Broken Smile
Moments in Jesse's relationship with Rachel from his POV.
She's perfect, in her little pleat maroon skirt with her hair clipped back to release her Elvin ears and her bow printed top. She looks so innocent it makes him want to cry.
He watches her with wary eyes as she wonders into the music store, her head buried into the music books of the greats.
He smirks at her focus, jerking the book away from her face.
'Lionel Richie', he says smoothly. 'My favourite.'
She looks at him with wide eyes of awe and he can't help that her fascination with his stardom makes him that much more confident. It's going to be easy to seduce her.
'You're Jesse St James,' she says astonished.
'You're Rachel Berry. I saw you perform at Sectionals', her eyes shimmer at his words and he feels the urge to kiss her cos she's so adorable it's unreal. 'Your rendition of DROMP was flawed, you lack the emotional depth of Barbra...but' he carries his words in the air for added effect. '...You are talented.' He blinks, proud of his acting skills, walking to the piano.
'Let's give it a try', he holds the open page in his manly hands. Hello is a perfect song for them, he thinks.
She stutters and he falters a little. How can someone this beautiful and talented be nervous?
'I'm kind of nervous', she says shyly.
'I remember when I used to get nervous. I give impromptu concerts to the homeless. It's important to give back', he sighs.
He pats the seat next to him on the piano bench and she sits down gingerly by his side.
Their voices were made for each other as the melodies complement the tone of their tune, mixing to create delightful music as everyone erupts in applause. He looks around, with a smug smile.
'We should do this again, some time.' He says suggestively.
Her eyes flicker. She's already smitten. It's gonna be impossible not to fall for her.
They exchange numbers and set a date for Friday. He is disturbed by this new feeling of excitement bubbling in his stomach but he brushes it off as the side effects of his new diet.
They've just finished a 12 hour rehearsal when he starts to clear up the props and play with the lighting in the production suite of Carmel.
She's here wandering into the stage as he shines that glaring light on her to hear her utter the most hilarious thing he's heard in a long time.
'I've got a rape whistle,' she threatens pointedly in his direction as he makes his way into the light by the corner of the stage.
This forbidden romance thing, totally thrilling.
'Jesse?'
'Sorry, the lights are megawatts so it has a glare and we have to wear sunscreen on stage but it's worth it,' he says smoothly.
She has this pained expression on her face and he pulls her closer by the waist with a gaze of concern.
'I want you to be honest with me. I want to know this is real cos if it isn't I might die,' she says dramatically and he laughs. 'Not literally but metaphorically like Barbra in the Way We Were.'
He erupts into chuckles and leans closer, kissing her hair as her face curies itself on his chest.
'You are such a drama queen.'
He creates a gap between them, tilting her chin to face him as he stares back her chocolate eyes and silky mahogany hair. He offers his hand and she looks on confused.
'I want you to meet Jesse St James'.
She shakes her head, baffled. 'I know who you are.'
'You know Jesse the star of VA, not the guy whose nuts about you, would do anything for you and would never hurt you.'
Her pretty face morphs into a smile and she lays her head on his chest against as he grazes her chin to kiss her sweet tasting lips. God, she's intoxicating.
They are on her bed, her on top of him as he bruises her lips with his fierce kisses, his hands working up her thigh to her chest, finding her breasts and cupping them as she lets out a moan.
'We should do it,' he announces.
She looks up at him from the sheets and asks. 'It?'
'Yeah, you know go all the way. What? It's no big deal?' He says suave.
She gulps. Looking away she mutters. 'For a girl it is.'
He does the most chauvinistic thing he's ever done to a girl. He walks out, furious. No girl's ever rejected his advances before and this all feels foreign and uncalled for. How dare she?
He sneaks into the WMHS library, hiding behind the shelves of the Sondheim section, all melancholic and sorrowful over his scornful behaviour at her house the other day.
'Psst.' she tiptoes in her pink outfit, her hair cascading over her shoulders.
