Yet another trigger warning. And I have to pee, but you didn't need to know that.
I know people want other to find out, which isn't occurring just yet, but I do have a plan, so trust me :)
Rachel's hand shook as she held the silver against her wrist. She started gently, stroking the cold blade smoothly across her skin then pushed harder, so it stung and left a faint red line, but did not break the skin. Just do it, she told herself. Press it down and run it along. It sounded so easy in her head. So quick. But then there would be the other one, and by then she would hurt, that one would not be so simple. Her wrist would be weak, painful, she might not be able to go deeply enough and then she'd just be left to bleed without an end.
Was an end really what she wanted? She had meant what she said, she was done with trying to please the people who would clearly never love or accept her. She was done trying to defend herself when it only ever landed her in worse trouble. She was done trying to be what everyone else wanted her to be. She was done trying to smile. But she wasn't done with life, not quite. Although more people would brush her death away than care, there were the select few that would be hurt. Kurt for one, and Noah. Her dads.
But then there was the end to the pain. The end to the daily taunts and put downs, the end to the roll of dread that washed through her every day when she woke up in the morning at the thought of having to face more hours awake and alive, an end to the crushing loneliness that threatened to engulf her with each passing day. She didn't want to die, but she was tired of living. If her existence could even be called that. It was too hard. It was all just too hard.
The blade hit the carpet with a gentle thump as Rachel allowed it to fall from her quivering hand. As hard as living was, dying would surely be worse. She would lie alone as the blood flowed out of her, taking her life further away with every drop that spilt, and then there would be the anguish for the one to discover her. Who would that be? Her dads perhaps, or maybe Noah, or Kurt, seeing the way she had fled from glee would peruse her, and they would be the ones to find her.
Rachel waited for the tears to come. She could feel the sob bubbling in her throat and the moisture stinging behind her eyes, but nothing happened. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a noise, somewhere between a cry and groan, but still the tears didn't spill. The one time she actually wanted to, she could not cry. She wanted to curl on her bed and sob until there was nothing left in her body to sob with, she wanted to hear the sound echo through the empty walls of the house, a proof that she was hurting.
But there was another way to prove it, and it lay still at her feet. Rachel reached for it, calmer now she had no intention of going so deep. Her hand was still as it clasped the blade, slid from its home on her ice skate. It was the sharpest one she had, and she had selected it with the thought in mind of no going back from the cut she had been about to make. Now she considered that it may be too sharp to work with, but she no longer cared. That time, she would conceal what she had done better, even in the case of visitors. She would not be able to lie a second time around.
Just as she pressed the tip of the skate to her skin, her phone buzzed to life, startling her so the edge pierced her skin. Rachel let out a hiss of pain, having not expected it and turned her gaze in the direction of her screen. Finn. She didn't want to answer it. He was the last person she wanted to talk to right now, especially as she was so close to freedom, but if she didn't pick up, there was always the chance he would come over. If he came over, he would see her.
With a frustrated sigh, Rachel put down the blade and pressed 'answer' before holding the phone tightly against her ear, tense with nerves. It was the first time she had spoken to him since she had shouted at him.
"Hello," she said, so quietly she was sure he mustn't of heard her, but his reply came quickly, sounding as relieved as if she had been missing for weeks.
"Rachel!" But once he had got her name out, he didn't seem to know what else to say. A quick silence fell across the line, and Rachel was tempted to simply hang up. He knew she was at least okay enough to answer a phone, so perhaps he would leave her alone. Somehow she doubted it. "Why'd you walk out like that?" He managed, eventually. Now she was really tempted to hang up.
"Because I'm tired of being around people who so clearly don't want to be around me," she admitted.
"I want to be around you." Rachel closed her eyes, glad he wasn't there to see her face. She wished she could tell him she felt the same. She wished she could ask him over and have him hold her as he used to. She wished she could disappear into one of his hugs and forget everything that plagued her. But it was him who did that now. It was the years of taunting and loneliness that had made her delicate, but it was him who had broken her.
