The flower is long stemmed, because he remembers her saying something about long-stemmed roses being romantic, and it's a soft petal pink, because he thinks of the soft blush in her cheeks when he tells her he loves her or when he kisses her. It took forever to pick because he wanted the rose to explain what he couldn't — that he loved her more then he could actually begin to understand, that he loved her more then he ever loved anyone, ever. Watching her this past week has reminded him, and Sue's speech brought it forcefully home; when he was alone, when he was with Quinn, or with the boys, when he was doing football, or hanging with Puck and the guys: the first person he thought of, the first person he wanted to talk to, was Rachel.

He's sort of excited to give it to her because he knows how much she loves roses. She says it's because a star should be used to a showering of flowers accompanying a "brava!" (he has no idea what a brava is, but he suspects it's just a female bravo), but he knows it's because flowers are a sign of love, of respect and thought, and she never got enough of that from her peers. He used to love surprising her with little gifts, not because she loved the pricing, but because they meant he had thought of her in the sparkle of a bedazzled hair clip, or in the sheen of a new ribbon (which ballerinas really needed — who knew?). So he's excited and nervous and just hoping that she kisses him when he gives it to her, because he feels a real ache, almost physical, in his body and he knows it's his body's reaction to her missing.

And then he walks into the auditorium and he sees her and for one shining second, everything is perfect and normal and wonderful and he can see her and something rises in his chest, some perfect hope, and it's rising and rising and -

and Jesse comes out and takes that spot that should be Finn's, he leans in closer, he smells the perfume Finn got her which she still wears, and he puts his lips on Rachel, the lips that Finn still dreams about late at night when he can't sleep.

The hope crashes like a tidal wave of ice.

He watches her walk away, and he dimly wonders how much heartbreak someone is supposed to take before they die.