Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes down the stairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
Rachel blinked sleep from her eyes, stepping quietly off of her treadmill. Even with her somewhat hectic schedule that day, fitness was still a priority. A bright pink dance bag swung off of the doorknob, nearly bursting open with relics of the past. Biting her lip, Rachel surveyed her room-no, just the room. She was leaving it all behind now. None of it belonged to her. Carefully, she studied each remaining object, weighing whether or not she would miss it when she finally got there, got to the shining lights of New York. Her eyes stuck on a photo surrounded by pink, construction paper hearts and gold glitter. In it, she grinned at the camera, her boyfriend's hand wrapped around her. Sighing, she traced his face one last time. They both knew this day would come. Finn wouldn't make it in New York. As much as she hated to admit it, he was amateur, just talented enough to lead an Ohio show choir, but never a Broadway musical. Plus, she'd seen his grades. A real job wasn't an option, especially without college. Besides, Finn had his own dreams to tend to. Rachel was doing him a favor, really, allowing him to be the real Finn, not just the Finn she wanted him to be, for once in his life. Maybe she'd sing the national anthem at one of his football games.
Closing her eyes, Rachel leaned against the bright yellow door. All the pink in the room had seemed cute when she was younger, now she had finally caught up with everyone else and found it dizzying. Eyes still closed, she groped her dresser for the note she had written (and rewritten, and rewritten) a few weeks ago, when she'd made these plans. Cringing, she read it again. It was everything she hoped it wouldn't be. It was scanty in affection, and gratitude towards the services her dads had done her the past eighteen years. Even Rachel, the dramatic one who craved abrupt exits, couldn't stomach the hastily scrawled apology. But it would have to do. If anyone could pick out the good in it, it would be her dads.
She forced the letter out of her hands, cautiously taping it to the wooden banister of the stairwell, so as not to chip the meticulous painting job on the wall. For a moment, she feared that she heard movement in her dads' bedroom. Fear clutched her heart. She would miss them, but not enough to give up the future she'd planned out so carefully. Silent as the night, she trotted down the stairs, leaping over the very middle step, which she had known creaked loudly ever since she'd snuck out to meet Jesse St. James for the first time. Despite her misgivings, her mouth couldn't help but water at the tantalizing freedom which lay just beyond the hard, mahogany door looming in front of her. It took surprisingly little effort to swing it open, click it closed, and fly down the front porch steps onto the newly tarred road. Fresh air pulsed through her body, and mingled with her ebony hair. The morning cold nipped at her flawless olive skin, but it didn't matter to her. A whole new life was ahead of her, one without pretending she didn't mind the slushies that were constantly thrown in her face, or that her own mother kicked her to the curb. From that moment on, she would never have to live up to the expectations of her dads, or Mr. Schue, or the glee club, or even of Finn. She was finally, finally free.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years.
Walking down the carefully manicured streets of wealthy Lima, Rachel couldn't help remembering what she was throwing away. More gifts than she could count, a pretty house, a good education… Her fathers had spent more than half of their lives providing for her, and giving her her every desire. At first, it had made her feel royal, and more special than ever, but later, the wave of presents subsided, and all that remained was loneliness. As it turned out, she'd really much rather have her dads stay home on one more business trip, or the glee club come over for another (sober) party than the newest sound system. After all, what use was a good microphone if no one wanted to hear you sing?
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby's gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.
Hiram Berry mumbled to himself in his sleep, tossing and turning in his bed. Lost in a blanket of sleep, he kicked his leg out, waking his husband. Leroy propped himself up on his elbows angrily, glaring at the cause of his ungodly early wake-up call. Leroy was one of the people who, once woken, would never fall back into a deep slumber, at best drifting in and out of consciousness occasionally. Sighing, he shoved Hiram to the other side of the bed, flicking the blankets off of him. He pulled a plush, sky-blue robe (one that his surprisingly masculine husband had called the cause of gay stereotypes) over his wiry frame, squinting in the darkness. Blearily, he ran his hand over the smooth door out into the hallway, finally finding the doorknob. Yawning, he twisted it, the poorly oiled metal emitting a loud squeak. He would have sworn to you that he detected a gasp somewhere in the darkness, and the pitter patter of feet trampling down the steps. Pausing, he listened for the tale-tell creak of the middle step, but nothing happened. A muffled 'click' shook the house, obviously a tree branch swaying in the wind.
