Numbing The Pain

Noah Puckerman never expected to be with Rachel Berry. But he was. For a time, anyway. Rachel was annoying. He hated her. He hated the way she told him what to do all the time, her sick obsession with always wanting to be the center of attention, the way she practically got on her knees for solo's, her loud mouth, her annoying gold stars, her stupid schemes, everything about her. Most of all, he hated the way all of that was a lie. He loved her. He loved all of that. He missed it. Puck needed Rachel like a heartbeat, despite everything they went through. They were always bickering. Puck had mean streaks, Rachel was hotheaded. They were always fighting, bickering, it was rare that they really got along. They fought a lot, but even though they had countless fights, countless day-long break-ups, countless eyerolls, countless meaningless obsenities thrown at each other, they always foud their way back to each other. They always stayed together. But not this time. This was the fight that ended everything. It ended weeks ago, but Puck just couldn't seem to grasp it. He denied it, but there was no denying it anymore. Rachel was gone, it was all his fault. If he hadn't been fighting with her that day. He had been fighting with her over the stupidest Goddamned things, too. Why couldn't they have just gotten along that day? He should have kept her over at his house just a little longer. He could have done something, anything. To prevent what happened. He knew that if Rachel hadn't been thinking about him, if she'd been focused, nothing would have happened. If she hadn't been speeding. If it hadn't been fucking raining. But all of that did happen, there was nothing Puck could do about it. Rachel was dead. She was gone forever. The pain hit him like a ton of red bricks when he found out, he felt like his lungs caved in, he needed air. But there was pain no more. He stopped feeling pain after a while. He didn't cry anymore, he didn't kick walls and curse everything he could think of at two in the morning. He didn't do any of that, because he felt nothing. He was numb to the world. He just walked through life blindly, going through the motions, like a zombie. He might as well be dead. He didn't talk much. Only when necessary. He knew people were worried about him, he didn't care. He didn't care about anything. He didn't want friends anymore. He didn't want therapy, like his mom suggested. He didn't want to sing about it. He didn't want to think about it. All he knew anymore was that he missed her. He had so many bottled up feelings. So many things he wanted to tell her now, that he couldn't. He missed the way the sun hit her stray hairs, the way she lectured him, the way she linked their arms, how proud she was, how stubborn she was, how talented she was. He missed everything about her. Even those horrible flaws and stupid things she said, that got him so pissed off. He wanted to tell her that. He wanted to kiss her in the rain during a fight, he wanted to feel her head next to his, on top of piles of pillows, burried under blankets, to listen to her singing as they drifted off to sleep, to have him next to her as they talked about him. Which they did a lot. Rachel would always listen to him, because she knew how soft he really was, which he only let her see. She would always hold him when he cried, because he got back into drug habits, or because of his deadbeat dad. She'd let him let it out. She'd known was hard for him. He missed that so much. He needed someone to help him and hold him now. He needed someone to tell him that it was okay to cry, to show people that it did hurt. He needed someone to pull him out of the hole he was in, to try and fill the gaping hole in his heart. Just like Rachel used to do. But he couldn't. All he could do was carry on in life, pretending to be okay. Maybe one day if he pretended long enough, things actually would be okay. Or he'd be really good at fooling himself. But that wasn't going to happen very soon. So once again, he was gonna waste the night, drowning his feelings in beer, for at least a few hours the pain would be gone, he was going to drink until he passed out. He was going to have another dreamless night, a better night.