Caught In Your Bad Romance

"Finn, wait!"

Rachel kept her eyes locked on his back as she raced to catch up with his long strides, her pleading calls falling on deaf ears, a clear refusal to engage that she stubbornly ignored. Reaching out, she grabbed onto his arm in an effort to halt his retreat, her fingers closing tight around the clenched muscles, trying to make him turn around, to meet her eyes…

"Please, just let me –"

"Let you what?" he snapped, yanking his arm free from her grasp and forcing some distance between them again even as he turned towards her. "Explain? I don't think there's anything left to be said, Rachel. You've made your feelings pretty clear."

She shook her head, her movements blind with desperation as she tried to move closer. "Please, you have to believe me, I never meant for this to happen. All of that…" She gestured vaguely down the corridor towards the choir room behind them, grimacing as if the whole experience had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. "I never wanted that. It wasn't… It wasn't meant to happen this way. I was going to talk to you… I wanted to –"

"Well, now you don't have to," he interrupted curtly, still refusing to meet her eyes. He gave a stiff shrug. "You're off the hook."

Rachel's gaze was distraught, awash and drowning in contemptible guilt as she stared wordlessly at her boyfriend, helpless to take back the pain she had unleashed. She could feel the waves of confusion and anger rolling off him, coiled tight within the angles of his body, taut with the grief of betrayal. It was suffocating. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe, to drag the air through her protesting lungs and hold back the wretched tears that rose up through her chest.

It was too much. It was all wrong. Rachel could handle being bullied and mocked, could bear the burden of disdain that had followed her most of her life, she could take the abuse and hatred from almost anyone in the world – but not from him. Please. Her whole heart was aching with the urge to reach out and embrace him, to hold his face and force him to look at her, to somehow make it better again. Anything to restore that warmth in his eyes, that trust in his smile. This was Finn: the boy who wrapped her up in big hugs at the end of every game she attended, whether they had won or lost; the boy who winked at her over the top of his drum kit as she danced around him; the boy who let her pick every duet they performed and watched rainy-day movies with her. This was the boy she had known and loved for almost two years, and now he was recoiling from her voice and touch as if she were poison.

Rachel felt like she was breaking from the inside out: shooting pains that tore through her body as the shattered fissures in her heart spread out in hundreds of invisible cracks, shaking her to her very core.

He made to turn away, moving further from her, determined to continue his retreat down a path they could never come back from. It was more than evident that he wanted nothing more than to be rid of her presence, but Rachel found she wasn't ready to let him go. Taking half a step forward, she whispered the only words she had left.

"I'm so sorry."

It wasn't enough, it would never be enough, and they both knew it. Yet she didn't say it in the hopes of forgiveness or reconciliation, nor to appease the violent aches of loathing that overwhelmed her. She said it because it was the most prevalent truth in this whole miserable situation, and she meant it so much more than he could imagine.

Her voice sounded like a faint echo, almost too soft to catch, but Rachel saw the reluctant hesitation that rose up to still his movements. As she watched, a deep sigh seemed to tremble through his shoulders, dropping his head an inch but releasing none of the tension that was etched through his muscles.

"How long?" he muttered at last, the question leaving his lips in a weary exhale.

Rachel paused for an agonizing second, unsure whether her answer would only serve to make things worse. She quickly dismissed her doubts, refusing to contemplate the thought of more lies. She owed him her honesty and now was her last chance to give it. She had nothing left to lose anyway.

"A few weeks," she admitted quietly.

He stood with his back to her and Rachel didn't dare move closer to approach him, instead studying him intently as she waited, silently begging him just to talk to her. Don't go. She tried to read the balance of emotion in his body, but it was so much harder without access to those expressive features and unguarded eyes. He'd never hidden from her before…

Finally he raised his head, letting his gaze pass over the lockers beside them but paying it no attention. "I knew something was going on with you." For a moment he sounded so tired, defeated by the crushing fist of realisation. "You've been way too distant lately. But I just thought… I thought you'd come around, that you'd speak to me when you were ready." His hands were fisted tight at his sides, as if in restraint. "But I never imagined it was anything like this. I never believed you could be this deceitful… this screwed up."

