A/N: Inspired by the true 'An Ex-Hooker's Letter to her Younger Self'.

lights will guide you home / and I will try to fix you

-Coldplay

Dear twenty-one-year-old Brody,

Don't do it.

We both know what I'm talking about, so I'm not going to waste time beating around the bush. You have a double-life, and it's not as cool as Spiderman's. By day, you're a student at NYADA. An average student. Overall nice guy, if a little slick at times.

By night, you're a hooker.

I know, I know. You can't lie this time, so now all you can throw back are your excuses. I've heard them all. Buddy, I made them all. I remember as well as you do how it was like in that stupid little farm in Montana, living with the knowledge that if you stayed there, you'd never reach your full potential. I remember your family laughing at you when you told them you wanted to perform on Broadway, and then the disbelief on their faces when they saw you weren't laughing with them.

Plain as day, I remember Carmen Tibideaux giving you a thumbs-up after you sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow for your audition piece. How the hell couldn't I? It's the first time you got praise instead of teasing after a performance. It was the first time someone really and truly recognized your talent, and I remember how you almost wanted to cry because of it.

It's also where you made your first mistake.

"You'll have no problem coming to NYADA in the fall?" Ms Tibideaux had asked. "Assuming that you get accepted."

And like an idiot, you said, "Of course not."

Like you didn't know that even if your parents wanted to fork up the cash to get you into college, they still wouldn't have been able to do it in a million years. If you're honest with yourself, you thought of Ms Tibideaux as a Broadway goddess (I still do, actually) and you didn't want to make yourself seem inferior to her other students in any way. Who knows what could've happened if you 'fessed up about needing money? She might've given you a scholarship.

Or jacked you out altogether. I can't say that wasn't a possibility, too.

Well, you got your acceptance letter; and when fall rolled around, your family found your bedroom empty and you were on a bus to the airport. You should've at least said good-bye to them, you know. They might've thought you were a little cuckoo, and they never did understand your talent, but they loved you. I get that now.

At New York, you're living out your fantasy. It's like your own personal Disneyland. The sights, the sounds, the smells, everything was better than you dreamed it would be.

Except the traffic. It's as horrible as everyone says it is.

But like Dad used to say, "You only get crop when you've put some backbone into it." You needed to make ends meet. At first, you thought it'd be easy. Get a job being a waiter or DJ at some club. Work part-time stacking CDs or tutoring or whatever. No big deal, you thought to yourself as you went back to your dorm room after yet another night of fruitless job-searching. You'll find something eventually. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If a bookstore needed an assistant, if a McDonald's wanted another fry-cook, they had a line a street long of people begging for it.

And you never could lower yourself down enough to beg.

So one night – a week before your tuition was due – you did something unthinkable. You dressed up in a tux, went to that hotel downtown, slipped into the ballroom, and….you know.

Your grandmother always said you were a good-looking boy, and they agreed with her.

The first days were terrifying, I remember. You were so ashamed. You could barely look at anyone in the eye, and you pushed the few friends that you had – Nikki, Joe, Tanner? Remember them? – away. But hey, you always were an actor. You learned to cover the feeling up, even if it never did leave you. And ever the perfectionist, you got good at what you did. Great, even. You're not proud of it, but you did.

That was a long time ago, though. Way back in freshman year. Pretty soon, you're going to be a junior; and you're already counting up the bills in your head and how much work you're going to do this semester to keep up with them.

Don't do it.

Seriously, man. Don't. You've gotten lucky, these past two years; it's always been a quick in-and-out, and none of the women you've been with have blabbed or were psychopaths. But luck doesn't hold forever. Take my advice, please. Apply for financial aid, go down on your knees to Ms Tibideaux, ask for work in the college kitchens. Anything. Just make sure you enter this year with your integrity.

Why? Besides pointing out the obvious (STDs, you hate it, etc.), I'm going to say you're going to have some pretty major things lined up this year that you're going to want it for.

Not the least one Miss Rachel Berry.

When you first see her – wide brown eyes and dark hair and dazzling smile and all – follow your gut instincts. Yeah, even if you're in a towel late at night in a co-ed bathroom. Talk to her. Be her friend. Because those instincts? They're right. Do you remember those love songs you used to make up on the field when you were bored, the ones that you always thought you'd sing to your one true love? Well, warm up those vocal cords, my friend.

This girl's special, and you're going to long to stand high in her esteem more than you ever wanted to in Ms Tibideaux's.

Maybe you won't listen to me. You're too used to the life you're now leading, and it's not like you can't have both a love life and maintain your 'job', right? Uh, no you can't, but you're probably going to disregard that, too. Fine. I'm just going to warn you, you're going to face a hell of a lot of trouble because of it.

You'll make enemies, and get found out. You've had your first major warning before. Remember in sophomore year, when you walked in that hotel room only to find Ms July sitting on the bed with her arms crossed? You know, that devil-teacher who'd been tormenting you since you got there? You could've been expelled. You offered to do anything for her – clean her apartment, pick up her groceries, sleep with her? – but all she did was raise her hand up and order you to explain yourself.

So you did.

And thank God, she didn't say anything after that. She left the money on the desk, strode right past you, and walked out. Another lucky shot, Brody. No matter what anyone says, Ms July looks out for her students; she let you off at that time, and from then on, she's Cassie instead of Ms July.

But if you don't clean up your act this year, you're going to piss her off.

