Author's Note: Hi everyone! Thank you all so much for the reviews-they mean a lot to me. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it and I would really love to hear what you think c: This is a longer chapter for you!
Things you should notice: this is completely AU. I'm going to use some of the characters characteristics on Glee but as you will see everything is different. I hope you enjoy regardless!
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Glee. I do own this plotline
Summary: What happens if nobody believes you except the one person who shouldn't? When a girl is raped, conflict arises and she falls for the enemy. Humankind disappoints us repeatedly but love is like the stars and saves us everytime. Finchel AU
Warning: language, rape, sexual abuse, self-harm, bullying, etc.
Rating: M
Pairing: Finn/Rachel Finchel
CHAPTER ONE
catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
save it for a rainy day
There is nothing worse in the world than being a teenage girl, Rachel decides. She stares down the hallway as she leans against her locker, holding her scuffed canvas tote bag adorned with a large, single gold star on her shoulder. She watches Harmony Woods and Lindsey Kinsington in the hallway swapping lipgloss tubes and Maria Romanov across the aisle slowly applying thick chunks of mascara onto her eyelashes. She sees Arden Mayer flattened to her locker by her boyfriend Devon Washington as he kisses her passionately. She looks as Julia Lazzari breaks up with her on-and-off boyfriend Daved Hilton for the fifth time in three days and knows they'll be back together by the end of the day. And as she crumples down to the floor clutching her bag, she realizes, that in spite of everything, she is truly invisible.
She sits there on the tiled floor of McKinley High by her locker and buries her head in her arms. She remembers how when she was little she'd cover up her eyes and make believe that nobody could see her. Unfortunately, she doesn't have to cover up her eyes in high school; nobody can see her regardless. In spite of everything—in spite of her snagging up lead roles in past school plays, in spite of her signing up for clubs—almost nobody realizes she's there, and the few that do treat her like crap.
Rachel peeks under her arm and checks her watch. Shit. She has forty-seven seconds to get to Chemistry which is in a completely different building. She scrambles up immediately, scraping her bare knee on the ground in the process. Muttering to herself, Rachel readjusts her bag and turns only to turn and see him.
Finn Hudson. The most popular boy in the junior class. The boy.
Rachel knows that he has English next and after that, US History. US History is the only class they have together and it is most likely because of him that her US History grade is at a B+ instead of the A that it should be at. Even she has to admit that she spends most of class gawking at his dimpled smile and bright eyes and broad shoulders.
Rachel looks back at Finn as he brushes past her, his muscular arm skimming hers, without even glancing at her. Her heart flutters in her chest and she stares after him, taking in his smooth, closely cut light brown hair.
Rachel flushes when she realizes her mouth is slightly open, pulls her totebag to her side, and starts off to Chem.
She knows everything there is to know about Finn. She knows he had feathery, dark brown hair that smells so good it's almost sinful. She knows his eyes are bright and friendly and brown, and that when he smiles, his eyes laugh with his mouth. She knows that he smells like Listerine mint and boy and fabric softener, and that his voice is smooth and cool like a brick of dark chocolate. She knows that he his football jersey number is 17, his favorite drink is Hansen's Cherry Vanilla Soda mixed with Dr. Pepper, and that his star sign was Cancer. She knows his locker number is 103 and that the combination is 15-23-19. She knows his favorite food is a grilled cheese sandwich with tapatio and a little guacamole but that usually he's just content with grilled cheese or a plate of peanut butter cookies. She knows that he struggles with math and that he has a habit of pulling on his nails when he's nervous. She knows that his best friend is Noah Puckerman. She knows he lives with his single father—Christopher Hudson, who is also the coach of McKinley High's football team. She knows that Finn's mom ran off to California when Finn was ten and she also knows better than to bring it up.
He also, incidentally, is her next-door neighbor of eight years.
