CHAPTER 1

Crashing to the ground below.

Rachel

Nothing was the same anymore. Not for her. What Finn did to Rachel was like taking the floor out from underneath her feet. It wasn't the last straw - No, that would be the cherry slushy Azimio poured down her shirt two days ago. That was the last straw.

Rachel sits on the edge of the bed, her back slumped, her eyes boring into the floorboards. Her hair is messy - bits are sticking up and frizzy strands stick up, impossible to set down without hairspray. Rachel looks at the picture on her desk of her and Finn just before Regionals last year. Anger surges up in her and she leaps from her bed to snatch the photo in her hands. In a quick, hateful moment, she opens her window, letting the wind blast raindrops into her face, and launches it out the window. A faint smashing sound was heard, and she shut the window in angst. After a moment of thinking, she grabbed her journal from behind her bed's backboard, and started writing.

Journal, she wrote.

I'm not the same person. I can feel myself changing. I suddenly find myself with the need to express myself more, not just through my voice. I want people to SEE what I feel. The Animal sweaters and the mini skirts, they're nice… But I don't think they express me anymore. Not the new me.

She stopped writing for a moment. I need something different, she thought to herself. Jumping off her bed, she threw the doors to her closet open. Hanging on the racks, sorted by chromatic colors and articles, were her sweaters and her skirts. She ripped them off the hangers, sending them cascading onto her floor, forming a large mountain of clothing. When her entire closet was empty, she ran downstairs and grabbed several black plastic garbage bags from under the sink. She returned to her bedroom and began stuffing the sweaters and skirts and knee-high socks into the bags. Eventually, where were five overly-stuffed bags of clothes occupying the floorspace of Rachels' room. She sat back down on her bed in a huff, catching her breath. It was a saturday morning, and she had spent friday night crying herself to sleep; a confrontation with Quinn was to blame.

Once she had caught her breath, she changed out of her PJ's and into a pair of black skinny jeans she had bought for the Living on a prayer/Start me up mashup, a pair of black flats with no socks, and a loose grey v-neck tee shirt. She brushed her hair into a loose, messy ponytail, and began to throw the massive black garbage bags down the stairway to the front foyer. I'll drop these off at the thrift store on the way to the mall, she thought. She put her grey button-up coat on, grabbed her keys, and hauled the bags of clothing out to her sleek silver subaru outback. After stuffing the bags into the back seat, she got in and drove to the thrift store. On the way there, she struggled to keep her emotions under tight wraps. She could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, but she fought with as much strength as she had to keep them from falling. Not yet, she pleaded silently. You can't cry over this yet. She dropped the bags off behind the thrift store at the loading dock, then hit the highway. She started wondering to herself why she felt the need to change her appearance. She wondered if it was about moving on from Finn, but she could still feel the longing feelings for him in her heart when she thought of him. She wasn't over him. She was nowhere near moving on.

She pondered to herself for the rest of the drive to the mall. When she arrived, she took her credit car out of her back pocket and began assembling a new wardrobe. Don't think about it, she said to herself repeatedly. She needed something - Anything, to keep her mind off of the walls she had put up to protect herself.

The walls that were now starting to crumble.

Sam.

Sam closed his locker on Monday morning. He'd stayed up late last night by accident, and he was still in the morning lull of sleepiness. Textbook in hand, he glanced across the hallway, scanning the crowd for watching as Finn planted a kiss on Quinn. Anger bubbled inside him, but he didn't act upon it. He lifted his textbook and turned to walk to class, but realized he had the wrong textbook. Sighing in frustration, he began spinning the dial on his lock once again. He was just about to open his lock when he heard the sounds of gasps and shocked murmurs from the students farther down the hall. He looked down the hall to see what they were so shocked about, and his own breath caught in his throat too.

Walking down the hallway, was a familiar tiny figure. She held her textbooks tightly to her chest, her gaze lowered slightly, as she made her way through the parting crowd of astonished teenagers.

She looked completely different than the last time Sam had seen her. Her hair was different; Before, she had long, loosely curled brown hair that framed her face nicely if paired with a headband. Now, she had long, straight, feathered layers with sleek, side-sweeping bangs that looked like a waterfall. Her hair was darker; it was almost black, but you could see it was brown where the light shined on it. It was a hairstyle most assumed would look weird on her. But surprisingly, she could pull it off beautifully. She was dressed completely different, too. Instead of her animal sweater-and-skirt ensemble, she was wearing a pair of tattered, torn and fading dark denim flare jeans, black converse runners, and a dark purple v-neck tee shirt under a shortened black leather jacket.

It was unlike anything he'd ever seen Rachel do. He'd seen her in costume, yeah, but this - This was entirely different, somehow. He felt a presence beside him, and he turned to see the same shocked look adorning the face of Mr. Shuester as he watched Rachel walk to class. It was a moment before he could speak.

"W…What was that about?" he asked aloud. He turned to face Sam, and he shrugged in response. His gaze was boring into the back of her head as she walked down the hallway. Why do I feel like I know what she's doing?