Ninth grade Gym is my favorite class this school has to offer. And I don't even take it.

I'm a senior; I'm in twelfth grade. I'm graduating in six months.

Until September, I'd always thought that Greek Myths was my favorite course (or maybe poetry - I was kind of on the fence about it).

But then Rachel Freaking Berry marched her ass into McKinley and thought loose boy shorts would be the perfect clad for sixth period. And God, (sorry) do I hate it. I hate those shorts and I hate that class and I hate Rachel Berry.

The worst (best) part was that there are rumors she was the biggest lesbian this school had seen. With her closest friends, she constantly raves about a cute girl sitting in front of her in history, or that the hottest girl she'd ever seen wore a mini skirt that day and smiled at her (but who wouldn't smile at Rachel Berry in the halls?). Sometimes her friends remark a little too loudly that she was "such a gay," or one of our mutual friends might make a comment absently when I was around. Then there was the fact she had been the most involved in the Gay-Straight Alliance and was even the one to initiate the new tradition of taking an inspiring photo in front of the building every year.

But what aren't rumors (strictly facts) was that she's mature for her age. No one could deny it (you could look at her long legs and deduce as much). She has friends residing in every grade (her best friend, Kurt Hummel, was one of the most talented kids in my senior photography seminar), and in eighth grade she dated someone who was now a junior (well, supposedly). So she's kind of cool - she's known to be pretty funny, and adorable as hell when she was crushing badly on someone (and you can bet your ass I prayed for hours that one day, I'd be her fantasy for just a night).

Okay, well, first of all, she isn't the most popular girl in school. A lot of people probably hadn't heard her name before (she was a freshman, after all, and stereotypes were hard to shake off), and she wouldn't really be "all that" in every enclosed clique until her junior year at the soonest.

But anyone that's around the gym at the end of sixth period would see Rachel walk out in those damn shorts. It was a brief sight, but some days, someone would catch her in the transition to the lockeroom and she'd stand in sight longer than normal. She would shift her weight, and you could see the muscles in those legs contract and ripple just enough beneath the surface of her skin to be caught by the human eye. And, Jesus Christ (sorry, God), was it a drool-worthy sight. I've gone out of my way numerous times just to inconspicuously lean against a wall nearby, pouring over a book I've already read, or texting random, incoherent sentences into my phone and pretending to be preoccupied.

Tuesdays were rather mandatory that I be there, because that was when Kurt and I both had sixth period off (electives were required to give a free period once a week), and he would always catch up with her during that time. It wasn't to stare at her legs, really. In fact he barely looked below the neckline unless it was to admire an article of clothing. And her shorts were a common piece, so he rarely commented on that.

So it was Tuesday, and I was waiting, and I was glancing at the clock, and class had ended three minutes ago, and she wasn't coming out, and I was annoyed, and I bounced on the balls of my feet impatiently and she wasn't coming out. Did I miss her? No, she would have had to pass me in the hall to get back to the academic field, and Rachel Berry isn't simply someone my eyes would slip over.

I'm just so damn mad that she isn't coming out of the gym - because she had to be in there, she just had to - that I march down the hall with my cheerleading skirt bobbing about my thighs. I'm pissed the gym didn't have any other windows and I'm pissed I had to arch up on my toes to look through the door and-

The door opens right into my fucking face.

Okay, it didn't actually hurt my face. When you stand at the top of a 20-foot-high pyramid with quivering knees and trembling girls beneath you, your reflexes become well-rehearsed. So I backpedaled fast enough to avoid any damage to the good stuff, and threw my arms over my face protectively. But the outside handle did jab in my stomach, and no matter how fast I was, I'm caught keeling over, clutching at my sore abdomen desperately and God I can't breathe.

"Oh-my-gosh-are-you-okay?" the intruder gushes fretfully in a hasty rush of words.

