The Steps of Life

Chapter 1

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I'm fully aware that high school is supposed to be the time of your life, but I never really thought that theory was true. For once, I was proved wrong. And I didn't like it.

I, Rachel Berry, am a sophomore in high school and I must say, I'm not enjoying myself. Not nearly as much as I thought I would. Granted, it's near the end of the year now, but I have a few points to well, point out.

Every student seemed to have had some sort of transformation over the summer break, because they were either blonde and now a brunette, or their nose looked different.

My teacher's suck.

Nobody actually seemed to notice me.

Fair enough, there was that one boy in my math class, and he's also in the glee club. But there wasn't going to be any sort of passionate relationship with this guy since I was pretty sure he was gay. Being the daughter of two gay men, I feel like I have a gay-dar. That's a gay radar.

It didn't actually make that much sense. I'm mildly good looking. I don't have any sort of brace. I'm not a prude.

My dress sense would probably have qualified as 'sexy school girl-librarian chic', the short skirts didn't mean I was a skank, unlike a few people I'd seen, but just that I was available.

I wasn't available to everyone, like the guy with the big hair and glasses who always interviewed me. I liked the attention, but only from the career point of view. It's important to learn young, so that later in life when the press would have asked me questions about my new Broadway show, I would have been ready.

Anyway, the problem was that nobody paid any actual attention to me. Any physical attention. Any physical attration.

Until that day. It has now been four months and twenty since that day.

Five months earlier.

"Finn, did you hear me?"

The football player turned his head towards his best friend, "What, man?"

"You wanna hang around the seven-eleven later?"

"Sure, sounds great." He zoomed out again, as the teacher scribbled notes on the board before turning around and starting to hand them their essays from a few days ago.

The older man stopped beside his desk, "Finn, I'd like to speak to you after class." Finn nodded, while Puck shot him a glance,

"He's probably wants to have his way with you." he whispered behind his back.

Within five minutes, the bell had rang and students started to leave the room. He stood up, grabbing his books from his desk, he bumped backwards into a girl.

"Oh, sorry." he apologized quickly.

She looked up at him, her frame much smaller than his. "It's OK." she bit her lower lip and softly smiled, pulling her books tight against her chest.

Watching her retreating back, Finn watched as her bottom swayed as she walked.

"Don't let Quinn catch you staring." Puck suggested, snapping him out of his daze, "Besides, what were you apologizing to her for, she's like a cat and we're the tigers. She's a nobody."

Finn frowned, "You do realize that that makes absolutely no sense?" Puck shrugged. "Don't bend over," he adviced before leaving the classroom. Finn chuckled, grabbing his bag and walking over towards Schue's desk.

"You wanted to speak with me, Mr. Schue?"

He looked up, "Yes, listen... It seems that your grades are slipping and you're failing your year in Spanish."

"Is there anything I can do to get my grades back up?"

Mr. Schuester nodded, grabbing one of many pieces of paper from his desk and handing it to the boy, "I've assigned you a tutor. You'll see each other every monday during lunch in the library, that doesn't clash with anything else does it?"

Finn smiled, "No, that's fine. It's great. Thanks, Mr. Schue."

"OK, so for Prom, I was thinking black and white. Like a wedding." Puck rolled his eyes as Quinn gushed to her boyfriend about her plans for this year's Prom.

Finn nodded along, faking attention to the blonde as she rambled on. His mind was elsewhere, on his tutor. He didn't even know who he was. Or she was. Given his luck, he'd probably end up with one of the geeks who masturbate over history books. They are so not sharing. Speaking of his tutoring lessons,

"Oh, crap. Quinn, I gotta go."

She crossed her arms and frowned deeply, "What? Where?"

"I have a tutoring lesson in...," he checked his watch, "five minutes ago." He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips before getting up, "I'll see you later." He didn't Puck's smirk towards Quinn when he left.

Upon entering the large room, he took notice of the dozens of rows of books, many of which he'd never even noticed before. He didn't know who he was looking for exactly. A boy? A girl? Glasses? Sweater-vest?

"Hey!" a voice called from behind him. He turned around and spotted the girl from earlier, "you're here for Spanish, right?" She raised an eyebrow and tapped a pencil against her book as she flicked the page.

Finn gave her a half-smile, "Uhh, yeah... you're my tutor?"

