The summer they were apart, she had refused to return to Lima. Much to both of her fathers' discontent, she had chosen to stay in New York instead. With Shelby. She couldn't go back, knowing that he was going to be there. How could she face him and not hate him? Worse, how could she face him and not realize once again how hopelessly in love with him she still was? So when her mother had subtly hinted that she would like it very much if Rachel spent a portion of the summer with her, she had said yes immediately.
If it was any other summer, if it wasn't the summer he left, it would have probably been the best summer of her life. It was two months spent attending every show under the sun and meeting with people on the inside, people who left her starstruck and in awe. She knew that her rise to Broadway could be made easier with Shelby as her ticket. She knew that was what Shelby was trying to imply. She was grateful. But it annoyed her just a little bit to think that her mother thought she couldn't make it on her own (He used to tell her that she was a star and that she needed no one to succeed. That was a lie. She needed him.).
Beth was growing up into the most adorable and lovable little girl Rachel had ever met. She greeted her stepsister with kisses and made-up songs and loved to walk like she was dancing. But there were signs of her parents in her. She had a glare that could have frozen the sun and an odd love for football that left her mother shaking her head in resignation. The little girl loved to take pictures and videos of herself dancing and performing in front of her stuffed animals. Rachel helped her with the direction (She was so glad for this beautiful little girl, so glad for the mistakes that had happened, because sometimes her antics were the only thing that kept Rachel from falling apart.).
She emailed a picture to Quinn every single day. Every day a new one, a new expression on Beth's face. In the years since high school, they never really became friends. But they never really stayed enemies either. Sometimes Rachel felt that they were just fixtures in one another's life, someone that was just there, that would leave a weird, gaping hole if she ever left. Quinn never replied. But that was okay. Rachel knew she got them. One week before her stay with Shelby ended and before her fathers came for a month-long visit, she finally received an email. There had been no greetings or acknowledgements, just a string of words that formed a sentence that left tears leaking out of her eyes. He's miserable and it shows.
Her daddy greeted her with his customary theatrics, his tears welling in his eyes as he told her that she had grown so much since the last time they saw each other. She wondered if grown was code for looking heartbroken. Her dad had said nothing but had enveloped her in a big hug instead, crushing her to his chest. She felt a little guilty for ditching them in her attempt to fix her heart. There were a lot of questions. About what happened, how it happened and why. Daddy was insistent and she had a hard time explaining that she just didn't know. Rachel didn't know anything. The what, the how, the why. It was still a blur to her.
Daddy stopped asking when her dad had suddenly spoke up and said "He thought it was the best. You can't blame the boy for doing what he thinks is best.". She had looked up in surprise, but her dad had continued reading the newspaper in his hands (Now, now when they've broken up, now he was on his side?). She comforted herself with the thought that he was just glad they were over. But she knew it wasn't true.
Al came back from his whirlwind tour around Europe two weeks before her parents left and they loved him to pieces. He had made his homecoming known rather dramatically as he bombarded Rachel with a side hug and a "Sweetie are you okay?" the moment she opened the hotel room door. He wasn't around when that night happened. He had left spontaneously that very night. She knew because when she was done with her crying, she had called him thirty times, each time willing for him to pick up the phone. When he had called her the next morning, excitedly asking her to guess where he was, she had cried into the phone for an hour instead. He said he would come home immediately. Rachel had a tendency for self-obsession. But she wasn't selfish.
Two weeks before the end of summer, when her parents returned to Lima and Rachel returned to her pathetic excuse of an aprtment, she had born witness to the hottest day of the year. The heat drove her crazy and she spent the whole day pressing cloth covered ice cubes against her neck. It was her greatest annoyance that the most comfortable shirt she owned just had to be her Team Finn t-shirt. By six, she had a complete meltdown. She had stalked angrily into her room and, with unnerving calmness, collected every single thing that ever reminded her of him and placed them in a lone box, including the stupid t-shirt. Making room right in the middle of her apartment, she had lit a match and dropped it stoicly to burn away her memories.
It took her five minutes to realize that burning pictures were never a good idea. Coughing profusely as her eyes filled with tears, it was the first time she was ever grateful that her apartment was so pathetic, it wasn't even equipped with a smoke detector. The day ended with Al showing up at her door, four different alchohol bottles in hand. He helped her carry the box down and placed it neatly next to the dumpster behind the apartment. She got drunk for the first time in her life and laid passed out on the floor with her bestfriend. Rachel woke up at three in the morning, puking her guts out (turned she had a gag reflex after all), and had quietly slipped out the door before frantically running down the stairs to take back the stupid box before the trashman came. She pushed it into the furthest corner of her closet and tried to pretend it didn't exist.
