Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter 19
How could Rachel talk to someone she had kissed? The only boy who had made out with her before had been Puck, and after that, they ignored each other, pretending it never happened.
On Sunday, she spent her time staring at Finn's sweater which was still lying on her desk. She could text him or something. But she didn't know what to say. Yesterday, he and his family just disappeared from the party.
Rachel wondered how many girls he had kissed before because he was so good at it.
Rachel wondered what they would've done if his grandfather hadn't shown up.
Rachel wondered whether she would get the opportunity to kiss him like that again.
When she went to bed, she only dreamt of Finn, his dark eyes and the way he had said her name, again and again and again.
The next morning felt like her first school day. Rachel was nervous and excited when she entered the hallways of McKinley. She checked her make up and her school uniform, she had to look perfect. She shouldered the bag Finn gave to her on her birthday.
She could do it. She had to act like she always did.
During the assembly, Finn was nowhere to be seen. His friends were sitting in the last row and when she passed them, Puck snorted quietly. Rachel frowned. What was that? She turned to him and Puck threw her a cold glance. Confused, she went to the other rows.
After chemistry, she and Finn always crossed ways because he needed to go to history. When Rachel spotted him next to Kurt on the hallway, her heart skipped a beat. Rachel prepared herself to say something.
There were only a few steps separating them. She opened her mouth to greet him and…
…he just passed her.
"Hey", she heard him say behind her. Rachel turned around, seeing how he greeted Mike. They chatted shortly and Mike laughed about something. They went together to the room in front of them without looking back.
Something inside Rachel started aching. She was still standing at the same spot in the hallway, swallowing the big lump in her throat.
When she looked up, there was no one expect of Kurt. It looked like he wanted to say something, but then, he just threw her an apologetic glance instead and disappeared in one of the rooms in front of him. Rachel on the other hand stayed on her spot, unable to move her feet.
The rest of the day, Rachel spent in a trance-like mode. She didn't listen to the words of her teachers, she just couldn't. On lunch break, she couldn't go to the cafeteria. She didn't want to see Finn and his clique. Instead, she went to the library to stare out of the window.
Rachel didn't know where she went wrong. She didn't know why Finn acted like that. She tried to tell herself that he didn't see her, but after chemistry, he also passed her, ignoring her as well.
Mercedes noticed that something was off, especially after she didn't show up in the cafeteria, but Rachel didn't tell her about the kiss, she just couldn't anymore. Everything inside her hurt so bad.
Mercedes was forced to do the club meeting alone while Rachel was sitting on her place, staring down her notebook.
She didn't imagine that kiss.
The way Finn had said her name.
How he had looked at her.
How desperate his touches had been.
There was something between them, something big.
Even if he thought that whole thing had been a mistake, he should've told her. That would've been better than his weird behavior. The longer she sat there, staring at his empty place, the angrier she got. Was everything a lie? Did he do that so that he could play football again? Rachel looked at Mercedes, trying to stay calm.
"Would it be okay if I left now? I don't feel good." Mercedes looked at her, thoughtful, but then, she nodded slowly.
"Of course, I will take care of everything. And if you need something, you can call me." Rachel nodded thankfully and left the room without saying goodbye to the others.
Rachel rushed over to the football field where she could hear the shouting of her schoolmates.
Dumb football.
She went to the side of the field, looking for Finn's football shirt. "Hudson, your girlfriend is here", Puck shouted teasingly. Although he wore his helmet, she could hear his stupid grin.
Finn turned around, spotting Rachel. She expected that he would ignore her again, but then, he walked over to her. It was the first time he looked at her that day.
"So?", Rachel said, not even trying to hide her anger. Finn didn't say anything.
"Could you at least take off that thing?", she asked, furiously pointing at his helmet. He sighed, annoyed, but he followed orders. Now, that she could see his face, she spotted a bruise on his mouth. Looked like he got into a fight.
Rachel carefully lifted her hand, wanting to reach out for it, but Finn backed away. She dropped her hand.
"What's wrong with you?!", she shouted.
His face was emotionless when he looked at her. "What should be wrong with me?"
"You are acting like a dick, that's wrong with you." He cocked his eyebrows.
"Do I?"
"Stop acting like that and tell me why you ignore me", Rachel demanded quieter, but still insistent.
He didn't answer again, looking like that talk was boring him to death. Rachel stepped towards him.
"Did you plan that?", she asked. "Have you been nice to me all the time so that you could train again?"
He snorted, trying to laugh, but then, he looked down his feet.
"You were the one who kissed me after you were allowed to return to your football team. It wouldn't have been necessary anymore.", Rachel went on.
He remained silent.
"Why are you acting like this?", she asked, hating how her voice was wavering. "Did your grandfather do anything to you?"
Finn flinched slightly. "Maybe", he answered coldly.
That hurt a lot. "You kissed me, not the other way around. You didn't have to do that if you felt bad about it afterwards."
Finn frowned. "You gave something to me, I liked it. End of the story."
