Chapter Twenty One: Shiver
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Just having you here lying next to me And everytime you're close I shiver.. shiver.. shiver
It's the little things that cause a storm inside of me
Everytime we kiss I shiver.. shiver.. shiver
So caught up that I forget.. forget
Everytime you're close I shiver.. shiver.. shiver
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Jesse felt like he was living in a fish bowl, or one of those reality TV shows like Laguna Beach, because it seemed like every move he made was being watched. He hated the open door policy that they had in the rehabilitation wing, open door meaning that there actually was no door, and every time he even got up out of his bed he swore he saw the woman at the receptionist turn and look in his direction before returning to her computer screen. It had been the longest month of his entire life and he had no idea how people could get out and then relapse and have to come back, the mere memory of the three month isolation period would be reason enough to never, ever, try drugs again. The first two weeks had gone by fairly quickly as he adjusted to the environment, all the meetings, sessions, and activities that were organized; but after he learned where everything was and how it worked…the ennui started to kick in. He wasn't allowed any access to a phone, a computer, or anything else of the sorts so he had no way to have any communication with anyone outside of the four walls he was enclosed in, and he wasn't allowed to have any visitors at the moment either. At the rehabilitation center they believed that it was something you had to do more for yourself than for others, so for a bulk of the treatment they forbid any fraternizing with people who aren't enrolled in the program. It had been two weeks since he'd seen a familiar face and he was starting to feel trapped and claustrophobic in the facility he couldn't leave. He had another two weeks to endure before they would let him see people again, but he wasn't sure if he would still be sane by that time.
"Hey, partner."
Jesse resisted the urge to groan as he turned around slowly, plastering on his best show face as he turned to face the bane of his existence. If there was one person he couldn't stand in the entire building, it was the guy standing in front of him. He wasn't sure if it was the leather pants, the bright green striped polo shirt, or the freakishly blonde hair underneath what was quite possibly the ugliest cowboy hat on earth, but something about that guy just drove him insane.
"How you doing, boy?"
Or maybe it was just everything about him that drove him wild, in a bad way. Whenever he was around the guy for more than a minute he wanted to either strangle him or strangle himself, maybe both if necessary. It wasn't just the accent he had that drilled into his mind like a nail gun but the things that he said that made him want to light himself on fire.
"I'm fine, Landon." He said tightly, resisting the urge to grimace. The other guy walked in his room and sat down on the bed, patting it awkwardly as he motioned for Jesse to come forward and sit on with him. It drove him crazy that the guy would always walk right in and make himself at home and then act like the room belonged to him and Jesse was just the guest, it didn't even make sense. It was at times like those that he really wished there was a door, and it made him curse whoever had come up with the open door policy.
"Isn't that funny? I am too!" Jesse faked a grin and pretended to be interested while listing all of the states in his mind…in alphabetical order.
"Did you hear about that talent contest?" At this Jesse looked up from his internal counting to look Landon in the eye, finally hearing something worth listening to.
"What talent contest?"
"Every session they have a big end show case for everyone, just to give us something to celebrate at the end of it." Landon said with a toothy grin, eyes focused on Jesse's bicep. "I've been practicing my moves…wanna see em?"
"Uh…not right now." Jesse said dismissively, going back to the topic at hand. "Is it a competition?"
"Oh for realz. Winner gets to spend their last night here in the Alpine Room." Landon said with a huge grin on his face, seemingly proud that he had information Jesse didn't. "No one's ever been in it, not that I know anyways, so it's a pretty big deal! But it does have a closed door with a lock"
Jesse honestly didn't care about the prize, but the idea of a competition and winning…
It made the idea of living in isolation for the next two weeks ultimately bearable to think about.
"Thank you for the information." He said politely, gesturing for Landon to get out. Landon said goodbye and that he'd be by later and Jesse honestly hoped that he would forget, because that tended to happen a lot. The second Landon was out the door he started to pace as possible selections began to run through his head. This would be the most difficult performance of his life due to the fact that it would be almost impossible to prepare without proper accompaniment and sheet music…not to mention that the pianist would certainly be substandard and there would be no backing band. The horrifying nature of it almost caused him to stop his pacing but a challenge was a challenge, and he would embrace it head on.
He would have to sing the most faultless song…there was no other option. If he was lucky, which he generally was, he hoped that the spectacle would be open to the public and he'd be able to showcase his evidently superior talent. He wondered if Rachel would come if he invited her, and he knew instantly that there was no way she would be able to not attend. He decided then and there that he would choose a song that would speak to her, that would make her realize how much he loved her and how much she meant to him. He wasn't great with words, but communication through song was something he was much more comfortable with.
The only problem was…how to pick a song? Normally he would just pull something out of his repertoire but this performance…it had to be extravagant.
…and then it hit him, and he knew exactly what he had to perform.
*GLEE*GLEE*GLEE*
"Are you sure this is it?"
