The ball gown pools around her waist as Rachel hitches it up, sitting down on the oak chair Shelby gave her as a housewarming gift when she and Jesse moved into the place. Wiping a few stray tears away, she reaches for the guitar he forgot to take with him. Her hands shake as she strums a few chords that he taught her. "Baby, I miss you," she half speaks, half sings. It sounds awful, her voice can't even carry a few notes those words had been placed on. "I miss you," she tries again, biting her lip when they come out warbled into a musical mess. "Shit," she finally curses, placing the guitar back against its position of leaning on the wall and giving up on the possible song.
Legs wobbling, she struggles to stand erect. A snag of the dress catches on the chair and rips when she takes a step forward. She doesn't care (not that has any of the energy to). Swallowing the lump of tears in her throat that's getting bigger by the second, she chokes back a sob that seems determined to rip through her.
She ignores the phone that's been ringing off the hook for the past five minutes, picking up the notepad she doesn't remember owning. Scribbling blindly, she writes as much as she can. She writes her soul, pouring it word by word. They come slowly at first, building speed as she goes.
Damn him.
Jesse left her like this, and she's going to stay this way until he finds his way back to her.
She hits the table with her bare palm, ignoring the sharp stab of pain that shoots through her from a splinter. Coughing, she blindly swipes away more tears that threaten to pour all over the note (and no, no, no he can't see that he made her cry, she wasn't crying, she just isn't crying, not right now).
He left her like this, and she's going to stay like this until he comes home to her.
Another rip tears through the dress and she uses it as a tissue. She doesn't care that it costs more then a couple of car payments, she just wants the tears to go away, disappear, vanish, get the hell away from her brown eyes.
More lines are scribbled down on the paper, things are scratched out, and she's not feeling any better than when she started. Another cough racks through her; she ignores it.
Her movements are wild, unchoreographed, striking through her with a moment's notice.
He left her like this, why isn't he coming back?
Another racking cough. She ignores it like the last two (she ignores it like the ones that have been occurring the whole year).
He left her, helefther, helefther.
She coughs again. Blood comes up; she ignores it (again).
Hefuckingleftherforgood.
Another cough, she keeps on writing. She writes up memories until they aren't coherent anymore. She writes until her hand is going to fall off and her mind hurts from remembering all of this, all of them.
He's gone; he left.
Coughcough, scribblescribble.
Rachel Berry dies alone, surrounded by papers with written memories that no one cares for anymore, in a ripped red dress with blood staining her face. Her apartment is empty except for the guitar chords that are only in her head.
She is buried next to Jesse St. James, her late fiancé.