Finn tried everything he could to forget about Rachel after seeing her in her show. Even though they sat next to one another in chemistry, he didn't say much to her. Rachel would turn her head out the window every once and a while and make a remark about the weather, and Finn would just nod along with her before returning back to his notes. Sometimes, when he was having a tough time on a certain unit, he would ask Rachel if she could help him get through one of the problems, but that was about the extent of their conversations.

He figured that the less time he spent talking to Rachel, the easier she would be to forget.

Prom was fast approaching and Quinn had already started planning out their campaign for prom king and queen. She would drag Finn away from his locker during the day with examples of the posters she wanted to print and hang up around the school and paint swatches, of all things, to compare what colors they would look best in as a couple.

"I just want everything to be perfect," she told him, grabbing him by the hand one day in the hallway and following him to the only class they had together. "I mean, you only have one junior prom, Finn. Don't you want to make it our best prom ever?"

Finn always got confused whenever she started talking about things like this, because he didn't see why one night was so important to so many girls. It wasn't just Quinn; every single girl in the school that cared about whatever people thought of her was busy talking to her friends during class or lunch about what color her dress was, or where they were going to have to get reservations for dinner before prom, or whether or not it would be in bad taste to get a hotel room for the night after the dance had ended.

He didn't think he would ever understand, especially with the way Quinn talked about it.

"Don't we have senior prom then?" He asked her, genuinely curious. "I mean, we can always go to prom next year. Why does this year have to be so perfect?"

Quinn looked at him like he had just insulted her. "It's prom, Finn." She spoke of it like it was the biggest even of their high school careers. "You only get two shots at it, so why wouldn't we want to make this one as good as we possibly could?" Finn sighed and looked down at Quinn, letting go of her hand for a moment to hold the door open for her.

"Yeah, I mean, I guess I get it," he said, his voice trailing off as he let her walk ahead of him. "I just… it's just a dance. Like, I don't want to spend tons of money just for one night." He only made so much money working at the grocery store down the street as a bag boy, and he already knew from experience that Quinn had expensive tastes.

"But it's prom," she offered in rebuttal, like it was stupid that he was even bringing something up about it. "We're going, and we're going to be prom king and queen, and we're going to have the best time," she told him; making everything she suggested something that wasn't optional. "Hurry up."

He lagged behind her slightly and was able to catch up before she started throwing a tantrum over that.

Finn wouldn't have put it past her, anyway.

:.:.:

Quinn had been hinting at the fact that she wanted to sleep with Finn before prom, and while he wasn't completely opposed to the idea, it did seem rather daunting. It wasn't like it was just any other girl, either; he would be doing it with Quinn, who was the most high-maintenance, needy girl he had ever come across.

Finn, of course, was a virgin, and whose knowledge of sex didn't extend much past the porno videos he had seen on the Internet and what Puck had told him about all of the girls he had hooked up with in the past.

He was in chemistry when the idea dawned on him – and as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted it.

"Rachel, what do girls expect their first time to be like?"

His face turned red and he looked back down at his notebook like he hadn't said anything, hoping that in doing so, Rachel wouldn't notice that he had said anything.

Unfortunately, she did.

Rachel turned to face Finn, her face blanched. From what Finn could see in his peripherals, she looked like she had just seen a ghost. The stoichiometry worksheet they were supposed to be working on was left in front of her, untouched.

"Um, Finn, I don't really think I'm the right person to answer that question for you."

Good. At least she wasn't actually ready to give him an answer.

Finn looked back up at her, watching as she continued to stare at him. He didn't know what it was, but Rachel had changed ever since she had started dating Jesse. She appeared more mature beyond her years; walking through the hallways at school like she was that much better than the other girls simply because her boyfriend was in college and their boyfriends were either meat headed jocks on the football team or burnouts that had nothing better to do than smoke a joint between classes. She had highlighted her hair and had started to wear her patterned dresses and animal sweaters less often.

Rachel was trying to be a mature woman, as far as Finn was concerned. He just wasn't sure if anyone gave a damn whether or not she did.

"I know," he said, watching as Rachel gnawed on her eraser nervously. There was a beat of awkward silence between them. "I just… you're one of the only friends I have that's a girl, so I figured you would know… and stuff."

Rachel blushes and looks at Finn, dropping her pencil in front of her on her paper.

