Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. It hasn't been as heavily reviewed as my other one, so I've let it fall by the way side. This is part a present/flashback scene.
It started at a party, the way all mistakes do. Santana Lopez was throwing a killer party to support their win at Sectionals, and everyone from Glee and the football team was there. She was popular, people made it their business to show up to her events.
Rachel didn't have much to drink that night but she was a lightweight, so whether one bottle or two, she felt it everywhere. Puck kissed her that night, somewhere between a wine cooler and a haze of smoke. He tastes of lazy tobacco and peppermint, a difficult combination to pull off but he does. He drove her home, the alcohol not taking a hold of him. His liver is infinite. Later, she'll remember how they made it upstairs to her room in time, how quiet they tried to be to not wake her fathers.
He carries her to bed, intent on kissing her good night, leaving her to her hangover, but even the best laid plans go awry. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and leaned him into her, and one thing led to another.
His hands move up the edges of her body, starting at the hip bone and his touch seeps through her cool skin, and she can feel it everywhere. When his hands roam her back, brushing past skin, goosebumps flood through every bone. That's how much he hurts, she feels it to the depths of her bones.
She wonders if this is normally how it is, if it's normally this exhilarating.
The morning greets them with each other, hands intertwined in the middle of the night, and the smell of sex enveloping her in the sheets. The night before wasn't discussed in the aftermath. She watched him leave, the moment was gone, anyway.
"Do you ever think about that night?"
Rachel looks over at him, her breath inhaling sharply. His words knocked her out of her flashback, and she felt like a fool, wondering what other words of his she missed. She doesn't tell him that before, even before, she found out that she was pregnant, all she does is think about that night.
She wonders if it's best to lie, until she realize he's staring at her, staring at her like maybe he thinks about it all the time too.
"Yes." Her words come out in a whisper, and she turns away again, her head leaning against the windshield. Time passes them, likely minutes, and she decides it's time to leave his car before the conversation takes a route she doesn't want.
"Thanks for the ride." She hops out, accidentally slamming the door behind her.
"Berry, wait up." I yelled at her, unsure of why I was asking her to turn around.
She pauses on the middle of the sidewalk, and I notice how difficult it is for her to look me in the eyes. She stares at the birthmark on my chin, and I'm unsure.
"Were you planning on telling me you're pregnant?" I fidget. I'm always prepared, nobody wants a baby at sixteen, least of all me. Girls try to corner me into fatherhood all the time, until a negative pregnancy test gets them off my back. But Berry, Berry hiding the prospect of fatherhood bothers me. I thought her, her of all people, would make mention of it.
She shakes her head, her mouth shaping into a small o in surprise, surprised I figured it out.
"You're off the hook. You don't have to be responsible for a child you didn't plan for, a child you don't want. It's fine. Finn is going to help me." Just like that, she turns on her heel, leaving me on the sidewalk, alone. I feel the first waves of jealous at the mention of Finn, and my child, and wonder why I'm not as happy as I should be.