A/N: I hope this chapter is the deep look inside Rachel's head that we all needed, and I hope we all get to understand a little bit of why she kissed Finn.
Mercedes' fist barely misses the middle of my face when the monitors start beeping and going crazy. I didn't dodge her punch, I just flinched and she missed. I kind of deserve to be punched after this entire week, so I was just going to take my lumps and let her hit me, but then Quinn's monitors started making a bunch of horrible noises and the doctors came rushing in and now they're crowding her and all we can do is watch while she lies there on the bed with her arms stiff at her sides and her head falling all over the place.
"CODE BLUE IN ROOM 521. REPEAT, CODE BLUE IN 521."
I hardly hear them announce it over the loudspeaker the first time, but I hear it the second time and I can't believe what they're saying. Code blue? Code blue, you only ever hear that in movies and stuff, that isn't something that actually happens in real life. What do they mean when they say code blue? That's not something that they just make up and use to make the movies and tv shows more dramatic? There's such a thing as an actual code blue?
"What's going on?" The male doctor from earlier comes running into the room like he's the commander of this entire ship and he almost knocks me over because he's moving so fast.
"Her pulse is thready and I can't find a rhythm," the lady doctor who's been here since the beginning seems like she's panicking and if she's panicking then I really think Quinn is going to die. Her body's been through so much tonight… I don't know if she can take anymore.
"Her BP is through the roof and her heart's giving out," the man seems really collected but he's moving really fast so he's probably not as collected as he seems. "She's arresting again. Charge the paddles to 200."
One of the nurses puts some blue gel on the things that they call "paddles" and the guy doctor rubs them together while the lady doctor practically rips Quinn's gown away. I don't want to see the next part, but I can't look away. My eyes are stuck and for a moment, I can't feel myself breathing. I can't breathe while I watch them put the paddles on her chest. It hurts to see them make her body jolt when they shock her like that.
"Come on, kid…" The lady doctor watches the heart monitor screen and holds Quinn's face in her hands. "Come on. You didn't come this far to give up on us now."
"Charge to 300," the guy barks orders at the nurse and puts the paddles on Quinn's chest again. Her poor body jolts again when they shock her and I want them to stop shocking her. It probably hurts.
"I still can't get a rhythm," the lady speaks in a very low voice and I know that can't be good. "She's still all over the place."
"Charge to 350," the guy says again.
I still can't feel myself breathe. I know I must be breathing because if I wasn't, I would have passed out by now, but I don't feel myself actually doing it. I feel the world standing still. I feel nothing happening beyond the walls of this room. I feel that nothing is ever going to happen again until Quinn is safe.
The lady shakes her head, "Still nothing, I can't get her back."
"QUINN!" Mercedes puts her hands on her knees and screams as loud as she can. Her screaming is what makes me realize that this is all actually happening and this is very real. Quinn is dying in front of us and there's nothing we can do to stop it. She is dying and I can't stop watching.
It's the moment where I really need somebody. I need to be able to reach over and hold Mercedes' hand for support, but I'm pretty sure she'll try to kill me if I do that. Her mom can't watch what's going on. She has her face buried in her dad's shoulder and her dad is busy trying to be the strong one. Mercedes looks like she's melting into the floor. And then there's me. Not a tear in sight but can't pull my eyes away.
"Quinn…" I whisper her name, mostly to myself because I'm trying to make sense of everything. She can't die. I know there's nothing I can do about it if God or whatever higher power she believes in decides that it's her time, but she cannot die. She can't. She can't leave me here. I will never make it without her.
"I need everybody in here to clear out!" The guy doctor rummages through a cart with a bunch of medicine on it and yells at us. "Everybody in here needs to go! Now!"
I can't leave her though. I know she's not conscious right now and she can't see anything. Maybe she can't hear anything either, I don't know how this whole thing works, but if she dies and I'm not here? I will never be able to forgive myself. I can't let her die alone. I can't let her die without me. She needs to know that I'm here for her and she is surrounded by people who love her. She needs to die knowing that she was my first real love and I will never love anyone quite the same way that I loved her. I never told her any of that. I don't think she knows. I can't let her die alone.
"Mercedes, come on," Mr. Jones helps Mercedes up off the floor and Mercedes swats at him to leave her alone. "I said come on, 'Cedes! There's nothing we can do here except get in the way. We gotta let them work, come on!"
"I don't wanna leave her!" Mercedes swats his hands away once more. "Daddy, I can't leave her. I have to stay."
