It felt as though Rachel's blood had run completely ice cold, and it wasn't because of the frigid temperature around her. She could see the deep hurt in Jesse's eyes and it terrified her to know that he probably thought that she had kissed him willingly. It all looked so wrong right now with her having just been holding roses from him and being kissed on her front doorstep when she told Jesse that she wouldn't be meeting up with him in her house. There she was, an hour later, with Finn there kissing her exactly where she said she wouldn't see him.

She had to do something. She had to say something. She had to make sure that he didn't believe that this was really happening.

"Jesse, it's—"

"It's not what it looks like? Really, Rachel?" Jesse snapped, clenching his fists and turning to Finn. "And you! Get your hands off her!"

Finn tightened his grip on her waist and tried to pull her back against him but Rachel wasn't having any of it. She pulled herself away from Finn and ran down the steps towards Jesse. He bypassed her completely and stormed up the steps to Finn. Grabbing onto the collar of his jacket, Jesse pulled him down the steps and threw him into the grass.

"Jesse, it's not worth it…" Rachel said quickly, trying to rush to him to prevent him from doing anything out of hand.

Jesse turned his head to say something back to Rachel, but Finn grabbed his jacket and pulled him to the ground with him. They rolled in the grass and Finn managed to push Jesse down below him before raising a fist.

"FINN NO!" Rachel cried, throwing her hands out to try and grab his fist before it could hit Jesse, but it slipped away.

Jesse moved his head at the last moment, causing Finn to smash his fist into the frozen ground. As he groaned and stretched out his hurting hand, Jesse rolled out from under him and brought his own fist to collide with the other boy's jaw.

"Who the hell do you think you are? She's not yours!" Jesse growled, pushing him back down to the ground when he tried to sit back up.

Finn grabbed Jesse's jacket and rolled them over again, bringing his own fist into to the side of his face. He ignored Rachel's cries for him to stop and managed to get another hit in.

"You don't deserve her!" he growled. "You left her and broke her heart!"

Before he could raise his fist again, Jesse grabbed it and pushed him down to the ground again.

"And you're better for her, huh?" he asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

"Ten times better," he spat back, grabbing a fist full of snow from a shoveled pile nearby and throwing it in his face.

Rachel stood in the driveway shaking from head to toe as she watched the confrontation between Jesse and Finn. It didn't have anything to do with the freezing cold. By now she had forgotten all about it. She was just terrified of Jesse getting hurt or that he'd change his mind about wanting to be with her after it ended. Whenever she tried to get close to them, Jesse yelled for her to get away because he didn't want her to get hurt trying to stop it. It was frustrating her that he was being so ridiculous and insisting on fighting with Finn when it wasn't even worth it.

"Jesse, please stop!" Rachel cried out after watching him punch Finn once more.

Jesse's head snapped up to look at Rachel and he clenched his jaw.

"Are you really trying to defend him?" he asked, shooting her a look of disbelief.

Rachel shook her head vigorously and stepped closer to them, but had to jump back when Finn tried to attack Jesse again.

"You're better than this, Jesse. Just stop the fight and come inside. Forget about it!"

"She really wants you to stop because she still loves me," Finn muttered in Jesse's ear, causing him to snap back and push him down again.

"Deny it all you want, but you know that no matter what you do, she'll always come back to me like she tried to do today."

He grabbed Jesse's collar and pulled him close so he could whisper something in his ear so that Rachel couldn't hear.

"She asked me to meet up with her today. She said to be at her house. She kissed me. She wanted it. That's the truth," he whispered before pushing him down to the ground and getting up.

Jesse pushed himself up and looked from Finn to Rachel in disbelief. This was all too much for him and he needed a moment to think. Standing on his feet, he shook his head and walked over to his car.

"Jesse, where are you going?" Rachel asked frantically, walking after him.

Putting his hand on the door of his car, he stopped and paused for a moment.

"Jesse…" Rachel called, feeling terror flood through her at the thought of him leaving her right now.

He turned back to look at her and shook his head.

"You said you weren't going to meet up with him at your house," he said, his voice shaking as he spoke to her. "And here he is."

Rachel shook her head immediately and walked up to him, but he took a few steps back.

"He just showed up. He brought the flowers and—"

"Rachel, why are you lying?" asked Finn from behind her.

"What?"

"You asked me to come over here. You called me. You said you wanted to get back together!"

"What are you even—"

"You thought you could have us both, didn't you?" asked Finn with his arms crossed.

Rachel turned to face Jesse with frightened eyes. She hoped and prayed that he wouldn't believe whatever Finn was trying to make him think.

"Jesse—"

"Save it," he muttered, turning back to his car.

"Jesse, please. I swear nothing's going on between me and him. He's lying! Why don't you believe me?"

Jesse looked down at her and then up at Finn behind her.

"I need to get out of here and think, Rachel. This is just too much for me," he said, putting his hands up in the air before stepping back and getting into his SUV.

"Jesse, stop. Let's talk about this!" Rachel called after him as he started the car.

