Trigger warning.
The task of walking onto the school grounds seemed much less daunting with a circle of friends gathered around her, quite literally protecting her from the stares that tried to follow her through the school. They spoke loudly, leaning right in close to Rachel to make sure their voices were all she heard and not the sound of the whispers that plagued the group wherever they went. One thing Rachel did notice though, was that none of them would touch her. She didn't know if it was because they were afraid of hurting her, or simply disgusted by what she had done. She tried to dismiss the thought as soon as it had come because it wasn't fair for her to be thinking those things about her friends when they were trying so hard.
Although he followed them and helped protect her, Kurt stayed at a distance from her, for which Rachel was grateful. She didn't want to speak to him, she was still too angry. A part of her knew her fury was irrational, he had not set out to hurt her, only to help, but the humiliation and shame of having to admit to what she had been doing was still too raw. She couldn't forget how he had ignored her pleas and a twisted part of her believed he hadn't done it for her, but for himself. He had done it because he didn't want the burden so had passed her on like a package that had reached the wrong address. A feeling Rachel was all too used to.
"What was your mom doing at your house?" Asked Puck, falling into step beside Rachel as the gang shuffled along the corridor. He didn't mention that she was also the woman to adopt his child, and Rachel didn't bring it up either. After months of hiding her own pain, she had learned when people wanted to talk about something and just needed a little probing, and when they just plain didn't want the conversation.
"She's not my mom," snapped Rachel, a little more aggressively than she meant to. She paused before carrying on, her tone calmer when she did. "But as much as I think my story telling abilities are both captivating and amusing, it's a long one for such an early hour when I am running on the amount of sleep I managed last night. So I will tell you the short version." Puck rolled his eyes and resisted urge to point out that she could have told the entire story in the words it took her to explain that.
"She came out of concern for my well-being, as much as I struggle to believe it. It was her belief that my dads were mistreating me. I was sent upstairs while they conferred, and-" Rachel stopped. She didn't want to tell him the next part of the story, in which two of her parents had walked in on her hurting herself. Not only would it mean admitting to doing it, but she was ashamed at how careless he had been and worried that Noah would assume she had done it on purpose to gain their attention.
"Well, when she and my fathers realised what had really been going on, dad stormed out and daddy couldn't even be in the same room as me he was so heartbroken. Shelby didn't trust me on my own." Puck gave a silent cheer for the woman who he had tried, for a whole year, to forget. From what Rachel had told him, she had dealt best with what had happened. Or at least, she hadn't been stupid enough to storm off and leave her. At least someone who knew what they were doing was looking after his daughter.
"How did you like that?" He quizzed, picturing Rachel standing in front of her mother, index finger raised, one hand on her hip and delivering a lecture about being old and independent enough to cope perfectly well on her own and especially did not need the woman who had been absent from her life for seventeen years. Now that would have been an argument he would have liked to have seen. He hadn't seen much of Shelby, but from what he had heard, she was as stubborn and argumentative as her daughter.
"We have actually came to reach a mutual understanding of one another's feelings. To an extent. I accepted her presence, even if I did not much like it, while she attempted to respect my emotional state and did not probe me for answers. At least not as much as I feared she would."
Puck slung his arm around Rachel's shoulders and squeezed them tightly, mostly because he knew it annoyed her when he did that. "If you ever get sick of the third degree around there, you can always come crash at my place. My mom put up with Quinn, she'd love to have a law abiding Jewish girl in the house. Especially one I didn't knock up." Rachel rolled her eyes but rested her head on his shoulder as they continued to trail down the hall.
"Thank-you Noah," she muttered, closing her eyes, briefly. The lack of sleep from the night before was beginning to take its toll on her, and she was struggling to stay focused. At least her first class was Spanish. Mr Schue wouldn't mind if she zoned out in his class, as long as she didn't fall too behind in the work. Not that she had a clue what they were even doing anymore. It had been a long time since she had properly engaged in a lesson.
Rachel said goodbye to her friends at the door of the classroom, exchanging hugs with most of them before she left. She could see their questions in their eyes, they wanted to hear from her mouth that it was true, they wanted to know how long for, they wanted to know why, they wanted to know how she had hidden it, how none of them had noticed, but most of all, they wanted to know if they played a part in any of the scars she would bare for the rest of her life. But just like Rachel was too afraid to answer them, they were too scared to ask.
Sam and Finn shared the class with her, and Sam shot her a smile and held open the door. Finn wouldn't even look at her. Despite his distance, Rachel felt her ex's eyes on her throughout the class. She wished he wouldn't. She wanted to turn around and tell him to look towards the front and pay attention, but their relationship wasn't there anymore. She couldn't tell him what to do, and he couldn't stare at her. Not like he was.