She didn't say anything while they looked at each other, Rachel clearing her throat nervously.

"You don't need to answer if you don't want to."

"No," she said, interrupting him, almost too eagerly. "I mean, no, I don't mind, I just…" Her voice trails off nervously, Finn looking at her sympathetically. She sighs and looks down into her lap, nails scratching against her skirt.

"No one's ever really asked me that before."

He laughed nervously and looked back down at his worksheet, which he had been making some progress on. Finn wasn't completely terrible at chemistry anymore (even though stoichiometry would later prove to be a completely different animal all together), and he liked to think that Rachel was a big reason as to why that was true.

"You're curious because of… you and Quinn, right?" She asked him, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Finn nodded and looked up at her, watching as she seemed to be more comfortable with talking to him.

"Y-yeah," he stammered, wringing his hands together nervously. "You know, prom's coming up and she really wants to make everything really special, and I just… I don't know, I don't know what girls want when it comes to that kind of stuff."

"Well, it is a very important night," she told him, raising her eyebrows and nodding along to what he had been saying. "But I don't really think it's the actual…" Her voice trailed off, the word stopping before she had the chance to say it. "Actually doing it, I mean, that's the important part."

Finn looked at her, smiling sympathetically. He felt like he was putting her in a position she didn't want to be put in and part of him felt bad – but if she didn't want to talk about it, he would have let her stop whenever she wanted.

"When you have sex with someone for the first time, Finn, it's like you're giving yourself to them," she explained, wiping her hands off on her lap. "A lot of guys think that it's just about having sex and getting it over with, or whatever, but for girls… it's a lot more important than that."

Finn looked at her as she spoke, sounding like she cared so much about what she was saying. It made him wonder if she had already lost her virginity and given herself to someone, but the longer he let himself think about it, the worse he knew he would end up in the long run. Rachel wasn't his to worry about. She was his friend – maybe, if he actually treated her like a friend more often, and he wasn't supposed to think about what she did with other guys. He had his own girlfriend to worry about things like that with.

Rachel cleared her throat and looked at Finn, looking like she had forced a smile onto her face. "So, um, what were you planning on doing for her?"

"Oh, um, I don't know," he started, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Rachel looked at him, eyes wide and her brow furrowed. "Like, I know we were going to get a room at the Marriot down the street, but I don't know if I should like, get her a bottle of champagne, or like, leave rose petals on the bed, or whatever." He started to laugh slightly, looking at Rachel with a smile. "Girls don't actually like all of that romantic shit, do they?"

Rachel giggled softly and looked down into her lap again, like she was afraid to look at him. "Well, I don't think I would really like something like that, but it all depends, I suppose." She turned her head up to look at him and started to play with the necklace she was wearing that day. "Just… get her a room and make sure to pay attention to her that night. Like, maybe rent her favorite movie or buy her her favorite candy or something like that. Just make sure she knows that you love her."

Finn smiled and nodded his head like he was trying to record everything Rachel had said in the back of his head. "Anything else?"

Rachel waited for a moment, tipping her head to the side like she was trying to remember what she was going to say. "Just make her feel loved," she reminded him, her voice soft. "That's what anyone's first time is about, really. It's about showing someone how much you love them and how important they are to you."

He nodded and looked at her with a smile, laughing slightly. "Okay," he said, watching her as she laughed. "I'll make sure to do that."

They didn't talk for a long period of time after that; Rachel dedicating herself to finishing her worksheet and Finn dedicating himself to looking through his text messages on his phone.

When Rachel finally finished and got up to turn her worksheet in, Finn decided he would talk to her again when she sat back down. He thought it was unfair that they were supposed to be friends and yet, he didn't spend much time talking to her outside of their chemistry class.

"So, um, what are your plans for prom?" He asked her, watching as she tucked her skirt under her legs as she sat down.

"Um, nothing really," she said, stacking her notebooks on top of each other. "I'm on the prom committee, so I kind of need to be there, but Jesse's not going."

Finn raised his eyebrows. "He's not?"

"No," she continued, playing with her hair. "He's um, he can't make it back here in time to get back to Boston, so he's just not going." Finn nodded and watched her as she sighed deeply, fixing her hair again.

"Well, I'm sure he's going to see you soon," Finn said. He wanted her to feel better about what she was talking about. Clearly, Rachel didn't feel comfortable talking about her and Jesse, or whatever his name was in front of him, and Finn didn't want to make her feel bad. "You seemed like you really like him when I met him."

