What the fuck does she get off telling him that he was a mistake? And that he can't be in a relationship?
He punches the buttons on the elevator (fuck yes, Rachel, the elevator, he isn't too chickenshit and he sure isn't walking down eight flights of stairs) and it clatters to the ground floor.
His phone starts ringing and he doesn't need to look at the screen to know who it is.
He's probably ignoring her call, but she still sighs with temporary relief when she hears, "It's Puck. Leave a message."
"Noah, please, I'm so sorry, those words, they just...that's not at all what I meant, Please...come back. Or call me back. Or text me. I just...let me explain? Please, Noah, please?"
The fuck kind of presumptions does she have about him, about his life? She spouts this bullshit about how proud of him she is that he changed, he's not a Lima loser, bullfuckingshit. She acts like he's the same guy from high school. Can't be in a relationship? Really?
His phone beeps with a voicemail...and then a text message shortly after. Noah. Please. I'm sorry, those words came out wrong. Come back.
Delete.
Puck pushes the door to her building open and stomps to the corner, the sun fully risen now, the city beginning to awaken. He checks out the street signs and determines the closest route to the Penn station, 'cause he is getting the fuck outta Dodge right the fuck now.
She's the fucking liar.
Because he swears, last night, it wasn't a fluke or some orgasm seeking bullshit. That shit was the real fucking deal, he knows it was, and maybe that makes him sound like a chick but whatever. She's being ridiculous. She is such a liar.
His phone rings again, and he hits the end button, sending the call right to voicemail.
Fine. He lived life without her before, and he can do it again.
She's getting a little frantic. He can't ignore her forever, right?
"Noah, I know how things look...and sounded. But. But give me a chance? I...I may have acted...hastily."
"Can you at least call me back? I deserve a chance to explain."
"Noah Puckerman, you are being completely incorrigible! It is my God given right to explain myself thoroughly and clear my name! Stop ignoring me!"
"At least text me back to let me know you've arrived at your destination safely?"
"Fine. Fine, ignore me like a child. But let the record show, I did try to mend things and YOU rejected it!"
After that last voicemail message, she throws her phone across the room and stomps her foot.
Rachel, she tells herself. You did the right thing.
Then why do I feel so...horrible? Unsettled about it?
She flops down on her bed with her head buried in her arms, and her nose fills with the scent of pine and aftershave and Noah from her pillow.
The tears begin to freely roll down her cheeks with the realization of what she'd done.
She didn't make the mistake last night. She made it this morning.
He doesn't realize his jaw was clenched the entire way to the train station until he unhinges it to chew on the sesame bagel he gets before his train pulls in.
He sees no less than six texts waiting from her, and he imagines more voicemail messages, cause chick likes to fucking talk. He deletes every last one of them without even reading or listening, and turns his phone off completely.
At least I fucking know now. He thinks, as the scenery blurs in front of him, the train accelerating away from New York City. He flops back in his seat and looks forward. At least I fucking know where I stand with her.
He spends the next few days in a funk like a fucking PMS-y girl.
He helps out around the house with shit for Brad's wedding, but he just...fuck the world. Fuck it all.
"What are YOU so cranked about, Mr. Pissypants?" His sister Abby taunts him as he is mowing his aunt's lawn on Wednesday. She waves a Pop Tart in front of his face. "You've been moping and growling at everyone like a rabid dog."
"Outta my way," he grunts as he maneuvers the lawn mower around her.
She hops behind him and flicks his ear and she knows he fucking hatesthat.
"I heard your phone go off, like, eighty seven times in the past three days," She informs him, one hand on her hip. "It's getting really annoying. I also saw it floating in the fish tank this morning. Way to break your iphone, idiot."
"If you don't move I'll cut your damn foot off."
"Mo-om!" She sang as she ran inside the house. "Noah said damn!"
She's such a twelve year old brat, he thinks to himself.
So maybe he broke his phone, whatever, if she would just get the point and stop texting and calling him, he wouldn't have had to throw it against the wall. And it's not his fault he happened to throw it in the direction of the fish tank.
He shoves his ipod earbuds into his ears to drown out the inevitable nagging from his mom. He thumbs down and hits shuffle, turning the volume all the way up, hoping for a good angry song to come on to fit his mood.
"Where it began...I can't begin to know when.."
Fuck you, Neil Diamond. And Apple. And itunes.
He flings the ipod across the yard and considers mowing over it.
It takes Rachel two more days of moping to get up the confidence to talk about what happened. She doesn't want to give all the backstory about their complicated "not relationship" to Julia; she only mentioned to her that "things with the guy from the other night are...involved." Julia knows enough about Rachel after living with her this past year to give her some space during a funk.
When Quinn calls her for a friendly chat on Wednesday, she can't help as the words pour out of her, telling Quinn about their random chance meeting in Penn ("Ooh, that sounds like fate!"), their conversations ("Puck can get very down on himself"), what it led to at the apartment ("Hmm...it was never that...electric with me and him..."), and painfully recounting the words that caused him to storm out ("Oh...Rachel...").
"Quinn," She wails in true dramatic Rachel Berry fashion. "What do I doooo? Why won't he talk to me?"
"You know how he shuts down and tunes everyone out when he's hurting," Quinn reminds her.