Rachel winced, stung by the raw bitterness in his voice. "Finn… I never meant to hurt you. I know that doesn't make things right, I know there's nothing I can say to take any of it back, but you have to understand – I never wanted…"

"You know what I don't get?" he demanded, taking her aback as he suddenly turned around, bringing them face to face at last. Broken love raged in his eyes, and it felt like a hangman's noose tightening around Rachel's neck, choking the air right out of her. He clenched his jaw around the words, as if it pained him to even utter the question. "Why him?"

The unspoken name hung in the air between them, deafening in its silence and fraught with electric pressure, like a tempest waiting to break.

Rachel felt her lips part out of habit, searching for the confident answer she was always expected to have, but the whispering words caught and tangled in her chest and refused to come to her aid. She could only stare at him, rendered speechless at the fierce reproach in his gaze; all the turmoil that lay in such a simple yet devastating question.

"After everything he did to us – to you – how could you still have feelings for him?"

"I – I don't know," she said haltingly. She had asked herself that very same thing often enough, and the answer never got any easier to understand. "Believe me, I wished I didn't. I didn't want to…"

"But you did."

Those few words were like a knife in the gut to Rachel. She shut her mouth helplessly, cursing her sudden inarticulateness. But what could she say? She was the guilty party here, straight and simple, and she could hold her hands up all she wanted but there was no getting away from the wrath of self-inflicted consequences. Rachel didn't think she could hate herself anymore than she did right now. It was beyond miserable.

Finn observed her reaction, taking in her silence with warring eyes but a stony expression. He struggled with the desperate urge to gather her into his arms, to hold her one last time, breathe in the comforting scent of her hair and feel her small form wrapped close against him. But he just couldn't. Yet the impulse was as strong as ever, and the confusion only served to fuel his anger further. He forced himself to hold his ground.

"How could you do this, Rachel?" He stared down at her, feeling his voice rising with each word and not even bothering to try and control it. "How could you betray me, all of us, with him of all people? How could you let him worm his way back into our lives, allow him to come between us all over again!" He was all but shouting now, gesturing accusingly at the empty air around them, his face contorted in contempt. "You do realise this is just an amusing head-fuck to him? All he's ever done is screw us over and sabotage the team from within. It's exactly like last year, for god's sake! He nearly destroyed everything at Regionals, everything we've been working so hard for. All he cared about was winning for himself. It's all he knows how to do. What the hell makes you think this time is any different?"

Rachel finally snapped. "This isn't about the competition, Finn!" she cried in frustration. "This is about us."

"There is no us. Not anymore," he corrected. He sighed then, his shoulders heaving heavily. "I'm done, Rachel. With you – with all of this."

She shook her head, holding his gaze imploringly. "Don't say that…"

He almost laughed, but the humour was hollow. "What did you honestly expect? You can't have it both ways. You made your choice the moment you agreed to play his game. Every time you put him before us; every time you looked me in the eyes and lied."

"Finn, I –"

"As far as I'm concerned, he's welcome to you. Maybe you two deserve each other after all."

His voice was sharp enough to make her flinch, hard with a sullen resentment she had never heard from him before. It was almost more than she could stand. Rachel hated to see what her actions were doing to the boy in front of her: the embittered shell of betrayal building around his heart, the cynicism that would forever cloud his perspective from now on. All because of her.

She knew he was lashing out, heedless in his anger, but it did nothing to lessen the spiteful sting of his words. She opened her mouth without thinking, but Finn cut her off before she could start.

"Don't you get it yet?" he pressed on heatedly. "This is exactly what he knew would happen, this is just what he wanted. It wasn't enough to steal Regionals from us, to cost us our hopes and dreams, he wanted to make one last point." His eyes locked on hers scathingly. "That he would always hold the power to break us: that he can turn your loyalty with a flick of his wrist and ruin our lives whenever he fucking chooses to."