Rachel was standing before the full length mirror in Quinn's bathroom, scowling at her reflection. Quinn was leaning against the sink looking aghast as she looked on, completely astonished at what she was seeing. Rachel was only about 22 weeks pregnant, but no matter how much they tried…the clothes that Quinn had worn when she was 9 months pregnant wouldn't even fit Rachel. She had grown so much in the past two weeks that Quinn couldn't help but wonder if maybe Rachel was having Quintuplets, not just twins. She had debated saying this aloud but she knew how badly she would have reacted if someone had said so to her, so she kept her mouth shut. The pants that Rachel was wearing barely fit, they were tight around the middle and that wasn't good for the baby, and the shirt fit everywhere except for her boobs which were practically popping out of it.
"Yeah, Rach…sorry."
Rachel sighed and turned away from the mirror, sighing in frustration when she realized that she was going to have to actually go out and buy a new wardrobe. Since she'd been kicked out of her house she'd done her best to stay away from her parents until the bills had started to pour in and she hadn't had any other choices. They were currently paying her hospital bills and putting money into her bank account every so often but she hated taking their money, especially when they didn't support her decision. She knew that once the babies were born they would probably come around, but for the time being she was irate and upset that they would even hesitate for a second on embracing their grand children. For two people who had been treated so horribly by their own families, she was surprised that they would do the same to their own daughter.
"We're going to have to go shopping, aren't we?"
"At least Kurt will be happy; he said that he wanted to go to the mall." Quinn said, trying her best to be positive. She knew that the pregnancy was getting more and more difficult for Rachel, and her friendship with Zack was also getting more and more difficult. Quinn didn't know all of the details but for a few days Rachel and Zack avoided each other completely and then after that they were really close again, almost as close as Kurt and Mercedes were. They had even started finishing each others sentences, and Quinn was afraid to ask the other girl what was going on there. She knew that it was really none of her business, but she couldn't help but feel involved because of her friendships with both Rachel and Jesse. Having Jesse on isolation lockdown in the clinic was also really hard for Rachel, even if she'd never admit it, because Quinn knew how much it sucked to have to go it alone without the father being involved. Even though Puck had tried his best he'd still missed out on a bunch of things, and Quinn had to make most of the serious decisions on her own without him. Rachel was now in the same boat except for her it was worse because she couldn't communicate with Jesse at all, at least Puck had been a phone call away. Quinn pushed these thoughts out of her head and smiled weakly before pulling out her cell phone and calling their resident fashion expert, organizing an emergency shopping trip.
When Quinn fell into her bed later that night she felt completely exhausted, more than she'd ever been in her entire life (and that included after giving birth to Beth). She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket but she let it go to voice mail as she groaned, her whole body aching. Kurt had drug both she and Rachel around every single store in Lima, looking for the most "fashionable" maternity wear in town. They had searched for hours, everything being either too ugly or too small, until they had finally found a little boutique about twenty minutes out of town. Once there they'd finally managed to convince Rachel to start trying things on and they'd found her some cute tops and pants, even a few of the skirts that she loved so much. They'd had some difficulty finding her some dresses, which she loved to wear most because they weren't so tight on her stomach, but after an extensive search they found some cute ones. It was also nearing November and the Semi-Formal, so they had taken a slight detour to look at formal dresses in some of the department stores. Rachel had been almost impossible to deal with at that point, claiming that they would never find anything to cover her "ridiculously huge stomach" and they had decided to avoid looking for a dress for her and instead had focused on Quinn, which had made her slightly uneasy and nervous. She hadn't even officially been asked to the dance and she didn't know where she stood with Finn at the moment, he'd been kind of distant lately. After they'd slept together he'd been slowly pulling away and she didn't know if it was something that she'd done or if it was just him. She'd tried talking to him about it but he'd pulled away and had made up a bullshit excuse about going to football practice…on a Sunday!
She'd let Kurt drag her into 12 different stores and try on about four hundred dresses…but only three had really stood out in her mind…and they had all been completely unattainable. Kurt had taken them to some kind of designer boutique and the cheapest dress in the whole store, which had been hideous, had been close to 800 dollars! She could possibly understand spending that kind of money on a prom dress, but not for semi-formal…it seemed ridiculous. So they'd just tried the dresses on for fun, not wanting to go home so soon. It had been a fun day all in all and she was glad that they'd gone out to have some girl time because she felt like with glee and school they didn't always have so much time to spend together, especially when Kurt and Puck seemed attached at the lips half the time. They were totally adorable together but sometimes Quinn just wanted to pull them apart and remind them that they needed to breathe on occasion.
Maybe it was because she was having problems with Finn, but she couldn't help but feel envious that Puck was so obviously happy with Kurt when they'd been so miserable together. She sighed and closed her eyes, letting dreams overtake her as she wondered if she'd made the right decision in picking Finn over Puck time and time again.
Finn was great…but was he the one?
