Rachel should have seen this coming.
Growing up, she never dreamed of a house with a white picket fence. Rachel's dreams were always bigger. They involved the stage, and lights, and performing. So, she guesses it would make sense that a white picket fence might want to seek its revenge by taking her only gift.
At night, she dreams, but it's not nightmares of the accident that plague her. Instead, she dreams of people she loves being in danger. She dreams of opening her mouth to warn them, and of her new voice being too weak to carry any warning to them. She watches, helpless, each night, as harm comes to her family, and her friends. She jerks awake, and limps across her bedroom.
The room itself has been completely transformed. In a way, she's lucky to have gone through it after she choked at her audition - taking down everything that reminded her of future stardom - and the rest of the things that made her uniquely herself are gone, too. What's left are a precious few items. Her telephone, her laptop, her desk and her bed. Her treadmill has been moved to another part of the house, and she has ordered her dads to get rid of all her trophies. She has turned every picture around.
Now, she sits down gingerly at her desk, and opens her laptop. She does this when she cannot sleep. Now that the accident has taken everything away from her, Rachel loathes her middle name. She used to love Barbra for her powerful voice and her unwillingness to conform to Hollywood's version of beauty. But now, Rachel wonders, who will ever find her beautiful with a scar on her neck that resembles a hickey - a scar that no amount of makeup can hide. Instead of Barbra, Rachel searches for everything she can on Julie Andrews, who went through unnecessary throat surgery in the late '90s and lost her beautiful vocal range - all but about five very low notes - it's heartbreaking.
It makes Rachel feel like a terrible human being, but she can't stop herself from thinking it, At least she still has those five notes. She cannot bear to read the success stories. Matthew West, a singer who had vocal surgery and recovered. His story is too painful for her to bear. Because, why him? Why not her?
She spends months like this. Hiding away in her room, listening to tragic instrumental ballads because the sound of a human voice doing what she no longer can is simply too much. It's months before her fathers intervene.
Before they not so subtly begin leaving college pamphlets lying around in obvious places. On her bed. On her bathroom sink. Taped to her mirror. On the breakfast table. At first, she fights them. She negotiates her own side.
"Honey, you have to go back," her dad says. His voice is regretful but firm. "The longer you wait, the harder it will be."
"I can't go back, Dad," she whispers, not because she wants to, but because it's all she's physically able to do - even after months of therapy. "How will I cope? How will I answer questions if none of the professors can hear me?"
"Sit in the front row," Daddy insists. "Advocate for yourself the way you always have. Make them listen. Make them hear you."
Tears fill her eyes. A lump blocks her throat. "I need a drink of water. Excuse me," she says, and leaves the room.
She goes back to McKinley only once. She sees Blaine, Brittany, Artie, Tina, Sugar and Joe. There are other students in glee club. The room seems smaller somehow. Mr. Schuester doesn't look directly at her. Only Blaine is brave enough to approach her. To give her a hug. To take her to a quiet corner and ask how she is. If there is anything he can do.
"How's Kurt?" she asks, because it's polite. Her voice is grating. It grinds in this throaty, raspy way that makes her want to hide. But Blaine doesn't flinch. He just cocks his head.
"Can you say that again?" he asks.
"Kurt," she says, emphasizing the consonants because it's all she can really do.
"Oh, Kurt's great. He's got some final performance he's already rehearsing for. He told me how to get tickets and would love for you to come, if you're up to it."
Rachel swallows once. She forces herself to nod. It would be rude to refuse.
"He loves New York, but tells me every day he wishes you were out there with him. Oh my gosh, that reminds me…" he says, pulling out his phone. "I have to show you this. Santana got a role on this telenovela. It's fantastic. My favorite thing to do is to make up lines of dialogue for her character."
Rachel sits at attention and tries to absorb the plot in a show called La Que No Podia Amar. It's overly dramatic, even for Rachel's tastes. But Santana is a standout in her own small role. She meets Blaine's eyes and smiles - lets it reach all the way to her eyes - to show him how happy she is that Santana is succeeding.
"How are you?" he asks.
Because she's tired of trying to project, Rachel takes out her phone and texts her response. It feels ridiculous, but she will be able to be more thorough this way. She tells him that her dads are making her apply to more schools. That she's decided on one. That she simultaneously loves and loathes the idea of going somewhere 12 hours away.
"Why?" Blaine asks conversationally.
She pulls her lip between her teeth, before speaking the honest truth. "Because…no one will know me there."
Spring semester begins in mid-January, so a couple days before, she and her dads make the long drive north to the snowy Minnesota campus. It seems so far away from everything and everyone she knows. She hasn't told anyone but Blaine about her plans, but she figures Kurt must know by now. And that if Kurt knows than Finn must. And so must everyone she once held dear.