"Please!"

No amount of her cries for him to stay made him stop, though, and he continued to drive out of her driveway and down the street. Not one to accept defeat, Rachel ran after him and cried for him to come back before she ran out of breath halfway down the block.

"I need you, please don't go," she cried, sinking down to her knees in the middle of the street.

After a moment of sulking, she was brought back to reality by the sound of a car horn behind her trying to get by. She pushed herself up and remembered that Finn was still in her driveway and stormed back over there in the biggest rage that she had ever been in. Before he could say anything, she smacked him as hard as she could. The sound echoed through the yard and made birds fly out of the trees nearby.

"WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?" she shouted, pushing him in his chest.

"Woah, Rachel—"

"You lied to him! You made him believe I wanted to cheat on him!"

"It was the only way!" he replied, holding both his hands up to protect himself in case she hit him again. "I couldn't stand seeing you with him, okay?"

"I never thought you'd ever be capable of such a low thing, Finn. What's wrong with you? Why can't you just let me be happy?" she cried, kicking a pile of snow next to them in frustration.

"Because you're supposed to be with me!" he shouted back.

"You lost your chance with me when you dumped me! I've moved on! I'm not yours anymore!" she shouted and slapped in arm. "I don't want to be with you, Finn! And…and… you….YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!"

Feeling a total surge of rage take over her, she raised her fist and punched Finn as hard as she could. It was the first time she ever hit him this hard and she wasn't feeling a bit of remorse for it after what he had just done to sabotage her happiness.

"Stop being so crazy!" he snapped back because he was fed up with her shouting.

"I'm not crazy!" she cried.

This completely struck a nerve with her. She could take a lot these days, but she couldn't take having her sanity questioned ever since she started needing therapy and especially since the accident at the bridge. It hurt enough when a stranger in the hallways said it about her, but to have Finn, a guy who was supposed to be her teammate and friend say it after destroying everything for her made it so much worse.

"You're completely crazy," he replied, walking down to his truck to leave before stopping. "You know what? I don't care anymore. You've obviously got serious problems. I see that now. And if Jesse is stupid enough to come back, he'll see it, too."

Rachel stood rooted in her spot as she took in what he said.

"That's not true," she whimpered.

"You're crazy and with the way you're going, you're gonna be alone forever, Rachel. I'm done," he said, turning to climb into his truck and head out of the driveway.

Rachel reached one of her shaking hands into her pocket for her cell phone, but it wasn't there. She checked her other pocket, but it was empty as well. She quickly turned and ran back into her house, stomping over the scattered roses on the floor from Finn. Feeling completely hysterical, she kicked them and stomped on a few of them before continuing back inside the house. Slamming the door shut, she ran up the stairs and ran straight for her bedroom. She frantically searched her room for her phone so she could call Jesse and explain what really happened, but no matter where she looked, she couldn't find it. Grabbing her house phone on her desk, she tried calling it, but couldn't hear it ringing and she couldn't remember the last few digits of his phone number by heart to manually punch it in the house phone. She was too worked up to remember that she had left her phone in her coat pocket hanging on the coat rack downstairs by the front door.

Giving up, she grabbed her sheets and pulled them back before climbing into her bed. She pulled the covers back over her and cried into her pillow as she tried to warm up from being out in the freezing cold for so long without a coat. Her thick quilt wasn't doing enough to help her, though, because she was still shivering intensely under the covers. Overcome with impatience and frustration, she pulled the covers off and moved over to her closet for one of her sweaters, grabbing the first one she could find. She ended up grabbing the RENT sweater Jesse gave her when they first dated that she never had the guts to let go of. She threw it on without a second thought and felt a sob rip through her as she thought of him. She made her way back to her bed to crawl under the sheets again, hoping to feel warm now that she had his sweater on.

As she laid there rubbing her arms and legs to generate warmth, she saw the picture of her and Jesse on her bedside table and reached out for it. It was slightly out of her reach, so she leaned closer to grab it. In her attempts, she accidentally knocked it over and heard the glass from the picture frame shatter.

Pushing herself up, she got up to clean the mess, but stopped when she saw all the sharp glass that lay there before her.

Parked in the lot of a local gas station nearby, Jesse St. James stood pacing back and forth in front of his car. Like he told Rachel before, he needed time to think. He couldn't do it with all the insanity that was going on back there. He tried to replay everything that happened in his mind. He started from the beginning when he saw them in the choir room and went straight through until the time that he left her in front of her house after the confrontation.

Leaning again his car, he sighed and considered the possibility of Finn being right. The thought didn't sit well with him and he knew that it just couldn't be. After all that he and Rachel had been through, she wouldn't do something like that to him, could she? As he thought about this he saw the terrified look in her eyes as he walked away from her in his mind. Realizing just what he had done, he kicked a lamp post nearby in frustration. He had let his own stupid insecurity that he usually kept under wraps get the better of him and he actually believed Finn Hudson. Of course Finn would stoop so low and try something like that to break them up. He was shocked that he was so stupid not to see it before.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled his car door open and immediately set off to head back to Rachel's house. If he had to bed for forgiveness, he was fully prepared to swallow his pride and do so because he had royally fucked up.