Rachel felt herself shaking her head, her own temper rising to the challenge, hitting out in retaliation. Objections railed throughout her mind, tightening within her chest. "You can't say that, you don't know what's been going on –"

"Evidently!" he shot back, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Last time I checked, the jerk ditched you in the most humiliating way possible, revealed himself as the two-faced conniving bastard he was, and you wanted nothing more to do with him. Funny that, isn't it? Guess I must have missed a major plot twist along the way," he muttered sarcastically. "Just how long after he showed up again did it take for him to sweet-talk his way out of that one? Or were you more than happy to let him off the hook, to wipe your memory and sell your dignity for the price of a charming whisper and empty promise?"

"He didn't charm his way out of anything," she retorted firmly, the memory of their volatile confrontation echoing back through her mind. A gaping chasm of heartache that she had been so sure was unconquerable… No, the rocky road to conciliation had been far from easy.

His brow creased as he studied her, his tone softening almost pleadingly. "Don't you remember how much he hurt you? Because I do."

"I remember," she uttered quietly, betraying nothing of the dull twinge that gripped her heart, smarting at old wounds. As if she could ever forget.

Finn took a step closer, as if determined to pull her back to the harsh reality of all of this, as much as it pained them both. He spoke forcefully, compelling her to meet his gaze. "This is the guy who let his friends trash you, who smashed an egg on your face in front of everyone and walked away without a second look. The person who almost cost us the club, who did everything he could to crush your dreams!"

He could see that stubborn gleam burning in those achingly beautiful eyes, familiar and heartbreaking, even as she hid a wince and glanced away with a shaky breath. Finn found himself loathing the sound of his own voice, but unable to hold back the wronged fury that seethed up in his chest and flowed through his words.

"All of it, it was only ever a scheme to him – a chance to undermine the competition and secure his own success. Don't you think there's a bit of a pattern emerging? He's just screwing with you again and you can't even see it! You never could."

Rachel clenched her hands tighter around her arms, crossed convulsively over her torso. "I'm well aware of everything he did. I've had to live with it every day, unable to confront him or understand, trying so hard to put it behind me and move on." Her eyes flickered down, sombre and guarded. "You'll never know how much I hated him for that."

"Could've fooled me."

Looking up, she sighed and held his gaze as calmly as she could. "We all make mistakes, Finn. We're all guilty of acting selfishly and hurting others. That doesn't mean we should be forever condemned for our sins, that we can't make any effort to try and right our wrongs." She took a deep breath, steeling her own conviction. "Jesse's every bit as human as the rest of us – and just as capable of failing."

Finn scoffed under his breath, rolling his eyes. "So it's all forgive and forget now? Man, I knew the guy could play you like a puppet but I never guessed he was that good."

Rachel frowned, biting her tongue in an effort to maintain her waning restraint. "Whether I forgive him or not…that's something that's between him and me."

Neither spoke for a long moment, both parties regarding the other warily in the loaded silence, their nerves encroaching ever closer to breaking point. Finn looked away, his mouth curling in disdain. "You're a lot of things, Rachel, but I never thought you'd lead me on. That you would cheat on me like this."

Rachel felt her contrition start to rebel in defiance. The bitter condescension in his voice struck at something deep inside her, breaching the walls of a long repressed damn. She narrowed her eyes, unable to stop the words that burst forth from her lips, sharp and withering. "What? You mean like all the times you led me on when you were still with Quinn?"

Finn scowled in impatience. "That was different –"

"Why?" she demanded loudly, shocking them both with the vehemence in her voice. "Because you're a boy? Somehow you're allowed to screw up but still hold everyone else to judgement? Because you were confused? Scared? Because you thought that maybe, just maybe, you loved two people at the same time?"

Rachel felt furious tears stinging her eyes and quickly glanced away, desperate to get them under control. She would be damned if she started crying now. Her lungs felt sore with the effort of breathing, her hands trembling almost invisibly. She didn't know she'd ever held this much hurt and anger over his transgressions before, resentment over everything that had happened at her expense.

"How many times, Finn? How many times did you kiss me, ask me out, meet up and make me feel like we had a chance – when all the while you were still with Quinn? When you still believed she was carrying your child!"

Finn had a face like thunder, a scornful set to his mouth. "You hardly complained at the time."

