Show: Glee
Characters: Rachel Berry (& the glee club, though indirectly)
Themes: Suicide / Bullying
Summary: Rachel knew that the day of exposing her past to New Directions would eventually come, but how ready can she really be? With this week's assignment having emphasis on pain, she knows she needs to reveal the time when she was at her darkest.
Rachel breathed in hard as she walked onto the stage of the Auditorium, getting ready to sing this weeks assignment.
When Shue had first told them that they'd been focussing on pain, she felt somewhat relieved, knowing she had always been able to pull that off on stage, in her singing. However, he had then moved on to say that he wanted a story told; he wanted to know what caused their darkest pain. At first she thought it would still be pretty simple – she'd been hurt a lot of the time and still wouldn't scratch the surface with this assignment – but then she'd seen Quinn's performance of Beauty from Pain, dedicated to Beth, and knew what pain she would have to portray via her song, even if she hadn't wanted to expose herself as much as that.
She placed her feet in the middle of the stage and took a deep breathe. The music started to play and so did the video on the wall behind her.
"You've stripped me down, the layers fall like rain.
Its over now, just innocence and instinct still remain..."
As she sang she closed her eyes, trying not to look at the faces of those she considered 'friends' who were watching her performance and perhaps seeing her in a new light. The video behind her was showing the life of Rachel Berry at the place they all called school. Tears ran freely down Rachel's cheeks despite her closed eyes.
"Circling the pain inside my soul.
I reached inside your silence to steal what you wont show..."
She'd been able to get Finn to help her with the project, as he filmed her walking through the halls. She had also been able to persuade Jacob Israel to part with a few of his precious movies that he'd shot of her and the rest of the school. It meant that the video behind her saw the way she was truly treated – a way that was so similar yet so different to the others. There was countless bits of footage of her being slushied; laughed at; shoved; mocked; hurt.
"I'm breaking; I cant do this on my own.
Can you hear me screaming out, am I all alone?"
Glee club had been, not surprised, but still enlightened by the footage they were seeing. They knew that Rachel had had a hard time, sometimes due to some of the people in the room – especially when they realised how much of the footage they featured in. However, they weren't expecting the part where Karofsky pushed Rachel into a locker and moved so close to them. They certainly wasn't expecting to see Tina and Kurt look at the two of them and not do anything to help the young girl, whenever it had happened.
Suddenly, the footage changed, with the instrumental. The camera was no longer in the hallowed halls of Mckinley, but somewhere that they all recognised from countless videos that had been posted on YouTube.
Rachel moved into the frame and sat on her bed, looking directly at the camera.
"I'm Rachel Berry, I am 16 and I'm from Lima, Ohio. If you're watching this, it means I'm dead.
I've written suicide notes, but I don't feel like it is enough – story of my life considering nothing is ever good enough. Maybe that is why I'm doing this, ending it so that I won't ever succeed. Maybe that is why I made the decision?
People always tell me that high school is the best time of life, that the days don't get any better. If that is true, then I know I am making the right decision because my life will not be worth living – it already isn't.
I'm bullied and hated and laughed at and mocked. Nobody at school likes me. I would tell the teachers but they treat me nearly as bad as the students; not Figgins, not Shuester, not even Miss Pilsbury. I would tell my fathers but they aren't ever hear, and when they are it just feels inappropriate.
I guess what I'm trying to say is... Goodbye. I'm sorry, but this is the only way I think I'll be able to live."
Rachel started to sing again. The video note she'd made two years ago disappeared and in its place were pictures. When she'd been saved from actually dying, the hospital and her therapist and her fathers all took pictures of the fresh scars – these were being viewed by the Glee Club. Then they were followed by pictures of her scars now, healed enough that a little bit of make up was able to hide them completely.
"Take it all away..."
She looked at all her fellow members of New Directions. Kurt looked like he wanted to throw up whilst Santana had disappeared completely.
"Rachel, we didn't... we didn't know!" Mercedes was able to stammer for the club, but she knew it wasn't enough.
"Its okay. I've already forgiven each and every one of you. It wasn't your fault because although some of you may have directly told me to commit suicide, I know now that you really didn't know me. We weren't friends, but now we are, and I know that you care. I didn't then; but I'm better now." Rachel told them, trying to smile.
Okay, so the ending isn't right at all, but meh. Just a vague one ,really, because I do love Rachel, and having watched the first few episodes again, I do feel that she was a walking Suicide Cry.
Of course, I own absolutely nothing, unfortunately. Well that isn't true – I own the laptop I wrote this with and the actually story – but not the song* or show of Glee or the characters that consequently go with it.
*Take It All Away – Red (go have a listen, for they are amazing!)
