... okay. I suggest you read this a) next to a box of tissues, and b) in private. I will not be held responsible for any emotional damage accrued from this story. ... please no one hate me for writing this?

The news comes to her on a Wednesday night. It's Shelby who calls her to let her know what's happened, and she stares numbly at the phone for an hour even after she hangs up.

She can't cry, can't even summon up the decency to feel numb.

"But... I don't understand," she'd muttered hopelessly, as if waiting to wake up from the dream she'd been so viciously and wrongly thrust into.

"I'm not sure that's..." She'd heard Shelby sigh, and it occurred to her that maybe she'd had to tell other people, too, not just her. "There's nothing to understand, Rachel. Car accidents... happen to people every day."

"But..."

"Maybe... this is something you'd like to talk to Ms. Pillsbury about. I'm afraid I'm not terribly good with this kind of support."

Rachel had nodded through the sound of Beth crying on the other end of the line despite knowing fully well that Shelby couldn't see her on the other line, a lump that felt like the size of a tennis ball lodged in her throat.

Now that she's been sitting on her bed for an hour, staring at her comforter for answers, she doesn't feel any wiser, any more ready to face the world than before she started.

A part of her wonders whether she even has any right to mourn over this. She chose Finn, her traitorous thoughts remind her, and she bites her lip, staring at her phone as she swallows. She chose Finn, not Jesse. He wasn't even hers to worry about anymore. Well— hadn't been.

It makes sense, then, why Shelby had been so utterly blindsided by Rachel's protest of the news. That's all it was supposed to be— news. A courteous acknowledgment that she'd once upon a time been a part of his life.

It's a miracle she even deserved that damn phone call with the way she'd treated him.

It's later on, under the spray of her shower head, that the news seems to seep through her skin and into her bones, the first tears she doesn't deserve to shed leaking out over her cheeks.

It hurts, and she can't say she's completely sure why.

He's not— wasn't— her boyfriend, she reminds herself as trembling fingers squirt shampoo onto her fingers. She didn't want him. She wanted Finn.

If she had chosen him, would he have been on I-76 that night? Or would he have been cuddled up on the couch downstairs to watch the Barbra marathon with her?

The first sobs that leave her ache in her chest like nothing ever before, and for a moment she isn't sure she hasn't forgotten how to breathe.

Facebook, it turns out, is yet a greater traitor than even her mind, and she blindly wipes away tears with her towel as her hair drips onto her chair, the event invitation making her chest feel tighter than it should have.

Andrea Cohen, the girl she remembers to have been part of Vocal Adrenaline, supposedly... Jesse's friend, inviting her to attend the funeral.

The goddamn funeral.

Rachel's only been to one funeral in her whole life, that of the grandfather she'd hardly even known at the time of his passing, excited only about the prospect of getting to wear a very pretty black dress. She was eight, and quite immature about the whole thing.

Now it feels like a farce, trite to try and compare the weight of this with any one damn thing, no matter how impersonal it feels to be invited to someone's funeral over facebook, of all damn places.

Taking in a shaky breath as she feels fresh tears leak out onto her cheeks, Rachel presses the button to accept the invitation, trying to ignore the stupid surge of jealousy at the thought that it's this Andrea girl that had the honor of setting up this event, of inviting everyone. Had she been closer to him than Rachel? Had she been his girlfriend, there to replace Rachel when she had turned him down?

Clicking the little red notification button on the top left of her screen, she stops, her eyes going wide for a moment as she sees Jesse's name, something about his posting on her wall...

It's not a miracle, of course. It was posted yesterday afternoon, presumably over lunch while he wasn't teaching, and her stomach starts to tremble even before fresh tears spill out onto her cheeks, fighting to hold them back and ultimately failing.

Coaching these kids makes me miss seeing your beautiful smile in that sea of Broadway hopefuls even more. No one even compares to you, you know.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Rachel slams her laptop screen closed without another word.

"Rachel? Are you okay? You haven't seemed like yourself all day."

It's almost as if the day has been just passing her by without her acknowledgment of it. Walking through the halls from classroom to classroom feels monotonous, and she's going more on motor memory than anything else as she sits, numb, unable to focus on anything. She doesn't raise her hand, doesn't speak to anyone, thankful when no one vital tries for her attention.

"I'm fine," she swallows the lie quietly, perversely aware of Finn's arm around the back of her chair.

For a brief moment, she wonders why Shelby wouldn't have told him, before it hits her again that Jesse isn't actually hers to mourn, that she's just being stupidly selfish over a boy she's never done anything to deserve.

"Rachel, I was just asking who wanted to audition for the solo at Sectionals."

Their concern is justified. Under normal conditions, Rachel would be jumping up and down in anticipation and excitement over the opportunity to sing a solo at Sectionals, but right now, all she feels is stubborn numbness seeping into her bones as she swallows hard, ducking her head.

"I think Kurt would perform an amazing solo."

A part of her revels in the hushed murmurs that pass through the choir room, Mr. Schuester telling them to settle down as he stares at her in obvious confusion.

"Rachel, are you sure?"