No, I'm not okay because I can't breathe and I can't tell if it's from losing the wind in me or the silky legs that were bent into my view. Those legs and I wanted to scream because I'm graduating soon and she's a fucking freshman and what I'm feeling isn't okay

"I'm fine," I croaked feebly, a crusty groan flittering from my lips. I refused to erect my spine further, because I could not like her dead in the eye right now. My cheeks were aflame and I swear they were going to melt right off my cheekbones and dribble around Rachel's polished, smooth ankles.

Her hands were threading around my shoulder as she leaned down, trying to get a good look at what was hurt. God, I could smell her. I could smell the sweet, shea butter shampoo and the sweat glistening along her brow and through the arch of her nose and down on that upper lip and oh my God (I can't even apologize anymore).

She was still blubbering apologetically and spinning in circles and looking around and looking at me and touching my shoulder and I'm staring at her mouth, hugging at my stomach which is twisted and gutted with flames.

I want to kiss her.

I've never wanted to kiss someone so badly.

I don't even like kissing.

I hate kissing my boyfriend and my prom date slobbered and Puck was rough and I don't like kissing.

But I want to kiss her.

"Should I take you to the nurse? Oh, I am so incredibly sorry I-"

I'm going to hell.

I'm going to be scorched and skinned alive in the dreadful pits of hell because I'm pressing her against the wall and I'm kissing her.

This isn't real.

I'm kissing her and she yelped into my smothering lips and I can taste her breath and my hands are grappling at her hips and-

Oh my God.

She's kissing me back.

She's whimpering hot pants of breath into my lips and her bare legs are cascading up and down against my calfs and I can feel her thighs throbbing. I lost my footing for the slightest second, buckling almost to my feet against her but her fingers knot into my hair, and she tugs, in this greedy and desperate way that I gasp, my lips parting. Her elbows find a secure holding upon my shoulders as she tangles my hair (I know it's going to be a bitch later to smooth out) while my arms wind about her waist. My fingers and hand flutter at the hem of her sweaty shirt, brushing skin and she jolts every time I do. I inhale sharply through my nose, our wet lips tangled and hungrily consuming one another, as I press her harder back against the wall.

A puff of air bursts from her, and I pull back just the slightest, wandering my eyes into her gaze. Those dark orbs are pulsating with a pure black lust too bright and wild for me to handle. She bites her lip innocently, nibbling, while she waits for me to continue on in some way. Her hands don't leave my hair, and the steady twirling of her thumb against the base of my neck is soothing (soothing in the way her knee is between my legs and I can feel her chest pumping with each much-needed breath).

I swallow thickly, my teeth gritted. "I hate your shorts," was all I said before pressing back in again. This time I was welcomed and encouraged with a throaty moan, and the tip of her burning tongue flicked at my taut lips. I mumbled "tease" and I could feel her smiling into my mouth, but maybe it was just her desperate tongue scavenging for pleasure and the thrill of exploring every pink and hot edge along inside my mouth. My nimble and respectful hands palmed at her breasts, but the unyielding sports bra restricted most of the exploring I was interested in. But my fingers nonetheless dug around the round, plump curves of her chest, and I swallowed another of her breathless whimpers.

"Attagirl," I murmured huskily, tracing my lips around to her ear at each reaction and sound she made with my hands kneading her breasts, and teasingly brushing my hips against hers.

"S-Someone... someone will see..." she whispered, eyes clamped shut, eyebrows tightly locked in a curve and her lips quivering.

The way she said it was almost... it almost amounted to the shame I couldn't help but feel. I think she could tell I took it the wrong way, because of my stiffening hands, and the way I hovered back the slightest.

She grabbed at my wrist, jaw clenched defiantly. "Th-That's... not what I was implying." Her voice was so strained with desire I couldn't resist a smirk. I could see the wad in her throat as she gulped. "I... I don't want to stop. A-And if someone happened to... find us..." Her sentence trailed off into an awkward dip of her chin and the retraction of her hand.

Chuckling lowly, I jutted my tongue against the inside of my cheek. "Don't you have class, freshman?"

