GENERATION GLEE ✮ APPLY FIC

─ 008

" Well she didn't and we should be very thankful for that," Quinn sighed as a grin tugged at her lips. Having Beth over to stay made the hazel-eyed girl very happy, her daughter led a very busy life and whenever she actually came back to Lima it was always to visit Shelby or to crash on Rachel's perfect polyester couch. It never really bothered Quinn, Shelby was her mother after all and Rachel was kind-off her daughter's older sister. They were family, and to the Fabray, family always came first. "Anyways, how's the job hunting going? A little birdie told me that you're applying to become a waiter at Breadstix's."

" Well, Rachel obviously got her facts wrong," Beth emphasized as she reached for an apple."I applied to become a barista at the Bean, there was a long waiting list but I somehow managed to snag myself an interview."

Quinn quickly put down her coffee mug whilst her hand still lingered on the rim of the cup. "So, how did you do then ?"

"I got the job," Beth replied rather rapidly as she raised her free hand to scratch a non-existent itch, "But then I turned it down, I told the manager that another establishment had offered me a better one with more pay and less working hours."

Both of Quinn's eyebrows shot up at that moment, a disappointed frown settled on her cherry chapstick coated lips, whilst Beth's hands began to clam once she gazed upon her mother's dismayed expression.

"Why would you do that? You know how difficult it is to get jobs around here these days, especially with most of the small business going redundant," the blonde paused in between breaths to pinch the bridge of her nose out of mere confusion, her head raced to find a solution. " Maybe I could ask Santana if there's an opening for an assistant at the local Lawyer firm... I mean, she hasn't worked there for like 5 years but I bet she could sweet-talk Don Brosco into letting you work as his assistant."

Beth's eyes nervously darted to the floor, the lies were starting to eat away at her like a jarring chokehold. She had never applied for the barista position at the Lima Bean, and she had most certainly never gone in for a formal interview with anyone.

It was all just a web of sticky, tangled white lies that had slowly started to grow worse as the months went by. The only reason Beth had ever come back to this claustrophobic town, from her humble abode in Fort Wayne was to dish some breaking news of her own.

" I don't want to be Don Brosco's lapdog, Quinn, I'm much better than that," Beth responded in a stern but slightly timorous tone, eyes still peeled to the glossy Italian marble that was slowly cracking from old age.

Quinn was subtly taken aback by Beth calling her by her first name instead of going with Mom, it wasn't in her nature to be so rude. If the roles were swapped with the hazel-eyed woman's youngest, Beck, then she would've definitely not been as surprised.

Something felt off, strange, like an underlying secret was stirring within the girl. Quinn could instantly tell that something wasn't right once Beth's eye contact began to falter immensely, and her body language was super tense without any reason. That was the exact same way the Fabray used to act whenever she was trying to hide something, bury a secret, punch back the truth.

" I know you Beth Cocoran, even if I didn't have the joys of raising you to be the wonderful young adult you've turned out to be, I still was the one who had to carry you inside of me for 9 painstaking months whilst my whole teenhood essentially fell apart," Quinn began, biting back tears once hot flashes of her teen pregnancy replayed in her mind like a broken record. "I know how it feels to be lost, wandering in circles with no direction in life. It sucks, but you'll get out of it...trust me."

Beth's nerves only deteriorated, even more, the knot in the pit of her stomach grew in size from the pressure, " I'm not lost, or wandering in circles, in fact, I've never seen things more clearly before."