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Rachel’s a smart girl. Throughout her almost four years of high school, she’s excelled at numerous things, and even if dating culture isn’t necessarily one of them, she’s not stupid. She knows when people are flirting with her, and Quinn Fabray is flirting with her.
Well, trying to, anyway. She’s not very good at it. But what sophomore is?
“So, if the half-life is that it drops fifty percent…” And there’s her hand again, creeping up besides Rachel’s, as if it has a mind of its own. “In the first half hour.”
“Quinn,” Rachel murmurs, pulling her hand away and pointing to the paper. “Focus, you’re reading it wrong.”
Her blonde ponytail practically slaps Rachel in the face as she whips her head back to the paper, brow furrowed. She had read it wrong, what with all this seducing she was trying to do, which really just consisted of her fidgeting in her seat and giving Rachel heart eyes. Bless her heart.
“Wait… No, I don’t get it.”
Rachel doesn’t know who volunteered her to be a tutor, but they’re going to hell, because she doesn’t understand it either. “It’s at one hundred here, yes?”
“Yes.”
Rachel draws a line between the two points on the graph, and then circles the 1 at the bottom, tapping it repeatedly. “So you need to see where it hits fifty, and wherever that falls is your half life. Because that is the amount of Co-60 remaining. It’s not the actual number, but the percentage. See?”
Rachel whips her head back to see Quinn staring at her, giant hazel eyes a mix of utter infatuation and something that looks like genuine love. It’s overwhelming. “Quinn.”
“Rachel,” the girl sighs, leaning forward ever so slightly into Rachel’s bubble.
“You… We can’t do this.” Rachel smiles to soften the blow, turning back to the binder in front of her. The girl pushes it further down the table, tilting her head.
“Why not?” she pouts, fingers twisting in the hem of her Cheerios shell. “I thought you- I thought-”
“Quinn, I’m tutoring you so you can stay captain of the Cheerios. And you, in turn, are fulfilling my volunteer hours so I can graduate. And that is all that’s going on. And even if it weren’t, I’m going to New York, and you have two years of high school left, and it’s just not… feasible… Where are you going?”
God, they’re never going to finish this damn unit.
The blonde is making her way around the table, her skirt swishing as she packs up her backpack as fast as she can. “I thought you were flirting… God, I’m such an idiot.”
Rachel hasn’t known Quinn to speak so freely before today. “Quinn, you’re not. I just… You’ll get over it! It’s a schoolgirl crush. And there are plenty of boys and girls here. You have time.”
“But there’s no one like-” She falls silent, eyes watering before she can stop them, and gazes down at her feet. It’s a few more seconds before she sniffles again, slowly reaching for her pencil case.
Rachel feels frozen, heart breaking for this girl who is just now realizing she will not get to be with her first love forever and ever like she kept telling herself. “Quinn…”
“I’m gonna ask Mr. Turner for another tutor, so don’t worry.”
“You don’t have to-”
“No, I want to,” Quinn bites out, zipping up her backpack with a flourish and tugging it out of the chair. “I have to get to practice.”
She fixes Rachel with one final stare, eyes red and puffy, and there’s no illusion of infatuation, no made up connection, just a whole lot of heartache. Heartbreak.
And Rachel would be damned if she didn’t also mention the crushing amount of love still in them.