Finn barely resisted the urge to punch Burt in the face as the words came out.
"Rachel's dead," he told the three boys who were watching a game on the TV, and it took both Kurt and Blaine to restrain Finn as he wiggled around, trying to free himself from their grasp.
"Let me go!" He yelled, and when they finally did he stormed out of the room, kicking a stool over as he grabbed his keys and took off.
No one stopped him.
No one could have.
The ride to Rachel's was familiar in that he knew exactly where to go, but his mind was too busy to notice. He was half surprised he didn't get into an accident on the icy roads, less surprised that a part of him wanted to. But he refused to believe what Burt had told them until he saw it for himself. He would knock on her door and she would answer, looking annoyed and disgruntled that he was distracting from her afternoon of practicing solos. That he was being nice after everything he had told her that night. That he was there at all.
But when he pulled on her street, his stomach dropped. The image of the petite brunette answering the door with a hostile expression vanished as he crept forward, parking a few houses down and getting out into the cold-he wasn't wearing a jacket, left in such a frenzy that he forgot it. He joined the crowd and spotted her fathers-one was crying, the other talking to a police officer. He saw them carrying a body bag out of the house, and his anger instantly dissolved into tears.
It was true.
Rachel was dead.
The shock was almost enough to send him home. Instead he pushed forward, not even apologizing as he knocked into people, clearing the yard in no time as he got to the front porch. One of her dads, he could never remember which was which, pulled him in for a hug.
He stayed with them for awhile, feeling numb and in a daze. At some point Kurt had arrived, Finn wasn't exactly sure when he had taken his place next to him on the couch, but he was grateful for it. Their friends trickled in and out throughout the evening, and Finn couldn't understand why they were giving sympathy to him. He wasn't Rachel's boyfriend anymore, they weren't even friends. He had made sure of that the last time they broke up. Made sure to distance himself as much as possible from her.
He thought it would be better for both of them this way. Clearly, he had been wrong. Again.
Kurt half dragged him to Finn's car, demanding he get in the passenger seat. Finn made no argument, didn't even question how Kurt had gotten there or when he had gotten the keys from Finn. Finn didn't say anything at all.
Couldn't say anything at all.
It was just so fucked up to him, that this girl he had loved and admired and envied was gone. That this person who had become such a vital part of his everyday life would no longer be in it. He would never see her star in a Broadway play, never explain the things he said were just to push her away-to push her towards her dreams. That he was worried she would stay in Ohio for him, and she deserved New York and fame.
And now she'd get none of that. She got no explanation, no adoring fans. She was dead. And there was nothing Finn could do to fix that.
Finn didn't leave his room for three days. His mom or Kurt would bring him food, and he'd let it sit there until they came to take it away. They urged him to eat, to get up, to do something. But why should he? If Rachel wasn't going to do anything anymore, if the strongest person he knew had given up, why couldn't he?
He only showered and dressed on the fourth day because Kurt had informed him he didn't have a choice. "Funeral," he reminded him, and Finn nodded. He remembered them talking about it when they walked past his room one day, but he hadn't realized it would be so soon.
"Don't leave me," he whispered to Kurt when they got there, grabbing his hand for support. Blaine came and sat with them, and Finn noticed Kurt grabbing Blaine's hand with his free one. He didn't care for once if people said he was a fag for sitting with them, didn't care if they called him queer for holding Kurt's hand. He was upset and unstable and unsure he would make it through this. He wanted his brother next to him.
He made it through the service without crying, Kurt had his face on Blaine's shoulder and he suspected he was crying. Finn felt remorse that this was now the second funeral Kurt would have to sit through, and with a glance Blaine let him know he was thinking the same. Finn was grateful that at least he would never remember his dad's funeral. The empty feeling that Burt had almost completely filled was widening though, and Finn wasn't sure it would ever close again.
His mom tried to make him go to school the following Monday. "You can't lay around forever Finn, you still have your life to worry about," she told him when he replied that he didn't want to. He rolled over at her words, surprised at the sting he felt when he realized he did still have his life to lead, that he had all this time in front of him that Rachel never would.
Kurt came in a few minutes later, sitting on the edge of Finn's bed. Finn didn't respond, just waited for Kurt to say what he had to say so that he could reject it and go back to staring at his ceiling.
"I know you're upset," he told him quietly. "But, she wouldn't have wanted you to waste your own life away."
"How do you know? How does anyone know what she would have wanted? Clearly we didn't, or we would have been able to stop her," Finn snarled, glaring at his brother.
"Rachel-what she did was weak Finn, but you know as well as I do that once the idea was in her head-I'm not sure anyone could have talked her out of it. And I wish as much as you do that she had come to one of us, but we can't change the past now."
"Well, I don't care about the future either."
"Finn," Kurt tried, and Finn sat up, feeling slightly dizzy as he did so quickly.
