PROLOGUE:

The atmosphere is weighted with solemnity as a pair of women, one young and the other of middle age, sit in resolute silence in their finely decorated, suburban living room.

"Are you sure about this, Quinnie?" the older one asks reluctantly, her eyes reflecting a maternal glint so concentrated that it nearly compels the woman to tears.

"I told you already, Mom," murmurs the blonde, her tone hushed yet frustrated. "I don't want to be here anymore."

I can't take it: the looks, the jibes, the embarrassment. I'll always be Quinn Fabray: the hypocrite—the self-righteous Head Cheerleader and the Christian president of the Celibacy Club who got pregnant at fifteen and then gave her baby away like a coward.

"You'd leave them, then? Your…your Glee club?"

"Yes."

Quinn says the word quickly. She cannot give herself a chance to hesitate. If she shows any signs of uncertainty at all, the other woman will never take her request seriously. Her mother, Judy, heaves a somewhat embellished sigh.

"But England, dear? England?"

The younger of the two seems to take on a cape of annoyance in that moment. Quinn needs to ball her fists in her lap to keep from lashing out at her mother—the only person that she truly has left anymore.

"I need to get away, far away," she explains with intensity. "Mother, I can't—I can't have this argument with you right now. I j-just…"

Judy's eyebrows knit with compassion as she watches her sixteen-year-old child retreat back into herself in wordless defeat, her arms draped around herself.

"I need to go, Mom. Just trust me when I say that I need to go."

"Okay, my sweet," Judy moves swiftly, albeit gently, to take her daughter into her arms in a show of comfort. "Okay. I trust you."