'Jesse', she whispers warily. 'What are you doing here?'
'Hiding in the shadows' he says solemnly. 'I chose this section as it expressed my deep melancholy.' He swerves around to her side as he lays his hands on her sides.
'I'm sorry', he says genuinely. 'I shouldn't have pressured you on going on the way', he says softly. 'I'm willing to wait; when you're ready I'll be fastidiously groomed.'
He's never waited for a girl before, usually he chases tail and gets some but this is different.
She breaks into a full smile, her lips rose red and kissable as he embraces her.
'I'm ready', she whispers in his ears, her tone laced with uncertainly he tries to ignore.
She's been in the bathroom for ages as he waits patiently laid out on the bed. He gets up to knock on her door.
'Rachel?'
'In a minute', she says panicked.
He knocks on the door. 'Just come out so we can talk or sing about it.'
She's out minutes later in her little virginal cape and her camisole dress as he sits next to her on the edge of her bed.
'I can't give myself to someone whose the enemy.' She stutters.
'It'll be like betraying my team.' He creases in eyebrows in confusion
'What does your team have to do with it?'
She gestures her hands and shrugs her shoulders. 'If I were to sleep with you it'd be like sleeping with the enemy.'
He gulps a part of him broken but he doesn't let her know.
They're calling them the Beyonce and Jay-Z; he guesses he should be proud. They are quiet a team and definitely strive as a power couple of two stars in a stage.
He claims his territory, hands her hands between classes and rounding his arms around her shoulders as they sit on their new throne. This feels good but he feels guilty for the lies and the web of deceit he's woven.
He can't believe his eyes as he claps wildly next to him completely oblivious to her deception.
'This is mortifying!' He exclaims pointing to the video that draws to a close.
She stands up to defend herself but he's furious, the veins in his neck popping and a ray of emotions bubbling in him as he glares at her.
'It's an artistic statement.' She offers.
'Being triple cast as you boyfriend along with two of your exes. It's embarrassing.'
He storms out in the classically dramatic way and gives her the silent treatment for days.
Why wasn't he enough for her? He's every girl's dream. Charming, smouldering, talented.
She's twirling in the ballet room the next room as he watches from the sidelines, back from his spring break with his VA friends.
He swallows as she finds him gazing back at her with longing as her face pleads for him.
'You're back', she croaks.
'Couldn't stay away', he says hoarsely.
He steps forward so he's face to face with her. 'I thought you'd never come back' she says sadly.
'And miss all your drama?' He quips, holding her tight and brushing his thumb over her bare back.
She sighs into the embrace and he feels content somehow as if their two pieces of a puzzle that complete a landscape, they feel right to him.
She tells him about her dreams of stardom and her ideal parts to play on the big stage. He tells her it's inevitable that she would conquer the stage. Just like she's conquered his heart, he wants to add.
'A dream is something that fill up the emptiness, makes all the hurt go away.'
They're in the hallway as he holds her by the shoulders, his arms around her intimately as they smile into the distance.
'So what is it?' He breaks the silence.
'I don't know', she mumbles.
'I want to meet my mum,' she utters second later.
'You mum?' He feigns ignorance. He knows all about it but he can't let it out.
'I just wanna know who she is,' she says faintly.
It's pouring with rain and he's soaked to the skin as he meet Shelby clandestinely in her car.
'Did you give her the tape?' She asks, no greeting.
'She won't listen to it.' He says.
'She has to listen to it, she has to hear my voice and when she hears it she won't sleep without wanting to find me.'
The pain in the older woman's voice alarms him.
'Why can't you just tell her?'
'Because I signed an agreement. No contact until she's 18. She has to find me.'
'You make her listen to the tape.' His coach says with conviction and he makes his way out of the door, slamming the door shut.
He has a mission to perform. This is just an acting exercise, nothing more. He was to seduce her and he did just that. But now...now he kind of likes her. He knows he shouldn't but he can't help it that tiny girl has this captivating effect on him he just can't brush off.
