Rachel didn't know what to do with herself after breaking things off with Finn. She never wanted to end up being the girl that didn't know what to do with herself when she didn't have a boyfriend, but she had never realized just how much Finn meant to her until she had decided to confront him. She would go to practice after class and try to ignore him as best as she could during rehearsals; doing everything in her power so that she wouldn't have to speak to him or acknowledge him in any way.
Physics was an entirely different story, however. Finn and Rachel were lab partners that had to work together for the quarter lab report that was due by the end of the month. While they would normally work together for the most part (Rachel doing most of the notes and assisting Finn with the experimental procedure), Rachel now squared herself off from Finn and recorded the notes by herself while she conducted the experiment, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he looked at her notes over her shoulder.
Other than the class they had together though, Finn and Rachel didn't have the opportunity to see each other often. Rachel ignored all of the phone calls he made and whatever message he tried to pass along to other people she knew in different classes. She didn't want anything to do with Finn, only because she still didn't know how to react to what Finn had done to her.
She didn't know if she was supposed to believe him or what Santana had told her, but she thought it would have been smarter to listen to Santana, only because Finn had told her that what she had told her that he did was true.
Rachel still couldn't understand how someone could come up with such a big lie in order to keep her by their side. She wondered if Finn had actually been telling the truth when he told her that he hadn't cared about whatever kind of bet he had made with Quinn and he actually loved her.
She couldn't understand how someone could act that way and still have some disgusting bet about her that they were working towards.
When she wasn't in class or in the auditorium after school, Rachel stayed in her dorm most of the time. Brittany had even tried going back to the dorm more often than not, just because she didn't want Rachel to be left alone all by herself.
On the nights when she would normally go to Santana's, Brittany would just bring her back to her and Rachel's dorm and hope that Rachel wouldn't mind, which she didn't.
Santana sat on the foot of Rachel's bed while Rachel sat in front of her on the floor, finger deftly braiding her hair down her back. She was reminded of her first night at the school with Quinn and how she had tried to braid her hair, making her upset. She hated Quinn. It wasn't like she had ever liked her to begin with, but if there was anything that was supposed to push her over the edge; this would have done the trick.
"Hey, Rachel, you can pick what movie we watch tonight," Brittany said as she picked through the bowl of M&M's that she had sitting in front of her. She didn't want to outwardly express her sympathy for Rachel, and neither did Santana.
Rachel shook her head and Santana continued to run her fingers through her hair, letting her hands fall on her shoulders and rubbed them gently through the wool sweater of her uniform that she still wore.
Brittany looked at Santana and smiled sympathetically, who looked down at Rachel after sighing nervously.
"Look, Rachel, I don't think I've really apologized for what Finn did to you," she said, her voice soft at first. "I mean, I know I told you, and everything, but what he and Quinn did to you… that was just wrong."
Rachel pivoted around on her behind and looked at Santana, who had dropped her hair, causing the braid she had been working on to unravel down her back, her brown hair splaying over her shoulders.
"Thanks," she said meekly. "I mean, I like to think that I've gotten over everything, but there are still times where I see him in the hallway and feel really bad about everything."
Brittany frowned and shoved another handful of M&M's into her mouth, looking at Santana. The raven-haired girl rolled her eyes and sighed, looking down at Rachel with a small smile.
"You'll be fine," she said, patting Rachel on the shoulder lightly. "You just need a really good rebound, that's all."
Rachel turned around and looked up at Santana, fear in her eyes. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said, worry laced in her voice. "I mean, I just don't want to go out and sleep with someone just because Finn did something bad to me." She crossed her arms over her chest indignantly. "Two wrongs don't make a right, right?"
Santana sighed and slid off of the foot of the bed, sitting down next to Rachel on the floor. "It doesn't mean that you have to sleep with anyone," she explained, moving Rachel's hair from her shoulder. "It just means that you have to put yourself back out there." Rachel looked over at Brittany, who nodded her head with a smile. She turned back to Santana, who wagged her eyebrows with a knowing smile.