*GLEE*GLEE*GLEE*
Rachel had almost managed to fall asleep when she heard her phone ring from across the room. She sighed and slowly slid out of bed before crossing the room and picking it up, shocked when she saw that the phone call was from Zack. They had gotten much closer since their failed attempt at dating but he'd never called her on the phone before especially not at, she turned and looked at the clock, three in the morning.
"Zack?" She asked curiously, trying not to sound as worry as she really felt. "What's going on?"
"Can I come over?" His voice sounded shaky and her sixth sense was telling her that there was something seriously wrong so she reluctantly agreed and told him the address of Mr. Schue's apartment. Luckily they were on the ground floor so it wouldn't be difficult to sneak him in through the window. She sat on the edge of her bed and waited impatiently, practically springing up off of the bed when she heard footsteps crunching outside of her open window. She helped him in the room and was surprised to see how horrible he looked. When she'd seen him on Friday he'd been excited for the weekend as it was his 18th birthday and his parents were taking him back to his home town to see some relatives. It was only about an hour away but she was surprised to see that he was back, especially since he'd only left at lunch time on Friday.
"Are you okay?" She asked tentatively, looking at him curiously. His normally immaculate hair looked to be in complete disarray, and the clothes he was wearing were very out of character. He was wearing the baggiest sweat pants she'd ever seen in her entire life and he was wearing a camouflage button down shirt with a parka over top…definitely not clothes she'd expect to see him in.
"So far from it." He said emotionally, cradling his head in his hands as he flopped down on her bed and moaned. "I think I may have just ruined my life."
"Statistically, the chances of your life being ruined are about—"
"Rachel, please." She stopped talking and grimaced, not liking being cut off like that, but motioned for him to continue.
"I don't even know what I'm doing." He said, voice muffled from behind his hands. "I shouldn't even be here, but I didn't know where else to go."
"Don't worry." She said, she said jokingly. "Mr. Schue's house is kind of like a halfway house for troubled teens."
He smiled wryly and sat up straight, cracking his back as she settled in beside him. He grasped her hand in his and they sat there together in silence for a few minutes before he finally found the resolve to speak, his voice cracking when he spoke.
"I'm…god, this doesn't even make sense." He looked about to cry and she wrapped him into an embrace, holding him as he started to cry softly into the crook of her shoulder.
"Back when I l-lived there…there was this girl. She was…I don't know what she was, but there was something between us that was just so real. I was a sophomore and she was a senior and we dated for awhile but nothing ever really happened between us because she was…" he paused and seemed to take a deep breath and calm himself before continuing. "…she was raped, by her step dad, when she was younger. She had a really hard time trusting people and…well; we slept together on her prom night, before I left for New York. We kind of lost touch after that and I never really knew why…until now…"
She waited for him to continue, and she was shocked when he finally answered.
"She never kept in contact because…she almost died." He said quietly, voice barely a whisper. "She tried to kill herself two weeks after I left…."
Rachel felt her heart drop in her chest as the realized how guilty this news must have made him feel.
"That's horrible." She said softly, grasping his hand in hers. He looked as if he had more to say so she sat in silence and waited, giving him the time he needed to collect his thoughts.
"She has really severe depression, Rach…I need you to understand that." He looked so desperate for her to follow along that she just nodded and remained silent. "So when she saw me…it was like I'd never left, her life was just so much…brighter. Her mom said she'd never smiled so much as she had in the day I was there, so I knew I had to do something."
"Zack, what did you do?" She asked warily, afraid of what his answer would be.
"I…might have married her?"
"You…what?"
"We got married. It was just so sudden! One minute she was crying and begging me not to go and then before I knew it we were promising each other forever. I'm eighteen years old…how in the hell can I be married? I'm supposed to become somebody, supposed to do something with my life…but now it's like…I can see it. I can see it in front of me but it's like I can't grasp it, can't touch it…it's out of my reach now."
She felt her heart start to pound incessantly as his words circulated around her brain. His thoughts were similar to the ones she'd had towards the beginning of her pregnancy but she'd tried to remain optimistic…but really, how much hope could there really be? Teenagers had babies all of the time and it was statistically proven that most of those teenagers had another baby before two years were up. She was determined to make a career for herself on Broadway, and Jesse was as well, so were these babies just going to hinder them from accomplishing their dreams like Zack's new wife would for him? He would have to care for her like they would care for the babies…so how was the situation any different? If possibly, there's was even worse because they would be raising two people instead of one. Since she'd heard the news of the twins she hadn't really stopped to think about how difficult things were going to be with two babies instead of one, but now she wondered if maybe her fathers had been right…maybe they weren't ready for this new responsibility.
While Rachel's inner monologue was flowing, Zack sighed and laid down on the bed, crossing his arms behind his head as he did his best to quell the tears running down his cheek. She managed to snap herself out of her thoughts and lay down next to him, wrapping him in her arms. She found it somewhat bizarre that this time she was comforting him and not the other way around. She wasn't sure what was going to happen from there, but for the time being she knew that all she could really do for him was be there.
So she would.
She would worry about her own problems later, because her friend needed her right now.