Rachel recoiled as if slapped. "And that makes it okay? You knew how I felt about you, and you manipulated my feelings just as much as Jesse did!"

"How can you even say that –"

She laughed, a broken note that sounded choked and watery in her throat. "Picking me up and dumping me whenever it suited; expecting me to be at your beck and call; to never complain when you put your reputation ahead of me. All the times you bailed when things got tricky or inconvenient; using me to further your own goals –"

Finn looked like he planned to object to her allegations but Rachel didn't give him the chance, elaborating before he could even raise a finger in protest. "Playing with my heart in order to secure your own future – afraid you wouldn't get a scholarship without the glee club and not caring what means you had to use to justify the ends. So don't stand there and pretend like you're the white knight in this story, like you've never put a foot wrong in this relationship."

Silence stretched between them for what felt like forever, the air thick with tension as her words seemed to reverberate around them, both still struggling to absorb them. Rachel held his gaze unapologetically, despite the grief that consumed her heart.

Finally, Finn broke the quiet.

"If you were so unhappy, so outraged at the way you were treated…why didn't you ever say anything before? Why did you fight so hard to be together?"

Rachel's expression softened in remorse, her eyes torn with tenderness. "I wasn't unhappy," she assured gently. "I loved you. And I accepted your mistakes and your flaws, even when they hurt me, because you accepted mine and cared about me in spite of them. I overlooked all the times we brought the worst out in each other because I couldn't stop loving you and wanting us to be together. But things were far from perfect, Finn. You can't deny we had our problems."

"I just love how you're trying to get out of this by turning it back on me."

Rachel sighed, closing her eyes wearily, gathering the last of her strength. "I'm not trying to get out of anything. I know I can never defend what I did, but you have no idea how much I regret hurting you."

Finn frowned, his suspicions unallayed by the sincerity in her gaze. "But you don't regret him?"

She almost seemed to flinch at the question, lowering her gaze and swallowing painfully, as if waiting for words that just wouldn't come. "I regret a lot of things," she said at last.

He eyed her closely for a long moment, feeling his heart constrict all the tighter in his ribs at the mere thought. But he had to know.

"Did you sleep with him?"

Rachel hesitated. It was only a moment, but it was enough. Her eyes flickered up to his, her lips parting like she wanted to speak, yet her gaze was so much more eloquent than words could ever be. As he watched, she reluctantly shut her mouth again and surrendered to the silence, unintentionally opting for truth by omission.

It was fucking déjà vu all over again.

"Unbelievable," he spat, fixing her with such a cold glare that it almost made her back up a step. He could see the blow of his words as they struck across her face, but he was past caring right now. "How could you be so stupid? Don't you realise that's all he ever wanted from you? All he gives a damn about is your voice and your body – they're the only things that will ever matter to a guy like him."

Rachel turned her head away, refusing to heed the warning in his words, desperate to fight back the persistent blade of doubt that slipped between her thoughts. "That's not true…"

"How can you be so blind? Are you seriously this naïve? You were only ever a conquest to him all along." His eyes hardened mockingly, his mouth settling into a grim line. "Sorry, Rachel, but that's the only unfinished business he had with you."

Rachel felt a knot welling in her throat, a pressure building in her chest that made it all the more difficult to breathe. This wasn't Finn. Finn was never this cutting and cruel… but then she'd never hurt him this deeply before. With this affair she'd crossed some unspoken line of understanding, betrayed him in the most intimate of ways, and there was no coming back from that.

She knew how Finn felt about Jesse. Their old Vocal Adrenaline rival was the one person Finn truly couldn't stand, managing to incite his jealous streak and bringing out his competitive side in a way not even the prize of Nationals could quite accomplish. Finn had never seemed to really recover from the impact of her ex's presence, his name always a touchy subject that they tended to avoid as a rule.

Maybe it was because her boyfriend had known all along, deep down, that Jesse was the only person who had never relinquished his hold on Rachel's heart. Finn had been there with her after all; the closest witness to her silent heartache in the weeks following the attack in the parking lot. He had seen the bruises under her eyes, the dull echo of grief in her gaze that she fought so hard to hide, the way she had clung onto his hand a little tighter whenever she caught the passing melody of certain songs on the air. They never spoke of it, both determined to never look back after that fateful night at Regionals, intent on closing that unpleasant chapter of their lives and eager to start their own.

