Chapter Text
i.
Little Lucy Fabray, with her dark, messy hair, full cheeks, and dainty freckles, sits in the quiet of her room, staring intently at her arm.
She's pulled the sleeve of her favorite llama sweater up, and her hazel eyes have been boring holes into her arm for an hour now. She eyes the clock on her bedside: eleven fifty-eight. Not long now. She swallows.
Lucy is young, but she understands weight. She understands it in ways children her age haven't yet. She knows the weight of her father's responsibilities at work, and how it makes Dad quicker to anger some nights. She knows her mother's own weight: it's in the way Mom takes forever to get ready in the morning, the way Mom sometimes cries very quietly at night when she thinks no one else is awake. She knows the weight on Frannie's shoulders, who is seventeen and lovely and anxious to carve her own path, against their parents' expectations. She knows that weight translates differently for everyone, and she knows that the name that will appear on her arm will be her own little piece of heft to carry around.
A quiet beep marks the turn of the day, and Lucy's eyes widen as a swift, but sharp pain, not unlike being pierced by the needles at the doctor's office, blooms across her left wrist.
Lucy breathes in quiet reverence as six letters appear on her arm, in the most adorable, loopy writing she's ever seen.
Rachel, her wrist says, and Lucy whispers the name to herself about twenty times, wrapped up in her blankets, until she falls asleep.
Just before her eyes flutter shut, Lucy thinks of the name- tries to picture a 'Rachel'. Did she get her name on Rachel's wrist yet? Did Rachel smile at Lucy's name on her skin? Is she holding the name close to her chest, just like Lucy does with hers?
She dreams of a girl, with a smile so blinding and brilliant it could only be magic, with eyes as pretty as the letters adorning her wrist.
-
Lucy has always known that children don't like things that they don't understand. She had always thought she could forgive that.
If they jeered at her books, she could walk away. If they pulled at her red hair, she could forgive it. Her tattered sweater? Easily replaced. A broken tooth? It would grow back. But somehow, Lucy's little heart couldn't stand them pulling her sleeve up and pushing her into the dirt, calling her names, all for having a girl's name on her arm. She had enough, and instead of running away, had finally shoved back. She had come home with scratches on her arms, and nothing to show for her bravery but cuts and rolling tears.
Frannie is always there when Lucy comes home crying. Frannie also knows the name on her arm, knows it's different from the Jordan on her own. Frannie has always understood, and has always been so brave. Lucy has always thought she wants to be just like Frannie- more than the blonde hair, Lucy wants to be brave and kind and all the things her own shining sister can be for her.
When she tells her sister what happens, Frannie tenses in that way she does whenever she gets very angry, but pats Lucy's back gently and tells her to be brave, and to wait for Frannie to kick their butts. Lucy laughs, and cries a little less as Frannie sings something softly, something Lucy recognizes as one of Mom's favourite songs. Frannie's voice is soft and lovely to listen to, even if it isn't quite like Mom's- but Lucy thinks no one can sing quite like her mom anyway.
Lucy calms down, until Mom herself peeks in and asks what's wrong. Before Frannie can stop her, Lucy tells her mother everything. Mom freezes, and her face turns almost as white as the pearls on her neck. Frannie shakes and Lucy can't tell if she's mad or afraid, but holds her sister's hand all the same. Mom leaves the room, and comes back with a bottle of makeup, and insists that Lucy learn to put it on her arm, insists that Lucy needs to learn to hide the 'unfortunate' name on her arm.
Lucy, as every one who grows up learns, must adapt.
So Lucy gets a nose job. Lucy gets a dye job. Lucy runs the entire length of her suburb in the early hours, until she wants to heave her lungs out and her muscles call for relief.
Lucy is shoved into the bottom of a hope chest, hidden shamefully from prying eyes, and Quinn takes her place, all poise and pomp and a hidden heart on her arm.
Quinn has all the things Lucy did not: Frannie's blonde hair; a long and lean body; and a walk that commands the attention of people around her- but some things don't change.
Quinn still loves to read, and still enjoys the scent of cinnamon. She still talks to Noah, the boy she met in middle school who plays the guitar, even if now, they only talk at night and in the park, where they can sing together without anyone seeing them. Quinn loves watching the stars just the same as Lucy. Quinn still keeps a sketchbook, now full of quickly sketched strangers' faces and cross sections of buildings instead of book characters. Quinn still likes to sing, still likes to dance, and enjoys Frannie's phone calls and photos from university.
Just like Lucy, Quinn still isn't brave like Frannie, and Quinn still hasn't found Rachel.
She finds that the more concealer she piles on top of the name every day, Quinn finds it easier to believe that she doesn't want to find Rachel anymore.
-
Time passes.
Quinn becomes captain of the Cheerios, to her parents' adoration and Frannie's infinite amusement.
She becomes friends with Santana and Brittany, who have each other's names on their arms, and Quinn pretends she doesn't know- pretends she didn't sneak a peek at Santana's arm in the showers after practice one afternoon; pretends she didn't follow Brittany to her locker where she knows she reapplies the bright yellow bandaid over Santana's haphazardly scrawled name- and is harder on the two of them than anyone else. Quinn pretends it isn't because she's jealous.
She watches them link pinkies and kiss when they think no one's looking, watches them look at each other like the world could crumble around them and they'd still only see each other.
Quinn pretends she doesn't grind her teeth every time Frannie talks about Jordan- beautiful, black-haired Jordan, who plays for the basketball team at Frannie's university and has even prettier eyes than she does. Quinn acts like she's happy for Frannie and her girlfriend, even if she digs her fingers into her palms at every mention of Jordan, and the name on her arm burns like it's sizzling with envy and resentment.
So, she swallows her father's vitriol, even if it feels like fire burning her from the inside out. Her eyes, once soft and lovely, are hard and guarded the day she turns sixteen. Frannie's phone calls come less and less, and Santana has already tried to stab her with a fork in the eye twice. But her parents are proud of her, and at school, no one suspects anything, so Quinn lets herself believe that this is what achievement feels like. She tries not to think about how it feels a lot like being empty, and how it feels like the piece of heft on her arm is weighing her down more than it should.
It is her sophomore year, and Quinn has almost completely believed her own lie. The name on her arm almost becomes something easily forgotten; almost easily buried under powder and her own quiet hatred of everything that made her herself.
(Almost.)