"You liked it, end of the story?", Rachel repeated incredulously. She couldn't believe that it was the same guy who kissed her on the stairs.
Who really wanted her on Saturday.
Now, he just shrugged nonchalantly. "Gosh, Finn, what's wrong with you?", she mumbled, shaking her head.
Although she was pissed, she wondered why he had that bruise. Why did he even get into a fight?
"You should've told me that the kiss had been a mistake", she added.
"Okay, then, I will do it now.", Finn answered icily. "It had been nice, but now, it would be better if we returned to the beginning."
Rachel couldn't believe what he had just said.
"You don't need to end our friendship just because of your grandparents, Finn", she said quietly, trying to hide how hurt she was.
He tried to smile, but it looked like a grimace. "You are trying to control others, to correct their mistakes, but that doesn't work, Rachel. This whole thing has nothing to do with my friends or my family. That's me. I'm bad and miserable. Get used to it."
Her anger vanished, but now, she was just desperate. Just like at the party where she had said goodbye to Finn. But this time, it seemed ultimate.
Still trying to save that situation, she lifted her hand, caressing his cheek. "You are neither bad nor miserable."
He shook his head, laughing bitterly.
"I don't want to lose you.", Rachel whispered.
He took her hand, looking like it caused him pain to do so, and softly stroked her fingers.
"You can't lose anything that doesn't belong to you, Rachel Berry."
He put her hand away from his face. Now, he looked cold and distant.
"Hudson!", Artie shouted from the field. "You are missing your first training! Come over to us, man!"
Finn stiffened and turned back to Rachel. "Are we done now? The boys are waiting.", he said emotionlessly.
Rachel had never felt more humiliated. She had to ball her hands to not hurt him or something. "Yes, we are done.", she said as dignified as possible.
Finn didn't care about her dignity. He turned around, walking back to his friends before she could end her sentence. Her pride disappeared a little more with each step of him until she couldn't stand upright anymore.
With swollen eyes, Rachel sat at her desk at home. She stared at the note on the pin board which Finn gave to her with the bag. Suddenly furious, she ripped it off, writing the first thing which came to her mind with red permanent marker.
Finn,
fuck you.
- Rachel.
She cocked her head to the side, looking at her note. She had written those words under his and it hurt for a reason to see them together.
"Rachel? Your dads let me in, are you coming?", Mercedes suddenly asked, peeking around the corner.
Since that thing with Finn happened, Mercedes did everything to distract her from her heartache, like dragging her to shopping tours or to the movies against her will. Her dads were even supporting her.
Rachel nodded numbly. Maybe leaving her room would help her. Mercedes came over, looking at the bag in the box with the note. "I can take that to the post office on my way home", she suggested softly.
There was that lump in her throat that kept on getting bigger. "Thanks," she croaked ,and Mercedes stroked her arm softly.
She then took the box, putting it into the trunk of her car so that she didn't have to see it anymore.
After she returned from the movies, Rachel laid down on her bed, staring at the ceiling. That would be the last night where she would cry about their breakup or whatever that had been.
But after this night, the mourning period would be over.
Cause she was still Rachel Berry, the most talented singer in the world and the biggest Star to-be. She wouldn't allow that anything got into her way.
She would concentrate during classes and lead the event management club.
She would eat at the cafeteria with Mercedes.
She would prepare for her application for NYADA, and for Harvard's School of Dramatical Arts as a backup plan.
She would live in the world again where Finn Hudson or the rest of McKinley didn't know her name.
Rachel was really good at avoiding him in school. It was like she knew his timetable by heart so that she could stay away from him.
When did it stop? When could Finn start thinking about other things than Rachel?
Currently, he and Kurt were about to do English-homework in his room, but he couldn't quite concentrate when he read his brother's homework.
Kurt was lying on his king size bed, also proofreading his essay and eating low-carb chips. Finn was sitting next to him, cross-legged, staring at the card Rachel had returned to him.
"What is that?", Kurt, who had spotted the card, suddenly asked, quickly taking it away from him and reading it curiously.
He looked over to Finn with a compassionate face expression.
"Finn…" Finn snatched the card off his hands and put it into his wallet. Then, he took a random book, starting to read. The letters didn't make any sense.
Why the hell did his heart beat so fast now?
"Finn."
He looked up. "What?"
Kurt sat up, playing with his book in his hands. "What's the matter with this card?"
Finn shrugged. "Nothing." Kurt cocked one eyebrow, unimpressed. He looked at Finn. "What happened between you and Rachel?"
The quarterback stiffened. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
Kurt snorted quietly and shook his head. "Don't pretend that thing with Rachel isn't stressing you. I have something called eyes, Finn. I can see that you are feeling miserable."
Finn knew that Kurt was right. His life was a catastrophe now, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"What stresses me", he said. "is the fact that our parents are absent when I need them, my tyrannical grandparents suck and that I hate my future."
"Rachel isn't fine either. Why…"
"I have kept an eye on Rachel just because of you.", Finn cut him off. "That's all." Those words felt so wrong after he had said them. He felt like he couldn't breathe anymore, and he had to blink back tears.