"You don't need to be seeing this! Now let's go! Now! Let them do their work!" Despite her repeated slaps at his hands, Mr. Jones grabs her by her arm and yanks her up off the floor anyway.
I back myself into a corner (literally) and watch as the guy doctor shocks Quinn again while the lady doctor sticks a syringe full of a clear liquid into her IV. I wonder what they're giving her. She's allergic to some kind of medicine and I forget what it is but I know she's allergic to it and if I could just remember what it is I could tell them so they don't give it to her. God, Rachel. Think. Think, think, think. What medicine is it that she's allergic to?
"Rachel, that means you too," Mr. Jones puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and I don't slap at him like Mercedes was doing, but I want to. "You don't need to see this either, honey. We have to let them do their work."
"I'm not leaving her," I mutter at him while I shake my head. "She can't die alone. I have to stay."
"She's not dying, but right now they have to work on her and they can't do that with us standing here watching. If you want to do what's right for Quinn, then come on out into the hallway with us. Come on." He's very sturdy yet gentle and Quinn once told me that Mercedes' mom is her favorite person in the world (aside from Beth and probably me), but her dad is the glue that keeps everything together. I see that firsthand now.
"She's allergic to penicillin." It finally comes to me as Mr. Jones has his hands on my shoulders. I look right up into his eyes and feel my own start to burn with tears that need to be shed. "Tell them not to give her any penicillin, she's allergic to penicillin."
"I'll let them know, now come on," he pulls me towards the door gently.
"And keep her feet covered! She can't sleep if her feet aren't covered! She hates her feet being cold!" I don't know where that came from… it just slipped out. "And her throat hurts! Tell them her throat hurts! Tell them to give her something because her throat hurts!"
"I know, honey. Come on." He's gentle with the way he forces me through the door, but it's still forceful.
He doesn't understand. They need me in that room. I know her. I know her better than anyone here, I swear it. They need to know that her feet need covered or else she's not comfortable and she likes for her hair to be parted on the left side of her head and she hates it when her hair is in her face for long periods of time and she's allergic to penicillin so she can't have anything related to penicillin and if you kiss her left cheek you have to kiss her right one too because that's just how she is and she likes to look at pictures of Beth when she's upset and she likes to sit in the shower so she can think about things and she likes it if you rub her head but not her back and you can't touch her legs or her chest without warning her first or you'll make her cry and… and God, she can't die. Please don't let her die.
Out in the hallway, Mrs. Jones tries to calm Mercedes down by putting her hands on her cheeks, but it's not working. The tears that roll down Mercedes' cheeks are the kind of tears that you see people win Oscars for. She's hyperventilating a little bit too and even though I'm one of the calmer ones in the hallway, I understand how she feels because I couldn't breathe in that room either. I wish she didn't absolutely hate me right now because if she didn't, I would give her a hug and tell her that it's okay. She seems like she needs someone to tell her it's okay.
"You need to take a deep breath, baby." Mrs. Jones keeps her hands on her daughter's cheeks and breathes in with her. "It's gonna be okay, just breathe."
"She can't die, Mom… she can't die." Mercedes sobs and I think it's the right time to make a peace offering.
"She won't," I try my best to be reassuring. I even put my hand on her shoulder, but if I can't even convince myself that Quinn is going to be okay, how am I supposed to convince anyone else? "She's tough, she'll pull through this."
"Why are you still even here?!" She snatches away from me and I don't think she's going to hit me again, but I flinch anyway because she very well might. "I told you to leave!"
"And I told you that I'm not going anywhere." I get that she's angry and I get that she hates me. Believe it or not, it's not a new feeling for me. I'm quite used to people hating me. She hates me, but she doesn't control me. She doesn't get any say in what I do and where I go. I'm here for Quinn and Quinn only. "Come on, Mercedes. You can hate me later but for now, we need each other. We both love Quinn and —"
"STOP SAYING THAT YOU LOVE HER." She yells at me so loud that the other people in the hallway stare. It's like the big dramatic moment in the movie where the victim confronts the bully except maybe I'm the bully in this situation. I never thought I would be. "You think that if you say it enough you can convince yourself and everyone else around you but you're not convincing me. You don't love Quinn. You don't. Stop saying that you do."
"You don't know how I feel." That's my only defense but it's true. She doesn't know how I feel about Quinn. She can't possibly know what goes on inside of my head.