"But I was just telling the truth!"
Quinn sighed. "Rachel," She began, and paused. "You know where Puck is coming from. You yourself told him over and over again how much he's changed but...you basically alluded to the fact that, as far as real adult romantic relationships go, he hasn't grown up one bit. Essentially you told him he's still a male slut."
Rachel's quiet, so Quinn plunges on. "I'm pretty sure you really hurt him, Rach. You called him a mistake."
"I didn't call HIM a mistake, I called the night a mistake!"
"And was it?" Quinn counters back.
Rachel is silent.
"See, right there? You didn't answer right away." She points out, and her voice gets quieter. "Rachel...instincts are our subconscious acting in ways our conscious can't."
"What...what do you mean?"
"You told me you agreed with him immediately, without thinking. When he said he had wanted to kiss you for awhile now."
"I...I did."
"You agreed, or you did want to kiss him?" She wisely asks.
"B..both." Rachel's stammer is quiet.
"You can't tell me you've never noticed the little Puck moments before. How he sticks up for you. How he gets all protective of you. He staged that whole intervention flash mob for you, with the nose job? You don't notice these things?"
Rachel pauses. "There was this time...after graduation, before I left for New York..." And she tells Quinn what happened at the playground between Noah and her.
"Rachel. You guys have a history. And that last story, that playground moment, that just proves to me that he couldn't view you as just a piece of ass, no strings attached, even if he tried. He did say he meant everything he did and said, right?" She can't see Rachel, but she knows she is nodding on her end of the line. "Rach, he totally has something for you. And he acted on it willingly, and you responded for once without creating a pie chart or pros and cons list. And then, when you woke up and reality set in, you got scared and reverted into letting your logical mind take control."
"But I was scared! I mean, it was so illogical to engage in that kind of behavior without any pretense or -"
"It's an emotion, Rachel. Not a logic."
"Who said anything about love?" She instantly countered back.
Quinn laughs. "Not me, Rachel. I absolutely did not just say the L-word. But you certainly did."
"I don't know how to be his girlfriend! He's unpredictable and he's not..." She trails off.
Quinn fills in the blank. "Finn."
"Exactly. It was so easy to be Finn's girlfriend," Rachel hears Quinn chuckle on the other line. "It was! Despite all those crazy ups and downs, you know what to expect, he's like the golden boyfriend. Noah...Puck...he's unconventional. I don't know how to act or what to be around him!"
"You keep saying unconventional but you have yet to really define howPuck is unconventional."
Rachel's quiet on the other line, and Quinn starts off again. "Listen, Rach, you've gotten this far, and it's as plain as the nose on your face...the nose he helped save, by the way...that he likes the Rachel you haven't been trying to change. You.Not whatever Rachel you think he, quote unquote, needs."
"What do I do?" She asks in a small voice. "It's been almost three years since we really spent any time together. Except for last night. I don't even know if he's looking for something more than a hookup. "
"Isn't it obvious?" Quinn's smiling on her end of the line. "He pretty much told you, not in so many words, that you're not his one night stand. And, hey, you got the first sex out of the way already! That's like, half the awkwardness you won't have to face."
"But...but I don't know what to do! And he's in Ohio! And I'm in New York, and school, and he's not answering his phone, and-"
"Rachel." Quinn cuts her off. "Chill"."
She sighs. "He won't talk to me. I've sent countless texts and left at least ten voicemails. His phone doesn't even ring anymore, it goes right to voicemail, so he's intentionally ignoring me," She sighs more pointedly and aggravatedly. "I don't even know where to find him. He's somewhere in New Jersey. I have no way of finding out where he is, no one from Glee talks to him really, except Finn. And what am i supposed to do, call Finn and be all, 'hey I slept with your old best friend last night and told him he was a mistake but now I think I may have something more for him so help me stalk him'?"
Quinn laughs. "Well, my friend, lucky for you, Finn may have told me something about Puck going to Jersey for his cousin's wedding, from the last conversation they had."
Rachels eyes light up., "Quinn! Do you have an address for me? Let me get a pen!"
"Well, silly, this isFinn we're talking about. He didn't give me a verbatim street and house number. But I know his family is by the coast in NJ. When Finn told me in passing, he said something about Puck being where they film that Jersey Shore show on MTV. Seaside? I think?" She chuckles. "And then he talked about how maybe Puck would see Snooki drunk and how funny that would be."
Rachel wails. "The coast is HUGE in New Jersey! How am I supposed to find him? How do I know for sure that he is in Seaside? Do I knock on every single door?"
"Well...I haven't talked to Puck in years, but I'm prettysure if you show up at the Seaside boardwalk and tell him you're there alone, that protective vibe will kick in and he will at least come talk to you. Or brood and pout at you. But either way it'll get him to be in the same place as you."
"Quinn, I can't go there without a plan! That's so..."
"Unpredictable. Unconventional," Quinn enunciated. "Exactly." Rachel hears voices in the background. "Listen, Rach, I've got to go. Call me when you've decided what to do, ok?"
"Ok," She responds. "Thanks. Thanks, Quinn. You...you're right. About all of it."
Quinn smiles on her end. "Anytime. And Rach?"
"Yes?"
"Stop thinking things through this time. Just...jump."
