Chapter 1.9 - Secrets (Part 2)

The day began serenely enough. One of the electives that Quinn had chosen was sketching and that was mainly because so many of the classes were held outdoors. Quinn wasn't especially good at drawing and she and Kaz had spent many hours over their months at Hearst laughing at Quinn's visual interpretations of the world around her. 

Kaz called them her 'sketchys' because they were so embarassingly bad and Kaz had firmly stated that if she ever ran in to a tulip that looked like the ones Quinn had drawn, she would assume that the apocalypse was well on its way. Luckily for Quinn, the class was graded on a curve and most of the other students were also in the photography stream and many were, almost unbelievably, worse than her so she had managed to maintain a relatively solid A- average. 

In between classes, she and Kaz met up at the gym but after about ten minutes on the treadmill, Quinn declared herself bored out of her mind and began fooling around, trying to make Kaz laugh.

But Kaz was having none of it. As Quinn leaped around, singing the inappropriate but hilarious 'Hearts" version of the school cheer, complete with scandalous sexual references to various past alumni, the most she got out of Kaz was a brief look and a tepid smile.

Quinn felt slighted but she didn't want to make a big deal out of it so she told Kaz that she would meet her later after their last class. Her friend murmured her assent, turned up the speed of her machine and began a slow jog, her eyes centred straight ahead. 

Well then, Quinn thought, apparently I've been dismissed!

After a shower back at the dorm, Quinn headed out to her final class of the day. The hot water and change of clothes had pushed her concerns about Kaz's behaviour to the back of her mind. She was so focused on her list of questions for Professor Holloway that she almost didn't notice Kaz standing near the Fine Arts building, hissing angrily in to her phone in Japanese.

Oh, thought Quinn despondently. She must be arguing with her mother now. She felt a wave of sadness for Kaz and wondered about these two unknown people who could not see the brilliance of their daughter's talent. 

Kaz appeared not to notice her as she walked by even though Quinn gave her a brief wave. Quinn figured that Kaz was apparently too involved in her conversation to care what was going on around her so she kept walking while simultaneously turning around. Unfortunately, Quinn had been so focused on her friend's phone call that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going and she slammed straight in to someone.

As she readjusted her backpack, she noticed that the person with whom she had collided looked vaguely familiar. While Quinn tried to place her, the voluptuous blond woman straightened out her sweater with an annoyed look on her face. As the woman turned towards her Quinn recognized her as being one of the library assistants. Kaz and Quinn, between them, had probably only been to the library a few times to quickly photocopy reference material for exams but unlike most of the students, neither of them were very good about keeping their conversations to a whisper.

"I'm sorry!" said Quinn effusively, setting her backpack down on the pavement. "I wasn't looking where I was going and" -

"Hey! I know you don't I?" asked the woman, her look of annoyance turning in to a questioning smile. "I'm sure I know you but I can't seem to figure out how. What's your name, sweetie?"

"Erm, it's Quinn Hudson," she replied. "I go to Hearst so that's probably how you know me," she added with a half-smile.

"I'm Gloria Brinkham" she said grabbing Quinn's hand and shaking it rather forcefully. "I work in the library here at Hearst so I can tell you that I'd know if I'd seen you wandering around the stacks! No...it's from somewhere else...." 

Gloria narrowed her eyes as she stared at Quinn who was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable being the subject of the woman's blatant scrutiny. Why in the hell does it matter where she knows me from? wondered Quinn while trying to extract her hand as gracefully as possible from Gloria's firm grasp.

"Well Gloria, I'm running just a bit behind so"- but Gloria interrupted her again.

"You're Quinn Hudson, you said?"

Quinn was searching her brain trying to figure out how this woman thought she knew her while also trying to plan her escape route. She was going to be horribly late for Holloway's class.

"Uh, yeah. That's me. Quinn Hudson,' she repeated in a slightly irritated voice.

"Yes!" exclaimed Gloria. "You look quite a bit like the other one! That other Hudson I mean! You know, the famous one. Beautiful girl. Now if I could just remember her name..." Quinn's stomach felt like it had dropped straight down through the pavement. Gloria looked like her brain was churning hard and it wouldn't be long before she made the connection. 

Shit, shit, shit. I need to get out of here now, she thought wildly. Quinn had been sure that no one at Hearst would have guessed her secret after three semesters of hiding in plain sight. And anyway, they really didn't look all that much the same anymore which had been the only reason she had felt at all confident coming to Hearst.