"You make it abundantly clear! You tell her that she's exhausting, you accuse her of being abusive or whatever, you constantly put her in the situation to choose between us, you ignore her all the time, you didn't help her when you knew she was killing herself with this, and you KISSED FINN. Why do you seem to forget that?! You don't love her! I love her! Me and my family, WE love her. We love her, Rachel. And if Quinn dies, I swear to God I'm going to hurt you. One way or another, I am going to hurt you. Because you did anything but make her life worth living while she was on this earth. I swear I'm going to hurt you. She better not die because if she does, I'm going to hurt you."
"Look, if you want to be mad at me, that's fine." I put my hands up as a sign of me waving the white flag. "If you want to hate me, that's also fine. If you want to kick my ass or whatever, that's fine too. But I'm here because I love her just as much as the rest of you and believe it or not, she loves me too. I messed up and I hurt her and yeah, if this is her final day on earth then yes, I'm the one who made her last week alive hell. I'm the one who did that, and it's something that I'll have to find a way to live with. But it's none of your business. It's between me and it's between Quinn, not you. It's —"
"I'm making it my business," she glares at me and if looks could kill, I would be six feet under with a pretty headstone telling my life story. "Every time you hurt her, every time you make her cry, she —"
"And that's not your business! If this is about you hating me because I didn't tell anyone that Quinn was throwing up, then fine! Hate me, kill me, crucify me, whatever! I deserve that! But you know nothing about me and Quinn's relationship. You don't know a single thing about what we go through and you're not about to stand here and assume how I feel about her."
See, and this is the part where I start to really hate Mercedes as much as she hates me because she's making my emotions switch to anger and I'm not supposed to be angry. I'm supposed to be sad and worried about Quinn because she could die but I'm more angry with Mercedes than I am concerned about Quinn and I hate her for doing that to me.
"You don't know a thing, Mercedes. Stop assuming that you do." My eyes are burning with tears and I swallow my pride and let them fall. We've all cried tonight, I don't think anyone will judge me. I just hope they know they're not tears because Mercedes hurt my feelings. They're tears because I'm so infuriated.
"I know you don't deserve her. And that's all I need to know." She looks me from head to toe like she's sizing me up. I'm not stupid by any means. I know Mercedes could snap me in half like a toothpick if she wanted to and me, being the gentle and loving pacifist that I am, have never been in a fist fight before. I think I would let her beat me up. "You're not good enough for her."
If this was playing out on the silver screen, the camera would zoom in on my face and it'd be the moment where the audience sees the realization crumble on my face. My eyebrows would raise and my eyes would widen just a little, because Mercedes' words made everything click. And her anger towards me makes just a little more sense.
This isn't about me not telling anyone that I knew Quinn was throwing up. This isn't about her feeling like I should have spoken up and let the doctors know what I knew. This is about her wanting to be closer to Quinn than I am. This is about her dealing with the fact that she is no longer the person Quinn tells everything to. This is about Quinn not being readily available and at her beck and call anymore. This is Mercedes finally dealing with the fact that she liked Quinn as more than a friend once upon a time. This… is jealousy.
"You can't have her, Mercedes." I don't say that to be rude or snotty, I say that to be fair. I say that because she needs to know that I'm not the same as I was before I stepped into this hospital.
Before I stepped into this hospital, I probably would have just left when she told me to, and I probably would have just kept my phone close by while I waited for them to text me that Quinn is dead. Tonight has changed me as a person. Tonight has made me realize just how much the skinny blonde beauty in the Cheerios uniform with eyes like honey and skin like buttermilk who used to torture me, actually means to me. I probably wouldn't have stood my ground and fought for Quinn because I wasn't sure if she was something I wanted to fight for. But I'll fight for her now. She means the world to me. I've got my armor up and ready.
Mercedes squints her eyes at me like she's trying to translate what I just said, so I decide to repeat myself. And maybe explain what I mean a little more. "When she comes out of this and she gets better and she's able to talk to me about what happened between us?" I continue. "If she decides that she can forgive me, then that's it. We're going to be together and there's nothing you can do besides accept it. You can't have her. If she still wants me, you can't have her."
"YOU THINK THIS IS ABOUT —" She runs her fingers through her hair and squeezes handfuls of her hair so hard that her hands shake. "YOU ARE SO UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY A LITERAL FREAKING MORON, RACHEL."
"Here we go with the insults again," I mumble.
"CAN YOU FOR ONE SECOND THINK ABOUT SOMETHING OR SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF?!"
"And can you get out of your own head for two seconds?! And stop acting like you know what's best for Quinn?! You don't know —"
"WE ARE WHAT'S BEST FOR QUINN. NOT YOU. NOT —"
"Yet she still chooses me over you every single time, doesn't she?"
