Breathe. In and out. Inhale and exhale. Her brain was telling her what to do but Rachel Berry was finding that her lungs were frozen as well as her feet. She knew that she needed to take air into her lungs just as much as she knew that she should move from the spot that she had been rooted to for what felt like hours but in all actuality was maybe fifteen minutes. It was amazing how not twenty minutes ago Rachel had thought that she owned the world and now here she was reduced to hiding in the shadows and watching as her entire life fell apart and she was helpless to stop it.
Rachel had a ten-year plan. She knew that if she were asked she would say that she would be in New York in the fall, that by the time she turned 25 she would be in an extremely serious relationship or married and that she would be staring in a Broadway play. That was the plan. Yet now she couldn't even form a sentence or make a sound. Because now at the age of 17 she was standing in the wings of the William H. McKinley High school auditorium watching the man of her dreams, the man that a week before had asked her to marry him, the man that she had said yes to kissing a Cheerio. Not only was Finn kissing this cheerleader he had his hand up her skirt. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know what he was doing. It wasn't until another Cheerio walked in the auditorium behind Rachel that time caught up to itself.