe it or not I've never actually been in the psych ward before.

Santana waits to see if she's allowed to laugh.

I at least thought it'd be more exciting, you say.

She cracks a smile and then she very unexpectedly bursts into tears.

I fucking hate you, she says. I hate you so, so much.

She knocks her chair over and scatters an entire game of Connect 4 and rushes around the table to hug you. You stand and she tucks her chin into your shoulder, and she squeezes you so tight. You start to cry too.

I'm so sorry, you say. I'm sorry.

I love you, she says. Please, please don't leave.

Spencer tells you, I can't do this anymore.

It absolutely breaks your heart, because you have probably loved Spencer more deeply than anyone you've ever known, but you kiss her and say, I'm really, really sorry.

You're always fucking sorry, you know that? she says, and she turns around and walks out of your dorm without another word.

Robert and Frannie invite you to stay with them during the summer in Boston. You do a poetry program at Brown, and you have classes twice a week, so for the most part you hang out at their brownstone or tag along with Frannie to the studio and wander around the Italian district. You meet up with a few friends at Harvard, and you meet a few wonderful people in your program.

Frannie and Robert are so lovely. They feel healing, even if you don't really feel better. Frannie has been clean for years, and she and Robert have a really, fabulously beautiful life. Frannie tries to feed you gently, and sometimes you let her. She kisses your forehead a lot, and one day you get home from classes and Robert is spreading sunscreen over Frannie's back because she's wearing running shorts and a sports bra, and Robert is only wearing shorts. It's a completely normal thing, and they're having some random conversation about what cheeses they want to serve with the latest wine they picked out.

But the scars on Frannie's back haven't disappeared, and you stand so, so still in the doorway while Robert finishes and then gently kisses Frannie's shoulder before bending down goofily to stretch and making Frannie laugh.

You know they're married and you know they dated forever before that, but he just seemed so comfortable, and Frannie seemed so comfortable, and you walk back outside and sit down on their front steps because that was one of the very most hopeful things you've ever seen, and you cannot quite process it yet.

A few minutes later Frannie and Robert bounce out the front door; Frannie is stretching her arm across her chest, and Robert is laughing at her seriousness.

Hi Quinn, Frannie says happily when she sees you on the steps, jogging down to sit next to you.

Hey, you say, and for the first time in a very long when you smile it feels gentle and easy.

Frannie's still just wearing a sports bra, and she kisses your cheek and then stands, and Robert walks past and gives you a high five.

Hey kiddo, he says.

You roll your eyes happily.

We'll be back in an hour and then we'll even be so kind to take you to dinner, he says.

Wow, you say, thank you, and it comes out much more sincerely than any of you were expecting.

Frannie's face softens, and she shouts, We love you lots, Quinn, with a wave as they jog off down the street.

But they still have a fabulous rooftop, and you think very seriously about jumping.

Robert comes and sits with you though, after he hears you sneaking out one night.

The only thing he says the first night is, I won't tell Frannie as long as you don't jump.

You agree.

It becomes a frequent little routine for a few weeks. Usually he brings you tea and one of his sweatshirts from Stanford, and he tells you all about his family—his big brother is married and he and his husband have an adopted little girl from China, and they filled out applications for another child. He tells you funny stories about when he was little, and he also tells you loads and loads of funny stories about Frannie, which make you laugh a lot.

He lets you talk when you want. He doesn't ever ask you to, though.

You know Frannie would be absolutely devastated if you died, he says.

You nod. You actually do believe this.

You know I would be too, he says.

You look over to him and he nods. I love you a lot, Quinn.

You feel like you're going to rip and suture all at once. I love you too, you say.

He smiles, leans back in his garden chair and props his feet up on the ledge.

What do you say you go get some actual sleep? It's better for me if I'm not worried about you up here because then I can have sex with your sister and—

Ew, you say. Robert, stop.

He laughs heartily.

I know you're a lesbian, he says, helping you up from your chair, and I know she's your sister—

—There is absolutely nothing redeeming in that statement, you say.

He elbows you playfully, and you laugh because you know without a doubt that Robert is profoundly in love with your sister and at the same time they're so, so goofy with each other, and he throws an arm over your shoulders, and says, You know, kiddo, I really think you can make it, as you walk inside.

You nod, even if you don't quite believe it yourself.

You're wearing one of Robert's stolen sweatshirts the first time you take your new medication.

Within a week you know it works, and you take the first Friday of your first week of your last year at Yale off to go take the train and sit on the steps of Frannie and Robert's brownstone until the get home.

They walk down the street, and Robert has his arm around Frannie's back, and Frannie holds his waist, and they don't look at anything but one another, and even though all of this scares the shit out of you—the idea of being stable, the idea of existing with someone like that—you realize, very, very startlingly, that you are happy.

Kiddo, Robert says when he sees you.

You squint into the sun and wave.

Frannie looks worried and she hurries toward you so you stand and you say, It worked, loud enough so they can both hear you.

