A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing! Please be kind and leave a comment! It takes only a few seconds of your time, I promise. PS, this is pretty short, but hopefully you understand why. If I elongated it, it'd be too much, I think, and very repetitive.

6.

Rachel woke up at six in the morning. In her head, she does the math. She got home around three. She cried until four. She woke up at six. Two hours of something that she would hardly consider 'sleep'. It was more of this hazy numbness of her just lying there with her eyes closed. Oh, and she had that one hour of light sleep before everything happened. That was nice. Sitting in the warm sudsy water to start her morning bath, she relishes in what that one hour was like for her. No worries, no broken hearts, no stress… Her life was perfect in that hour, even though it wasn't the best sleep ever, and she cherished that she could count that as rest.

Well, sort of. She's sure all her energy from that went into crying and being hysterical about Carole and Finn.

By seven in the morning Rachel was out of the tub. She ended up having a small nap in the tub, which is extremely dangerous but definitely was worth it. However Rachel is now paying for the side effects of this. The water had gotten very cold and chills dance up and down her body. Her skin had softened and she looked like a prune. She only had an hour to get to the school and that left her with no time to eat breakfast.

Getting dressed, she pulls on a little black dress she had recently bought specifically for this audition. It was classic and she thought it was her best bet fashion wise. Her feet slip perfectly into a pair of nude pink heels that would match the pearl necklace dangling on her dainty frame.

When she gets back to her bathroom she nearly screams when she looks into the mirror. Who is this girl looking back at her? The one who looks unhealthy and… scary. Dark circles rim under her eyes that are bloodshot. Pale pigments wash out her complexion. It was something she had never seen before in herself.

Concealer and foundation cake onto her skin and she feels like she looks back to normal thirty minutes later. She grabs her sheet music with copies for the band members and hurries downstairs to the kitchen. Rachel has no time to get food, but she needs to grab a water bottle. A note is on the fridge, left from her fathers'.

Good luck, Rachy! We know you'll do great, princess. We love you no matter what. Go forward and shine as bright as the stars in the sky. See you when we get back from Chicago.

Love,

Dad and Daddy

Rachel can't help but sigh deeply. Her dads' are on a business trip, which means they'll be gone for at least a week. She really needed them right now, too. Who else was she to turn to? Finn was obviously crossed off the list, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to test the waters with Kurt right now. He was probably as fragile about this as she. Apparently her dads' didn't notice her leaving last night. They were probably sleeping already when she pulled out, and definitely sleeping when she pulled back in.

It had been such a late night. Her head is foggy and her vision is blurry. She tries really hard to stay awake when she gets in her car and starts driving. Memories of last night flush through her mind.

Her desperate pleas echo loudly, her screaming resonates deeply, her crying vibrates slowly. She remembers asking him to go to New York with her. She remembers him denying the offer. She remembers him telling her that he needed to be in the army, trying to justify his actions. She remembers him telling her that she needed to stop over reacting. She remembers screams that were directed at him, foul language, and dirty looks too. She remembers chucking an object, her rhinestone encrusted hair brush, at him. Not at his face, where it hit, but at him in general. She was just this ball of energy and hurt and pain.

For some reason she feels that today is not a good day to be facing this important audition. It's bad timing and the odds are definitely stacked high against her, unfortunately. But what was she supposed to do about it? Cry and beg Carmen to assign her a different audition time? That'd be completely juvenile and unprofessional. She didn't want to jeopardize her chances even though they were slim.

Whether a heart attack or a heart break, the show must go on.

The show must go on.

When she arrives at school she's only five minutes early. She's hardly able to hand the music to the band before she's called to the stage. Rachel strolls out to center stage, feeling the spotlight warming up her body temperature. A brilliant smile spreads across her face as she adjusts her vision to the light, allowing her to look into the audience. No one is here, much to her relief. She really doesn't think that if Finn were here she'd be able to do it.

Carmen is sitting in the center of all the chairs and she hasn't even looked up from her paper in which she's furiously scribbling notes down. Notes about Rachel. How can she even write anything yet? She hasn't even looked at Rachel, heard her perform, nothing and she already has stuff to say.

Rachel clears her throat softly and starts to speak.

"Hello, I'm Rachel Barbra Berry and I will be singing Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked."

She hates how her voice is a little too nasally at the moment and hopes that it doesn't sound while she's singing. Her hands start to sweat and she wipes them discreetly on her dress. Carmen has yet to look up at her. The band starts anyways.

"Something has changed within me,

Something is not the same.

I'm through with playing

By the rules of someone else's game.

Too late for second guessing,

Too late to go back to sleep.

It's time to trust my instincts,

Close my eyes and leap!

It's time to try defying gravity.

I think I'll try defying gravity,

And close my eyes and leap!"

Her body jerks at what just happened. Jaw dropped, flushed face, racing heart. What did she just do? She did not just flop a lyric!

Carmen finally looks up with a pestered expression on her face, which makes Rachel even more nervous.

"I-I'm so, so sorry. That never… that never happens. Let me just… let me just start from the beginning," Rachel quickly explains.

Carmen looks at her with a hard expression and Rachel turns her back and looks at the band, nodding to them.

"Just start again," She quietly commands.

They look around with wide eyes, surprise clearly written on their faces. Rachel Berry never messes up a song! And if she did, it'd be because she hit a flat note or something. But never, ever has she messed up a lyric. It's such an amateur mistake.

The piano cues her start again and she spins around to face the audience. She's never felt so nervous in her life, in front of just one person. For glee club she's performed in front of the entire school, the entire judgmental population of peers she faces every day and hadn't felt a twinge of being on the edge of a breakdown like now.