It was his reaction she had been dreading the most. Rachel had never wanted Noah to find out. She'd never wanted Kurt, Mr Schue or her fathers to find out. She'd especially never wanted her mother to find out. But she'd tell all of them one thousand times over and force herself to witness every second of their reaction if it would mean avoiding Finn's. Because he was the one who had dated her for the first weeks of it and never so much as noticed her change. He was the one who had dumped her so cruelly and sent her spiralling down into the deep pit she couldn't climb out of. He was the one who had taken away her final hope of being worth something.
The class flew by all too quickly for Rachel's liking. As much as she didn't have the energy for school and classes, they were safe. There was only a certain extent of taunting that could go on in the classroom, people could not openly bully her. Not that they didn't try. She'd heard the mutters and whispers that surrounded her throughout Mr Schue's lecture. They'd kept their voices down enough so their teacher didn't hear, but didn't extend the same grace to Rachel. She'd even felt the balled up note hit her back, but sure it would contain vicious insults, she had not bothered to pick it up from the floor where it had landed.
As much as Rachel wanted to hurry out and run to the bathroom to relieve the urge she had been struggling with since her parents had discovered her the night before, she knew she had to wait for Sam and Finn. They would be waiting to walk her to her next class, probably along with the rest of the glee kids, aside from Santana, Quinn and Brittany, but Rachel had never expected them to be there. Santana and Quinn because they just didn't care about her, and they were never going to. Brittany because she didn't know how to do something Santana wasn't.
"I have to talk to you," Finn said as soon as they had gathered at her desk. Rachel's eyes flickered to Sam, who was watching her for her reaction. She knew all she had to do was say the word and he would refuse to leave them alone. She so wanted that. She longed to tell Finn where to go, but they had just started to mend their relationship, and the conversation was something she was going to have to do sooner or later. At least if she did it sooner, that would be almost everything out of the way. She'd already confronted her parents and Kurt.
Very reluctantly, Rachel gave the smallest of nods, half hoping Finn wouldn't see it and they'd assume her silence to be a no. But Finn instantly put a hand on the small of her back and started leading her out of the classroom without even waiting for Sam to say he'd be waiting at the end of the hall. He led her into a nearby empty classroom, and Rachel waited in silence for him to say something. She was growing tired of the silence, it was all she ever seemed to hear. Since they found out, no one was speaking. The only one who was treating her as he always had done was Noah.
"Is it true?" He asked eventually, but not like it was a real question. He knew, just like everyone else, he knew the truth. He'd have had it confirmed by Kurt and Puck, and with the rumours flying around the school, it would be hard to deny, even if the last thing he wanted to do was believe it. The question was more for the clarity. He needed to hear it from her mouth so he could move onto the next step. Whatever that was.
Rachel simply nodded, afraid of speaking. If she sounded too casual, he was sure to flare up, but if she sounded aggressive that wasn't going to please him either. Sounding sad might make him pity her, and that was the last thing she wanted from anyone. She was so lost for the right thing to say and the correct way to say it that it was easier just to stay silent.
"How-I mean, did you- were we...?" Finn trailed off, but Rachel knew what he was trying to ask. Again, she nodded, casting her eyes down to the floor to avoid his. She lent against the desk she was standing by and wrapped her arms around her stomach, flinching when they pressed against the painful cuts.
"Is that why you didn't want to have sex with me?" Finn blurted, and Rachel resisted the temptation to lecture him on asking her something so personal. It was a conversation they needed to have if they were ever going to move forward. He needed to know why she acted the way she did, for both of them. Perhaps he could help her to understand the way he had behaved. That time, she shook her head.
"No Finn, I didn't want to sleep with you because I'm not ready. I've already told you I want to wait until I'm twenty five, and I will still have these scars then. My sexual activity towards you had nothing to do with what I was doing to myself, or Noah." Finn winced, remembering the things he had accused her of, what he had said.
He didn't get it. She was Rachel. Sort of. She was talking like Rachel, she looked like Rachel, but her dem- dimin- whatever the word was, wasn't Rachel. She looked at her feet and held herself. The Rachel he had gone out with stood up straight and smiled at the world, even when it was tossing slushies in her face. She was just so confident, even when she wasn't even speaking, which he'd always found amazing about her. But now she just looked scared, or like she might cry, or like she just didn't believe in herself anymore and Finn didn't know which one was worse.
