Rachel lit a cigarette, left over from one of Joey's dates on the coffee table, smoke whipped thickly into the air before she spoke. She didn't even know she had started again until now.

As she noticed how intensely angry Joey remained, she thought dryly that cigarettes don't kill you fast enough.

She waited until Joey finally managed some form of eye contact; when he darted his eyes past her to the clock, she took that as initiative.

"So much to say…huh" began Rachel awkwardly, unsure of Joey's patience…she continued a little stronger:

"So how did we get here? I guess I'll start with me and Ross. Ross and I…. when I was little there was this girl I knew the real insecure but really sweet type…who uh, one day asked me 'what it was like to be beautiful?" Rachel sighed; "Because I'm so gorgeous right?" she laughed harshly and pulled from her cigarette.

Joey remained stoically silent. She didn't die from instant spontaneous lung cancer so she continued.

"And I uh…I said I don't know I guess I don't think about it. Cause we were like twelve at the time and I just knew I got almost everything I wanted…"

Joey shifted his feet in slowly on the carpet, seemingly disinterested.

"And she, well then she just gives me this dead pan look of realization like 'don't you see it or something' and I'm getting aggravated so I say 'what!' and she, she says 'so that's what its like…not HAVING to think about yourself'.

Rachel gave a slight smile into Joey's empty face.

Joey muttered, "So—"

"So like finally over two decades later I've begun to see so much more meaning that conversation."

Joey now stared ahead blankly at the flashing television.

The world passed by in his glazed eyes as headline news flashed in his pupils. North Korea was in continued nuclear dissent with the UN. Odd solar flare activity near Mars. Brad Pitt is a father for the sixth time, this time with a dash of Japanese charity. France has unacceptable weapons of mass destruction in Ethiopia. Oprah's lost weight again.

Rachel's voice went on emotion rising, struggling to find her words.

"I don't know a lot of things Joey. But I know being with Ross used to be such an effortless thing, it wasn't having to think about all the insecurities of a relationship, it was not having to calculate it, it's just such apart of who you are it's not a conscious effort—

"So…" Joey mumbled again his eyes glaring at her not seeing where she was going.

"—so when you do you suddenly become so much more conscious of things. Maybe it says something's wrong. Everything is forced. I love Ross…but I've just become so conscious of thing which is weird because it always used to be him who over analyzed everything"

Her words choked in her throat as tears swelled in her eyes. She wouldn't cry, not when Joey was this angry.

"I just became aware of how fast MY life was becoming OUR life and that should be okay because that's what marriages are…but so much of this is just passing us by…and finally (she began to get louder) you fucking wake up with a kid and possible car note later and say WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?"

Joey didn't even flinch at her outburst; something about the television light was safer for him to focus on then Rachel right now.

Rachel stood up pacing back and forth across the carpet. She left her cigarette on the small coffee table in front of her.

"I guess, I just don't understand why everything is conscious routine effort now. I'm so aware of all our…of all of my insecurities. Ross deserves this dream finish. And I…am…I am just so scared that I'm going to get lost somewhere in between Monday mornings and PTA meetings. That I'll be just as desensitized as Mon."

At those last words, tears flowed freely down her makeup.

She squinted and hesitated as if an invisible wall had fallen in front of her path.

Tousling her hair, she continued "It's like we wake up every morning, make breakfast, drink coffee, go to work, come home, take a shit, and with the same efficiency of a work memo, we mutter off 'the I love you's', go to sleep and repeat the same thing every minute of every day for the rest of our lives."

Rachel collapsed onto the leather seat behind her, her hair falling all over her shoulders. She leaned forward and put out the cigarette and stared into space. She'd been waiting months to articulate the mysterious discontentment building up inside her.

"And Ross is okay with this…He doesn't ask that I'm perfect. I just wish I wasn't so conscious of how secondary our love has become…to life, to kids, to work, and so on and so on…maybe I could be just as happy as Ross then…and Chandler understood, because of him and Monica and everything with that, so of course we leaned on one another a little more than you guys. We both had these Gellar's who were preoccupied with themselves, their dreams or the failure of their dreams. Chandler's was of course much worse. When he came over the other night, he was just looking for a friend…and I expected to be a friend, nothing more"

She looked towards Joey desperately for a response of any kind, verbal or non verbal. She felt anger returning to her as the expression on her face hardened. How could he of all people become so cold to her over a lie?

Chandler and Joey were always close, but she still expected Joey to care about her side of things. His reaction was beyond painful.

"Joey---"she said with exasperation.

Joey suddenly looked up at her in anger and confusion.

"Rachel…" he almost whispered.

"Joey please say something, yell, or kick me, anything!"

"I'm sorry Rach…you're looking for something from me? Oh my God. You don't even see why you can't have this conversation with me, do you? What do you want? Sympathy? I am sorry for that Rachel because I don't even know what to say to you. For this last minute I've just watched your mouth move and tried to hear these words but there's really nothing you can say to me at this point."

Rachel tiredly begged "Then you tell me Joey, why are you so angry with me, what the hell is it you're so damn convinced I did? What is it exactly? And don't tell me I provoked Chandler cause you and I both know that's not true"

"Rachel—"Joey warned with his deep tone.

"--NO, What Joey?" Rachel snapped clinching her teeth.

"How stupid do you think I am Rachel?" Joey yelled standing up quickly, his masculine frame blocking out the television, yet allowing the light to glance off his back, giving him a surreal appearance.

Rachel knew he just hit a breaking point; what came out of his mouth now was probably going to be some combination of truth and hate and she sat back down in preparation for both.

He continued in a strained voice:

"I know that's the running joke with you guys and most of the time I really could care less because it doesn't take brilliance to see what's been going on! There is nothing you can say about Ross to defend your actions…"

"There WERE NO ACTIONS with Chandler that night! He was drunk. I didn't provoke him and I'm not saying anything against Ross!"

"SHUT UP, for two minutes please cause there's nothing you can say about Chandler to make me think you didn't in some way welcome that night….And so there's nothing you can say to show me you really give a damn about Monica, Ross, Chandler, or any of your friends Rachel, cause from day one all you think about is you!"

"You're an asshole, I'm not saying I'm a saint, but you can't tell me I don't care! What have I done…that's so horrible you can't even make eye contact with me…why do you hate me?" Rachel replied, her voice trembling with anger.

Joey yelled back "That's just it! I don't hate you! I loved you! Don't you realize that! No one is asking for you to be perfect, for you Rach, no one ever does…just as a friend, not to fuck Chandler!"

The words out of Joey's mouth knocked all the breath and reason out of Rachel. She was reeling back into the cushion behind her. She felt each word tearing through her flesh with the equivalent of a bullet spay, leaving her speechless and bleeding to death in his apartment.