"Can I come over? I just wanna talk to you." No, thought Rachel, we've done our talking. You didn't give me that luxury before chewing me out and tossing me aside. She didn't want to talk to him, especially not see him, but she still felt an ache in her heart whenever she looked at him, being near him hurt more than any of Santana or Quinn's comments, or slushies from the rest of the school. Love hurt far more than hate ever could.
Before she could stop herself, the 'okay' had left her mouth, which she instantly regretted. Why had she said that? She couldn't see him, not yet. She was barely even ready to be in the same room as him in a lesson, let alone just him and her, in her bedroom, just as they used to be. Only it would be nothing like it used to be. She wasn't going to lay in his embrace and ramble about her day and Broadway and their future. They would sit apart, not touching, barely even speaking.
But he had already hung up, sounding as if someone had just promised him a visit to Santa. He'd be there within ten minutes. Which meant she couldn't even cut. In the next second, there was a knock at the door, and Rachel blinked in surprise. That couldn't be Finn already, barely thirty seconds had passed since she had put down the phone. Or perhaps it had been longer than that. Time didn't seem to mean anything anymore.
Before she even opened the door though, she knew it was him. No one else could cast such a tall shadow in the patterned glass. Rachel opened the door before she could back out and leave him standing there, and as soon as she did, he bent down and pulled her into a hug. Without thinking about it, Rachel buried her head in his chest and returned the hug, momentarily forgetting what had passed between them as she remembered how good it felt to be held by Finn. He was so big compared to her, that his arms could almost engulf her. They were so strong, so safe.
Finn tensed in surprise when Rachel's arms came around his neck, and even though he was bending, she still had to stretch to reach him. That was part of what had attracted her to him. He was so much bigger than her, that even though he never bothered to defend her, she felt he could always protect her. He'd never let her get really hurt. Only he had let her get hurt, and he'd been the one to do it. Suddenly, the embrace felt cold, and Finn's arms turned crushing rather than comforting, his size was a threat, not a protection. Rachel pulled out of it, crossing her arms over her stomach as she did so. That was the only thing that could protect her now.
The mood was suddenly awkward as Rachel stammered out an invitation inside, even though he was already standing in the hall. They trudged slowly into the lounge, wanting the journey to take as long as possible so they didn't have to face what happened once they got there. Rachel's hesitance had made everything seem strange, as if they were miles apart rather than standing in the same room. Rachel was used to the feeling. Even with Kurt and Noah, she felt as if she were in a different world when she spoke to them. A world they could never enter or understand.
"How are you?" Finn asked, hesitantly once they had sat down. Rachel stared at him for a moment, chewing her lip. She had no idea how to answer that question.
Trapped. I'm trapped. The world keeps moving, school still exists, the people I have known all my life, and those I have recently encountered are still there. They move around me every day, I see them, talk to them even. Cars roll past as if nothing is different, birds still sing in the trees at the same time every morning. I have to go to lessons, attend Glee and plaster on a smile. Everything around me is alive, moving, real. But I am trapped. I'm stuck still, here, in this dark I don't know.
But I'm getting to know it. Every day it becomes more and more familiar to me. So familiar that I almost don't want it to go away, because I am starting to forget what lays outside of it, and although it's terrifying here, and it hurts here and it's dark here, I know it. I know what will happen every day. I know I will wake up here, and when I am here, I don't have to be afraid of it. If I escape I will be waiting for the moment someone comes and banishes me back to it. I don't know what lies in the light, and I am too scared to find out. So I just want to stay here, in this dark I know well.
"I'm okay," she smiled slightly to prove her point, but it wasn't the sparking Rachel Berry smile Finn was used to. It didn't make the stars shine in her eyes. He hadn't seen those stars in so long.
"It's just you've been...different lately."
I feel different Finn. I feel like I'm living two lives, the one I lead on the outside, the one where I go to class, I turn in my work, I do my best to maintain my grades. I make sure I'm up in plenty of time in the morning, I arrange to see Kurt at the weekend, or after school that day, I turn up and I laugh with him. I smile and it's real. In that life, I am the happy person I always was. I will even come home and watch a musical with a vegan snack. When my dads eventually return home from work, I come down here and talk to them. We discuss our days.
