Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down

"You're Rachel Berry, you can do anything."

She says it like it's so simple to be me. Like I have the easiest of all lives to be lived. I wish I felt that way too. I wish I wasn't hugging my knees on the floor beside my bathtub, terrified about my future. Without NYADA, where am I supposed to go? All the plans that I have carefully laid out are circling the drain and I'm desperately trying to grab at the drops that are still left over.

The words are so easy to say, so everyone says them.

You don't need NYADA!

You're better than them!

You can go straight to Broadway!

You're Rachel Berry!

If I was so amazing I wouldn't have choked. If I was that good, I wouldn't be crying on my bathroom floor. I'm tired of having to pick myself up all the time. I'm tired of everything being so hard. I work and I work and I still get stomped on. Everyday I wonder in which way my dreams are going to be crushed.

Maybe it's time to give up.

"Rach, I'm coming in."

I can hear her voice, but really it seems so far away. She won't want me anymore. There's nothing to want. She thinks I'm so strong, that I can just lift my head and let everything brush off me. What is she going to think now? When she finds me cowering on the floor. Pathetic.

I hear the door open but I don't look. I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face in my knees. She'll see what a failure I am and leave. Maybe she'll laugh too. Call me one of those names she used to call me. Maybe a new one.

I hear the soft patter of bare feet against the tile floor and then there's arms around me, squeezing tight. Hands in my hair, lips on my temple, cheeks, nose, and murmurs in Spanish that I can't understand.

It doesn't matter. She can't say anything that actually means anything. It's probably just the same words that everyone else has told me over and over again.

But then I hear it. A choke. Then there's a wetness on my forehead that I know isn't mine. I open my eyes and look because it's not what I was expecting. She's too tough all the time. But they're there. Tears, freely streaming down her face and she doesn't try to brush them away, embarrassed that she's showing emotion. She lets me see it.

"I'm so sorry, Rach," she says and she sounds even more miserable than I feel, "What can I do? Do you want me to kill her? I will kill her. You just say the word an' she be gone."

I stare back at her blankly for a moment, but I know she has me. I'm cracking. I can feel the twitching in my lips as I stare back at her stoic face. Then I break. Giggles erupting from inside me as I clutch on to her for all my life's worth and she does the same to me. I bury my face in her neck, rubbing my nose against her neck as I whisper, "Yes please."

She just knows. Santana Lopez always knows just how to fix me.