I was out of line for saying that when it's not entirely true. She was just getting on my nerves so badly and I had to say something to hit her back harder and that's what came to mind. It really must have hit her hard just like I wanted it to, because she starts barreling toward me and even though I won't fight her back, I don't move away or try to run from her. Because it doesn't matter if she hits me or not. It doesn't matter what she does to me, I'm not going to leave Quinn. I'm staying right here.
"YOU ARE THE WORST PERSON TO EVER WALK THE PLANET!" She screams at me while she's lunging and curling her fists up for punches, but her dad grabs her really hard and really tight and uses the collar of her shirt to pull her away from me. "LET ME GO!"
"You need to calm down! Now, or I'll make you go sit in the car!" Her dad yells at her and she instantly stops trying to kill me.
"I'M TELLING YOU, DAD. YOU NEED TO GET HER AWAY FROM ME!"
"No, you need to calm down!"
"IT'S HER! SHE —"
"Both uh you make me so fuckin' sick." Mrs. Jones says in a voice that's a tone just under a hostile yell. She presses her fingers against her temple like she's fighting off a headache and she barely acknowledges the tears rolling off her cheeks.
"Look Mom, I'm sorry. But Rachel —" Mercedes tries to throw me under the bus and I feel like I should probably leave. I think I've worn out my welcome here…
"I don't give uh shit what Rachel did or ain't do to Quinn. I don't give uh shit what she said or ain't say to the doctors and I sure as hell don't give uh shit what she knew or ain't know. I don't. And I don't care about your feelings right now, 'Cedes. I don't care about your feelings and I don't care about Rachel's feelings. I don't even give uh shit about your daddy's feelings right now. You two are making me real fuckin' sick with the bickering."
Why do I feel like I'm being scolded right now? And why do I feel like I can't say anything back? Why does she command so much respect?
"Now if you two can't pull it together and shut the hell up for the rest of the time we're here, then you two can both get the hell out. I don't care where you go, but you ain't gonna sit here and holler at each other in the middle of this hospital like you ain't got no damn sense between you. I'm not listening to it anymore. It's about Quinn. It ain't about how much you two can't get along. It ain't about who love Quinn more or who treat Quinn better. It don't matter. The only thing that matter right now is making sure she gets out of this alive. She in there half dead, not knowing if she gonna wake up or not and you two standing here screaming at each other like goddamn fools. You're both being ridiculous. Just ridiculous. And I can't stand to look at either one of you right now."
She has a point. I know she has a point. I tried to bury the hatchet with Mercedes in Quinn's room a little bit ago because I agree. This is about Quinn and we need to be strong for her. I tried to reach out and extend the olive branch, I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. But she snatched away. So this yelling isn't my fault. It's hers.
"Mercedes, go take a goddamn walk. And don't come back until you ready to act like I will punch you in your mouth if you keep screaming in here. And Rachel, you too. You can get in your car and go the hell back home if you can't get it together either."
I didn't want to stop and put on my jacket before I left because I felt like the tears were just seconds away from spilling out of my eyes and I really didn't want to cry in a hospital in front of a bunch of strangers, if you know what I mean. There are times when I don't mind the attention and other times when I actually crave it like a drug. But tonight, I don't really want people to look at me. I want to just be able to slip by, completely undetected. I don't want people to see me for the kind of person I am.
It shocks me when I walk through the sliding glass doors and feel how cold it is outside. It's December and it's Ohio, so I shouldn't be surprised that it's practically freezing outside, but I sort of thought that tonight wasn't real. It feels like I'm on another planet and like time hasn't been moving forward since I've been inside the hospital. Walking out into the cold with my bunny slippers on the blacktop asphalt and feeling the air cut through my Wicked t-shirt, I'm reminded that this is the same as it's always been. It's Ohio in December and it's the same planet I've always been on. I just feel like a stranger to it now.
By some miracle, I remember exactly where I parked the car and I'm able to walk my freezing cold feet through the garage and down the second row. I turn the heat on as soon as I get into the car and maybe it makes me weird, but I've always found it easier to cry in a warm place than to cry in a cold place. I crank the heat all the way up before the door is even closed and reach into the backseat to grab the blanket that my dads keep in here for when we go to the drive-in theater.
I told the Joneses that I was going home and even though Mrs. Jones yelled at me and probably thinks the worst of me now, she thanked me for coming. She thanked me for coming and gave me her number so that I could text her for updates but I don't think I will. I think I should just leave them alone. It'll kill me not knowing how Quinn is doing, but I don't want to tear this apart. I'm putting a big rift in their family and I don't want to be the one who does that.
