Chapter 10
2005-2007
5th Grade- 7th Grade
"Lonely people tumble downwards"
Quinn's indifference towards Rachel was unbearable. The brunette perfected her longing stare from a distance while Quinn seemed to be in her own world where everything was perfect. Every single fifth grader fawned over her, begging to sit with her at lunch and handing over their Oreos. The young blonde, aware of her power even then, would either gracefully accept these requests or politely decline. Her friends followed her around like lovesick puppy dogs.
Rachel didn't have any friends aside from Tina, who, as fate would have it, was in a different class that year. Fifth grade was difficult for the brunette mainly because the school rewarded its graduating class with yearbooks. Rachel avoided the camera like the plague for fear of torment. Rachel knew she was photogenic; it was just that she didn't want the camera to capture her lack of friends. As a ten year old, Rachel hated the fact that she had a grand total of one friend.
Rachel spent her lunches with Tina, talking and eating peanut butter sandwiches. Sometimes she would hear Quinn from across the room laughing at a joke one of her new friends told. The sound first brought Rachel joy, but the joy quickly morphed into sadness. She used to make Quinn laugh. Lonely took on a whole new meaning, and Rachel firmly believed that something was wrong with her. No one wanted to talk to her, despite her charisma, charm, and obvious talent. The cool kids of fifth grade were the ones with the coolest lunch boxes and the prettiest hair. Quinn fit the bill effortlessly.
Midway through the year, Tina met Artie, a young boy in their grade who was known for his wheelchair. Dressed in classic sweater vests and khakis, Artie managed to woo Tina, who enjoyed nothing more than wheeling him around the school and holding his hand at lunch. Although she was happy for her friend, Tina meeting Artie meant only one thing for Rachel: she was going to be ditched.
"I'm sorry, Rachel, but I really like Artie. And he has no friends. So I need to be nice to him and sit with him at lunch," she said shyly before leaving Rachel and returning to her new best friend.
At first Rachel seethed with jealously. A nerdy kid in a wheelchair had just stolen her only friend! Then she looked over to Quinn. The two shared a fleeting glance before Quinn's eyes darted away and she immediately returned to her conversation. Rachel sighed.
"Can I sit here?"
Rachel took a break from her pity party to spin around and meet a pair of deep brown eyes. Someone wanted to sit with her? Her heart leapt.
"Of course!" she said with a smile, pulling out a chair for the young boy. "I'm Rachel."
"I know. I'm Noah."
The brunette extended a hand to her newest friend. She still had trouble believing that someone wanted to sit with her at lunch.
"Nice to meet you, Noah."
Still slightly in shock, Rachel pulled out her pink-starred lunch box and began to unpack her meal. Her Daddies had packed her a perfectly cut peanut butter sandwich, a bag of carrots, and a fruit cup. She smiled at the small note Daddy had left her.
Smile, my love. Enjoy the day :)
Love,
Daddy
"Your daddy makes your lunch?" Noah asked incredulously, a glint of sadness in his eyes.
Rachel nodded, taking a bite of the sandwich. "My daddies make my breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday!"
Noah looked down at his messily put together sandwich sitting on top of his brown paper bag. An embarrassed blush pervaded his cheeks.
"Daddies?"
"Yes! I have two daddies instead of a mommy and a daddy," Rachel explained proudly.
"Oh," Noah said, looking down at his hands. "That's, uh, cool I guess."
Rachel picked up on her new friend's sadness. "What do you have for lunch?" she asked kindly.
"Uh," Noah began, picking up his sloppy sandwich. "It's ham on bread."
"Did your daddy make it?"
"No," Noah answered softly. "I did."
Rachel smiled and took the boys hand in hers. "Well it's a really good sandwich, Noah. You should be a sandwich maker one day!"
The boy grinned proudly. "You think?"
"Mhm," Rachel murmured through a mouthful of carrot.
The two quickly fell into a rhythm. Each day at lunch they sat at the table near the back of the cafeteria. Noah brought his makeshift lunches, and Rachel munched on her homemade sandwiches. Rachel would babble on about her dads or dance classes or singing lessons, and Noah patiently listened. He was a shy boy at first, but after a few days he was laughing and teasing Rachel. They played together at recess, racing around their favorite tree or simply talking underneath its safe branches. For the first time, Rachel forgot that she had no friends. It didn't really matter to her now that she had Noah, a real friend.
Quinn observed the pair from her end of the playground with heavily suppressed envy. For years, as she ignored Rachel, Quinn sailed through elementary school with a ton of friends and popularity. Granted, her friends were not the genuine kind, but Quinn had them. Now seeing Rachel happy with someone instead of sulking alongside Tina at lunch, Quinn felt a surge of jealousy. Noah made Rachel laugh and smile, and those once frequent longing stares were becoming extinct. She'd never admit it, but Quinn wished she could make Rachel laugh and smile like that.