See, you're not the only one who's going to see that Rachel's something special. Cassie begins paying attention to her on her very first lesson, and she pushes Rachel (seriously, she shoves her) to her full potential. When she figures out you have an interest in Rachel – and you still haven't quit your double-life – it's not going to be pretty. Later, she'll finally take you up on your offer to sleep with you, but it's not a compliment. It's a warning; both to you and Rachel, though the latter doesn't get it.

You'll want to ignore it, of course. Want to shelf her advice as words of an old has-been that never really made it. Don't. Deep down, you know Cassie's plenty smart, and she's trying to put you back on the right track.

You're going to find it hard – so impossibly hard – to keep secrets; firstly because you care about Rachel, you want to share everything with her; and secondly because you eventually move into her apartment. Even you've got to admit that's tough; she and her friend, Kurt, will be staying in pretty close quarters with you. Besides that, keeping secrets will simply hurt your relationship with Rachel. The result is that she's not going to be completely honest with you herself.

That jerk of an ex will keep popping out of nowhere.

When Santana Lopez comes around, please, for the love of all things good and merciful, stay on her good side. She'll tell you she's a hard-core friend. She is. She'll prove it when she, Cassie-style, finds out your job; gets Rachel's ex, Finn, to beat the crap out of you; and then when she spills the beans to Rachel herself even when you've moved out and did everything that she wanted.

The last one is the worst.

You'll feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest when Rachel slips you a rolled up wad of cash and asks, mockingly, if it's enough to take you out to dinner. You'll want to break down and run away, you want to take it all back, because you know that this is much, much worse than being out on the streets, much worse than being expelled and sent back to Montana. But you can't break down.

So you get angry instead.

You'll shout at her, tell her that Finn was the one who beat you up. Tell her that you know she slept with him at that wedding. It was only actually a shot in the dark, but Rachel's horrified face confirms that it's true. This does not improve your heartbreak.

She'll start sobbing then, and everything's a mess. You'll decide to take the last step. Just to end it all. You'll say, simply, that she's still in love with Finn.

And the strangest thing happens.

She immediately stops crying. Her tear-stained face will be given a hard, blazing expression, and before you can think, she'll move forward and slap you.

"My life does not revolve around Finn," she'll seethe. "And I'm done being disrespected."

She'll leave without another word.

You honestly won't know what to do from there. Forget the rest of the day's classes. You'll slink into your dorm-room and mope, wondering how the hell did you got to where you were. And that just makes you even more depressed, because you know it's entirely your fault. You left your family, you weren't able to find an honest job, you've been a jerk. Now, you're just paying the price.

You'll go through the motions the next few days, utterly dead inside. It's even more terrible than the first few days of your prostitution. Now, you can't even bother to put your show-face on, neglecting your daily routines in favour of staring listlessly out the window. Trust me, it'll show. You'll have no answers when your professors, and even Carmen Tibideaux, asks you what's wrong.

Only one of them really knows.

At some point, Cassie will pull (more like haul) you aside after class. Her face will be grim when she confronts you about the grey, hazy state you've been living in the past few weeks. When you stare at her blankly, she'll sigh. "This is about Schwimmer, isn't it?" she'll ask, wry as ever. "Lemme guess. She found out about you being a man-whore."

You'll start to pull away at this point. "None of your business."

"It became my business once you started moving around like a flopping jelly-fish in my studio," she'll counter. Normally, this is when you make a witty comeback. You and Cassie love your bantering. But your blank face will stay the same, and this, I think, is what worries her more than anything else. "Listen, Brody," she'll say carefully. "Stay in your dorm-room tonight, okay?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you again," you'll say before you can stop yourself, and she'll smirk.

"Uh-huh. Because nobody in their right mind would say that to me, I'm gonna let that pass. But stay in your dorm-room."

It'd save you a lot of humiliation if you take her advice. Wait patiently in your room. Try not to think depressing thoughts so much, because they'll be your undoing. Don't pace around the floor like a caged lion. Especially don't answer the paging that you get that night from one of your clients, and leave just to make a quick buck. That will be the night your luck will run out.

It'll be pouring rain, and there's no way you can get a cab, but you walk anyway. You'll know exactly where to go, because the lady is one of your regulars. She won't mind that you're soaked. Both of you need it to be quick—Cassie might be at your room at any moment, and your client doesn't want her husband to find out. And you are fast.

Just not fast enough.

He'll be home early because of some big promotion, waiting for his wife to greet him. His face shifts from content to savage in less than a second when he gives you a glance and knows exactly what's happening. She tries to tell him you're here to help her…manage things, but he doesn't buy it.

They never do.

For the second time in two months, you're getting beaten up—only this time, you won't be able to summon enough energy to fight back. He pounds you mercilessly, his wife screaming in the background, while you just look straight ahead, hanging limp. It'll hurt, yeah…but you've been hurt before, and nothing is excruciating as that.

Finally, when you're barely conscious and all that's left of your face are dents and bruises, the man will kick you out of his apartment. You'll lie next to the dumpsters, dripping blood and raindrops.

You won't know how long you stay there. You can't move. Can't think. Can't even sleep, for Christ's sake.

You expect you're going to die. You actually welcome it, at that point.

Then you hear voices.

Santana. "I think the guy said they saw someone here—wait—is that—"

Kurt. "Oh my God—"

Cassie. "What the hell happened? You motherfucking idiot, I told you to stay in your—do either of you have a cell phone, we need to call an ambulance—"

"Brody!"

Rachel.

And that's when you'll pass out.