Before I put the car in reverse so I can pull out of my parking spot, I lay my forehead against the steering wheel and let out all of my tears. I cried while driving home once and I almost wrecked into oncoming traffic, so I vowed that I'd never do that again. From then on, I started crying before I started driving. It just makes more sense to do it that way.
I can't stop thinking about how Mercedes said I don't love Quinn. She's wrong, you know. I may only be sixteen (seventeen in a few days) and I may only be a junior in high school, but I know what love feels like. I know what love feels like. She can't tell me that I don't love Quinn.
Love feels like the tingles in my stomach that caught fire when I woke up in the hotel bed and she was next to me. It's the way my stomach lurched and I felt lightheaded when she told me that Puck raped her. It's feeling sick because she went through pain that I couldn't take away from her. Love feels like the way my fingers trembled when she told me what her dad used to do to her sister because I was angry that he upset her and even angrier because I couldn't do anything about it. It's wanting to hold her hand when she's scared because I want her to know that she's not alone. It's wanting to cry when she cries and wanting to yell when she yells. It's the moments when I pull her close in the middle of the night because she's having a nightmare that I want to save her from. Love feels like wanting to take my eyes out of my skull and give them to her so she can see herself the way I see her. It's wishing I was there when she was bleeding and unconscious because I wanted her to feel every ounce of love surrounding her. It's watching her fight for her life and wishing that I could take her place. Love is everything about the way I feel for Quinn Fabray.
And if the way I feel about her isn't love? Then what is it?
Maybe Mercedes is right. Maybe I don't love Quinn the way Quinn needs to be loved. But just because I don't love her the way Mercedes thinks I should love her doesn't mean that I don't love her with everything I have. I love Quinn the way I know how to love Quinn. I love Quinn through anxiety and fear. Maybe she thinks she's the messed up one in our relationship, but if she got into my head… well, she'd change her mind.
I feel like I've cried all I can cry right now, but a new round is going to come in a few minutes and I should wait before I start driving. I should wait, so I check my phone for the first time in a few hours and find nothing but missed calls from my dads. I'm going to be in a heap of trouble when I finally do get home, but it's the kind of trouble that's worth it. I needed to be here tonight. Even though I ruined everything.
I swipe past the missed calls from my dads and scroll through my call history until I find Kurt's number. Sometimes I call him when I just need company. There have been many times where we call each other on FaceTime and say absolutely nothing because we just need to know that someone is there. I can't begin to even estimate how many times I've fallen asleep with the phone in my hand because I needed my best friend to just be there with me.
The phone rings five or six times before he finally picks up.
"What are you still doing up? You're usually knocked out sleeping by now." He answers and by the sound of his voice, I know he wasn't sleeping but he does seem busy.
"Kurt…" I call his name and my voice cracks and I'm mad at myself for not being able to hold it together. Now he's going to know that I'm crying and he's going to want to fix it and I don't want that. I don't want his sympathy. I just want him to sit with me and tell me that I'm not a horrible human.
"Are you crying? Rachel, what's wrong?" He sounds concerned but also busy. Just very busy. "Hurry up, explain. I don't have long, Blaine's in the shower and —"
"Do I just totally suck as a human being?" I put the phone on speaker and lay it on top of the dashboard so I can talk while wiping my tears. "Am I just a totally horrible person?"
"Rachel…" He sighs and in the background, I hear something like a door opening. "You know I don't think you're a horrible person. You know I think you're wonderful."
Hearing him say that makes me smile, but I'm not sure how much the smile counts when tears are still free falling from my face and splashing down onto my pants. I hear Blaine's voice saying something in the background but I can't make out what he's saying. If tonight was any other night, I'd be questioning him about why he's with Blaine on a school night but I don't care about that. What I care about is Quinn and being a good person who actually deserves her and I can't even say that. I can't even talk to my best friend about my girlfriend being in the hospital and being so close to dying because I don't want word getting around school…
"Hey listen," he says to me after Blaine stops talking in the background. "I'd love to sit here all night and talk to you. You know, build your confidence back up. But whatever happened, you'll get through it. It's just a minor setback. You're awesome and you're not a horrible person and you're gonna do great things. The best things. Okay? Lemme hear you say okay."
"Okay…" I whisper.
"I gotta go, okay? Blaine's… he's… he's going through something and he needs me. But maybe we can go to Lima Bean tomorrow and talk if you're not feeling better."