"Yeah," she said, looking away from him again. "We'll have all of the summer to spend time with each other, anyway."

He smiled as she looked at him, laughing sweetly. "Well, I guess I'll see you at prom," he told her as the bell rang. "I'm sure you're going to look awesome."

Rachel smiled and stood up from her chair, following after him. "T-thanks," she stammered, holding her books close to her chest.

Finn looked over his shoulder at her and shot her one last smile before turning the corner going in the opposite direction she was.

They could survive as friends.

:.:.:

"Alright, so I'm thinking that you get either Tiffany blue to match my dress, or silver to match my shoes-" Quinn turned to look at Finn, who seemed to be paying more attention to a rack of red ties than what she was pointing out to him. "Finn, are you listening to me?"

Finn snapped his head around to look at Quinn, who looked back at him with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. She didn't look too happy with him – not that she ever looked very happy with him to begin with.

"Yeah," he said, lying as he dropped the red tie that was in his hands. He had been dragged along with Quinn to pick out a tie that would match the color of the dress she had bought for prom with Santana and Brittany.

Unfortunately, Finn wasn't expecting the day to be the gran affair that it had ended up becoming.

"Oh, yeah?" Quinn asked, looking up at him indignantly. "What did I just say, then?"

Finn's starting to feel like Quinn is taking more of a role as his mother than as his girlfriend.

"I don't remember," he said, trying to play off her anger with a goofy smile, looping an arm around her waist. "But c'mon, Quinn. Let's just look around and talk. We never talk anymore."

Quinn rolled her eyes and broke away from him, walking towards the wall with the blue ties. The formal wear was organized by color; the blues on one wall and the red on another, the oranges fading into the yellows and the greens – although Finn couldn't think of a situation where someone would need to wear an orange, yellow or green tie.

"Let's just find your tie," she told him, picking a handful off of the wall and holding them up to his chest. "We can talk after all of this."

Finn rolled his eyes and took the ties from her, watching her as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked studied them dutifully – the ties, not him.

"This one's the exact color of my dress, but this one's just a shade lighter…"

"Why did you pick out a blue dress, anyway?" Finn asked, genuinely curious and serious with his question. "The theme's 'A Night in Paris,' isn't it?" He laughed, but if only to himself. "I don't know if blue's super Parisian, or whatever."

Finn watched as Quinn rolled her eyes and him. "We decided on blue because I thought it would be the color that we would both look the best in," she said, scoffing slightly. "Besides, the theme is stupid this year." Of course, Quinn actually had the right to make a comment about how stupid she thought the theme was; she had gone the year before with some senior guy. "Whoever thought that 'A Night in Paris' was a good idea for a prom theme should be punished for their lack of creativity."

Finn shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. "Rachel did, actually."

He regretted saying what he had the moment the words slipped out of his mouth.

"Of course she did," the blonde said, rolling her eyes. "God, she will just do anything for attention, won't she?"

"I don't think she was looking for attention, really," Finn said, walking towards Quinn and crossing his arms over his chest. "She's on the prom planning committee, or whatever. She told me that she wanted to have more extra-curriculars under her belt for when she started applying to colleges, or whatever."

Quinn rolled her eyes and began chewing on her lip. "Well, she'll get all of the attention she wants on prom night," she said, snickering to herself. Finn's eyes went wide and he looked at her, confused.

"What?"

Quinn just smiled and placed her hands on her hips, like she was proud of what she had just done. "Let's just say that we have a little surprise planned for Rachel on prom night, that's all." Finn turned to look at her, genuinely concerned by now. He knew how Quinn worked – and while she was normally afraid to actually execute anything that would make her seem like a bad person, she was always ready to help someone do something horrible, just as long as her name wasn't the one branded across it for the rest of eternity.

"Have you ever seen the movie Carrie, Finn?"

Finn nodded slowly and backtracked for a moment, trying to remember what that movie was all about. Some girl who able to throw forks with her mind, or something – but the longer he thought about it, the faster he was able to make the connection Quinn had been wanting him to make.