Rachel and Finn had been friends—never very close, but friends or at least acquaintances nonetheless—in the years before high school. They would wave to each other in the hallways of middle school and sometimes Christopher would drop off Finn at Rachel's house for Shelby to watch and vice-versa. Then high school had come along and Finn had been whooshed away in a cloud of popularity and Rachel…well Rachel had stayed. As had her feelings for him.
Rachel's breath catches when she sees him and her stomach flips over and does somersaults, but Rachel is also practical. Finn is completely out of her league and she can't compete with the stick-thin, dermatologist-skin, teeth-whitened cheerleading Cheerios that basically throw themselves at him.
Plus, now that her mom and his dad are dating, it's even more awkward. Rachel had slightly (and selfishly) hoped that when Christopher asked Shelby out, Finn would have been appalled and tried to break them up with her, but frankly, Finn is too nice. He told Rachel that he thought his dad needed a chance and hadn't pursued the matter any further.
So Rachel analyzes her ranking on the social ladder and retreats back into the dark corner of her anti-social, unpopular life and tries to make herself give up her futile attempts for the boy of her dreams.
Oh, if only her feelings could be as practical.
ooooo
To put it in the simplest terms, Shelby Corcoran loves routine. She thrives on it, actually. She likes knowing that she wakes up at 6:30 everyday and meditates for fifteen minutes. Then she goes into the kitchen of her one-story, rather small house and puts waffles in the toaster or cereal and soymilk on the table for Rachel. She likes knowing that she will go into her daughter's room and knock gently on the door, telling Rachel to wake up, even though Rachel is also a creature of routine and will already be up and out of her bedroom to take a shower. And about fifteen minutes after that, Rachel will come downstairs and have breakfast, and Shelby will drive her to school. She knows that Rachel will lightly protest because she has her license and wants to drive, but Shelby will argue that they only have one car and she, as the only source of income in the Corcoran-Berry family, needs it. (She also gets a secret satisfaction out of her knowledge that Rachel really prefers her mom to drive).
Rachel can never argue with that logic and usually will quite sullenly shut up, until her favorite song comes on the radio, where she'll pause long enough to belt it with her mother and then end up smiling, her eyes laughing and her white smile bright and toothy in her face. Shelby will smirk wickedly, Rachel will give her mother a kiss, and then she will clamber off to school to hang out with her peculiar friends.
Then Shelby will go to work as a musical director in the local downtown area on the intersection of Willow and Viola. She's been working quite intensenly with a new glee club called Vocal Adrenaline, and it's endlessly impressive to her how much they have improved. (She has to attribute much of their climb in performance to her directing, though).
Shelby loves Lima; she loves the closeness of it. Shelby loves walking into Paul's and knowing that Margaret will immediately put on a tuna melt for her; she loves going to Wilson's bakery and watching Frederick Wilson putting a loaf of squaw bread into a plastic bag with another bag of apple butter. She loves walking into the Lima Bean and knowing that the barista will automatically write down a medium drip for her.
After passing a day teaching—working and then going places after she closes her studio, Shelby will pick Rachel up from school and cook dinner while her daughter does her homework. And that was a weekday, with the intermittent ballet or voice lesson. Shelby is quite pleased that her daughter has inherited Shelby's own incredible vocal range—Rachel is, Shelby must admit, much better than Shelby ever was at her age. She might even have a shot at Broadway, if she wants it, and knowing her daughter, Rachel does.
On the weekends, Shelby and Rachel go do something together usually, just the two of them. Recently though, Rachel has been spending more time with her friends, and Shelby tries to keep herself entertained without going outside of her comfortable boundaries.
This is why she had hesitated when Christopher Hudson first asked her out. Men were outside of routine and Shelby didn't know if she could face that. The last man in Shelby's life had been Hiram Berry and he had been so stable and had done so well in the role for Rachel as a father, Shelby didn't think she could replace him.
And she was afraid of being hurt.