Quinn was doing everything by the book, for a ten year old. Her parents were proud of her. She was the perfect, obedient daughter, but all the while Noah was pulling Rachel further away from her, and Quinn was beginning to panic. Sure, she was the one who had distanced them in the first place, but seeing Rachel happy without her changed everything. It proved to Quinn that she was replaceable. Rachel wasn't a complete loser, nor was she alone. Soon Rachel wouldn't even look at her across the playground or across the lunchroom or from the window of her dad's Volvo. Within the course of three weeks, Quinn felt the reality of her choice, the reality of her abandonment, and the reality of losing the only real friend she had ever had.
-/-
"Noah?" Rachel asked one day at lunch.
Noah looked up from his lunch. The boy was dressed in a pair of worn jeans, a white t-shirt, and sneakers. His hair was tousled from his mother saying goodbye to him that morning.
"Yeah?"
Rachel bit her lip nervously. "Wannacomeovertodayafterschool?"
"Huh?"
"Wanna come over today... after school? Rachel asked slower.
Noah blinked, then smiled. "Sure, Rach. I'll ask my mom."
The brunette squealed loudly, pulling her friend into a side hug. A few kids glared at her, but resumed their meals. Quinn was fuming.
"Ah you're choking me!" Noah cried out playfully.
Giggling, Rachel released her friend as they continued their lunch. The day slowly dragged on until the final bell rang, freeing the kids from their classrooms. Rachel met Noah at the swings with a bright smile and her backpack slung over her back.
"Ready?" he asked, offering her his arm. Rachel linked their arms as they made their way to Mrs. Puckerman.
"Hey, Mamma" Noah greeted the woman sweetly. "This is my best friend, Rachel."
"Ah, this is the famous Rachel. She's cute. It's very nice to meet you, Rachel."
Rachel extended her hand maturely. "It is very nice to meet you, Mrs. Puckerman."
Noah's mother laughed. "What's up, hun?"
"Uh, can I go to Rachel's house today? Her dads can drive me home later or something."
Shrugging, Noah's mother agreed to the first of the pair's many play dates. Rachel dragged Noah to the car, where Leroy greeted them.
"Dad!" Rachel exclaimed from the sidewalk.
Leroy parked the car and got out to hug his daughter. "Hey, darling. How are you?"
"I'm good," Rachel paused, pulling Noah closer to her. "This is Noah. Can he come over tonight for dinner?"
Beaming, Leroy agreed instantly. It was is daughter's first play date with a friend other than Quinn. He was ecstatic.
"It's nice to meet you, Noah," Leroy said warmly, earning a grin from the shy boy. "Let's go, shall we?"
Rachel and Noah camped out in the backyard. Together they climbed the big tree Rachel had begged her fathers to build a treehouse in. Sitting comfortably in the secluded branches, Rachel sighed.
"Your Dads are awesome," Noah said wistfully.
"Thanks," Rachel replied with a soft smile.
"I wish they were my dads."
Rachel gaped. "Why?"
"My dad's never around. I don't know. He likes to play guitar. He's in some band or something. He taught me some stuff which I guess is cool, but like he doesn't make me lunch or breakfast or dinner like your dads. I don't really see him all that much. Just a couple times a month."
Noah looked off into the sky and watched the sun set beneath the rows of house. Suddenly, he hopped down from his perch and slid up against the trunk. A few moments later, Rachel joined him, letting their shoulders touch lightly.
"Where does he go when he's not home?" she asked softly.
He turned to her, with broken eyes, and shook his head. "I don't know, Rach."
Quickly, Rachel wrapped her arm around Noah's shoulder. The boy snaked his arm around her waist. They sat like this for a while, just breathing, until Hiram called them in for dinner. Before leaving, Noah hugged both men tightly, thanking them over and over again. All Rachel could do was put on a happy face until he left. She didn't know how to react. In her ten years of existence, Rachel had only been shown love from her parents. To hear that Noah's father was never around broke her heart.
She made it her personal mission to have Noah over at least twice a week from then on. They spent their afternoons doing homework at the kitchen table while Hiram and Leroy danced and made dinner. Afterwards, Noah hoisted Rachel up into their tree where they'd listen to the night and talk. When it got too cold, the pair reassembled in the living room where they built fort after fort, watched movie after movie, and grew closer in the heat of a warm home.
