Sorry about the wait everyone, the final chapter is being posted right after this one.
You were everything for a little while
But I broke it, I broke it,
Didn't I?
Sorry. Throughout his whole life, Will had never quite understood the meaning of the word as he did now. He had never had reason to. The events of the last week were the one thing which he completely and utterly regretted, to the point where he wasn't entirely sure they were things which could be remedied no matter what he said or did.
It was a situation that contained far too many 'should'ves' for anyone's liking and far too many mistakes which should never have been made. Will never should've given in to Rachel. He was a fully grown man with morals which told him not to do what he had done, lines which he had crossed so far over he could no longer see them from such a distance and most importantly responsibilities which he had flouted in order to indulge in ten minutes of guilty pleasure.
He never should've encouraged her in the first place. An outright refusal, while it may have been harsh would have stopped the problem. Rachel might be confident when it came to performing but she lacked the self-confidence to try and force something that was clearly not reciprocated.
He should've tried explaining it to her when she didn't get it. He could have gone over all the things that were wrong with the idea and why it could never happen rather than constantly telling her she didn't understand, he could have made her understand.
He should've but he hadn't and it was too late now to think about anything like that. It only seemed to make things infinitely worse than they already were.
How he could disappoint himself like that was beyond Will, but eternally worse was the idea that not only had he let himself down, he had let her down as well. He had known she didn't quite grasp the gravity of what she was asking for. Rachel, despite being smart and mature and emotionally developed was naive. She had yet to realise that there was a darker, less pleasant side to the world and it absolutely killed him to have been the one to show it to her.
That was the job of some high school or college boyfriend when they had a relationship secure and comfortable enough to deal with things like that. What Will and Rachel had was not even a relationship, let alone something secure and comfortable. That was demonstrated only too well by the way Rachel had been carefully avoiding him for the last week.
As if it wasn't bad enough that she would walk into class or meetings with bloodshot red eyes, attesting to not only her lack of sleep but all the crying she had been doing. Crying over him, because of what he had done to her, what he had stolen from her in one of her misguided attempts at trying to be loved by someone other than herself.
No, that was bad enough, but seeing her glance at him and look away, look down with lifeless eyes that only days before had been sparkling and beautiful, it hurt worse than anything had ever hurt Will. That he was the one to kill her spirit made it unbearable to look at her. She deserved better; she had deserved everything she wanted and he hadn't been able to give it to her and for that he really was eternally sorry.
He genuinely felt as though he had taken something irreplaceable from her; but then he wouldn't be wrong because he had. And while it might be arguable that some of the blame lay with her, Will couldn't see any of this as Rachel's fault. Neither of them had known it would be quite this bad, but it was his responsibility and his duty to help her make good decisions. What kind of role model was he if he could be tempted so easily? What kind of a good decision was this?
It was thoughts like these which made Will want to smack his head against a table or anything hard and wooden really. Anything except his desk. He couldn't go in there anymore, because the table symbolised his fall from grace and he couldn't bear to think about it.
He couldn't bear to think about anything anymore. All he wanted was for her to forgive him, but he couldn't think of a single reason why she might want to do that. And more importantly, he didn't have the faintest idea how to go about showing her just how sorry he truly was.
For a week, Rachel cried. Not nonstop but on and off quite regularly. She cried when she was falling asleep at home in her bed. She cried when she walked past Mr Schuester's office in the hallways. She cried when people spoke to her, she cried when people didn't speak to her, she cried when sad music came on and most painfully she cried when Will looked at her with those big guilty green eyes of his.
To be honest, Rachel didn't know exactly what it was that she was crying for. It was nothing quite as virtuous as lost innocence or lack of virtue. She would say, if forced to put a name to it, that it was her broken dream which made her cry. Her idealistic view of not only herself but Will as well had been shattered in the ten seconds that they had lain silent and uncomfortable on his desk, trying to work out just what had gone so wrong.
Was it her fault for expecting too much? For thinking that maybe he would be different and that he wouldn't be able to hurt her? Maybe she shouldn't have been so naive. Or maybe it was his fault for not sticking to his values. She might have thrown herself at him but he was a grown man, wasn't it his responsibility to be the mature controlled one?
Who knew, maybe, just maybe it was no one's fault. Maybe it was just one of those things that happened entirely by accident and had an effect but no cause. Oh who was she kidding, she blamed him. She didn't want to, but she did. The trust she had felt had died along with her inexperience that day not so long ago on the desk and without trust there was nothing to their relationship beyond the memory of the pain and regret that he had caused her to feel.