"No, Kurt, no. Don't you see? This is all my fault. I was the one who broke her, who broke up with her because I thought it was for the best. And I knew she was handling it weirdly well, but I didn't think she was secretly that torn up about it! And now she's gone, and I'll never get to apologize for telling her I didn't love her when I do. I told her I was never going to be with her again, to get the idea of us being a couple anymore out of her head, to move on with her life because I was done with her. And then, a month later, she does this? No. I get to mope and mourn more than the rest, because I just lost the girl I was sure I was going to end up marrying one day, after she was a famous Broadway star. I lost the girl I thought I was going to be with forever," Finn ranted, letting out the words he had spent the past week burying away.
It was all his fault.
He was the one who destroyed Rachel Berry.
Tuesday it was Burt who came up to tell Finn it was time to go back to school. "Listen, kid, I know you're hurting-it sucks, and you loved her and she just abandoned you. But you gotta go to school. Your mom-well she's worried, and you know how she gets when she's worried."
"I don't want to go back," Finn mumbled into his pillow. Burt sighed, and Finn was sure he had left the room again, and nearly jumped when Burt started talking again.
"I won't lie to you kiddo, it's going to suck. Walking through those halls and seeing her locker and being in that damn choir room-it's going to damn near break you when you think about how she isn't there anymore. But you'll get through it. It might take years, it might take decades. Look at your mom and me, look how long it took us to find each other, to feel even almost whole again." Finn glanced at Burt, aware that this was more talking than he normally did, aware that Burt would have never told him things like this if it wasn't for the shit circumstances. "Just, go today. If you can't make it through the day, we'll give you a couple more freebie days. But you gotta go today."
Finn nodded, getting out of the bed. He gave a small smile to Burt, who smiled back and patted him on the back before leaving the room.
Finn knew school would suck as soon as he arrived.
"I don't want to go in," He told Kurt, who was watching him apprehensively.
"You can't avoid it forever," Kurt told him.
"I could go to Dalton," Finn suggested, and Blaine snorted from Kurt's other side-he always seemed to pop up randomly.
"Trust me, hiding out at Dalton isn't the answer."
"If you say any variation of the word 'courage', I may punch you in the face." Blaine cracked a grin at him but kept silent, starting to head towards the doors.
"Coming?" he called back to Kurt, and Finn nodded, the three of them heading inside.
Walking in the hallways was bad enough, walking past her locker was heartbreaking-people had left notes on it, a little memorial almost for her. He wanted to scoff, aside from Glee club and maybe one or two others, no one had noticed her, no one had cared. No one had thought to get to know the beautiful and talented girl that was almost too abrasive for her own good.
No one cared about a person until they were dead.
But he walked by, steadily avoiding glancing at it after the first initial shock wore off. He went to his classes, barely paying attention. Mr. Schuester asked him if he was going to attend Glee that afternoon, saying that it was good enough to see him back in classes but he understood. Kurt was his ride home though, and Kurt had already said he was staying for Glee. He said it was an important meeting and that Finn was going to go too, whether he liked it or not.
He didn't like it.
He didn't want to be in Glee anymore.
He wanted to quit, to try out for wrestling or something that involved fighting and moving his limbs and getting the wind knocked out of him. He wanted to do something more physical, because basketball wasn't ever going to be enough. He wished football was still going on, that he could run across a field and play a scrimmage with Puck and Chang, but the three feet of snow on the ground said that probably wasn't the best idea.
So instead he found himself sitting in the choir room, Blaine on one side of him and Quinn on the other as Mr. Schue called everyones attention. Not that he had needed to, the room was virtually silent anyways.
"I know that without Rachel here, we're going to have a harder time at Regionals-" he started, and Finn let out a hollow laugh, not trying to hide it. Everyone turned to look at him and even Mr. Schuester stopped talking, something Finn had rarely seen him do. "Is something wrong Finn?" he asked, and Finn let out another empty laugh, more like he was pushing out spare air than actually laughing.
"No, of course not. Someone in our group killed themselves, but let's continue to get ready for Regional's. Who'll take Rachel's place for the solo? Mercedes? Quinn? Kurt? How about the duet? Who's going to do that? I mean, I can't suggest Rachel and I do it-that'd be fucked up. But Regionals is only two weeks away guys! We can take this!" Finn ranted, and Kurt stood up in the front of the group, glaring at Mr. Schuester who had looked like he was ready to talk back.
"Finn, I know you've been gone, and I know I've told you in your absence that we decided to carry on, to work for what we've been working towards for the past two and a half years. It's what Rachel would have wanted."
"You keep saying that, but how do you know? Maybe she wanted us to fail. Maybe that was her last big joke-'ha! Look! You guys suck without me! Bet you wish you had appreciated me while I was there!'" Finn retorted.
"Because she wrote us all letters Finn. One of her dads brought them to me last week, and I was waiting to hand the rest of them out until you came back," Kurt replied simply. The rest of the group looked apprehensive, glancing at the envelopes Kurt withdrew from his backpack and started passing out.
Finn took his, and noticed that while some had ripped theirs open, a few were putting them away to read later.
Finn threw his in his book bag.
Nothing she could have said would make it better.