"Look, I know nothing's going down between you and Puck, and I know it never did. I'm sorry I thought you would do that stuff. But all this," he gestured to her body with his hand, forcing the image of the scars underneath her clothes out of his mind. "Rach, please tell me I didn't cause this."
Rachel chewed her lip, nervously. He hadn't caused it, not really. His words were not the first she had carved on her skin, his taunts were not what drove her to pick up the blade for the first time, but he had never tried to stop the ones that had. He'd never defended her, and on more than one occasion, she'd heard him speak up for Quinn when he had dated her, which had driven out the thoughts that he was just a coward. From that Rachel had concluded it must be her. Finn just couldn't argue with the things being said about her because they were true.
"Many people caused this, Finn, myself included. Some didn't have to directly insult me, I saw it in their eyes and others just caused it by not wanting me around. You did play a part in this though Finn, just like Kurt, Mercedes, Quinn, Santana, my mother and even Mr Schue. You all played a part in it, some of the scars are in aid of people whom I don't even know the name of. You all did this to me, but most of all I did it to myself. I will not deny you have words to regret and actions to be guilty of, but I am not innocent and I'm sorry too.
"I'm sorry for becoming this, for doing what I do. I thought I was above all of them, I thought one day I would be signing my name on their shirts, and then they would regret all the names they had ever called me, but the more they did call me those names, the more I believed I was dreaming a dream that I was never going to live. It was upon that realisation that the comments began to matter. What they were saying about me was true and I wanted to hurt myself more than they ever could, that way, I could stay on top."
It was the most she had spoken about it to anyone, and Rachel instantly felt both a pang of regret and relief. She was glad that she had finally been able to explain her motives to someone without screaming it at them, but she was afraid he wouldn't understand, that he would yell at her, or call her stupid. She was scared that finally opening up to someone would be the biggest mistake she had ever made, but most of all, she was scared it would turn out to be the right thing. If he didn't laugh her out of the room now, he'd just hurt her further down the line when it would be harder to take. He'd made her trust him once before and then broken that trust, along with her heart and fight into shattered fragments.
While she'd fallen into her own thoughts, Rachel hadn't noticed Finn cross the distance between them and come to a halt inches from her. His face was so close to hers that she could see the otherwise invisible imperfections on his skin. He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. It didn't hurt, but Rachel could feel his fingers digging into her jaw bone, creating a soft ache where they held themselves.
"Listen to me Rachel," he said, so forcefully that she didn't even think about running. "You just don't get it do you? You were always on top. You were there because you didn't care about what those jerks thought of you and that made you so much better than them. I always loved that about you, how you could just sit there and take it and not bat an eyelid. Even if it was hurting you inside, you were always strong enough not to show it, and that was what gave you power over them. Not-not- hurting yourself like that."
Rachel smiled at him, sadly, but before she could reply, he spoke again. "No, don't! Don't smile like that, it's not real and it means you're not listening. I knowit was just a show Rachel, I know they hurt you really, but you had the control not to show it, you smiled, always. Whatever happened, the show didn't fall apart, or whatever the phrase is and you should have heard how much it pissed them off. It totally got to Karofsky that he'd never seen you shed a tear, hearing him sat that made me want to rip his teeth out, but it was what made you so great, Rach."
Rachel said nothing. There was nothing to say. It was like the only tool she had ever possessed had just been ripped from her. No, not ripped. Taken. Coaxed gently away as the person carefully explained why she wasn't allowed it. And that was what she needed. All along, she had just wanted someone to give her a good reason why not. She didn't want them to scream at her and snatch away what she saw as her only chance to survive. She didn't want them to cry about what she was doing to herself. She just needed to know why she wasn't allowed, like a child who wanted to see if their finger could fit through a plug socket.
It was a breakthrough. One that made her want to both scream with joy and terror. The thought of life without it made her want to just stop, right there and then and give up on her whole life because she had nothing without it. But not for the reasons she first believed. With or without it, people were still going to hate her, they were still going to call her names, they were still going to think she was a loser. But without it, it meant whatever they did to her, she would win. She'd always win as long as she never once showed them the weakness she felt. If she took that weakness and did something good out of it, showed the person two feet down the hall that not everyone was as hateful as the person they were about to encounter.
But the reason she needed it now was something else altogether. It was not about the bullies and it hadn't been for a long time. It had nothing to do with Shelby or Finn, or anyone else who had ever rejected and pushed her away. Rachel did it still, because she was addicted.
Sorry, I forgot to post this and now my laptop's about to die and the charger's broken, so all hell is going to break loose. I cannot function without it. Anyway, thought I'd get this posted before it packs in. Please review.