And that's when Christopher Hudson, with his strong shoulders and calm personality, told her he wasn't trying to be a replacement. Christopher honestly just wanted to get to know her; he just wanted a woman in his life and he had finally found a woman that looked like she might be the one.
Shelby knows enough about Christopher from what Rachel has told her. About Carole Hudson who ran off to California to live with the sleazy hippie. About how Christopher is an incredible football coach who pushes the boys hard, but not too hard. About how he lets them enjoy football and coaches them to win. About how both he and Finn know how to cook and how they alternate—just one of their bonding experiences as father and son. About how he is nice to everybody at school and always salutes Rachel in the hallways with a cheeky grin. Shelby could not have met a more routine-like man.
Shelby ponders over these definitions of herself and her life and how she coccoons herself in routine as she cups her hands around a coffee cup in the Lima Bean, feeling the heat wash over her fingers. Her strand of dark brown hair curls over one shoulder, and she shrugs it off absentmindedly. She has a date with Christopher after she picks up Rachel and she sighs wistfully, hoping the day will pass more quickly.
It is said that opposites attract, but in this case, it is simply quite the contrary.
Shelby has found a profoundly perfect man and she doesn't want to let go.
ooooo
Finn stands in his kitchen, rummaging through his refrigerator, thinking, What on earth am I going to eat tonight? He rakes a hand through his brown hair, his forehead creasing as he glances into the fridge. He pushes past a paper carton of leftover chow mein from when he and his dad had gone out because McKinley's football team won their third game in a row, throws a molding turkey sandwich into the trashcan, and sighs. Apart from a messy looking dump of lasagna and a jar of strawberry jam and a carton of milk two days past the expiration date their fridge is almost completely empty. He shakes his head and taps his fingers absentmindedly on the hard white door of the refrigerator. Ever since his dad has started dating Shelby, Christopher usually forgets to restock their food supply, leaving Finn to forge for himself.
Finn closes the door and fumbles his pocket absentmindedly with his left hand until he grabs his wallet. Flipping it open, he sees a twenty and immediately thinks dinner. Finn grabs his jacket from the kitchen chair and pulls it on before he walks out into the cold Ohio air.
His breath is framed in puffy white clouds as his faded black Converse slap against the slippery pavement. It's not snowing yet, but it's predicted that the snow will start soon—maybe three to four weeks from now. He comes to a stop at his car and stares at it in earnest. His baby. The barely functional Mustang with its chipped faded blue paint is old and battered, but to Finn it can't be any more perfect. He paid for all of it with his own money (excluding the $1,000 his dad had given him for his seventeenth birthday) that he'd earned from his job bagging at the local grocery market. He runs his fingers lightly over his car's hood, over flecked paint and wonders how much a new jar of paint would cost so he could give his car a new and fresh coat. He also thinks that he probably should have brought gloves and worn boots because it was freezing outside.
Pulling his jacket closer to himself, he opens his car door and fishes in his pockets for his keys. Putting his keys into the ignition, he backs out of his driveway so quickly he almost runs over his neighbor Rachel.
"Shit!" he yells out loud as he swerves, narrowly missing her. "God!"
His heart races—she seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He pulls his car to a screeching stop and rolls down his window, breathless, as he stares at Rachel. She's tiny and small and delicate in her pink winter coat and looks even more pathetic as she shakes in shock. "God, Rachel, I am so sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she stammers and then looks down at the ground. She raises one of her brown boots over the other, nervously scuffing the tip of one with the heel of the other. Her hair falls in small curls; her dark, bold bangs frame her face, and he momentarily thinks she's really pretty before he realizes he needs to apologize.
"God, Rachel, I'm really so sorry. I didn't see you—can I make it up to you? Where are you going?" When Finn is nervous he tends to babble, and that's the case right now.
Rachel's voice is nervous and bell-like, and it rings through the winter sky. "Um I was just going to get dinner because my mom's out and there's-"
"No food in the fridge, right?" Finn gives Rachel an easy, lopsided smile. Rachel seems to relax a little at that, and Finn only smiles more.