Over the course of three years, Noah Puckerman had found a home at the Berry's. Leroy and Hiram became his impromptu fathers, partially filling the void created by his real father. When swim lessons stopped, and Quinn officially stopped speaking to Rachel, Noah was there. He was the only soul Rachel had ever told about their friendship. She poured her heart to him, and like the loyal friend he was, he held her tightly and wiped her tears.
Lonely people gravitate towards one another. Lonely people share one common feeling that acts as a magnet, drawing them together quickly and permanently if kept close together. They knew emptiness. They knew abandonment, and heartache, and longing.
In April of the seventh grade, when Rachel was woken up at two in the morning by the house phone ringing, the reality of Noah's loneliness crashed down on the Berrys.
"Hello?" Leroy asked sleepily, gently shrugging off Hiram who was draped over him like a blanket.
"Mr. Berry?"
"Noah?" Leroy shot out of bed. "What is it?"
"I-is Rachel there?" he stuttered.
Within minutes, Rachel grasped onto the phone as a sense of dread settled in her stomach.
"Hey, Noah," she said quietly.
"Hey, uh, Rach."
Rachel heard a wail coming from somewhere in the distance. Her heart leapt into her throat. Noah sniffled into the phone.
"So my dad he...I don't know," he voice cracked. "Can you-,"
"I'll be right there," Rachel interrupted before hanging up the phone.
The Berrys rushed over to Noah's home a few blocks away. Dressed in robes and pajamas, the family burst into the house. It was as if a tornado had blew threw the place. A broken lamp lay next to the door. Clothing and newspapers were strewn across the floor. Faintly, Rachel heard a whimpering coming from Noah's room.
Rachel sprinted to the room and froze when she reached the doorway. In the corner of the room, Noah sat with his baby sister in his arms, rocking slightly back and forth and nursing a bruise on his tear-stained cheek.
"Hey, Rach," he croaked before his lip quivered.
"Oh, Noah," Rachel breathed.
Hiram swiftly took Noah's sister and found Mrs. Puckerman in the bathroom sobbing into the rug.
"That bastard," she kept repeating over and over as Hiram tried to placate her.
While Leroy and Hiram tended to Noah's mother and sister, Rachel picked up her best friend and pulled him into his bed. Shaking, Noah clung to Rachel for support while she pulled off his shirt to find another bruise. She lay him down gently before moving to his dresser to grab his nightclothes. She had been in this room more times than she could count. Noah was her brother in every way possible. They had been with each other through everything. Rachel knew Noah better than anybody, and she was more than sure that he knew her better than herself.
Quickly, Rachel slipped Noah into his pajamas and underneath the covers. As she went to get some ice, a firm hand latched onto her wrist.
"Please don't leave me."
Rachel almost broke down then and there; but she couldn't. She had to be strong for Noah.
"Never."
After getting ice, shutting the lights off and closing the door, Rachel joined Noah underneath his Batman blankets. He curled into her body, and, as if someone flipped a switch, began sobbing uncontrollably. All Rachel could do was hold on and stroke his thick black hair while trying to ice his cheek. The sound of her brother in so much pain ripped Rachel's heart to shreds. Noah's body began to wrack viciously so Rachel held on tighter. Eventually she gave up on the ice altogether.
When the sobbing subsided and the night grew quieter, Rachel felt Noah shift in her arms.
"Rach?"
"Yes?"
"I-I just want you to know that I'm not gunna leave you. Not ever."
Rachel placed a kiss atop Noah's head. "I know, Noah."
She knew what he was going through to some extent. The empty feeling in his chest mimicked the one Quinn had left in hers at the tender age of eleven. She knew what it felt like to be left by the only person in her life that mattered. Quinn had a piece of her heart, and the wound she had left a year earlier had started to heal when she and Noah became closer; but nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to the pain Noah endured in her arms as the moonlight streamed in through his window.
Noah became Puck. The sweet and tender boy she had befriended in fifth grade morphed into a slushy-throwing bully overnight. He shaved his head. He began to work out at the gym. He joined football. He dated more girls than Rachel could count. By the time eighth grade rolled around, Noah Puckerman was a new person. When Rachel asked why the sudden change, Noah claimed that he had to become a man, that he had to grow up and take care of his family; but they both knew that was bullshit.
Rachel played along, and continued to be there for her best friend because even though Noah was becoming meaner and meaner, his love for Rachel never wavered. He never abandoned her. That promise they made to each other in seventh grade was never broken. Even when Noah had the opportunity for popularity and celebrity at McKinley, he turned it all away for her. He still took advantage of girls. He still bullied nerds, and dorks, and everybody else that fell in between. But, unlike Quinn, Noah Puckerman never abandoned Rachel Berry. Not ever.