A/N: Okay, so this is my last chapter before I have to go away for Thanksgiving, but I'll be back Saturday and hopefully post another Chapter on Sunday! READ ON!

Chapter Fifteen: Curiosity Killed The Cat

One week later…

"I know Queen's a kind of overused band for Glee club, but I have this feeling that it's gonna do big things for us." Mr. Schue said excitedly to the group of teens. A few rolled their eyes; others seemed to perk up a little.

"Wasn't that Vocal Adrenaline's go to band?" Kurt asked lazily, his entire body faced toward Mercedes. Mr. Schue grimaced, but nodded. Across the room, Alicia looked up from her clipboard on which she was writing notes with a feathery pink pen and raised her hand.

"Which song?"

"Umm, well, before you arrived we were working on Don't Stop Me Now. I think it's a good song, overall just fun; something the audience will want to hear. Something they're gonna wanna get up and dance to." Finn sighed loudly in the front row, Mr. Schue ignored him. "You can take Rachel's part." Alicia's eyebrows rose delicately as she wrote something down on the paper before asking, "Can you show me the choreography plan?"

"Why so you can take a picture of it? Or so you can copy it down onto your little clip board?" Puck asked starkly from the back row. He didn't want to believe a word Rachel had said, but he had been thinking about it a lot lately, and the more he did, the more sense it made. Alicia however, dismissed his interruption completely, and continued to stare at Mr. Schuster expectantly. He mouthed one moment, flipping through his folder, and then turned to look at Puck. Puck wasn't particularly good at reading people, (or sometimes he was and just choose to ignore it), but the look Mr. Schue was giving him started off as, 'Puck, this needs to stop. Whatever Rachel said, there's nothing to be suspicious about.' But after he took a looked at Alicia, and then looked it what he was handing her, his face began to read, 'Well, shit.'

Rachel bit her lip, and gave Christian a small kiss on the cheek. He didn't respond at all, instead just turning the volume on the football game he was watching up. Rachel's face fell in disappointment as she sank back in her seat. "Christian, you hate football." He didn't say anything. She played with her hands for a minute before adding, "And me, apparently." The football game was suddenly on mute as Christian turned to her and smiled, before giving her a small, sweet kiss, then turning to the clock.

"What time does McKinley Glee club end?" Rachel's eye flashed with hurt.

"Why? Is your girlfriend going to be here soon?" Christian turned to her for a minute, not saying anything. "God, what am I supposed to be? Your mistress?"

"Rachel, no, and don't say that it sound weird." He said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Then what am I supposed to call it? You're cheating on your girlfriend with me! Why haven't you broken up with her?" She asked outrageously, scooting herself as far to the other side of the couch as she possibly could. She liked Christian, but he reminded her of Finn in the worst of ways. He was the kind of guy who would lie, yet she would always have to forgive. The kind of guy who was too spineless to break up with their bitchy girlfriend for the girl they actually cared about. The kind of guy that made her feel like she was always playing second fiddle to someone, like there was some big elephant in the room they always had to squeeze around. Couldn't she have someone who cared enough to put a fight?

Someone badass?

"Rachel, you know how I feel about you. But I can't just break up with Alicia!"

"Why not?" Rachel asked, her voice softer this time, sounding sadder. Christian opened his mouth and closed it, unable to give an answer. And then all at once, Rachel had had enough. Grabbing her keys and her coat she walked out of the house, ignoring the shouts Christian sent after her. Wasn't she ever going to find the right guy for herself? Wasn't she ever going to find someone who cared about her enough to choose her over somebody else?

So for the first time in her entire life, Rachel Berry pressed the speedometer until it went way over the speed limit, and didn't slow down for a single second until she was backing into her drive way. It just felt good to go fast, because then it felt like she was going somewhere with this, like she was getting further and further away from everything she wanted to get away from. It felt like she was finally leaving behind everything she had left at McKinley. It felt like she was moving forward.

She came home to an empty house. Her dad was always away, at his new job, which ended up needing even more hours than the last. She stood in the door way for a moment, closing her eyes in frustration, and before she knew it she was running all over the house, turning on ever single light until it practically glowed with warmth, and from the outside, it no doubt looked like a perfect family home. But it wasn't. It was just Rachel.

Her melancholy was interrupted by the buzz of her cell phone, which seemed to be interrupting most of her self-thought sessions nowadays. She could remember when she had to bribe to Glee club for their phone numbers, and make numerous Facebook accounts for friends. She reached out to her bedazzled pink phone, sitting on her dresser, baring a message from Christian that she didn't even bother opening. She just deleted it.

But as she sat on her bed she began to wonder what he even had to say to explain him. What half-wit excuse he could possibly pull. Drumming her nails across her phone a bit, she drew over ounce of self-control not to look at the text, and then opened her phone to read it. She went straight to her trash bin, holding only three messages. This most recent one from Christian, and then the two from Puck she'd received on her first day at Lincoln.

Suddenly she wasn't so interested in Christian's text anymore.

Hesitating, she closed her eyes and pressed the read button, opening them to see that message for the first time, not having bothered reading it the first time.

Look. I know you don't want to talk to me right now. I get it. But I kind of miss you. We all do. It's only been like a couple days and it's already not the same without you. Face it, without you; it's like taking music away from Glee club. It's like telling them they can try as hard as they want but they're still always gonna be missing that stunning young ingénue everyone roots for. Like Finn said, the way you get on people is annoying, but it makes them care. Hell, it made me care enough to actually type this whole thing out without using text talk, and actually put the little accent over the e in ingénue. So okay, maybe it's just text, and I consider that caring a lot. Yeah, whatever, that says a lot of shit about me. And the fact that you're probably not even gonna read this, says a lotta shit about us. But I don't think you wanted to leave McKinley. You just wanted to leave yourself. And trust me, that's not gonna happen. I've tried. And the only reason I'm even saying any of this is so you know that once you figure that out, you can come back, because we're pretty fucked without you.

So, yeah.

Rachel immediately let out a long breath she didn't know she was holding in. She felt like she had just run a marathon and then had the breath knocked out of her. She exited her trash box and clicked composed, typing Puck in the 'to' field. She held a breath she couldn't afford to, wondering what to say.

He probably didn't feel the same way anymore. Not after what happened with Christian. But she really just wanted someone to talk to, especially with all this Christian stuff. She needed a friend that … she just needed a friend. Amanda was nice but she was just… Rachel didn't even know who to explain it, or why Puck was better. He didn't trust her, and he probably wanted to find her lying in a ditch somewhere. She was his competition, and Puck was much more professional than that. She continued rambling on in her head until she had run through all the reasons why this was a bad idea. Then she finally took one glance in the mirror and said, 'Screw it.'

R: I got your text.

She regretted it the minute she pressed send. She wished she could just reach right into cyberspace and grab it back. He wasn't going to reply to her, he probably didn't even know what she was talking about. Suddenly her phone vibrated again, and her head nearly span with anticipation as she pressed open.

P: Well you didn't text me back.

A/N: I'm sorry. I had to, I kind of hate angst. Haters gonna hate.

-xoxo SIL xoxo