That condescending nickname was all that would keep me sane about this.

"I don't care."

My heart thudded and shrieked and pounded in my rib cage, echoing in my skull and rattling my ankles.

I'm grabbing her hand and pulling her to the locker room. The same one she was off to to change. To take off the shorts that drive me so irrevocably insane. She's giggling behind me, and it's so damn cute that when I drag her back into a stall, I'm grinning like mad as I cup her cheeks and press her back against the door. She's laughing, but her neck arches, her lips flitting out to grasp my lips between hers. I comply, cradling her neck like I would a child (stop). Her lips are soft and damp against mine. It's slower and gentle now with the blurry walls around us, like it's simply a fantasy we can relish in, while out in the hall it was haste and dangerous because at any moment someone could stop us. But entering the bathroom, and with my other hand wandering the lower dip in her back and the firm hips of her waist, it was like we both agreed. We like this and we want it. It might never happen again, and I'm not sure she even knows my name, but she's tugging on my shirt like she needs me closer and that's all that matters.

I push my front against her length, our clothed breasts melding together like there was nothing but a meekly veil between us. She groaned into me, and I only opened my mouth wider to let her tongue wander in. When she did, I enveloped it with mine like a welcoming party, sucking it tenderly. She sounded like a wounded animal, but the sweat dripping between us wasn't leftover from gym anymore; it was a throbbing lust that left us both in pain to refrain from moving on further from this delicious making out.

I tilted my head lower to connect our lips with a more earnest accessibility. This time, when my hands caress around her hips and smooth down to envelop a plump ass in my palms, her hips jolt against mine - and I know it's not about a teasing gesture. I gasp into her mouth, and she uses it as leverage to meld our tongues in a tangle of fire and want. She's pumping with desire, and her hands begin to experimentally wander from their steel larch at my neck.

They skim along the sides of my ribs, and my kissing grows sloppy at the shivers she arouses. So I droop down along her jawline, nibbling on skin and flicking my tongue along her neck. I fixate my focus in on the crook of her jaw, that indent where it connected with the column of her throat, and she nearly lurches beneath me. I chuckle into her, and she claws at my shoulder blades.

"You alright there?" I murmur up into her ear, taking a leap and slowly (very, very slowly) rub my hips and grind them down against hers. A flustered moan is ecstatic and excited in her lips, and I feel her jaw clench against my lips.

Her mouth opens, and she struggles to string words together. I pull away to get a look at her face, but she grapples at my cheeks and tugs me back in, smashing our lips together in a flurry of clashing teeth, wet tongues and starved lips that couldn't find enough security and satisfaction. I moaned, a low rumble, and now she was the one smiling.

"You alright?"she mimicked, her hands cascading lower to my hips and tickling my lower back. It was like a reflex - I jerked from her touch, and it just pressed our hot bodies together.

"Don't test me, freshman."

When I graduated college, I was valedictorian. My skeleton rattled inside me as I stepped up to the podium, but with Rachel in the audience, beaming up at me before conjuring a little thumbs-up, my fidgeting ceased. I delivered a speech that stroke a roar of appreciation in the crowd, and the rest of my graduating class whooping to the skies that had never looked so blue.

I didn't get my own apartment until a few months after Rachel graduated. I was working on my undergrad degree, having worked my way through the college dorm-to-dorm each year. I didn't want to live with anyone but the younger girl with killer legs. I waited for her with wide, open arms (and maybe open legs too but that's irrelevant). It was small, but really nice. And Rachel absolutely adored the balcony. It had a small shower, but neither of us really complained, because it had smooth interior walls to press one another against.

Living together in New York, six years later, taking her to the gym is still my favorite thing. She made it a habit to wear the exact same shorts as freshman year, and we both knew why.

We never stayed on the ellipticals or treadmills (whatever, really) before someone was dragged to the bathroom or we hailed a cab home.

9th grade gym used to be my favorite class in the world. But now - just any plain old gym will do.