"Yeah, maybe."
"Okay. Talk to you later? Bye?"
"Bye."
He hangs up first and I just stare at the phone for a few uninterrupted moments. Blaine needed him so he had to go. But I need him too… Quinn might die and Mercedes hates me and I'm pretty sure her parents probably hate me and Quinn's going to die thinking that I don't love her and Mercedes is never going to forgive me. All of this is happening to me and I need him, too. I need him…
I need someone. Anyone.
I know it's not my best idea and I know that given recent history, I should stay away from him if I want anything to work out with me and Quinn ever again, but he's my last hope. I don't have anyone else to turn to. Kurt's busy and Quinn's dying and I can't tell anyone what's going on and the only person who knows what's going on and can relate to how I'm feeling tries to fight me every time I look at her and I feel alone. I feel so alone and he's my last hope…
I tap on Finn's number and listen to the phone ring with a heavy knot in my chest. There's a good chance that he won't answer, but he's a good guy. He's a really good guy and I think he'll know that I wouldn't call him this late on a school night if it wasn't important. He always answers for me… and he's my friend so maybe he'll listen.
"Hello?" He doesn't sound groggy or anything when he answers, so maybe he wasn't asleep.
"Hey." I try my hardest to disguise the tears in my voice. "I'm sorry, I know it's really late and it's a school night, but I was just hoping that maybe we could talk… about something?"
"Something like… what?"
"I don't know… anything. I just… need to talk about anything."
"Dude, you can't call me at 11:30 on a school night and not tell me what you're calling me about. It's just not right".
"I just need to talk, okay?! I don't care what we talk about, I just need to talk. You're the only one I can talk to right now, Finn. I'm having a really tough time and I feel like a horrible person and you're —"
"Well gee, Rachel, I dunno. Maybe you should have thought about wanting to talk to me late nights when your self esteem is in the toilet before you basically called me meaningless and stupid. After you kissed me." He sounds angry… oh no. "I can't talk to you like this anymore. I can't be your go-to guy whenever you don't even really want to be with me. I don't know what we are but it's confusing and I can't talk to you like this anymore."
"Wait, no, Finn, you don't understand! I didn't mean that you were meaningless, I just meant that the kiss was meaningless and it was a stupid thing for me to do and —" The phone rustles for a moment before it goes completely silent. "Finn?" Nothing. "Finn?" He hung up.
Now I officially have no one. I officially have no one and I'm sitting in my car outside the hospital that my girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or whatever is dying inside of and I have no one to talk to. I'm sitting in my car crying so hard that my stomach muscles are sore and I have no one to talk to. Is this what I get?
If this were a movie, it would be the moment in the second act where the audience gets to see the softer side of the main character (me). This would be the point where everyone starts to sympathize with her and see that she's not as horrible as she seems. This is the part where everyone gets that she is just misunderstood.
Except… it's not a movie. This is real life. And in real life…
Rachel Berry really is horrible and nobody should sympathize with her. She's not this terribly misunderstood spoiled brat who's really insecure on the inside with a heart of gold underneath all her selfish layers. She's every bit of a horrible person. She doesn't think about anyone except herself, she does everything for dramatics and theatrics, she doesn't take anything seriously and she looks for the perfect opportunity to make a story out of other people's tragedies. She doesn't care enough about her girlfriend to admit to adults that she has a problem. She ignores her girlfriend every chance she gets. She pulls rank against her girlfriend's best friend and no wonder she doesn't have any friends willing to lend an open ear and listen to her cry. This is not a movie. This is not drama. This is real life. And real life is harsh.
I should have told everyone that Quinn was bulimic. When I came to her house and cleaned up her kitchen after she threw up blood, I knew. I knew that this was something bad. And when I heard the way she talked about sneaking downstairs and eating food when nobody was watching, I knew that there was something bad going on. But I really wanted to believe that she was okay. I really wanted to believe that her therapist was helping her through it. I really wanted to mind my own business and not push something that I didn't even know whether I should should push. I never thought that it was as bad as I was. I never thought that I'd be getting the call that she hurt herself because of it. I should have told. She's going to die and it's all my fault because I should have told.
She treats me well, you know? She's always there when I need someone to talk me down, she's really attentive to my admittedly high maintenance needs, she changed everything that I selfishly told her I didn't like about her, and she gives me 110% to make the relationship work. She's faithful to me, she cares about me, and when she tells me she loves me, I can tell she really means it. She treats me so well. And then I… I'm horrible.