Like now, where this can determine the outcome of her future. If she doesn't push herself back to her grade A talent in this second, everything is totally-.

"Something has changed within me,

Something is not the…

Is not the s-same."

Her eyes squeeze shut and she clears her throat, trying to shake it all out, to fix this. What is she doing? How is she stumbling over the words, how is she even… how could this happen to her? Her apologies start to fly from her mouth, making her seem even more foolish, but she had to. She had to give it another shot.

"I am so, so sorry. But I can do it again," Rachel repeats. "I will start again and I promise I will-."

"No."

"E-excuse me?" Rachel looks at Carmen in the audience.

Her breath hitched in her throat and she tried desperately to gulp down the blockage. Is this real? Is this real life? Is this honestly happening to her at this moment?

The older woman closes her notebook and leans back in the chair. The dark expression on her face was enough confirmation for what was about to happen.

"I said no. You're allotted eight bars, I gave you sixteen. If this were to happen in the real world, in the Broadway world, they'd be handing your role to your understudy. I don't have time for this."

There was something in her tone of voice that gave the entire situation finality. She was ending this entire audition. Carmen doesn't have time for this. Desperation overcame Rachel as she tried and tried to reverse the flop this morning has been.

"But… please just listen!" Rachel feels the tears springing in her eyes. "Please, please wait. Just give me one more chance!"

She blew her chance! What the hell, how the hell…? Her head throbs with pain and she's just going through too much right now. She was in no state to be auditioning. But in real life you have to push those things aside. And she couldn't.

Carmen had gotten out of her seat and left the auditorium, not even cracking the slightest bit to sympathize for the broken girl on stage. Rachel falls to her knees and starts to bawl. One of the band members attempts to approach her but she just yells at him to leave her alone and they all scamper off with their instruments. They're probably mad that they only got to play for about thirty seconds. She had made sure that they cleared their schedule for this moment, and they did just for her. Now what?

She's such a loser. All these years in high school, even middle school, she was the target of constant bullying. They called her terrible things, like Man Hands, Ru Paul, etc. It was consistent and annoying. Her life had been this huge hell hole in which everyone assumed she wouldn't be getting out. But the joke was really on them. The only thing that got Rachel through it all, the reason why she kept her head up high when slushies' were tossed in her face or when they stared at her and laughed like she was abnormal, was the fact that they were all going to be stuck in Lima doing shitty dead end jobs while she shone like a star with fame and fortune. She would be something and they would be nothing.

That's how it's supposed to work, right? Like, in the movies, didn't the underdog always win in life? After years of struggling, she was supposed to have this big breaking moment in which she'd be a superstar, one that will never burn out. She was supposed to get the handsome boyfriend, the popularity, the perfect future career plan. It's supposed to be like that! But right now… after that audition… She wouldn't be surprised if they kicked her out of the school in general because of that. Why would they waste their time on someone who couldn't even remember the lyrics to a song?

She lies there on the shiny black stage floor for a while, just crying her eyes out, wishing that she would just die. What's the point anymore? With Carole sick, Finn going to war, and her future now a shaky item, there truly was no point. Why move on, why try anymore? It wasn't worth the pain and suffering, it never would be.

Rachel regrets the last eighteen years of her life. What does she have to show for it? Sure she won numerous dance and singing competitions, but… what does that matter? At least the people who would be stuck in Lima would have pictures to show their children of their friends in high school. They would have memories, good fun memories of living their lives. She has none of that.

Well, she did make memories with Finn and Kurt. And sure the glee club said they were her friends, but… she doubted that constantly. With Santana's mean remarks about her, Quinn's constant criticism, and the group as a whole being snappy with her, blaming their bad attitudes on her actions, she always thought that they just pretended they liked her when teachers or other adult figures were around.

She would forever be nothing in their minds. And if they did remember her presence, it'd be a negative reflection on the annoying Jewish girl with two gay dads'. Her life was nothing. Being the conceited person she was her entire life was a big mistake because look how it turned out in the end.

Getting up, Rachel stumbles off stage and out of the school entirely. Somehow she makes it to her car. Pulling out, she speeds off back home. Her thoughts are scaring her, yet she has to agree with them because they are what she's thinking. Swarming ideas of ways to kill herself attack her completely, causing her to weep harder than she did a while ago. Sure things were tough, but that didn't mean she had to be… suicidal.

Back in her home she drops down onto the couch and buries her face in a brown suede pillow. She's matting down the fabric with her wet tears and hot breath. A scream rips from her vocal chords, desperate to relieve some of the emotions that she's feeling right now. She has no one at this moment, and she knows exactly who she wants.

Finn.

Finn would make this better, make her feel better. Get her to realize that this is not the end of the world. Make her never doubt her existence here on earth, scare away those thoughts of death and pain and torture and failure. Remind her that things are going to get better, that this fluke isn't going to mean anything in the long run. That she was worth something.

Her heart ached strongly, the throbbing pain almost unbearable. Finn wouldn't be coming over today. Probably not for a long time. She'd just have to deal with that, accept that. For now she'd just have to lay low, fly by without being noticed. It'd be the best for her reputation.

God, once the kids find out at school she is so screwed.

But on the brighter side, graduation would be coming up just in a couple weeks, so she didn't have a long time left with the bullies. She could graduate, in honors, at the top of her class and be gone. Escape from everyone and everything.

If only it were possible to escape from yourself…

A/N PS: I'm trying to make it so I will update every Tuesday night sometime. I hope I can keep up with this plan. I must pre-write the next few chapters because I have a summer part time job and will be leaving soon for vacation (yay:)). But I promise while I'm gone I will make up to you by posting two chapters before I leave or two chapters after I come back. It's a little down the road. I'll keep you posted ;)