"You know, there's a party tonight," she said, beginning to pick at the carpeting beneath the two girls. "It's not a big one, or anything, and Quinn won't be there," she added, hoping it would somehow sweeten the deal. "She's probably fucking her chemistry teacher because she's flunking his class right now."
Rachel's eyes grew wide, but she tried her best to hide the shock that overtook her. She had grown accustomed to girls saying that the chemistry teacher was attractive, anyway. He was fresh out of college and he didn't grade the easiest, or so she had heard. Whether she was lying or not, Santana still believed that whatever she had said about Quinn was the truth.
"I don't want to wear another one of those dresses," Rachel said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. She suddenly realized that she sounded like she was expressing actual interest in going and cleared her throat, shifting herself around slightly. "If w-we went, I mean."
Santana rolled her eyes and started to laugh, letting her hands fall on either side of Rachel's shoulders. "You don't have to wear one of my dresses," she said, laughing. "You can wear your uniform as far as I'm concerned, Rachel," she said, causing the other girl to start laughing. "This night is about you and feeling better after that asshole did what he did to you, okay?"
Rachel nodded, Brittany applauding behind her.
"So can we go?" The blonde asked, a cheeky smile stuck to her face. Rachel laughed, turning to face the two girls on either side of her with big grins stuck to their faces.
"Fine," she said, giggling. "We can go."
:.:.:
Finn was sure that there was no worse feeling in the world than how he felt about Rachel. He didn't know how to react to anything anymore, especially when it came to her. There were days where he passed her in the hallways and just wanted to say something to her, anything, but when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out.
It shocked him that a girl who didn't seem like she could do any real damage to anyone was tearing him apart from the inside out.
There were the days when he would think that maybe if he went up and talked to her at rehearsal or noticed her at lunch that maybe it would give her the idea of at least trying to talk to him, but no matter what he seemed to do, Rachel continued to ignore him and Finn refused to try and take the first step in talking to her.
For the first time, he was the one who was intimidated by a girl and not the other way around.
He was lying on his bed when there was a knock at his door, eliciting a groan from his lips. The last thing he wanted to do was answer the door and find out who was there to see him. Unless it was Rachel willing to hear his apology, he wasn't interested.
"I heard you lost your little girlfriend the other night," Quinn said, standing in the doorway. She was studying her freshly done manicure, eyes not bothering to flick up and acknowledge him. "Too bad, too. Isn't she supposed to marry the first guy she fucks, or what?" A haughty laugh slipped through her lips and Finn sighed, looking down to notice her.
"I never slept with her," he said, leaning against the doorframe. "Don't you have some party to go to tonight?"
Quinn rolled her eyes and pushed her way past Finn, gaining access to his room. "I wasn't going to go without you," she said cheekily, feigning a pout as she turned to look at him. "Besides, you might want to improve your reputation by going. Just getting to second base with a girl and then having her dump you in a psychotic rage isn't exactly the best way to be well-liked, is it?"
Her words made Finn's mind stray and he started to think of Rachel, probably off doing something with some other guy who would try and take her to parties and make out with her and feel her up even though she wouldn't let him or want him to.
Finn wasn't used to feeling jealous of other guys. For all of the firsts that Rachel had brought him, he never would have expected jealousy to be one of them.
"What makes you think I want to go with you?" He asked Quinn, watching as she pulled a compact mirror from her purse and began looking at her reflection. She looked up and smiled maliciously, sauntering towards him.
"Well, judging by your little mishap with Backwoods Barbie, the odds of you winning our little game are slim to none." She walked up to Finn and ran a finger down his chest, giggling almost satanically. "And, you know, once I get a few drinks in me, I can be whatever kind of girl you want me to be."
Finn rolled his eyes and laughed to himself, pushing Quinn off of him. "You turn into a raging bitch when you're drunk," he told her, peeling her arms from around his chest and pushing her away from him. "Which is no different from what you are when you're sober."