But I never meant to love her, you know? I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for my life to change.
Two months ago, I was fine. I was just sitting in my room posting covers on YouTube that nobody ever watched. I had Kurt and I was happy and I had Finn and I was content. My life was fine. It wasn't perfect, but it was fine. Then Mr. Schue told me that I had to do a duet with her and nothing was the same after that. I was scared at first because I thought maybe she'd try to sabotage me or do something petty like put gum in my hair. She hated me. For whatever reason, she absolutely hated me and I thought for sure that she would take the duet opportunity to make my life miserable again.
We sat in my room and tried to pick a song and I remember thinking that she was being really nice. She didn't insult me, didn't tell me that I was annoying or ugly. She listened to me when I made a song suggestion and laughed when I told a stupid joke. But more important than anything, she listened to me. When I told her how it felt to grow up not knowing my mother, she listened to me. And she didn't make fun of me. And that was the night when I started to see her, you know? I saw beyond the red and white uniform and the ponytail with the perfect curl. I'm not talking about how pretty she was, because I've always thought that Quinn was beautiful. That's not what I mean when I say that I started to see her.
I mean that I saw a person. Someone with fears and insecurities just like me. Someone who breathed the same air I did and put her pants on one leg at a time like me. I looked into her eyes and I saw a soul that didn't match the person who made fun of me on social media or drew embarrassing pictures of me in the bathroom. I saw a soul in her that was broken, but very true.
She kept being nice to me after that. She kept being nice and inviting me to hang out with her and I started to feel like maybe we were friends and that scared me. I thought she had ulterior motives. I thought that she and Santana made some sort of bet about her befriending me and it was going to end with me at the prom getting pig's blood dumped on my head. I waited for the other shoe to drop and it didn't. Finn broke up with me for no reason and it hurt. It hurt because I could feel my popularity plummet and I could almost taste the slushees that would be thrown in my face once I was a loser again. I drank so much that I couldn't see straight that night. I was beyond drunk and she took me to her house and made waffles in her kitchen at three in the morning and I saw her again.
She pressed the waffle iron closed and I saw blonde hair falling to the middle of her back and perfect skin that glowed like the sun was shining on her. I saw a smile that most people have to pay to accomplish and a human that I could forgive. I saw a human that I liked. She gave me the waffle she made me and when our hands touched, something shifted inside of me.
We laid down in bed and I was still drunk, but I remember telling myself to go with the shift. I tried to close my eyes and sleep but I kept seeing her in the Tinkerbell costume. I got flashes of green sparkly fabric hugging her body and a perfect smile and the crunch of fresh waffles on my teeth. The whole thing made me want to kiss her. So I did. I did and my life has been different ever since.
I went home the next day and googled some things. It was overwhelming. There's gay, there's lesbian, there's bisexual, there's pansexual and all of them sounded a little like me. There were so many labels to put on myself, so many categories to make myself fall into and I just… cried. I cried because it was confusing and it was overwhelming and I didn't know if kissing Quinn made me a lesbian because I also liked kissing Finn so maybe that meant I was bisexual but then gay is only for boys so why do some girls use the term too and I also wouldn't mind dating just about anyone as long as they make me happy, so didn't that make me pansexual? My mind was spinning and I was confused and I cried.
My dads are gay. When I came to them crying because I couldn't stop thinking about kissing Quinn, I told them that I thought I was gay. Or lesbian. Or maybe bisexual. Or maybe even pansexual. They accepted me. They hugged me and told me that they loved me no matter what and I'm not saying that I'm ungrateful for that, okay? I realize that not a lot of gay kids get that kind of respect from their parents (Quinn is a prime example). I'm incredibly grateful to have parents who accept me.
But I didn't want to be gay, acceptance or not.
I wanted things to go back to normal. I wanted to be dating Finn again and I wanted Quinn to be mean to me again and I wanted to stop looking at her in the hallways, wishing that I could taste her lips one more time. I wanted to go back to what was comfortable. I wanted to go back to being straight. I didn't want a life where I couldn't hold her hand walking down the hallway, I didn't want a life where I had to worry about being judged when I kissed her. I wanted to be normal and I thought — I mean I really thought — that I could bury that part of me who liked kissing Quinn so deep and continue living my life as a straight girl.
I realized I loved her after we had sex for the first time.