She had given away something she could never, ever get back and what did she have to show for it other than some underwear which was now shrivelled up into piles of ash in the bottom of her fireplace and some puffy eyes?
In a way, Rachel kind of hated herself for hating him and in another way she didn't hate him at all. She hated them and what they had done but not Will. She couldn't quite bring herself to hate him, even if she had have tried, which she hadn't. Hating him would only make him hate her and if there was one thing she didn't need right then, it was more people who hated her.
Rachel had slowly gone about involuntarily alienating herself from her peers one by one this week in a series of events which she regretted almost as much as the events that had led up to her feeling compelled to do this. She had started with Finn and worked her way out from there.
"Rachel," he had called after her as she hurried out of another Glee practice, wanting to be away from this place as quickly as she could. She had ignored Finn and kept walking.
"Rachel!" He repeated louder. She gave up and turned around.
"Can I help you?"
He looked a little taken aback at her aggressive tone but he hadn't given up. "What's going on with you?"
"Nothing, and I'll thank you to stay out of my personal life. It has nothing to do with you Finn, you have a girlfriend, remember?"
He frowned at her. "Okay, seriously, I'm not trying to get into you, you're just my friend and there's obviously something wrong with you."
Too right, Rachel thought bitterly. But then he must have already known that, after the way he had been avoiding her like the plague after that kiss. Everyone knew it; even she did, she just didn't know what it was that was so wrong with her.
"Look Finn, why don't you just stay away from me? Go back to your football and your cheerleader girlfriend and your perfect life and leave me alone. The last thing I need right now is someone trying to insinuate their way into my life; it's hard enough already without you."
"Rachel, I'm sorry. I don't know what I did-"
"It's not about you!" Rachel realised she was screaming and sighed, putting a hand to her forehead and trying to calm herself down. People stared at them as they walked past, probably wondering what he was doing talking to her in the first place, let alone being screamed at. She took a deep breath and recommenced the conversation in a quieter tone.
"None of this has anything to do with you, alright? You're really not that important and I have far bigger things to worry about than you, so why don't you stop trying to make yourself feel special by acting like I care about you and just back off."
She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving a stunned Finn in her wake. Those words had been harsh and maybe unnecessary; only the smallest bit of her anger was directed at him and he didn't really deserve to be yelled at, but it was too late then to undo it. It was done and really, Rachel couldn't find it in herself to care. She meant what she had said; Finn really wasn't important to her, not anymore.
As she had passed the music room door, she saw the rest of the glee club standing and watching her and behind them, Will stood, his eyes trained to her face like everyone else. He had looked so guilty and pitying and pained that as soon as their eyes met she had to look away. She didn't want to look at him and see the formerly happy, eager smile that had died because of her actions; it hurt too much.
After that, the others had drifted, little by little until Rachel was all alone. Kurt had stopped talking to her only one day later when in a fit of rage that had absolutely nothing to do with him she had made some extremely unnecessary comments about his sexuality. Mercedes had begun ignoring her when Rachel called her fat and ugly after Finn had once again dropped her on the ground during rehearsal and the poor girl had tried to help her up.
When she told Artie his place in Glee was a complete travesty, since he could neither walk, nor sing overly well Tina and Artie had joined the 'we hate Rachel' club along with the rest of Glee including Rachel herself. She didn't like what she was doing, she didn't do it on purpose and she would give anything not to do it, but hurtful things seemed to pour out of her mouth these days in what she guessed was an attempt to even up the hurt in the group by inflicting pain on others.
She wished it would stop, that the pain would go away and she could go back to how she was only days before. It seemed like a life time had passed since that Tuesday and it was almost impossible to remember life before it. She wondered, if she were to forget the hurtful memories of the last week, would she have anything left? Was she anything now except for her actions and her words and her emotions? It certainly didn't feel like it.
She didn't even feel like a person, she felt like a doll, tied to some strings and forced to walk around, pretending as though nothing had gone wrong and unable to show her emotions in any way other than shouting and screaming and crying. And the worst thing about all of it, was that it was of her own doing.
She was the one allowing herself to wallow, to mope, to live without really living. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right and she wished beyond anything else that she could fix herself. She wished she could, but she couldn't, because despite everything she thought she knew, Rachel didn't have the slightest clue where to even begin.