Quinn's expression dropped into anger; furrowing her brow and looking at Finn furiously.
"And you know what; I don't want to play your stupid, sick little game anymore, okay? You just do these kinds of things to fuck with people that you wish you could be more like, because you're too worried about what people think about you to be yourself." He paused for a moment, watching as Quinn scoffed and looked up at him, anger beginning to boil up in her blood.
"What, you're actually serious about this girl?"
Finn looked at Quinn and sighed, rolling his eyes. "Yeah," he told her, feeling more confident in front of her than he ever had before. "Because you know, Quinn, I love Rachel, whether you like it or not." Quinn rolled her eyes and pulled her phone out of her purse and began scrolling through her messages. "And I'm going to go find her and tell her all about what happened, and everyone's going to know about you and who you actually are."
Quinn laughed to herself and sighed, looking down at her phone. "Do whatever you want," she said, not bothering to look up from whatever text she was reading. "But you might want to go to the party tonight after all. That is, if you're still in the mood to go win back your training bra wearing girlfriend. I just got a text saying that she's making out with Sam Evans right now."
:.:.:
Rachel had never been to a party that was as crazy as the one she had been brought to by Santana and Brittany. She had originally thought that it would be like the party she had gone to the first week of moving to New York, but this was much different. People were screaming and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes permeated the air, doors to bedrooms and coat closets locked (and others unlocked) by people who found other sexual activities to be more exciting than the game of beer pong happening out in the living room.
Santana hadn't gotten quite as drunk as Brittany yet; who was already running around in her underwear and having people do body shots off of her on the ping pong table in the lounge. Rachel had been nursing the same beer she had been offered from the moment she walked in through the door, not bothering to drink from it much. She didn't like the taste of beer and didn't want to get drunk in the first place, no matter how much Santana told her that she should have.
"You look so hot tonight," Santana slurred in Rachel's ear, the two girls sitting on the couch next to one another. Santana was closer to completely falling into Rachel's lap, sipping from what Rachel assumed was her fourth or fifth drink of the night. Santana giggled and rested her chin on Rachel's shoulder, continuing to laugh incessantly. "Can I be your rebound instead?"
Rachel laughed, smelling the alcohol on the other girl's breath. "No," she told her sweetly, stroking her hair. "Besides, what would Brittany think?"
Santana giggled to herself again before standing up, teetering around in her heels and practically falling on Rachel before making her way across the people standing in front of the couch and out into the hall. Rachel took another sip of her beer and puckered her face upon tasting it, wanting to spit it back into the cup before anyone was able to see her. It tasted disgusting, and she knew that she would never acquire a taste for it.
She tipped her head back on the couch, letting her eyes fall shut. Her lips were still buzzing from the kiss she had shared earlier in the night with Sam, but she didn't have that same familiar ringing throughout her entire body like she did when she kissed Finn.
Rachel had only kissed Sam because they were playing Spin the Bottle and Rachel had been told to spin it, landing on Sam. She had met Sam in passing a few times, and he was in her English class, but they rarely ever spoke to one another. She hadn't even kissed him for very long, and it wasn't like they had tried to turn it into anything special. He had just kissed her and she had broken it before it had even started, really, because she was too busy giggling to continue kissing him.
It didn't come close to the kisses she used to share with Finn. Kissing Sam was like one big reminder to tell her that she missed Finn in every sense of the word. She missed his kisses and his arms around her waist and the way he would kiss her neck and smell her hair, making her feel like she was worth that much more to him.
Her favorite part about Finn, however, was the way his voice sounded when he told her that he loved her. Even if the moment only lasted for a few days, she missed lying in bed with him and feeling their heartbeats synchronize and having him tell her that he would never let her go, no matter what happened.
He hadn't been lying, necessarily. She was the one who had let him go.
Rachel felt her heart feel like it was going to burst in her chest and she stood up from the couch, sighing slightly before going on her way to find Santana. She didn't want to stay at a party where all she could think about was Finn – especially if he wasn't there to begin with.