But then I lead another life. Another me. The one you are describing now. That me doesn't shine. In that life, I don't smile. I come home, I take out my blade and draw it across my skin to heal the pain on the inside. I cry, all alone in my bedroom and watch my tears drip onto my pillow because there is no one around to wipe them away, and it is so lonely. I see Kurt, I speak to him, but I don't feel like I'm there. I feel like I'm trapped in the other life, hidden in the dark, and he can't reach me there. Both lives are mine, yet it feel like neither are.
"I've been focusing on other things," Rachel didn't expand, and she hoped Finn wouldn't ask.
"What things?"
Dammit.
The sadness. The pain wrapped around my heart. It's coiled and twisted around my heart, like barbed wire and it cuts into me, making my heart bleed and hurt. It's there all the time, and I just want to reach inside myself and pull it out, but I'm scared that if I do, I will bleed to death. It is always there, and it causes me such agony. Sometimes, I can forget it, other times, I can feel it constantly and I need to keep my focus to make sure it does not show. At the same time as the pain's there, I feel so empty, like there is nothing left inside of me, and yet it still hurts.
I want to cry all the time Finn, for no reason I can pin point. If I am not tearful, I am angry. Angry at the whole darn world for doing this to me, I am angry for everything and nothing at all. Sometimes, this pain shows itself in the way of anxiety. I can be sitting in my bedroom, perfectly safe, yet I am afraid. I'm afraid of what is to come in the next thirty seconds, thirty hours, thirty days. I will think ahead to tomorrow and be suddenly nervous at the thought of attending a mundane class. There is nothing to be afraid of, or angry about, there is nothing to grieve me, but I feel it all the same. The fury, the fear, the sadness.
"My dads aren't around an awful lot, and since you and I...I've just been prone to a little loneliness." Finn shifted awkwardly in his seat. Did that mean she missed him? She was lonely since they broke up, that had to mean something, right? If she no longer felt anything for him, she'd have just found someone else. She'd ask Kurt or someone over in the evenings to keep her company. But she didn't. Did that mean she knew it he would be back sometime?
"You have Kurt," Finn pointed out. He may not want someone to take his place in Rachel's evenings, but he didn't want her to be lonely either, and at least there was no chance of Kurt taking his place in Rachel's heart.
Yes, I have Kurt, but at the same time, I don't have Kurt. I want so badly to tell him about the place I am trapped in, the barbed wire, the emptiness, but I can't. Not ever. I feel so guilty that I have to lie to him each day, I do not want to drag him down with me, if I am to plunge downwards into nothing, his hand will not be in mine as I do so. So I will not reach out to him.
And then there is you. You who taught me that no matter how much you trust someone, they will always let you fall.
"I'm sure your step brother has other things to do than be here every evening. His daily skin care routine wouldn't stand for it." Finn smiled at the joke, relieved that she could still make them. She was not completely lost to him yet.
"He's worried about you too you know. He keeps trying to cheer you up, and he says sometimes you come with him, and it's like you really are there. The old you. And other times, you come but you're not really there at all. I didn't understand that. I mean, surely if you're there you're there, right? But I'm getting it now. You're sitting right next to me Rach, but you aren't here."
That's because I'm in the darkness Finn. Trapped.
"Well I was working on my English assignment when you showed up, and I am mentally brainstorming ideas while we talk." It was a lie. Even Finn could see it was a lie. Kurt was in her class, and they didn't even have an English assignment. Rachel was smiling at him, weakly, but even that did not reach her eyes. Her eyes that had become so dark and etched with her pain. They were sad eyes. Eyes that looked older than the rest of her body. Scarred eyes. Scared eyes.
"Rachel..." Finn reached for her, taking a desperate plunge to make her eyes shine again, but she shrank back from him, as if in his hand he held a gun. "C'mon Rach, talk to me. You always used to tell me everything." Her sad, scarred eyes flashed suddenly. With anger.