"Oh, sure, Rachel finally comes to her senses and lets someone else have a chance for once, and suddenly we have to go make sure if she doesn't want to change her mind," Kurt mocks, Rachel feeling herself tear up again.

"Kurt, I think you're forgetting what New Directions is all about. This is about community, about being there for one another. And when someone isn't acting like themselves, then we need to be there for them. This isn't about you getting the solo!"

"Thank you, Mr. Schuester," Rachel shakes her head, "but I really don't think I want to talk about it."

She's up out of her seat and out the door before anyone can say anything else. It doesn't even qualify as a storm out— there's no anger in her gait, not even any real determination as she runs blindly to the girl's bathroom, praying that no one follows after her as she locks one of the stall doors behind her.

No such luck.

"Berry, what the hell? That wasn't even a proper storm out. What's gotten into you?"

"You're not supposed to be in here, Noah," Rachel sniffles, blowing her nose on one of the coarse, one-ply toilet paper pieces in the school bathrooms.

"That doesn't work on me, remember? Now what the hell is going on? I've never seen you act like that."

"Please don't make me come out." She takes a slow, shaky breath, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Why are you even here?"

"Finn sent me."

"Bullshit." It's a lie; she's known Noah Puckerman for long enough to know when he's lying. Moreover, Finn wouldn't think twice to ask Puck to go check on her. Jesse would have— but then again, her mind corrects her, Jesse wouldn't have bothered sending Puck in the first place. He would have gone to find her himself.

Jesse.

"Okay, fine, so I came of my own accord. It's not that weird. Us Jews, we need to stick together, you know."

"If I tell you, will you please leave and stop asking me about it?"

"What the hell was that, Rachel?" Finn finally asks her half an hour later when she leaves the bathroom for a ride home, tossing her bag into the backseat of his car.

"I don't... really want to talk about it, Finn. I'm sorry."

"What, so it's okay to tell Puck, but I don't get to find out?"

"Wait, did he tell you?" That's impossible, Rachel suddenly scrambling for some kind of footing on the uneven ground the sudden flash of panic has to offer. It's like an unexpected rollercoaster takes her by storm, more emotions than she's felt all day making the tumult in her chest visceral, leaving her throat tight and her heart aching. Can't do this. Can't survive this.

"Wha— no! That's not the point!" The relief is just as vivid in her chest as the panic, but the supposedly predictable, healing sensation through her limbs never comes, replaced instead by the same numbing feeling Jesse has provoked in her all day. "I'm your goddamn boyfriend, Rachel! You never act like this. Why the hell does he get to know, and not me?"

Boyfriend. The word feels more oppressive than ever.

"There isn't anything you can do to fix this, Finn."

"Just— let me help." He offers an exasperated sigh, ineffective in its attempt to make her feel bad.

It's not that Finn is a bad boyfriend by any stretch of the imagination. He's actually a very good boyfriend, understanding, caring, kind. He knows he'll always be second to the stage, to Broadway, to her dreams, and he knows to respect that.

What he shouldn't have to respect is the fact that he's now second to Jesse, too, his memory more guilt-inducing than any of Finn's words could ever possibly hope to be.

Finn is everything she's ever wanted and can't appreciate anymore now that she has him.

"I-I'm sorry, Finn. You can't."

Mr. Schuester, nosy as ever, finds out by the next day from god-only-knows-where, pulling her aside at the beginning of glee to remind her of the support readily available from everyone in the group, Rachel just nodding numbly before going to take a seat, dutifully present, but not really there at all. At the very least, Puck knows how to keep his mouth shut, even if he throws her more than just the occasional glance out of the corner of his eye throughout the lesson.

It's that Friday that she's called into Ms. Pillsbury's office.

It doesn't come to her as a great surprise, really. Whatever Mr. Schuester gets his hands on automatically reaches Ms. Pillsbury, so it was only a matter of time before she was called in for counseling.

"Okay, well... what is it that you'd like to talk about, Rachel?"

Ms. Pillsbury has a terribly annoying tick with her hands, always wringing them as though she's made to feel anxious by every single person she happens across. It's horribly distracting, but at least Rachel's thoughts aren't completely preoccupied by Jesse as she stares at the other woman's anxiety disorder, blinking up at her only after a second call to attention.

"I'm... not sure that I really want to talk about it." Letting her gaze fall into her lap, Rachel squeezes her eyes shut, thoughts of Jesse everywhere.

The noise in the back of Ms. Pillsbury's throat, as though to remind Rachel that her answer is predictable in this sort of situation, only serves to make her resent the woman more, pressing her lips together as she stares at her hands.

It's strange, thinking about how real she feels, how much more alive than Jesse gets to now. It's not fair, the sharp relief of her fingers against the wood grain of the desk making bile rise in her throat just in time for a few pamphlets to be pushed her way across the desk as Ms. Pillsbury adjusts the angle of one of her pens, slow, deliberate.

What to do when you lose a loved one.

Living in fear of death.

I can't stop thinking about the goldfish I flushed down the toilet.

"I-I'm sorry, I'm not sure this... is really appropriate."