Fortunately enough for Rachel, she would be to rid herself of that problem perhaps sooner than she would have hoped.
Finn was standing right in front of her, his own beer in hand.
"H-Hey," he stammered, looking down at her. He blinked once or twice, drinking in the image of Rachel in the outfit she was wearing for the night. It certainly wasn't the dress that Santana had leant to her the last time she had went to a party, but it wasn't what she normally wore, either.
She wore a slinky, black cocktail dress that was probably too tight and too short for her liking, but if Santana had dressed herself in it, she probably would have said that it wasn't tight enough. There was a sheer panel on the front that had masked the necklace she was wearing, the black bodice of the dress covering her somewhat modestly for the rest of the dress.
She still looked beautiful in Finn's eyes, whether she believed it or not.
Rachel bit down on her lip and looked up at Finn, feeling her heart beat a million times a minute.
"Hey," she said, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. She was wearing more makeup than she usually did, making sure she took precaution to make sure that she didn't streak her eyeliner or mascara when she wiped her eyes. She noticed the way he smiled at her and couldn't help but smile back at him wider, clicking her heels together nervously.
"I, um, heard you and Sam got pretty busy already tonight," Finn said, a bitter tone hidden in his voice. Rachel's eyes grew wide and she started to laugh slightly, trying to mask the fact that she was actually glad to see Finn.
"Oh, um, that was nothing," she said, waving her hand in the air to alleviate a cloud of cigarette smoke that was gathering in the room they were standing in. "Um, we were playing Spin the Bottle, and the bottle pointed at him. We didn't really kiss each other, if that's what you're worried about. I laughed the entire time and I-"
"Rachel, it's okay," Finn said, interrupting her. He watched as Rachel fell into herself, mouth still agape. "I mean, it's not like I don't care, I just… you don't want me anymore, remember?"
Rachel looked down at the floor and swallowed back her tears, sighing deeply. "I suppose you're right," she said, more towards the ground than up at Finn.
The silence between them was deafening, even with the loud music pulsating through the house they were in. It was like everyone at the party faded into the background and the only ones that mattered were Finn and Rachel, standing directly in front of one another with nothing to say.
"Look, Rachel, if you'd just let me talk to you," he said, reaching out to touch her hand. She pulled her hand away from his quickly, looking back up at him and sighing before shaking her head.
"I think you already know what my answer's going to be," she told him, words weighed down with tears. "Do you even realize what you took away from me?" She asked, holding on tightly to her cup in hand. "I mean, I know it doesn't matter to a lot of the girls that go here, but I had never… I had never done something like that with anyone before, Finn. I had never… no one had ever told me that they loved me before."
Finn sighed and looked down at the floor, feeling her break apart just by talking to him. Everyone else had vacated from the room they were in; Finn assuming that someone had taken out the beer keg and was doing keg stands in the bathroom upstairs.
He was glad that he was left with Rachel, allowing him to talk to her – if she was willing to listen.
"And I trusted you," she continued, wiping her tears from her eyes, careful as not to smear her makeup in doing so. "I trusted you and thought that maybe you weren't the person that everyone had warned me about, Finn." She sighed and her shoulders fell, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. "I guess I was wrong, though." She crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her eyes so that she wouldn't have to look at him. "You know, for someone who's supposed to make me feel so great about myself, I never feel that anymore when I'm around you," she said bitterly. "Like right now."
Finn sighed and looked at her, feeling worse than ever. "Rachel, look, I know that what I did was horrible," he began. "And there's not really anything that justifies it, or anything, but if you would just let me talk to you, for ten minutes, then I can explain everything."
Rachel looked up at him skeptically, sighing deeply.
"You want to take me away from this party, Finn?" Her voice almost sounded strained, like she was holding back her tears.
"If you want," he said, setting his cup down on a nearby side table.
"Well, then we better get going," she said, her voice lightening up and sounding slightly sweeter than it had been moments earlier. "I've always wanted to see your house, anyway."