I woke up the next morning and we were still naked and I remembered what we did the night before. I looked over at her and she looked so beautiful, sleeping on her stomach with the blankets covering everything except her bare shoulders. I thought about the way her fingers felt when they were tangled up in my hair and scratching my scalp. I thought about the way our bodies shared heat and sweat when we rubbed against each other and kissed. It was the way I never felt closer to another human being that made me realize I loved her.
When Mercedes accuses me of not really loving her, she doesn't see how much I do.
She doesn't see that try my best to love her through everything but in reality, I live every single day of my life trying to love Quinn through fear. The truth is…
I'm scared to death every time I feel myself falling a little more in love with her. I have anxiety attacks when I look at her and realize how much of my heart she has in her possession. I want to find the nearest closet and lock myself inside when I realize just how attached to her I am getting and how dependent on her for my happiness that I am.
We have sex for the first time and I get a little spacey. She goes missing and when she's found, I tell her that I love her and then I ignore her for a week straight and try to push her away by saying mean things that I don't mean. She tells me a big family secret and then I give her her first orgasm and then I run and kiss Finn. I… I try to blow it up, okay? Things get more serious, we take our relationship to a new level, I fall further in love with her and then I do something to blow it up. It's what I do.
Because I am terrified everyday of loving her.
Girls like me don't date girls like that. (Up until two months ago, I didn't think girls like me dated any girls at all, actually. But girls like me certainly don't date girls like that.) Girls like her call me names and try to trip me down the stairs. They make fun of my nose and the way I dress. They put sticky notes on my back, deface my yearbook pictures and fill my locker with notes that say I'm ugly. They repost my singing videos and call me a loser. They draw pictures of me in the bathroom that I have to scrub off with bleach while I cry and they laugh when I get a slushee in my eye. Girls like that make my life miserable. And up until this year, Quinn was the ringleader. So excuse if me I don't act like I love her enough… but I just find it really hard to believe that she loves me.
I fell for her. I fell hard and fast and landed right on my head and got a concussion, if you know what I mean. I fell for the girl who used to bully me and even though she's clearly shown me that she's changed, I still live every single day afraid that she's going to come back and terrorize me again and then this will be all just a big laughing joke for everyone in the school. You know? Haha. Rachel Berry fell in love with Quinn Fabray. Now she's heartbroken. I can't believe she fell for her. That's what she gets.
I didn't mean to kiss Finn. I shouldn't have done it because now…now I messed things up with Quinn and she's dying and I don't know if I will be able to repair it even if she does pull through. I love her so much and I tried to blow it up by kissing Finn because I am terrified of loving her. And I know it's wrong, I know it is. But I want to hurt her before she pulls the rug out from under me and hurts me first.
I wish I had never kissed Finn. I wish I had never done it. I wish I could believe her when she says she loves me. I wish I could just forget about all the torture she used to inflict on me. I wish I could move on. I wish I was a better Rachel Berry. I wish I was someone Quinn deserves… I wish I wasn't someone who consistently let Quinn down… I wish I wasn't such a horrible human being… I wish I didn't let everyone down…
I use my shirt to wipe away my tears and I have something in my head and maybe if I get it all down on paper it won't be inside of me anymore, threatening my sanity. I reach over into the glovebox and grab the black pen that my dads keep in here for when they have to write checks.
There's an old Starbucks receipt in the cupholder, so I smooth it out and hold it against the steering wheel and I write until the words stop flowing out of me.
I have a lot I should be grateful
But some days I'm so unstable
I can't see anything clearly
I don't even wanna be around me
How can anybody else like me this way?
Somehow my songs still get played
And there's never not words coming out my mouth
I know it isn't the end all, be all
But somehow my life's going down south
Good things all around me all the time
But I hardly ever see
I'm tired of feeling all the feelings
Human beings let me down
Human beings let you down
What do you want, shrug my shoulders
I keep losing my composure
I can't breathe
Please open a window
All the way I let the breeze in
I don't know what I believe in anymore
Real change is hard
I try not to freak out
Tried not to worry about the future
I know I'm not alone and everyone feels like a loser
Human beings let you down
When I'm done writing, I look at my song through misty eyes. I don't know if it's going to do any good but maybe if I sing this then everyone will understand what goes on in my head and understand that I don't try to be a horrible person, I just am…
Maybe there's still one person I can talk to….
Text Message
Tuesday, December 10
11:57 p.m.
ME: Hey, are you awake? I really need to talk...
A/N: I don't own the copyrights to Rachel's song. I didn't write it myself. If you're interested in what song it is though, it is called Human Beings by The Wind and the Wave and now I really want to hear Lea Michele sing it. Ugh.