Two weeks into her fall semester, she met Jake. Crashed into him, more like. She had been late for her elective Psych class and he was just an innocent bystander. He was a law major with a sunny disposition and the second most attractive smile she had ever seen. He asked her out for coffee and she said no thank you. She didn't drink coffee. Juice then, he insisted. She smiled. But she really was late and ran with a hasty apology thrown back at him. It was only as she was walking back from class did she realize that it wasn't her who didn't drink coffee.
She found herself with an endearing stalker of sorts on every Wednesday from then on, persistently asking her out for juice. Or frozen yoghurt. Or pizza. She made it through three weeks until they bumped into each other while she was at lunch with Al. As they watched his retreating figure, her friend had wryly asked when she planned to officially join the convent.
Jake was funny. He was cute and he really, really liked her. Which didn't happen often. Turning into an official adult didn't automatically present you with normal social graces, she found. She wasn't looking for anything permanent and neither was he. So they were pretty much perfect. She held herself back because there had really ever been only one boy who loved her and all her crazy, and she had lost that one.
It wasn't until a month of sort-of-almost casual dating did he get to witness her in all her glory when he had made a joke in passing that watching musicals were like getting high on crack. She had ripped on him for the better part of an hour, referencing every single musical under the sun and the cultural impact they have made on the general masses. Footnotes were included. He had stared at her, half in disbelief and half in amusement, before finally holding up his hands in surrender and swearing to never make such nonchalant remarks in her presence or ever again.
He was a loyal fan of The Yankees and took her to all the baseball games he could afford. During the first moment she stepped into the stadium and the first pitch she witnessed , Rachel had a very hard time in trying to suppress the mental images of annual anniversary dates at worn-out and deteriorating batting cages. But she did it. And the second time was a little easier.
He taught her the basics of the game and the right way to cheer, by putting two fingers at the edge of her lips and letting out the loudest wolf-whistle she could muster. It was during one of these games and in the middle of her perfected whistle that he had swooped down and planted his lips firmly on hers. She had stood rooted to the ground long after he pulled away and grinned at her. His lips were foreign and felt nothing like the ones she was used to. It was... pleasant. But it was different. And she wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
Rachel auditioned for the role of Maria in the college production of West Side Story, knowing full well that the part was in her hands the moment she stepped onto the stage and opened her mouth. It was a month long procedure of rehearsal after rehearsal on crazy schedules that would accomodate everyone in the production. She nailed every single line every single time because she had the play memorized ever since she was twelve. She loved every single second. She felt it to her bone that it was exactly what she was meant to be doing for the rest of her life. The stage was where she belonged (In the back of her mind, his promise to be in the front row, center stage kept playing like a broken record over and over).
The night before her big performance, Rachel spent an hour pacing nervously from one end of her room to the other, phone in hand. She knew it was wrong. She knew she was only setting herself up for inevitable and inconsolable pain. But it was truly out of her hands. Her actions were not her own. They were of the old, naive and stupid Rachel Berry. Before she could stop herself, the number was already dialed and the phone was already pressed to her ear. It took four rings and she almost hung up.
"Yo." She frowned at the unfamiliar voice and pulled the phone away to look at the numbers. They were correct.
"Hello," she replied hesitantly. "May I speak to Finn?"
"Who're you?"
"I'm his-" What? Ex? Friend? The girl whose heart he broke? "Acquaintance."
"Huh. Dude left his phone." As her heart rate seemed to return to normal, she wondered if it was dissapoinment that was weighing her chest down so painfully.
"Oh."
"I'm Tom. You know I feel like I need to tell you this, cause my man Finn would probably try to play it cool later. But you and everyone he knows should know that tonight is the night man!"
"Night?" she asked, slightly amused at the apparent excitement that laced his words. Tom must be a new roommate. Someone new in his life. Someone she didn't know.
"You got that right sweet cheeks. Tonight is the night that my man Hudson is going to score with the Mary-Beth Stevenson. Don't let the sweet Southern name fool you because that girl is hot. She's been-"
"I have to go." Her words were abrupt. She had to get them out as soon as possible before the bile that seemed to have made its way up her throat would literally appear.
"Oh yeah. Hey what's your-" She hung up, staring blankly at her cellphone, willing her tears away. Inevitable and inconsolable pain. She deserved every little bit of it for being so foolish.
The play was a predictable success. With her as the star, of course it would be. In the front row, center stage, Al sat with his video camera perpetually glued to his face. Jake was beside him, and he had looked up at her in wonder, a proud smile gracing his features as he wolf-whistled at the curtain call. She tried not to let it bother her that they were where he should have been. She went backstage and was greeted with a long, rectangular box that sat on her makeup chair. Rachel had opened them to find a dozen stargazer lilies tied together neatly with a white ribbon. They were beautiful and perfect for her, a burst of pink wonders in her favorite shape. There had been no card attched to them.