Rachel feels her heart hammer in her chest as she tries to suppress her pure excitement at being acknowledged by Finn. "Yeah, exactly."
"Well seeing that I almost ran you over, I think it's only right I take you to get something to eat," Finn says casually as he taps his fingers on his steering wheel. "If Peaches is okay with you," he notes, referring to the popular teen hangout that serves chic small plates of popcorn chicken and freshly made French fries and fresh spring salads. The only teen hangout in Lima besides the Lima Bean. (He thinks Rachel is vegan, or vegetarian at the least, but he's not sure. Good thing Peaches has salads).
"Yeah, Peaches is fine," Rachel says, standing awkwardly in the street. Her brown hair spills out of her hood and her face is bright and pinched in the cold. She just stares at him, almost in disbelief.
"I swear, I'm not that bad of a driver," Finn tells her after waiting for about thirty seconds. He pats the chair next to him.
"Oh," Rachel says, her face flushing. "Yeah, I know. Sorry I just completely spaced for a few seconds." I thought I was dreaming.
She carefully gets in his car, clutching her purse close to her side as she inhales the scent of Finn's Mustang. The smells of hay and boy and pine floods her senses and she feels the car's patent leather seats with her hands. She fastens her seatbelt, Finn giving her an relaxed, easygoing smile, and they start off.
There is silence, except for the low, steady beats of REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" in the background. Finn hums along absentmindedly, belting out a couple of notes until he realizes that Rachel hasn't said anything.
He glances over her, and catches her eyes on the dream catcher hanging from his car's rear-view mirror. She notices him looking at her, and flushes, the color filling her face and making her look vibrant and healthy, her eyes huge and doe-like in her face. Finn gives her a gentle smile.
"You like it?" he asks absentmindedly, pulling his eyes back onto the road. He uses one hand to fiddle with the heater and soon warm air is puffing through the vents.
Rachel shivers and pushed her hands up into her armpits.
"I love it," she answers honestly as she watches the tan dream catcher with grey feathers move rhythmically with the motions of the car.
"My daddy got it for me," Finn tells her as Rachel turns to look at him. "He gave it to me when I was eight. I'd been having all these nightmares," he chuckles as he stopped at an intersection. "I'd been having all these nightmares and he told me that the dream catcher would catch them and I'd only have good dreams."
"Did it work?" Rachel's voice hitches onto a higher note as she studies her chipped nails which are painted a bright fuschia.
"Yeah," Finn rubs his neck against the collar of his shirt to stop the itching. "Yeah, it actually did. I didn't have any bad dreams at all; the dream catcher caught all of them. I was really surprised kind of; I'd wake up with like rocks in it and I'd think they were my nightmares. But then I wondered if something that huge and scary could be compressed into little pebbles." He laughs breathlessly. "Haha you must think I'm crazy or something but it really worked; if I'd known before that they helped block out bad stuff so easily, I definitely would've gotten one earlier."
"I believe you." Rachel looks at him with her wide brown eyes. Finn notices that her dark lashes frame her eyes perfectly and that she has a dash of small freckles across her nose. "I just wish escaping was so easy for everyone. I mean, there are people who really need some escaping in this world," she leans back in her chair. Her voice sounds sad and low and sweet, and Finn can't help but notice the slight tremor in her tone.
"Hey, here," Finn says as he rolls into the parking lot in front of Peaches. They can hear the music pulsing out of the restaurant already. Finn reaches over Rachel's lap and opens up the glove compartment above her knees, his arm slightly brushing her thighs. He pulls out a dream catcher—a feathery pink-leathered one with white feathers—and hands it to her. "Catch some badass nightmares for me, will you? See if any rocks end up in it and tell me."
Rachel takes it breathlessly from his hand and slips it into her jacket, right next to her heart. "I will."