"Yes well that was then, wasn't in Finn?" She snapped, and sprung from the couch. At first, Finn thought she was going to wrench open the front door and demand that he leave. He'd screwed it up. Again. But Finn followed her right through the hall and into the kitchen, where she began bustling around in cupboards, pulling two glasses from one of them. Then she went to the fridge, taking out the orange juice and pouring two glasses. She gave one to Finn, who took it, bewildered.
"I just realised I never offered you a drink," she explained. "And I know it's your favourite. It's what you always wanted when you would come here." Finn didn't tell her that he hadn't actually drunk the stuff since their breakup. She was right, it was what he always had when he was at her house, he liked the kind she had, and he hadn't been able to stand drinking it since. It reminded him too badly of what hurt too much to think about.
"Will you just stop?" Finn snapped as Rachel turned back to the kitchen counter to get her own juice. The tone of his voice startled her, and her hand knocked into the glass, pouring the contents over the counter, where most of rolled off and onto the floor. Then Rachel did something neither she or Finn expected. She burst into tears. The juice pooled around her bare feet, collecting underneath them and she didn't move. She just stood there and sobbed, her face in her hands.
"The floor's going to be all sticky," she cried. "Even if I clean it, my dads will walk in and they'll feel it. They'll shout at me." She was crying as if she were five years old and afraid of being scalded, and Finn may have engaged in some light teasing if he had not wanted to comfort her so badly. Because it was not just about the juice.
Finn stepped through the puddle towards Rachel, sure she would push him away, but he had to try anyway. He couldn't just leave her crying, he'd made that mistake too many times before. Just as he predicted, Rachel flinched as soon as he touched her, and although it caused a sting of rejection, he knew he had to make her see he just wanted to help her.
"Rach, please, it's just me," he almost begged her, reaching for her again. That time, she did not pull away as he rested his hand on her shoulder, but she didn't lean into him either. She turned to face him, her glare angry.
"It's not just you though, you were you before all of this and now we aren't that way. You aren't that way and I just want you to leave me alone!" Rachel's voice rose at the end of her sentence, but Finn ignored her tone and brought his hand up to cup her cheek. She was so small, that he could have covered one entire side of her face, but he twisted is hand so his palm and thumb were on her cheek and his fingers rested on her neck.
"Just forget all of that for a little while. I know I don't deserve it Rach, but you do, so just ignore it okay? Just see me." Rachel stared at him for several seconds, neither moving or speaking, or even seeming to blink. In those seconds, Finn's heart pounded inside his mouth, he was sure that at any moment she was going to wrench herself free and throw him out of her house.
Rachel wasn't sure what she wanted to do herself. His touch was throwing her off guard. She was upset and her tears were mingling with his touch. Always a lethal combination. Then she tried to do what he was asking. She closed her eyes momentarily and pushed out all thoughts of everything he had said, his accusations and all else that had passed between them. She imagined it was before they had gone to the beach, because this had started long before Finn had broken up with her. She imagined it all away and just saw him. Finn. The hopeless, awkward, immature boy she had fallen in love with. And had never stopped loving.
Barely with a conscious decision, Rachel leaned forwards, sinking into him as his arms reached out, ready to catch her and pull her into his engulfing, safe and comforting embrace, and that time, she did not think of how it was too late. She did not think of what else his arms and the heart she could feel beating against her temple were capable of. She allowed herself to be lost in his hold, both physically and emotionally, in the way she always had.
A moment of Finchel peace there that I felt was well needed. I have no intentions of getting them back together yet, or perhaps not at all. I am still on the fence with that one. I have a mixed response for it, and then there is of course my own opinion. I do love Finchel though, so I will not end this story with their relationship filled with nothing but angst and woe. Do not fear.
I Am Unicorn: I know that Rachel went from practice to singing in her audition, but what confused me was the sudden attitude change. She went from 'go away' to 'come sing with me!' and I think their relationship needs more repairing than that.
And I would love a review, because I'm awesome and you're awesome and we can all be awesome together on my review page.