She met Al and Jake at the entrance of the auditorium once she had cleaned up, the box held carefully under one arm. As she raised herself a little for a chaste kiss, she had thanked her sort-of-maybe new boyfriend for the beautiful gift and was greeted by a small and confused smile. They weren't from him. She shook her head a little, embarrassed and blew it off when he apologized for not getting her anything. Al spent the night and Jake left them both at the curb of her apartment after a pleasant dinner filled with compliments. She wondered out loud incessantly about the mysterious flowers until Al had turned to her exasperatedly and told her to just let it go already and enjoy the gift. She had looked at him curiously then, because the tips of his ears were turning red as he said them and she knew he knew who it was. Suddenly, she had a feeling she knew who it was too. But it was impossible. He didn't even know about the musical in the first place. Al tried to distract her and made her sign his program.
"Sign it to my biggest and best fan in the whole world, Love Rachel Barbara Berry. And I want that gold sticker on there. I know you don't use them anymore, but I saw that stash you tried to hide in your drawer," he told her. She looked up in amusment. That was specific. Rachel did as she was told and proceeded to give her bestfriend the best hug she could muster because she didn't know how she could have survived everything without him. The stargazers were carefully placed in a vase on her desk and tended to daily until the end of its life. She cried as she scattered the dead petals into the pond at the park nearby.
With winter came a new semester and a new and improved Rachel Berry. Finn Hudson was out of her mind. Completely. She had thrown him out the moment she heard the name Mary-Beth Stevenson who was probably a beautiful and proper blue-eyed blond without any narcissistic tendencies or a nose with a personality of its own. She was done being heartbroken (The box was still in the back of her closet because she didn't even remember it was there. Really.).
She threw herself into another play because she was determined to shine her star to gleaming perfection. Little Shop of Horrors was not part of her repertoire as horror had never been a particular attraction to her. But Rachel Berry always loved a challenge and Audrey was a perfect role to improvise on her dramatic skills. The role was harder than the one before, and she spent all of her time before and after class honing her skills to perfection. She was determined to know her character like the back of her hand. They had something in common, Audrey and her. They would both give everything they could once they found that someone. Or at least, that was what the old Rachel was like. The new Rachel couldn't care less. Honestly.
She finally met the elusive John on a double date where Rachel had spent the whole time smiling in amusement at the flustered way the usually calm and confident Al acted. Her friend was so nervous, he dropped his knife twice, the second time resulting in a loud, clangng noise that left him blushing to the roots of his hair. John had placed a hand encouragingly over Al's and that seemed to calm him down a little as he went through the rest of the date disaster-free. She wondered why watching them made her feel so melancholic. The night ended with a Rachel Berry-approved seal on Al's new boyfriend which seemed to relief the couple. It was a little gratifying to know that her approval meant so much.
As expected, the horror musical sold out and Rachel Berry once again wowed the audience with her outstanding performance. The front row were filled with the usual, plus John. As she made her way back to her makeshift 'dressing room', her heart seemed to skip a beat when her gaze caught the familiar looking rectangular box. She had hurried over to her table and practically ripped the box open, her heart seeming to expand when the burst of pink star-shaped flowers filled her vision.
"It's him, isn't it?" she asked softly in the darkness, her blanket up to her chin. It was 2 a.m. And the flowers were placed carefully on her desk in the vase and Al was lying next to her, supposedly sleeping. She knew better. There was a heartbeat of a pause before she heard Al's sigh as he turned towards her.
"Rachel-"
"I know it is. I know." Al said nothing for the longest time.
"Goodnight," she whispered finally.
"Goodnight."
She had called Jake the next day because they needed to talk. He knew what was coming. She could see it from the look on his face as she stood up from her chair to kiss his cheek. It didn't take long for everything to come out. And suddenly, she was reliving the past five years of her life to her sort-of-maybe boyfriend and soon-to-be friend. He said it before she could. You are not over him. Five simple words in the English dictionary that she had refused to say out loud or even think in the last couple of months. The one perpetual truth in her life. She was not over Finn Hudson. She refrained from mentioning that she probably never will be. Instead, she had smiled sadly at the boy before her, wondering that if it was another time, another universe, one where she wasn't so wholly and utterly attached to someone else, if maybe they could have worked.
It had happened one night, during the end of Spring. Rachel had refused the invitation to be the third wheel on Al and John's date. They were going to some art gallery opening and all she had wanted to do was to curl up in bed and watch Funny Girl. She missed that movie. She hadn't watched it since the last time her hert fell to pieces because the pain from the movie would have been to acutely real. Almost a year later, she knew she was ready. Fanny Brice was a dear friend of hers, and this time around, Rachel found that she understood the woman's actions in a way that she never did before.