And for once, she almost believes that getting through life is this easy.
ooooo
"Wait, so what happened?" Tina asks skeptically as she pushes a strand of her dark black and blue-streaked hair behind one ear. She cocks her head as Rachel rolls her eyes and says again, "Nothing really happened. We just went out to dinner—well Peaches—and it was just really, really cute and-"
"Did he make you pay for your food?" Tina interrupts Rachel as she takes a bite of her organic peanut butter sandwich. She leans across the table toward Rachel in interest. "Because if he did than your idea of cute is delusional."
Next to her, Blaine laughs so hard he spits out a grape he has just put in his mouth. He runs his hand through his tousled, chocolate hair and grins his toothy smile, his gold-flecked hazel eyes glinting with mirth.
Tina flicks the saliva-covered grape casually off her black-skirt clad lap and looks expectantly at Rachel. "So did he make you pay?"
"No," Rachel answers her, her cheeks flushing in delight. "No, he paid. It was really sweet-"
Tina cuts her off again before she can finish.
"He probably just felt bad because he almost ran you over with that beat-up Mustang of his," she counters rationally, tying the laces on her black combat boots.
"Gees Tina," Rachel's smile fades a little as she leans back in the chair at their lunch table. "For somebody who's so logical you do a lot of very peculiar things," referring to the collection of Tina's bizarre quirks.
"Like what?" Tina slowly chews her mouthful of her coarse, brown bread and peanut butter as she eyes Rachel suspisciously with her eyeliner-streaked brown eyes. With her free hand she taps the table rhythmically; her fingernails are painted jet black to match the rest of her outfit.
Blaine, who hasn't said a word thus far, falls over onto his side laughing. His eyes crinkle up at the sides as he chuckles. Rachel and Tina simply stare at him until he straightens with a cough, adjusting his deep red bowtie.
"Sorry," he apologizes. He doesn't really look sorry at all, though.
"Well anyways," Rachel continues, giving a threatening look to Tina who interrupts her again, "he just had popcorn chicken and fries and I had a salad with sweet potato fries, and then we just talked about random things. And then we went outside and looked at the stars until he just drove me back home and I did my homework until like two in the morning."
"Sounds just lovely," Blaine puts in, a genuine smile plastered on his face. He runs his fingers under Rachel's chin affectionately, laughing as she squeals and pushes his hand away.
"It was. And let me tell you, the boy can sing," Rachel tells him, protesting as Blaine runs his fingers over the back of her hand. Her voice arches onto a higher note, and she changes the subject, feeling for some reason, that she wants to keep her moments with Finn private. "And how was your date last night with Kurt?"
"Eh, Kurt came over 'to do homework'," Blaine answers, quoting with his hands. "And then we ended up just fooling around instead. No sex," he immediately puts in after Tina arches an eyebrow, "just watching Project Runway and When Harry Met Sally and looking at Vogue magazines. And then we kissed a little bit and spooned. I got to be the little spoon this time." His face lights up with delight, his mind obviously on another boy.
"As fascinating as your life with you and your boyfriend sounds (and might I say, you two are pretty gay), I need attention right now." Tina looks seriously at the both of them. "Mr. Hutchinson is being really difficult and not giving me extra time to do my report."
"Tina, it's not his fault that you are terrified of public speaking," Rachel says cautiously, with a hint of pity, knowing how furious Tina can get when being told about her weaknesses. In spite of her calmness with her friends, both Blaine and Rachel know Tina has the propensity to begin stuttering wildly in front of a full classroom.
"You'll be sorry when I throw up in front of everyone," Tina says darkly, and she promptly stands up and walks away, her skirt swishing behind her above her black fishnets. She steals the remainder of Blaine's grapes as she leaves.
"Damn," Rachel says quietly as she stares after Tina's retreating figure. "Blaine?" She looks at her best friend hopefully.
"I can't do anything about it," Blaine glances sympathetically at her, his shoulders raised in a shrug. "She'll forgive you by next period, Rachel."
