You sigh.
The grey question mark on the Skype icon, the read messages that are left unreplied, the emails that have gone unanswered.
It's been the same for half a hear, and this time you know that it's not an accident. At the beginning, you thought that something bad happened to her, causing you to panic and being the Rachel Berry that you are, your wild paranoia drives you to board the next morning train to New Haven. You rush to tell her that in the voicemail you sent her at eleven that night, with that being the fourteenth you've sent since you've arrived in New York for a month.
A text message dings at two in the morning with "I'm fine. Don't bother coming."
It spears right through your frame, because you haven't gotten your emotions in check at the early hour, feeling especially drained since you spent the previous night packing your bag to New Haven. You knew that it was an excuse to see her, ignoring the plethora of circumstances that you could meet her in. Somehow, you've pictured those eyes glowing back in every single one of them. It's a text, it's not even an email. She doesn't even address you, acknowledge your name or insult you.
It's like you never even played an important role in her life.
You could be overdramatising, over-exaggerating, overanalysing because it's two in the morning. Yet it's harsh enough to set you back and you think you've re-established the social hierarchy once again. Why would the head cheerio be bothered to deal with the scum of McKinley's floor?
You run a hand through your hair as your heart thuds a little heavier. She blames you. You think, always feeling, thinking, assuming, knowing that she blames you for the accident. Yes, she said that you had nothing to do with the accident, that it was her choice to reply. Yet it eats you up that it was your text that she was replying to, your wedding she was rushing to, your bridesmaid dress that she went back to get, despite her insistence that you shouldn't, you can't marry Finn. You bite your lip and stare blankly at the laptop screen.
You two are forever bounded by this disaster, that you know. Every time she coughs, every time she winces as her back aches in the cold, every step that she wavers in, you know that it was your resistance to listen to her that caused her a lifetime of silent anguish. It's a miracle, you remember hearing the doctors tell Mrs. Fabray, that she survived the collision, and a bigger miracle that she managed to within 90 days of her surgery. She should thank her lucky stars, they said. And you suddenly feel all too inadequate of the metaphor that you've obnoxiously pinned yourself against.
You want to spend a lifetime trying to mend your silly mistake; a regret that you almost let ruin your dream, you life. A life for a life, and it nearly took hers for you to realise the stupidity of yours. You remember feeling that God has graced not one, but two lives, the second Dr. Lopez told all of you that she's alive; but not entirely out of the woods.
You're not ready to throw away this strange friendship that you've built throughout your high school life. You refuse to just be a chapter in her life that she closes and dismisses as a poorly written work that's shoved in the dirtiest shelve of her memories. She's gone through a lot, and you don't want to the biggest bump in her road.
That's why you've been trying to reclaim your friendship after her accident. You broke off your engagement with Finn, got into NYADA and you're once again back on the road to your dreams, thankful that the detour you took wasn't as long as it could have been if it wasn't for Quinn.
Quinn.
Your stomach jolts and your heart starts to flutter at the sound of her name, if only said in your mind. Everything you've done throughout your glee history has one way or another been tied to Quinn. You mentally kick yourself for taking time to evaluate your feelings for her. You recognised that it's, and has always been, strong, but in your rashness to pursue the approval of everybody, you shove those feelings under the easily accessible labels; Hate. Jealousy. Envy.
You should have made a powerpoint to understand what they were. Why you've always been drawn to her, why you've always gone to her for advice.
It's the fear that she's always right that scares you the most.
Her quiet assertion and experience towards your fierce determination. The snow against the fire that rage within.
She tells you to wait. And you don't.
She tells you to not throw away your future. You shrug it off.
She tells you to not marry. And you nearly do.
It's like she's finally given up. Trying to not exist in your life, just as you've shrugged off her advice along the years.
It's not true! You vehemently object. But isn't it?
You learn from Finn and surprisingly, Santana, that she returned for Thanksgiving, that you just missed her. Or rather, that she timed it well enough to avoid you. You learn that she talks about the weekly emails you send her, updating on yourself and mostly asking how she's been. You try to fulfil what she said, about making sure that you two stay in touch.
It's the most interaction you've gotten from her, and she isn't even talking to you.
It does throw you off, how she's been conscientiously ignoring every one of your attempt. It almost seems like ever since Yale, you've never been in her life. Like she regrets giving you that Metro North pass, regrets calling you a friend.
So it surprises you when Santana calls you and tells you that she and Quinn are visiting in two weeks. She didn't mention what it was for, or if they made any plans.
All you know is that you're finally, finally, getting a response from her and you find yourself at a loss. What to do, what to say, what to expect around Quinn. How different you'll react now that you've acknowledge the magnitude of your emotions for her.
You close your laptop and crawl into bed, willing yourself to sleep. It's another two weeks more before she comes, and you should try to get some sleep before that.