Quinn was about to break and make a run for it when something overtook her and she simply opened her mouth and released a strangely ebullient laugh. "Oh, I'm so honoured you think so! What an absolute compliment but I'm afraid you're mistaken. Now I really must go so I'm not overly late for my class."

And with that, Quinn snatched up her backpack and hurried off towards Holloway's classroom wondering how in the hell she had just managed to channel Kaz.

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It was dark by the time she made it back to the dorm. Anoki practically attacked her as she entered through the front door and begged her to grill up some of her now famous burgers for dinner. If she hadn't been so hungry herself, she probably would have said no, but she was ravenous from an afternoon of worrying about that nosy parker Gloria Brinkham. 

Quinn had just finished eating her food when Kaz breezed in looking a touch more lighthearted than earlier in the day. She threw a burger on a plate and joined Quinn in the dining room.

"So" Kaz asked through a mouthful of food, "how was your day?"

Quinn sighed inwardly and mumbled something about being perpetually late. Kaz nodded absently as she devoured her burger. 

Quinn squeezed her hands together underneath the table, trying to decide how to talk to Kaz about St. Claire. There were only a few months left before graduation and after her run-in with the inquisitive (and, Quinn suspected, gossipy) library assistant today, there was no telling what rumours might be spread by the end of the week. It would be far worse for Kaz to hear something about Quinn's life that Quinn had not already told her.

"Wanna go for a walk?" Quinn asked hopefully.

They settled on a bench not far from their dorm in the gathering darkness. Students were still arriving home from campus, while others were leaving, all dressed up, on their way out for the night.

"Look,' Kaz began as soon as they sat down. "I'm glad I have you all to myself right now because there's something I need to talk to you about."

Quinn felt her stomach tighten up. Had Kaz already heard about her conversation with Gloria? 

"You've been all cagey about moving back with me to St. Claire and I want to know why! Every time I bring it up you act like it's as if moving to St. Claire is the equivalent of being sent off to a prison-world. And I don't get it!"

Kaz was in full-on Kaz-mode, arms waving around, shoulders rolling in time to her emotions. Quinn, however, sat very still, wishing that she'd had this conversation with her friend a long time ago. Why didn't you tell her last year? a voice in her head asked reproachfully. Would it really have changed anything between you? At this point, Quinn was betting on no.

Apparently finished with her monologue, Kaz sat with her nose in the air, evidently daring Quinn to respond with anything less than the truth. Quinn wiped her sweaty palms together and gathered her courage. 

"There's something I didn't tell you when we first met because I didn't know you well enough to judge whether or not you could keep a secret." Kaz's mouth started to open in response but Quinn just kept talking, cutting off whatever her friend had been about to say. If she stopped now, she would never be able to get it all out.

"When I finally realized that I could trust you, by that time...well, we were friends and then it felt like I had been keeping this huge secret and if I told you, you might see it as a betrayal." She paused to take a breath. "And now, I'm not even sure anymore if it's even a big deal or if I've simply made it in to one..." She stopped speaking and took a peek at Kaz out of the corner of her eye. Her friend's expression seemed indecipherable.

Quinn suddenly snatched up her phone and typed something in to the search engine, clicked on images and simply handed the phone over to Kaz.

For a moment Kaz just stared at the screen not saying a word. Again, she opened her mouth to speak and then clamped it shut just as quickly, absently bringing her left hand up to touch her cheek. She looked up at Quinn, squinting at her in the darkness and then back down at the screen and Quinn could almost hear the pieces clicking in to place.

"Oh my God." Kaz looked up again. "Holy freaking shit. How did I not see this! I remember one day Zofia said something about the two of you looking similar and having the same last name but, I mean, you know Zofia..." she trailed off. Her fingers were now pressed to her lips as she glanced back and forth between Quinn and the image on the screen. "You're related to Sophie Hudson?" Quinn could see Kaz's mouth working again, evidently trying to decide which questions to ask next, even though Quinn hadn't even officially answered the first one.

"She's my cousin," Quinn said in a small voice, waiting for Kaz to yell at her or perhaps dramatically throw the phone in to the trees and stomp off.

Instead her friend just asked "Why is it such a big secret Q?"

Quinn breathed a sigh of relief as she told Kaz the truth she had been burying for almost two years.