He kisses her cheek softly and then distractedly rifles through her bag lunch, pulling out a Ziploc bag of Oreos and a tangerine. "You going to eat these?"
Rachel shakes her head no and Blaine dumps the Oreos out into his hand, dropping the tangerine casually to the side. He pops the chocolate cookie off of one of the Oreos and starts scraping off the white cream with his teeth. Rachel rests her head on his shoulder and Blaine shifts his body up so she can lay more comfortably and closer to his head.
Rachel can feel Blaine's hot breath on her neck.
"You know Kurt told me he loved me yesterday." Blaine's voice is almost nonchalant but Rachel, having been best friends with Blaine for ten years can tell he's excited. "And then I told him I loved him back. And then I realized how really incredible love is and how really people waste an incredible amount of feeling when they just go up to random other people and say, 'I love you' without really meaning it."
Rachel sighs and tried to keep herself from crying.
"But I love you Rachel Barbra Berry," Blaine says softly as he starts eating the cream off another Oreo. His usually pristine teeth are stained with black marks from the chocolate cookies. Rachel smiles weakly and looks at him—he is absolutely adorable with his puddle of dark hair, expressive and thick eyebrows, and bright hazel-gold eyes. But of course he's also gay.
Blaine Anderson and Tina Cohen-Chang are Rachel's best—if not only—friends. She's known Blaine since the first grade. When he hit sixth grade he'd come out to Rachel, and Rachel knew and promised that she'd always love him, no matter what. Blaine hails from an incredibly uptight, traditionally devout Catholic family, and his parents are still blissfully unaware of his sexual preferences explaining why he has to date his boyfriend, Kurt, secretly. (Kurt has also been worming himself into Rachel's friend group, but right now he's off with his other friends at McKinley).
Tina, on the other hand, had hit it off rough at first with Rachel in their freshman year. To be completely honest, the girl is a little weird. She only wears black; her hair is streaked with sporadic marks of blue, and she radiates self-proclaimed feminism and independence. Tina's unnerving, sharp eyes has a way of digging deep into the soul; she tends to get along with very few people, especially because she is cripplingly shy with people she doesn't know. Eventually though, Rachel and Tina had worked out their differences and are now extremely good—even best—friends.
Rachel is jerked out of her reverie by the sound of someone clearing her throat. She looks up off of Blaine's shoulder to see Tina holding the tangerine Blaine had dropped. "Are you going to eat this?"
Rachel shakes her head no mutely.
"Good." Tina starts peeling the tangerine and sits back down next to Rachel, without another word. Rachel sighs, relieved.
"I love you girlllllllls," Blaine drawls casually and it is obvious that he means it.
And that is that.
ooooo
"Mom, can we go now?" Rachel whines as she stands impatiently next to her mother. Her thoughts drift to what she could be doing on a Sunday afternoon—well what she could be doing if she wasn't in this Godforsaken cemetery. "Please? Blaine wanted to go see a movie with me."
"Rachel." Shelby's voice is firm and serious and sharp, and Rachel cringes because she knows she's hurt her mother. "Respect your father, please."
"I'm sorry." Rachel flops dejectedly onto the grass. "It's just kind of hard to appreciate when you don't remember the person at all," she points at the marble headstone.
Shelby doesn't answer, but crumples down on her knees next to the stone marker. She presses her fingers gently in the engraving, reading the simple words she'd read so many times already.
Hiram Berry
(1970-1998)
You Will Be Missed
Rachel stares at her mom, a wave of sympathy washing over her. Of course Rachel wonders a lot about what it would be like to have a father, but since Hiram had passed when Rachel was only four, she can't remember him at all. Sometimes she has vague recollections of a dark-skinned man with the same dark hair Rachel has, with a dark beard that was scratchy and tickled her cheek, but otherwise, Hiram is nonexistent.
Either that, or Rachel just forgets too easily.
