Author's Note:
This is being uploading to my little sister's account because I don't have my own. I was bored and this is what came of twenty minutes' worth of writing at midnight last night. It's soft of different from what I wanted it to end up like but oh, well. :) Enjoy.
Rachel Berry had never in her life felt the bitter aching that was despair.
Throughout her lifetime, Rachel had experienced and felt many things. She'd been heartbroken, lost, confused, and she often felt like she didn't belong. She tended to tell herself that she was miserable sometimes, and other times she even tried to convince herself that she was depressed. But she knew that it was usually only teen angst getting to her head and that she'd get over it soon.
This was different, however. Rachel didn't just want to sit in her room and cry while she listened to sad music all day long. She didn't want to snuggle into herself with a blanket on the couch and watch sappy movies for hours on end. That was all she had expected she would want to do at a time like this, but this was different, very different. To add to it all, this feeling was worse than she could have ever imagined.
It felt like someone had coldheartedly torn away every dream Rachel had imagined for herself. It was as if she couldn't do anything anymore, like every last bit of energy she possessed had been suddenly whisked away. She wasn't able to think straight. She couldn't cry, couldn't speak, couldn't even muster a whimper. She couldn't do anything but lie there, dealing with the deep, aching void in her chest, right where her joyful heart once was.
At first, none of this had been planned. A night that Rachel had been expecting the opposite of took place; she'd never arranged for it to happen, never even wanted it to until she was prepared. But there'd been a certain time at which Rachel had figured out there was no turning back. After that night, everything had started to go downhill, everything from Rachel's dreams to her love life, her education, and her relationship with her fathers.
It was strange, in Rachel's opinion, how something so unplanned—and originally desperately unwanted—could make its way into people's hearts and force them to fall in love with it easily. How something could go from unnecessary to practically needed in life so quickly. Two opposite people and what become of that very unlikely pair brought more people together than ever expected.
All of that had slipped away in what seemed to be the shortest time. More than a dozen hearts were broken simultaneously, two of which were totally shattered and hurled to the ground. The reality of the situation didn't seem fathomable in the least. Nobody understood how it happened when it did. But the repetitive question was, without a doubt, simply why it did.
Nothing made sense to Rachel anymore. She'd never expected to be lying in room so bland with a feeling of bitter emptiness in more places of her body than one. All she could remember was what she saw through her heavy-lidded eyes, all the while wondering how such a tiny, helpless body could feel so limp and cold in her arms. She wanted to cry at the thought, but she didn't have the energy to. It didn't even seem like she could feel anything anymore. She was numb.
She scarcely noticed the presence of somebody else with her. She was staring at the white paint above her because she didn't see the point in looking anywhere else. There was nothing left to see. At least, nothing left that she wanted to see. She swallowed, dryness stinging her throat as she lay perfectly still. She had expected to have a headache, but she felt nothingness instead.
"It wasn't your fault."
Rachel recognized the voice immediately. It sounded tired and rough from crying. Following the voice was a silence so heavy that it made Rachel's ears ring. She stayed still for a moment longer before reluctantly turning her head. Dry eyes met teary ones, and Rachel could see that the whites around those green irises were becoming slightly red from constant rubbing. She stared at him with her mouth shut before turning away again, returning her gaze to the ceiling.
She wished she could mourn like everybody else but her heart didn't seem to be telling her to. Her muscles weren't reacting in the way she'd have liked them to. She wanted to throw herself to the ground, breaking anything and everything to release the anger that was building up inside her. Everything was bottled up and she didn't like it, yet at the same time, she didn't have the vigor to try.
After another long, deafening silence, she turned to look at him again. "It's nobody's fault," she said, her voice merely a whisper. Sam nodded at her. She took a deep breath and repeated herself. "It's nobody's fault. It's nobody's fault." She had to keep telling herself because, in all honesty, she wasn't sure if she believed it.
Before she knew it, Sam was lying right beside her, staring up at the ceiling with her. Rachel clenched her eyes shut tightly, tuning out her surroundings for a second. She wished as hard as she could that when she opened her eyes, everything would have just been a dream and she would wake up to normalcy once again. When her eyelids fluttered open, she traced the patterns of paint streaks on the ceiling before her gaze met Sam's tranquil body. She let out a muffled sigh beneath her lips.
Rachel's body felt limp as Sam wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned against him, her face remaining emotionless as she exhaled into his chest. She felt Sam's lips brush against her ear as he murmured, "It's okay to cry, you know." Rachel nodded at him. She closed her eyes. Moments later, a broken sob escaped her lips, and the tears finally fell. Everything she'd been aching to feel was being forced at her like a hard punch to the gut. The guilt, the misery, the yearning to be alone forever—all of it was inevitable.
She sobbed into Sam's chest, lamenting about how she'd tried her hardest to do everything right. Sam promised her that she did nothing wrong. Rachel could tell by the sound of his voice that he was crying just as she was, and after hearing him speak, she didn't want to talk anymore. The sounds of their weeping meshed together in the room, creating a resonance of pain and grieving and that feeling Rachel had dreaded ever having to feel: despair.
Rachel had always heard that nothing hurt worse than losing a child, but she could only ever imagine what it might feel like. The pain was worse than she'd wish on her worst enemy. She was almost positive Sam felt the same emotionally, seeing as it had been their daughter, not just hers. But only Rachel knew what it felt like physically; she'd carried that child for eight months and everything had been perfect the whole time.
The baby had been okay the day before, and it was just today that things had gone wrong. Sam had been the one to break the news to Rachel when she awoke from surgery. He'd explained that he'd held their stillborn daughter and had started to cry immediately. Rachel had been given the chance to hold the baby, too, and she had only started to tear up for a second before she'd asked everyone to leave her alone. That was when the numbness had begun to arise.
They were entangled in each other's embrace, soaking every inch of fabric with their tears. Rachel's heart was beating fast and the headache she'd previously expected finally arrived. What seemed like hours passed. Rachel felt she couldn't cry anymore. She closed her eyes and gripped onto the fabric on Sam's back, an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach. Her heart was heavy. She hated how she felt but she preferred this over the numbness. At least now she knew that this was real, that her daughter was gone and there was no way she or Sam could bring her back.
Rachel felt that despair, the feeling that she couldn't do anything anymore, that there was no reason to go on. And that little thing that had been so unplanned and unwanted had brought together bonds between different people, but managed to tear two individuals apart all at once.