Rachel stays in a small brick building - in on-campus dorms - her roommate is coming back the day before classes resume. She is nervous sharing space with someone else. Rachel's been an only child all her life and she doesn't necessarily play well with others. At least, she didn't used to.
She tries to concentrate on helping unpack, but her leg starts bothering her partway through and her dads insist she sit down and rest. They will take care of everything. It takes several hours. There are clothes, books, her computer, towels, food, bedding, and countless other items that need to find a place in this tiny room. When all is said and done, her dads seem reluctant to leave her.
"Now, text us if you need anything. Remember to let your professors know if you need something right away. Don't wait. You don't need to fall behind right away."
"Hiram, don't pressure her. We love you, honey."
"I love you, too," she manages.
When they are gone, she thinks about the ride up. How calm she was, while her dads had been nervous wrecks the entire time. How they checked on her and offered to pull over if Rachel needed it.
Strangely, she hadn't needed it. Rachel knows that Quinn, who's halfway through her first year at Yale, struggled with anxiety attacks after her own car accident. Ironically that, too, was on the way to her and Finn's wedding. Talk about ignoring a bad omen. For a while, Rachel simply lies on her bed and stares up at the ceiling. She wonders how on earth she'll survive so many miles from home.
Classes begin and it's every bit as difficult as Rachel imagines it. She does everything she's been told. Gets a seat in the front. Seeks out the services office for students with particular needs. But nothing prepares her for the fact that much of her classes are dependent upon participation.
Her roommate isn't home often, and when she is, she's constantly asking Rachel to repeat herself and to not tell their res hall advisor about the alcohol she has stashed in their small fridge. Rachel keeps her word. The secret brings up not-so-fond memories of Alcohol Awareness Week at McKinley which ended abruptly when Brittany vomited all over her, after singing a Ke$ha song at a school assembly. It was purple and vile, thanks to Rachel's own concoction made from various liquors from her dads' collection, plus cough syrup, and crumbled up cookies. Whenever Rachel opens her tiny fridge now, and sees the cans, she feels her skin crawl uncomfortably.
On weekends, her roommate is out late. She parties like no one Rachel has ever seen, and runs down the hall, screaming other girls' names in a drunk and very loud voice at two in the morning. To escape, Rachel pulls a robe around her and goes to the common room. There's a TV and a DVD player. A ping-pong table and a vending machine. And in an adjoining room - there's a piano. Rachel knows how to play, but she never really has before. There had never been a need, with Brad always around at McKinley.
There had never been a need to play, when she could sing.
So Rachel fills her empty nights with music. It's been months, and professors still ask her to speak up. Rachel still sits alone to eat her salad in the dining hall. The only people she attracts are outcasts like herself. Young men in wheelchairs, who make her think of Artie. A tiny, pale girl with short hair, piercings, and a decidedly male way of being. The girl - Amber - latches onto Rachel, and Rachel doesn't mind. She lets Amber talk, and nods in all the right places.
Because everyone deserves to be heard.
Because it's the right thing to do.
At night, when she returns to the dorm, Rachel sneaks into the alcove with the ancient wooden piano and plays songs that haunt the edges of her memory. Gravity by Sara Bareilles. The Lonely by Christina Perri. But Rachel soon discovers that the songs that are supposed to have vocals hurt too much to play and not ache to fill the empty spaces with a voice she does not have. So instead she gravitates toward pieces that are solely piano ballads. Atlantic by Sleeping at Last. Gabu by The Side Project.
And Rachel finds, it hurts a little less.
She has shut Kurt out because she has to. Because it hurts too much. Because she cannot be the friend he deserves. Instead, Rachel spends the next months focusing on herself. On trying to find the girl behind the voice. Trying to remember what she liked before singing. Before performing. Before basking in the approval of others.
Slowly, she finds herself. Note by note, behind that piano. She starts bringing a pencil and blank paper. She tries her hand at writing music. At lyrics. It seems ridiculous, especially coming from the girl who once penned a song called My Headband, and another called The Only Berry on My Family Tree. But, she reminds herself, she has also written Get It Right, and contributed to Loser Like Me.
Even those songs, seem juvenile somehow, though. So she plays through chord progressions until something catches.
Until she begins to write the song that has been in her heart for months.
Until she begins to write White Picket Fences. The words and the music come quickly. In less than an hour, it's all there. Notes, chords and lyrics. For the first time in so long, Rachel is proud of something she has accomplished. It makes her feel competent and capable. Able to find her footing in this new world. The song is perfect. It just needs a singer now. It just needs a voice.
It's been forever since she's reached out to him. It's after midnight. But she calls Kurt anyway - calls, not texts - and waits for him to pick up.
"Rachel? Are you okay?" he asks, sounding nothing if not concerned.
"I have a favor to ask," she begins, and prays he will listen.
To be continued…