But why? He never cried.
"Oh Finn.", Kurt whispered, compassionately patting his shoulder.
"I know how it's like if you can't have someone although that person is the only thing that makes your life more bearable.", he suddenly said, squeezing Finn's hand.
"When Blaine and I met, I knew that there was something special between us."
Finn looked up. Kurt never had talked about Anderson and never wanted to answer the questions Finn was posing about him.
"How did you and Anderson meet? At school?", he asked.
Kurt shook his head. "It was two years ago, after that thing with Adam", he began, and Finn bristled with anger. Adam Crawford befriended Kurt back then and after a few weeks, they became boyfriends.
But in reality, Adam had been a journalist of a popular magazine. He had used Kurt and broke his heart only to get information of the family. Finn squeezed Kurt's shoulder.
"Back then, I was in the mood for…nothing. I withdrew from everything and everyone."
"Yes, I remember", Finn said quietly.
After Crawford's kiss-and-tell story, the paparazzi didn't leave the Hummel-Hudson's alone anymore. Finn remembered how he and his bros showed up at Adam's place to threaten him and how much money he needed to pay that bastard of a journalist to leave out the detail about Kurt's sexuality for damage control.
Because until today, Kurt didn't officially come out. Only Finn's bros knew about his sexuality. And Rachel.
Nevertheless, the harm was done because Adam revealed a lot of other secrets, and it had been a horrible time. They all needed to find a way to deal with that crap; Finn's was drinking alcohol and Kurt's was the aloofness and social distancing.
"One evening, I was just…desperate. I had nobody to talk to, I had been fifteen and lost my virginity to a journalist because I was so naïve to believe that somebody out there cared about me.
Not about my family name. I was feeling miserable.
I wondered how I could be so dumb."
Kurt paused, taking a deep breath.
"That evening, I created an anonymous profile on Tumblr. I wanted to write my thoughts without consequences.
So I did.
I wrote everything that came into my mind, that my life sucked and that I wished I could be someone else.
The next day, I got a really nice answer."
Finn stared at him. "It was Anderson, right?"
He nodded. "It wasn't much, only a few, empathic words, but at that time, they meant the world to me." Kurt smiled a bit.
"After that, we started writing to each other regularly. We told each other a lot of things; even secrets we didn't want to share with other people.
He told me about Harvard and the tiring competition pressure, I told him about my broken heart and the pressure of my family. We encouraged each other. He never told me his real name, neither did I. In spite of that, the relationship with him felt so much more real than everything else in my life."
"That sounds crazy", Finn frowned.
Kurt nodded. "I know."
"And then?"
"After six months, we had our first phone call. We were on our phones for five hours. My ear hurt the next day because I wanted to be closer to him, pressing the phone against my ear. From that day on, we talked every day on the phone."
Finn remembered the night of Rachel's birthday where they also talked for hours. He drove home from Artie's party so that he could hear her voice better.
"That's why you kicked me out of your room that often", Finn smirked. "And did you meet one day?"
"After one year, Blaine and I went to a coffee shop after he graduated from Harvard."
Incredible how Finn didn't notice all that.
"And…when did you get together?", Finn asked curiously.
Kurt blushed. "We never had been really together, but during our summer holidays, we spent a lot of time together."
He cleared his throat. "After Blaine got the job at McKinley, he kind of broke up immediately. He said we could stay online friends, but that's all."
He had to blink back tears. "It was better for me like that, you know. Better than losing him completely. After the chances he would get the job had been slim, my hopes were raised. We met again, until he got the job after all. Again, I was heartbroken, but this time, he wanted to erase me completely from his life. He said it would be better for all of us."
"And what was that thing at the beginning of the schoolyear?", Finn wanted to know.
Kurt gulped. "A relapse."
Finn nodded. He knew that Anderson was more to Kurt than just an amusement. But he never knew they had a two-year lasting relationship. A serious one.
"Maybe after one year, you could…" Finn didn't know why he suggested that. Even after Kurt graduated from McKinley, a relationship with one of his ex-teachers would ruin his reputation permanently.
On top of that, Kurt didn't even come out to their parents or grandparents. Grandfather would flip out when he found out that Kurt was in love with a male teacher.
"I'm not stupid, Finn. I know that Blaine and I don't stand a chance." Kurt sighed, biting into a chip.
It somehow hurt Finn to see him like that. And it hurt even more to know he couldn't help him. There was no future for Kurt and Mr. Anderson, or for him and Rachel.
He and his brother really got the short end of the stick concerning love.
"Thanks you told me about that, dude", Finn said. Kurt just nodded. "Maybe you will tell me about Rachel one day."
Ignoring his brother's glance, Finn took the book in front of him. "There is nothing to tell."
Kurt sighed. "If you say so…", he mumbled, looking at him knowingly.
A/N: Oh my poor babies :(
They may be rich as f*** but they aren't happy...