"Well, you should look them over. It might not be such a bad idea for you, Rachel. According to Mr. Schuester," —predictable— "you've lost interest in the things you loved the most before all this happened. Singing. Attention. It might do you well to acknowledge that you need help."

"I'm not..." she shakes her head, gaze fixed on the slight crack in the leather upholstery of the chair beside her. "My dads have a therapist on call if they decide I really need one, but... I think I'm okay."

It's a lie. She couldn't be further from okay if she tried, the knot in her throat as oppressive as ever as she strains to look anywhere but directly at Ms. Pillsbury's beady button eyes, too big and imploring for their own good, as though she never passed through puberty and realized that it was time to start looking like an adult.

"I think you need help, Rachel. I can't... pressure you into that, but I really hope you'll at least look through the pamphlets."

Unceremoniously stuffing them into the side pocket of her backpack, Rachel nods somewhat stiffly, hoping she'll drop the subject now that she's accepted her educational materials under her rather reluctant wing.

"I'll be sure to do that, Ms. Pillsbury, thank you. For, um. Everything."

The pamphlets prove to be wholly ineffectual, not that Rachel was expecting any differently. Still, there was one small morsel of good advice that Rachel decides is worth considering, which is why she's now in the basement, rifling through boxes upon boxes to find one particular one.

She wasn't lying when she told Jesse that it looks rather like a shrine of her childhood down here, but there are just a couple of boxes for which Rachel had been entirely responsible. There's a box for Finn, for Kurt, and of course for Jesse. People who impacted her life significantly, made her hurt or laugh or cry or love more than the others. She keeps the boxes all the same, so one of them doesn't feel ultimately inferior because of size discrepancies, as though one of them somehow made a bigger impact than the other, which is a lie.

It's just a different impact, and now as she peels down Jesse's box from the top shelf, staggering slightly as she tries to catch the brunt of the weight in her heels, his impact is making itself more known than she ever expected.

She's already crying by the time she lowers the box to the ground to open it, the sleeve of an old hoodie of his that he'd forgotten to take back peeking out of the box.

"Jesse."

She breathes the words more than she speaks them, worships them as she remembers, wiping purposelessly at her eyes as she tugs at the sleeve, her body collapsing back onto her heels as every last part of her threatens to sag completely.

It's the same dark blue Vocal Adrenaline hoodie he wore the day they funked them, the same hoodie that, less than one year later, he'd "accidentally" leave behind at her house after kissing her again, for the first time in forever, despite the fact that it was a downright balmy seventy degrees outside, and Rachel had worn a dress that day.

It's not fair.

Thinking about that kiss and that conversation and that whole day makes her wonder what would have happened if that kiss hadn't been the last, if she'd used it to demand another, and another, as though wishes could be multiplied if only she closed her eyes and squeezed them shut hard enough. If kissing him, if sharing one-thousand more kisses with him would have saved his life and kept him safe in her arms.

But one-thousand would have never been enough to save Jesse.

Rachel lifts up the dense cotton with trembling fingers, burrowing her face in it as she inhales him, all of him, this damn hoodie still smelling so much like Jesse that she hardly even realizes it when she's sobbing the next moment, clinging to it as she rocks back and forth, wishing she could just hold onto this one tiny piece, this one, minuscule fragment of all that he ever was hard enough to somehow bring him back.

Eucalyptus and pine assault her senses as she closes her eyes. It's too easy to imagine him still there, his arms wrapped around her while she breathes him in, deep, her face buried in his front while he holds her as she cries.

All of her past problems— not getting a stupid solo, Finn not paying enough attention to her, not being prepared enough for Sectionals— they all pale in comparison to this. She feels petty, caring so much about things that ultimately mattered so little. Every word out of Jesse's mouth, every touch, every kiss, the way he always tucked her stray hairs behind her ears and held her. Everything feels stuck on replay in her head, as though not remembering every second of him in her life would be a disservice to him.

The box is filled with fragments of Jesse.

A mixtape CD he made for her the night they were supposed to have sex, one of the many attempts to try and make it more special for her, only to accidentally forget it at his parents' house and ruefully deliver it to her the next day that he showed up at McKinley, unexpected as a Christmas present in July.

A letter littered with random facts about him, an honest attempt to prove to her that he wasn't just Jesse, the star of Vocal Adrenaline, but a real, honest-to-god human being with flaws, childhood memories, things loved and hated.

A card he'd sent her on her 17th birthday, a veritable prelude to his return if only she'd thought so deeply into the gesture at the time.

And pictures. Too many to count, too many to sort through, as though a life could be defined by pictures in the first place, like a stupid game of leap frog, jumping from moment to moment until nothing genuine is left but remnants on photo paper, scraps that remind us that we're real, that we have a past as much as a future, that we didn't make it all up in our heads, those moments we hurt, or loved, or cared more than we should have.

But it's not enough. Jesse doesn't fit into a box— he never had.

She briefly considers drowning herself later that night while taking a bath, watching two water droplets coalesce slowly into bigger drops on the side of the tub.

She keeps waiting for them to catch each other and come together, but they never do, and Rachel wonders if she'll ever be able to look at anything again and not think about Jesse.