As the credits rolled, and the last of her tears dried up, the phone she had left on the pillow next to hers began to vibrate. She had distractedly reached for her phone and almost answered without looking at the caller ID. As her eyes fell on the numbers blinking on her screen, she swore that her heart had stopped beating. It was true. For five seconds, Rachel Berry had actually died. The ringing stopped and she was still left completely bewildered, her phone clutched tightly in her hand. The second time it rang, Rachel snapped out of her trance. Her heart was beating hard enough to hurt her ribs. With shaking fingers, she pressed the receive button.
"Hello?" she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Raacch.." he slurred. She frowned.
"Are you drunk?" she asked softly.
"No. No no no no no. I'm not drunk. Why would you say that?"
"Finn where are you?" she asked, worried despite herself.
"I dunno. Whatever. How are you? Are you okay? Are you good? What m'I talkin' bout? Of course you're okay. You're awesome Rachel, you know that? You're the" he hiccuped. "-Best. And you're gonna be a star baby. A star! And I'm an idiot. Stupid Finn. Stupid, stupid Finn. But you know that."
"Finn-"
"I miss you so much! Like a lot. Like if I was an ant or something then my missing you would be huge, like the size of the entire ocean. Wait. That's not right. What am I saying? Oh yeah, I'm an idiot. Really huge dumbass. Cause I'm miserable. I'm so fucking miserable Rachel." His words came out as barely coherent slurs and she knew she should be worried about where he was right then. But all she wanted was for him to keep talking.
"You are?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"Yeah. You're not here. You're not anywhere cause Stupid Finn made you cry and now you're gone. And that idiot thought he knew what he was doing," he snorted angrily and she heard a vague thump and a crash. "Oops. I just threw my last beer at Tom's lamp. He's gonna be sooo pissed." She felt better knwoing that he was somewhere safe. "Anyway, Stupid Finn's stupid. Cause he thought he was like, protecting you, or something and now he's just as miserable as I am. But you're not miserable? Right Rach? You're not. You're happy cause you're not stuck with us anymore and you're so amazing baby, and you're gonna shine and we're just gonna sit here and be fucking miserable without you. Cause you're better off- wait. No. No no no no no no! Stupid Finn, go away already. I'm trying to save us here. Sorry 'bout that Rach."
"Finn," she said softly. "You need to lie down. Are you lying down?"
"'Kay."
"Are you lying down?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good."
"I miss you Rachel. Do you miss me? I mean, I know you don't miss Stupid Finn cause he fucked up, but do you miss me?" She felt the tears pool in her eyes. He was drunk. And she was so pathetic. Because even when he was drunk he could make her willpower dissapear.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes I miss you Finn."
"Even the stupid me?" His voice sounded drowsy.
"Even him."
"I love you Rachel Barbara Berry. I love you so much I just want to sit on my bed and cry all the time."
"You're so drunk," she answered wryly, unable to stop the unwitting smile from growing on her face.
"Yep. Being drunk's fun."
"You won't think so tomorrow."
"Come here." Her heart stopped for the second time that night. He had a tendency to shock her to death. Literally.
"What?"
"Come here. Where I am. Pleeaaasse? Can you get here? Like soon? There's something I want to tell you but I can't remember now cause my brains feels all wonky. So can you please come here and see me so I can finally tell you?"
"Finn, you're killing me," she said softly.
"You have to come Rach. You have to. Rachel I- I-"
"What?" she asked, sitting up straighter in her bed, her pulse racing.
"I need to puke. I gotta go. I really, really gotta-" Her mind was a total blank as she heard the dead tone. She stared blankly at the phone in her hand, wondering if the conversation they had actually happened or if it was just a figment of her deluded imagination. It was real. She had heard his voice for the first time in almost a year. It was exactly the same. Albeit, completely inebriated, but the same nonetheless. What did he mean? Was he for real? Was she kidding herself by letting her hopes up? Was she an idiot for letting her hopes up?
After five hours of tossing and turning and trying to sleep, she finally gave up and left her bed. She walked slowly towards the closet, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest as she kneeled down and pushed away the shoeboxes that littered the front. She pulled her memories out of their hiding and sneezed as dust flew into her nose. Slowly opening the box, she was greeted with a plethora of Finn memorabilia and his huge, crooked grin as his photo stared up at her lovingly. There it was. The most beautiful smile she had ever seen. She sieved through its contents until the sun rose.
Rachel Berry found herself. She knew who she was as a person, as an individual. And in finding herself, Rachel found that she was back where she started. Still in love with the same boy. She knew better this time around. She could function without him, she could survive. Better yet, she had even flourished. She had thought she needed him like she needed to breathe, like if he wasn't around she would just wilt away and die. She should have known she was so much stronger than that. Rachel Berry could live without Finn Hudson.
She just really, really didn't want to.