She finally looked up from her book, her pencil dropping on the floor as she stuttered, "Y-yeah,"

He sat down across from her, placing his own books down on the wooden table while she bent down and picked up her pencil from underneath it.

"So," she popped her head back up, her long brown hair flipped in the process, "you're failing."

He nodded, a confused expression on his face, "Well, yeah... that is kind of why I'm here."

The girl giggled, "I know... I was just- moving on, let's turn to page 26."

Finn ignored her, particularly because he was paying so much attention listening to her, rather than listening to her, "you're Rachel, right?" he asked, leaning back in his seat as he placed both hands against the table.

Rachel lifted her head and glanced at him briefly, nervously placing her pencil down and twiddling her fingers together, "You know my name." she mumbled to herself, her head tilting to the side, and shaking with disbelief.

He was confused, "Well, you're in a few of my classes so why wouldn't I know your name?"

"I don't know, it's just - I'm not really on your radar. I mean,"

"What makes you think you're not on my radar?" he interrupted, asking her something she hadn't been expecting.

She shook her head, avoiding eye contact, "Nevermind. Let's just get back to Spanish."

"No." he objected, closing her book down in front of her and pulling it toward him so she wouldn't be able to retrieve it, "tell me what you meant."

Rachel sighed, placing both of her hands in her lap, playing with the creases of her skirt. "Can you please just give me my book back, please?"

"You're not one of those nerds who live by their school books, are you?" he raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm not, I do not live by my books. I live by my music." she looked down, biting her bottom lip again, something he couldn't help but find adorable. There was just something incredibly attractive about it.

Finn grinned, "You write music? Interesting."

"I sing, I'm actually not very good with the writing. So if you'd please just give me my damn book back and stop making fun of my tastes, so we can get back to the lesson."

"What else do you do?"

"What?" she asked, "What's with the 20 questions?"

"Nothing, I'm just curious about what you do to have fun." he shrugged, the book still grasped in his hands. He wasn't moving anytime soon.

Rachel got up from her seat, her hands placed on her hips, "That is none of your business!"

He hadn't paid any notice to the way her attitude had changed, more demanding. "D'you go out? Where do you go? D'you have sex? Do you go to parties? I bet you don't. You don't you do?" Finn smirked

She didn't know how it happened, but somehow she had moved around to the other side of the table where he was, a hand still against her hip as the other stuck out, waiting for the book. He turned his chair sideways so that he was facing her, a smirk plastered against his face, "You want it back?" he waved the book around teasingly.

"Please?" she waited patiently, but it wasn't going to last long.

He contemplated handing it back to her, but he was enjoying her attention. He knew that if he gave it back to her, he'd have to study and sure, he wanted his grades back up, but he wanted to spend some time with her, without the school lessons. And he didn't know why.

"Look, unless you want me to complain to the little old lady at her desk over there, I recommend you hand it back. Right now."

Finn stood, the book still unattainable to her due to their height difference. "Do you wanna go to my friend's party, tomorrow night?" He had caught himself off with the question. Was he... asking her out? He had a girlfriend, for god's sake. Was her inviting her out of pity because she didn't seem to get out much? Puck had told him she was a loser, a nobody. So why was he inviting her to his party?

Because there was just something about her that caught his attention.

She huffed, her hands suddenly swinging out towards his head, trying her best to reach her book. Rachel Berry was not going to stand for this.

"Is that a no?"

She giggled with a small smile, finding his insistence cute.

He lowered the book down a bit, "Is that a yes?"

"If I say yes, are you going to give me my book back?" she asked.

Finn stepped closer to her, the distance between their bodies getting smaller. He leaned down so his face was only a few inches away from hers, "maybe..."

Rachel gulped, her eyes finding the floor, "Well then," she started, stopping when his index finger found her chin and lifted her head up so she was looking at him directly. It was such weird circumstances. Why was he so persistent? Her eyes darted to his mouth when he licked his bottom lip. Was he going to kiss her?

Who was she kidding?

"Well?" he questioned softly, his eyes flickered to her own lips, "because I was thinking... we could hang somewhere with low-lighting..." What the hell was he doing? He had a perfect girlfriend, but he couldn't help himself from finding something special about Rachel.

Gulp. She slowly nodded, her eyes finding his. "OK."

It was so simple. Just one word. One word that would change her life for the next nine months.