Coffee. Coffee. Leroy's half awake mind directed him towards the bitter smell of his favorite drink. He smiled to himself, eyes closed, but stopped suddenly. Who was making him coffee? Who would even know he liked coffee? Hiram was most definitely in bed all night, and Rachel's door was closed, so she must have been too, right? Right. Maybe the door really had opened. Maybe the house was being robbed? By a friendly robber, who wanted to pay back some of the debt with coffee? Maybe-The normally smooth banister winding down the stairs was covered with a roughly sealed envelope, with a sloppy, simple address of 'Dad & Daddy.' Leroy's heart sped up. Rachel must be planning one of her scavenger hunts-he loved those. Excitedly, and head spinning in suspense, he tore the letter open. His eyes widened as he saw the seemingly immense length of the note. Must be a really good prize, he thought to himself. Normally, he would have woken up his husband for this part, but curiosity overcame him. Dread clutched his heart as the words burned into his eyes. Leaving. New York. No! No! Rachel had always known that she could go to New York with her fathers, why wouldn't she be able to? They had done everything together! Well, they had bought everything together!
"Hiram," Leroy choked out breathlessly. "Hiram," he called in a louder voice, tears evident in his tone. How far away was their baby now? He had been so goddamn close to catching her. "Hiram!" Hiram stepped from the bedroom sleepily, eyes still half-closed, lumbering to his husband's side. Leroy held out the letter silently, his face a stone tablet. Hiram stared blankly at the letter, looking somewhat confused.
"She didn't… She didn't really…?" He left the implication hanging in the air, afraid to say the words, as if that would solidify the experience, and erase all possibility that it was a dream.
"I just don't understand," Leroy whimpered, throwing his arms up while he moved to pace the hallway. "Rachey wouldn't do this to us! To Finn! How… I just don't understand," he finished softly, choking on the words.
She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years.
"We gave her everything she wanted," Hiram stated blankly. "Does she… Does she know what we did for her? I had dreams, Leroy! I didn't think of them when she was there! All I did, all of these years, was struggle through life so she could have the very best, and be the very best!," he ranted to his husband.
"Is that all you're worried about? Not the fact that our baby left us? That's she's probably dying somewhere on the streets?," Leroy spat incredulously.
"Well, that… That seems a bit dramatic, Lee… Besides, you were the one that wanted a baby… And we never bonded with her too well… We were always away on business trips, and, and various other excursions," he backtracked lamely.
"We left her alone for so many goddamn years, and now it's too late!," Leroy yowled to the ceiling. Tears traced his high cheekbones while sobs racked his body. "It's too late!"
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.
Rachel struggled to calm herself. She was seated in a somewhat crappy waiting room, anxiously expecting her name to be called for the audition at any moment. It wasn't exactly a Broadway musical, just a small show that probably wouldn't even bring in enough money to pay for her tiny apartment's rent, but everyone knew that the best performers started out at the worst places. Like Lima. And Finn. He really was the worst place to start. It wasn't like a girl like Rachel could land a new role, and throw out the programs to the boy she loved. She was stuck with Finn forever. If only he could be stuck with her. But he wasn't, and Rachel knew that, so she had to leave, she had to.
"Rachel Berry?," droned a bored secretary, holding out a clipboard filled with scribbled out names. Rachel mentally prepared herself. Finn was over now; it was much too late to get a redo. She made her bed; she had to lie in it. Glancing at her watch, Rachel mentally noted that the director had called her in a few minutes early. Good, she thought to herself. Now I'll have more time to perform my song, and I'll have made a polite first impression! She'd obviously let one thing from her childhood come to New York with her: she still was a stickler for timeliness on appointments like these.
She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn't know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years.
She's leaving home. Bye, bye
Leroy sat at the window, staring at the lifeless street. A slight breeze ruffled the bushes, revealing scores of rabbit holes and weeds. Weeds that went and killed all the pretty flowers, and berries. New York was a weed, he decided.