He makes his way into her room unannounced and places the tape in to her bedazzled stereo. She comes out of her bathroom brushing her hair.
'Jesse...no. I'm-I'm not ready.'
'Yes you are.' He places a chaste kiss on her lips as he walks away, the Les Mis tune playing in the background.
They've met, he can walk away and say he's done a selfless deed but there's a pull he towards her like a string to his heart and he can't cut her off. It tugs tighter and he needs her like he needs air. He fallen deep and there's no way to shake it off.
He's back to his home turf, his stage that he claims as his and only his as his minions admire him from afar. He's a star and he's made his choice. There's no room for love in the battle of fame, he thinks. He's making the right choice.
He's stood with his VA team behind him, all ready to give a performance to funk them out.
She's got this betrayed expression on her face and he acts cold, heartless as he was before he met her. She humanised him and that was something he couldn't give into. He can't let her make him feel things he's never been trained to feel. He claims the stage and leaves them breathless with a smirk playing on his lips as she looks on, dumbfounded.
They're in the car park, all 26 of them throttling eggs to her as she runs to him gleefully unaware of what's to come as they ambush her with egg yolk running through her scalp and clothes, completely dishevelled.
'Do it, Jesse.' Claudia eggs him on. He has no choice. It's them or her. He's got a full ride to UCLA and a championship to win, there's no room for her. This is the price he pays for success, love in place of winning.
His hands hold the eggs and she looks on, heartbroken at him.
'Break it like you broke my heart.'
It's a pity because she broke his first. You broke mine first, he wants to say. Instead he grimaces, cracking the shell over her temple as the yolk runs running her face.
He leaves with a chip on his shoulder, attitude intact, walking away from the best thing that's ever happened to him.
He's in LA, living the dream; he drives his Aston Martin and has girls on his arms every night but something feels missing. Or someone and he tries to shake off the memories of them, the kisses and the care bear, the dates at the roller rink and the vegan restaurants as he made her laugh, their debates about Barbra and Lupone being rivals. He misses her like the desert misses the rain.
He wonders into his classes in a daze, in state of despondence as he flunks out finally worn out from the inhumane effort he out to get in only to want to get out of this dream he lives. He craves her laugh, her bubbling rambles and her dramatic stunts, he craves what's real.
He's sitting in his car reminiscing over her fanatical theories of how her mother if Peters and Lupone. Her craziness is so charming it's unreal and he misses her in ways words can't express. So he drives back home, the full 18 hours with music blasting and memories imprinting in his mind.
He finds in the auditorium, sneaking into the school grounds as she sings of a love that could not have been. She gazes back at him with alarm and he explains all but with their broken smiles, none of it can be fixed. The pieces of their history are broken and irreparable.
There was a light to her that seems to have burned out from all the hardship and heartache she's experienced. He sees her smiles but the smile not quite reach her lips as they sit on the stalls on their way to prom. She's giggling but it's not as infectious. Maybe she missed him too, he wishfully thinks. No, it's probably the residual emptiness the lanky goof left behind as he broke her heart again for the millionth time, He still doesn't get his deal.
They're on the dance floor enjoying prom when suddenly there's shoving and animosity between her ex and him, fists are flying and punches are thrown causing a commotion as the girl who owns his heart begs them to stop. Soon the tall blonde coach ushers them out.
He had his chance and he blew it.
But maybe he can make it up to her, he thinks. He stages the auditions flaming the others until she sings her heart out about Her Man. He wishes it was him he was thinking of him.
He winks at her praising her performance and wish a little persuasion he gets Will to give her the win. She jumps into his arms and he claims her lips.
She means more to him than fame.
But it seems he got his hopes up thinking all could be forgiven and forgotten, to seal the cracks in their relationship and start anew with a renewed polish. He was naive.
It's over. It's over when she goes back to him leaving his life bleaker. It's over when he says goodbye with that same broken smile once again.