"He was a great man," Shelby's voice breaks and Rachel suddenly feels a rush of guilt. She hates it when her mother is sad. "I miss him a lot."
"I'm sorry, Mommy," Rachel stands up carefully and reaches to hug her mom.
Shelby squeezes Rachel's shoulder playfully, sniffling as she wipes a tear off her own face. "Okay baby, let's go."
Rachel links her hand in her mother's and they walk out of the cemetery together, leaving Hiram alone once more.
And all the while Rachel wishes she could cry for this man because he was her father. And all the while knowing that she can't cry and never will cry because she never knew him.
ooo
"Dad, is ravioli okay?" Finn calls from the kitchen when he hears the garage door of his house open.
Christopher Hudson walks in and whistles, his hands behind his head, as he stares at the mess Finn has made. "Gees, son, what were you up to?"
"Umm, I just got some food," Finn says without looking at his dad, ripping the bag of ravioli open and dropping a few pieces into a boiling pot of water. He turns and points at the grocery bags that litter the kitchen. "We seriously had no food in the refrigerator so I just took my last paycheck, cashed it, and bought food." He takes the lid off the pot of tomato sauce which is heating up to his right, smells it, and turned the fire up. He stirs the sauce carefully. "So is it okay?"
"Uh… what did you say, son?" Christopher asks, turning around in the kitchen as he starts picking up the plastic bags scattered around the kitchen.
"Ravioli. Well it has to be okay because I already started making it," Finn ladles out one piece of pasta, bites in, and throws it back into the pot. "They're chicken and spinach and we have Parmesan cheese somewhere in there," he points without turning around to the pantry.
"Yeah, sounds good." Christopher has finished picking up all the bags and cramming them into a drawer already full of bags. He stands up and stretches, running a hand through his thinning hair. "So, son, you ready for the game Friday?" He is referring to the homecoming game against Garfield—a school a little north of McKinley.
"Yeah," Finn grins as he grabs a nearby potholder and a strainer. He puts the strainer in the sink and pours the ravioli into it, letting the water seep through the cracks. "Born ready, Dad. We're going to win, aren't we? Well we have to win championships—we're really good this year," he absentmindedly takes two bowls from Christopher's outstretched hand, "and you're coaching us so we can't go wrong."
"Eh," Christopher makes an indistinguishable noise, and Finn pauses for a second as he puts a few pieces of ravioli into the bowls. He makes a motion for his dad to bring him the pot of tomato sauce and Christopher willingly obliges.
"What's 'eh?'" Finn says, starting to feel uncomfortable as he spoons tomato sauce onto the ravioli. His dad isn't conceited but he is honest. If Christopher believes in something, he'll say it—and he isn't saying that he thinks McKinley will win. "Don't you think we're good?"
"I think we could do better," Christopher answers as he put two forks on the eight-seat table and sits down. Finn slides in next to his father, pushing a bowl of ravioli in front of him. "I think we could do a lot better," Christopher says again, rubbing his chin and feeling the brown stubble. His dark, almost black eyes meet Finn's brown ones.
Finn tenses and the piece of pasta he's eaten starts to feel uncomfortably large in his stomach. He pushes away his plate and walks away from the table, his heart lurching in his chest and his mind awash with nausea.
It is a far from unfamiliar feeling but it hits him hard everytime. Fear.
Author's Note: Review for more! I will reply to all reviews (if they can be replied to with more than a "thank you" lol). And end chapter one! Eeeep!
Replies to anonymous reviews:
bueller: Thank you so much for your review! Haha Shelby is a difficult character and I've never written her before but I really needed a mother figure for Rachel, so here goes nothing!
emily: Here's more! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
FinchelSamAreHeaven4me: Thank you for reading! I hope you liked this chapter
FinchelFan278: And the issues will only get more difficult lol c: thanks for reading-I hope you enjoy it!
(And Christopher is Finn's father, eh?)
-sf