"Would you… like some wine?," offered Hiram carefully. Since the, well, incident, the Berry's marriage had been slowly crumbling. The truth had finally come out: they had grown apart, and Rachel's adoption had simply been used as makeshift glue. They couldn't separate with a baby. They needed to be there for her. Leroy shook his head woefully, and tossed his wine glass to the side, not wincing like his husband did when it shattered across the wall. Hiram sighed sorrowfully, and tip-toed to the doorway.
"I always thought that Rachel seemed a little sad, at times," Leroy said suddenly, still gazing blankly out the window. Hiram didn't turn back to listen, merely leaning against the doorframe sadly. "I thought that that was normal for children her age. I thought she was just a regular girl. I was wrong. But that was the one thing," he insisted, "that I was wrong about. We worshipped that child. How could that be wrong? Sure, she expected the best, but did she think that running off to fucking New York, with five bucks in her back pocket and a Broadway dream would fulfill them? God, I just don't know… I don't know what I did wrong; I honestly have no regrets about how I raised her." Hiram considered pointing out that they had both raised her, but neglected to do so. "What could possibly be wrong?"
"Maybe…," Hiram pondered. "Maybe there were some things that money can't buy… And Rachel didn't have. I didn't want her, but, uh, she's a special girl. And she knows how to find those things, right?" He approached his husband. "Find them like, like we did, right?," he prompted, laying a hopeful hand on Leroy's shoulder. He shrugged it off. The guy who interacted more with a Blackberry than Rachel had more insight into her life than he did. Fucking fabulous.
Rachel laughed loudly, throwing back her head, and feeling the alcohol in her shot glass slide down her throat hotly. She flirtatiously pushed away the boy in front of her, giggling to herself.
"No, really, I loved your show!," he insisted. "I felt, like… honored to be in your presence…" His mouth quirked up, and his voice replicated that of a stoner's. Then again, he probably was one himself.
"Why, thank-you," Rachel smiled back. "It's sweet of you to.. to say that." She felt her heart burst just a little at his praise, and smiled at the sensation. This was the recognition she'd been yearning to receive. If she was arrogant, she had reason to be! It didn't take a music critic to know that her voice was built for Broadway. Somehow, though, she also felt a bit overwhelmed. She didn't quite crave the lauding like she used to, or rather, Rach did. Just being out of that judging McKinley High, and experiencing the acceptance of her new home, and the talent of her new peers had secured her ego to a confident, yet subtle, place. Why would she need to fight for solos when people already knew her? It reminded her why she loved singing. Because she was able to say thins through it that she would never say out loud. Not because she needed the flimsy words of another to reassure her.
"Rae-Rae," Jess, her costar, said drunkenly. The two had fast become best friends, filling the hollow hole in Rachel's heart that Mercedes, Kurt, and Puck sometimes completed. Rachel turned her head to Jess. "Rae-Rae," she repeated, looking at the lights of the crowded bar. "Uh… What was I gonna say? Oh! Right!" Jess jumped up and down excitedly, clapping her hands. She leaned over to whisper in Rachel's ear. "Um, there's this guy who is like, totally checking you out, and he is like super hot… So I say you make a move." Rachel laughed at her friend's advice, moving to talk to said boy.
"Wait, Jess, God," she hicced. "Aren't you our… designated driver tonight? You're… you're wasted!" Rachel cracked up on the last word, bending over. So this is what it felt like to be free, and to have fun. It was like falling in love ten zillion times in a row. Somewhere through her clouded judgement, she remembered good, sweet Finn, and her fathers. If they could see her now… They'd be disappointed, probably. She was drunk, and throwing herself at some guys! But… She was in college now (Juilliard had accepted her early decision), she deserved to do something for herself. She wanted to feel like a real girl for one night in her life. Not the third wheel, not the last resort, but a girl that genuinely was loved by more than one person. It was time to move on from her old life. She'd left was she had ignorantly referred to as home, and finally found her real one. Lives changed, and her's had. Eventually, so would everyone that missed hers. It might take time, but they'd leave home too.
A/N: Sorry for the sucky ending! I don't own Glee! (Kinda late for that, at the bottom of a story on a FAN fiction site, huh?) Please, please review! This idea came to me and I couldn't shake it! Let me know what you thought! Thanks for reading (and reviewing, which you WILL do ;) )