Yet the ghosts had never truly faded, the memories finding new ways to make their presence felt by those left behind. Lives had raced on at breakneck speed, regrets had gone unfulfilled, and still that bittersweet longing had lingered like a whispering promise, forever shadowing her smile and haunting the light behind her eyes.

Perhaps Finn had always suspected, always feared it. Maybe that was what made them try so hard, rush in like fools and bury their secrets in the loyal embrace of music. The one inevitable truth neither wanted to accept yet could never seem to escape. It was always him. The one boy capable of unravelling their world with a snap of his fingers, the seductive threat of destruction that lay within a single, stolen heartbeat. A dangerous weakness that had always belonged to him.

And now they had just proved it beyond any doubt.

Jesse…

Rachel shook her head to herself, almost unconsciously, the words a soft mutter under her breath. "No, you're wrong."

"Am I?"

She could feel his gaze fixed so intently on her, something almost rueful stirring within the ice of his tone, but still she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. She heard him sigh in frustration.

"Sorry, Rachel. But you did this." At her stubborn silence, he felt his impatience rising. "I don't believe you. Do you honestly think it means any more to him this time than it did before? Just how did you think all of this was going to play out? You guys aren't exactly the stuff 'happily ever after' is made of." He smirked bitterly. "There's no fairytale ending there, trust me. And now he's finally got everything he wanted from you, do you really think he's going to hang around? What happens now, huh? What happens when he disappears back to L.A and leaves us to pick up the pieces again?"

Rachel was frowning at the floor, her eyes dark and troubled, her lips pressed so tight together they were almost white. She was still so beautiful. Finn clenched his jaw and glanced away, forcing himself to suppress the ache that raged through his heart, the urge not to let go. It wouldn't make a difference anyway. Not ultimately.

"I really thought you were different, Rachel." His voice was quiet now, exhausted and resigned to the outcome. "I never imagined you could ever make me feel like this. Maybe I was kidding myself from the beginning, thinking we could ever belong together. That we could somehow make it work against all the odds, that we would ever be enough for each other. But you know, despite everything… I always loved you."

Rachel raised her head and caught his gaze sadly, the words raw in her throat. "And I loved you."

A broken smile passed over his lips, a pitiful echo of their past happiness. "Then you have a very funny way of showing it."

He held her eyes for a moment longer, a mutual acknowledgement that was grieved in silence. When he finally turned away from her once more, she didn't stop him.

Rachel watched him retreat out of sight, hanging onto the sound of his footsteps until they too faded from the corridors, leaving her alone in the unforgiving quiet and at the mercy of her own collapsing thoughts. Always alone.

Finn's face was etched into her memory, his parting words ringing in her ears, and it all twisted through her heart like shards of glass. The sense of loss was almost crippling.

She thought of their teammates. The betrayal in their faces and accusation in their voices, the isolation and distrust and punishment that was still awaiting her, the selfish consequences she had brought down upon them all. She closed her eyes in frustration, knotting a hand in her hair as apathy gathered within her chest. Let them bitch and gossip. She was done in. It was over. For the first time in her life, she couldn't find the strength; couldn't summon a show face; couldn't stomach the thought of another performance.

If Finn could bail on rehearsal, why the hell couldn't she?

Her pounding footsteps bounced off the walls, echoing around the endless hallways and following after her like a chorus of mocking applause. She swiped a hand across her eyes and slammed through a set of double doors with reckless force, desperate to escape into the anonymity of the open streets.

For the first time in her life, Rachel ran away.

~o~

AN This chapter was absolute hell to write. I was banging my head so hard against the desk, I almost blacked out a few times. My muse can be a real bitch when she doesn't want to co-operate. Oh well. Better late than never I suppose…

As ever, love and thanks to all you guys, especially those kind enough to leave such inspiring reviews. Everything is so very much appreciated. I really can't believe I've been writing this story for so long! Hopefully I'll be able to finish it before Season Three comes and goes!