Rachel stepped into her bathroom and ran a hot bath. None of her attempts to get warm were working and she was running out of options. By now she was starting to wonder if her shivering really had anything to do with the cold because it could very well just be due to the broken feeling she was experiencing. Such an experience made her feel as though all the happiness had drained from her body, and with that all the warmth went with it.

She replayed everything that happened in her mind and fought back the urge to cry more when she remembered how Jesse just left. She began to shake completely when she remembered Finn calling her crazy. Looking down at her hands, she saw them shaking as she tried to reach for one of the knobs to get the right temperature.

Grabbing her hand with her other one, she tried to steady herself, but it was no use. She really was crazy. As she waited for the tub to fill, she grabbed at Jesse's sweater and pulled it over her head. She quickly shed the rest of her clothes and glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Looking at herself, she felt like she was right back at the day that Jesse left her for New York the first time. Just like before, she could barely recognize her reflection in the mirror. So much for all the progress she was making. As she stared at her reflection, she didn't realize that she was digging her fingernails into her hands like she used to whenever she was in such a situation. Looking down at her hands, she saw the marks she was creating and felt that old rush that she used to feel when she used to do it. It felt like a small wave of relief spreading through her.

She needed more of it.

Running her thumb along the edges of her nails, she knew that they weren't sharp enough. Sighing, she looked out her open door and saw the glass on her floor that was still there from the broken picture frame. She walked over to the frame and picked up the picture of her and Jesse with one hand and the biggest and sharpest piece of glass with her other hand. She kissed the picture and set it down back on her bedside table before heading back into the bathroom and locking the door.

As she walked over to the filling tub, she knew that what she was about to do was pushing the line. But she was already crazy, so why not? Still holding onto the glass carefully, she set it down at the edge of the tub before dipping her foot into the water to test it out. She made sure that it was mostly hot water filling it and could tell from the steam filling the bathroom that she would finally get that warmth she needed so badly since she came back inside.

She winced slightly as she adjusted to the heat from the water before dipping her foot in again. It burned, but it felt so nice at the same time. She stepped in completely and slowly lowered herself into the tub. Sliding down, she let herself submerge completely so she could be engulfed in the warmth that the water provided. She held her breath for as long as she could until her chest started to burn from the lack of oxygen. Only then did she sit up and come up for air. Wiping the water from her face, she felt her hands still shaking.

Looking over to the shard of glass next to her on the side of the tub, she bit her lip and reached out for it.

Pulling into the driveway of the Berry residence once more, Jesse noticed that there was no sign of Finn's truck. He wondered what happened after he left, but from the looks of it, she sent him home. It only further supported the fact that he was wrong in believing Finn because if it was all true, he'd probably still be there with her right now. Feeling like an idiot, he let his head hit the headrest of the seat of the car as he tried to think of a way to make it up to Rachel.

Figuring he'd figure it out when he saw her, he reached to step out of the car but caught his own reflection in the mirror. He was already starting to bruise from the fight with Finn. There was a slight trace of blood left on his lip from it all as well, but he didn't care. None of these injuries mattered to him right now because his only concern was the girl inside.

Slamming the door shut behind him, he jogged up the steps and noticed the crushed roses all around. It definitely wasn't like that before he left. Turning back to the front door, he rang the doorbell and waited for a moment for her to open the door for him.

Up in her bathroom, Rachel couldn't hear the doorbell ringing because of the sound of the water that was continuing to fill the tub around her. She was in her own little world as she ran her thumb along the edge of the glass and cut her finger. She winced and brought her thumb to her mouth to ease the pain. It made her consider if she really wanted to go through with this in the first place. Taking a deep breath, she tightened her grip on the glass and brought it to her wrist with her shaking hand, but pulled away before she could do anything. She closed her eyes to prepare herself a little more before putting it back on her wrist when she opened her eyes again. Biting her lip, she pressed it to her skin and let it stay there for a moment as she felt fear rush through her. But she quickly pushed it to the back of her mind. Fear had no place with her right now. She was taking control of herself by doing this and nothing was going to get in the way. She needed that release, anyway. There was no other way.

Taking another breath, she applied more pressure with the glass and dragged it across her wrist. She gasped as she saw the blood immediately start to seep from the wound she had just created. Her eyes widened as she watched it drip down her arm and into the water. Despite the worry she was feeling after possibly getting herself in too deep… she felt warm again. It wasn't anything like what she felt when she simply digging her fingernails into her palms. It felt so much better and so much worse at the same time. She moved the glass back to her wrist to continue the cut in an attempt to feel more of it, but the pain was starting to grow more intense. She looked down and saw all the blood that was continuing to seep from her wrist and began to shake with panic as the realization of what she had actually just done dawned on her.