Frannie stops dead in her tracks and grabs Robert's hand as some reassurance, or something, that this is all real, and Robert just breaks out into a grin.

You walk down the steps and Frannie puts her perpetually paint-smudged hands on either side of your face, and she says, It really worked?

You nod. Yeah, you say. It's the right medication and the right dose.

Frannie swallows and then she gives you the biggest, tightest hug.

Robert stands back for a bit and then you feel him join in, and he kisses the top of your head and then the top of Frannie's, and he says, Would it be bad form to celebrate with a bottle of champagne?

Frannie starts laughing messily in the middle of quiet sobs, and you say, I think that's great form.

Robert nods and you all part, and he takes Frannie's hand and Frannie puts her arm around your shoulders.

You all get very champagne drunk that night, and you stay over in their guest room—which still had some of your things in it leftover from the summer, which touches you deeply. The next morning you get up and Robert makes you brunch, and you and Frannie are painfully hungover which he teases you for, but still—nothing is spinning at all.

You meet some immediately wonderful friends from classes and work, and you go to a few smaller parties with them. You kiss one very, very pretty girl and she kisses you back, but you don't sleep with her—not because you hate your body too much at that moment, but just because you'd like the first time you have sex when you're stable to be with someone you love and you'd really, really like to be clean and sober.

You stop having to pretend so much. You fall asleep quickly, and you feel younger, and you have many, many nonsensical dreams.

You see Rachel before the end of the semester.

You seem so good, she says.

You nod. It's better, you say.

She smiles so widely. It's the smile you fell in love with, all those years ago. She hugs you tightly. I'm so, so glad, she says.

You spend the afternoon laying together on your bed. Rachel plays with your hair and you explain what you think you want to study in graduate school, and she sings, which makes you cry, which makes Rachel cry, which makes you laugh.

Rachel elbows you in the side. You're an asshole.

You shrug.

Quinn, she squeals, sitting up incredulously.

You smirk, and she shakes her head, and she says, If this is you stable, I don't necessarily like it.

You know she's teasing, immensely so, but you roll over so that you're facing away from her.

Oh my god, Quinn, she says. Quinn, god—I'm—I was—that was stupid of me, and you know that I'm thrilled for you and I'm so happy and I love y—

You roll toward her quickly and start tickling her stomach, pinning her between your legs. Your hair falls into your eyes and she screams between laughs.

Quinn Fabray! Stop! she says, and you're laughing too. Please, she says, please I'll buy you dinner tonight or something just please—

You stop and raise an eyebrow.

Since you're already between my legs, dinner seems the only worthwhile course of action, you say.

You're incredulous, Rachel says, squirming out from underneath you. The absolute worst.

You smile and she rolls her eyes, but you can tell she really is happy, and you hold hands as you walk to dinner, and you want to wait to kiss her, and you do, but she holds you all night anyway.

You kiss her on New Years, because you have to breathe something new.

Frannie and Robert get pregnant, and it makes you cry for about three days, and you're so, so full of emotion.

But then you go for a celebratory family dinner for them, and Robert's brother Arthur and his husband Andy are there, and their daughter and son are there too, and Robert tirelessly plays with them, and then Robert calls you over to play and introduces you as Aunt Quinn, and you wipe a few tears and Robert squeezes your hand before you join wholeheartedly into a very intense game of peekaboo.

You let Rachel make love to you in February, because you've been stable for long enough and you don't hate your body at that moment and she's different too, so different.

She's the girl you fell in love with when you didn't know how to fall in love, and now you kiss her like you want to learn.

In April, a few nights before your birthday, you're laying in bed with her and playing with her fingers when you ask, Have you ever actually seen my back?

Her brows knit together beneath her bangs, and it's really cute, and under any other circumstances you would kiss her senseless, but you're so nervous you feel like you might throw up.

I don't think so, she says, which is—

You shake your head. You take a few deep breaths.

Rachel tenses you, so you run your hand along her bare shoulder gently.

There are scars from surgeries there but there's also—When I was little, you say, my dad used to—Frannie and I—he used the end of the belt with the buckle.

Rachel doesn't say anything, and when you look over at her she seems to be teetering between screaming at something and storming out or just bursting into tears.

I love you, you say.

She nods and you sit up, take your shirt off.

The lights are on in your apartment, and you hear her sharp intake of breath and then she says, Oh, Quinn, before you feel one of her fingers ghost along a scar.

It's very, very quiet and then you feel her lips against your rough tissue, and you immediately start to cry.

Come here, she says, and you turn around and she kisses you deeply and then holds you. I'm so, so sorry, Quinn, she says.

You try to calm down, focus on your breathing, how gentle Rachel's body is.

You're always going to be the prettiest girl I've ever met, Rachel says, and she lifts your chin up so you meet her eyes. Always, you know that?

You are absolutely speechless, and breathless, and you kiss her, and it's probably the most honest moment you've had in your whole life, and everything is very, very still.

She wakes you up the next morning and asks very quietly how your back feels, and you smile and it's true when you say:

It doesn't hurt that much.