"Quinn, you can't do something like that-"

"I can't, can I?" She laughed and folded her arms over her chest. "Santana and I paid off some freshman to rig up a bucket of fruit punch to dump on her when she goes up to announce whoever wins for prom king and queen." Quinn continued like it was something that was supposed to happen, and that it was no big deal that she would ever be doing anything like it. "So, when we win, I guess we'll have front row seats to the show."

Finn couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Woah," he said, confused. "Quinn, you can't do that. That's… what did Rachel ever do to you?"

"She took you away from me," Quinn quipped, her words biting. "She's always pretended like she was your girlfriend, or your best friend, or whatever. She deserves to get what's coming to her."

Finn walked up behind Quinn as she stormed away from him, trying to console her as best as he could.

Even if he didn't want her to feel better, he knew in doing so made Rachel's humiliation stand a chance of being stopped.

"Quinn, Rachel's a lot nicer than you think she is," he told her, trying everything he could to make her feel better. He didn't want to risk Rachel falling into a million pieces in front of the entire junior and senior class. "I just, I don't see why you hate her so much."

"I don't hate her," Quinn said, looking down at her feet. She almost looked like she was being sympathetic towards the other girl. Finn couldn't tell. He didn't have the ability to read people. "I just, I don't see why she thinks that she's so great and can waltz into your life whenever she wants to. She's a slut."

Finn furrowed his brow and looked at her, completely confused. "Quinn, she's not… she has a boyfriend, and she's never even tried anything like that with me before. You need to… you need to stop whatever you're planning on doing."

Quinn rolled her eyes and pressed her hands against Finn's chest. "You probably think I'm some psychosomatic bitch," she said, starting to sound like she had some kind of sympathy in her voice. She sighed and shut her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose like she was nervous. "Look, I didn't… I mean, I wasn't… I was kidding," she said, laughing to herself. "I mean, as much as I don't like Rachel, I would never do something like that," she explained, pressing a hand to her chest. "It would ruin my reputation."

Finn scoffed and rolled his eyes as she continued to laugh.

"Look, I'm sorry," she said, sounding as genuine as possible. "Just… I'd appreciate it if you didn't spend as much time with her, that's all." Finn sighed as he looked at her, letting the idea mill around in his head for a while.

It may just be Quinn's weird way of apologizing. She'd never been very good at being sympathetic and actually meaning something when she apologized.

"Fine," he said, touching her hair and pushing it out of her eyes. "Just… be nicer to her, alright? Even if that means avoiding her all together. Rachel's a nice girl, I promise."

Quinn smiled and grabbed Finn by the hand. "Alright," she said, giggling to herself. "That's fine."

:.:.:

Prom ended up being a huge success. When Finn pulled his car up with Quinn to the front door of the school, it already looked different; the pink lighting from inside streaming through the windows and the music blaring from inside. Quinn had even looked like she liked the decorations, saying something about them once she stepped out of Finn's car.

"Wow," she said, nodding her head as they looked around. "It actually looks kind of nice."

Finn knew that Rachel wasn't the only person on the prom committee, but knowing how she operated, he could only assume that she was the ringleader behind everything. She was probably the one picked out the theme and the one who called to hire the DJ and who walked around the gym one final time before the doors open to make sure that everything ended up looking up to par.

"Yeah," he said, fishing their tickets out of his pocket. He lowered his voice and smiled, if almost to himself. "She did a really nice job."

The inside was just as nice as it looked outside; if not nicer. There was an Eiffel Tower wrapped in Christmas lights set up in the corner and the dance floor was packed to capacity, some song from the radio being played at full blast through the gym. Every square inch of the ceiling was covered in pink, silver and white balloons, the lighting matching the color scheme of the balloons and table cloths and decorations.

Quinn walked in and let go of Finn's hand, shrieking as she seemed to notice someone on the dance floor that she recognized.

"I'm going to go dance with Santana," she said, smiling brightly. "I'll dance with you later tonight, I promise."

He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Quinn was running into the crowd of people on the dance floor, quickly being intercepted into Santana's arms. He saw the raven-haired girl in the red dress Quinn had been describing on the car ride over and she waved at him, smiling smugly before dragging Quinn back into the crowd of dancers.

Finn didn't really mind. He figured he could just grab a glass of punch (and one for Quinn later on) and wait by the punch bowl for her or something.

By the time he had made it over to the punch bowl and ladled himself a glass, he hadn't bothered to get one for Quinn. Finn spent his free time looking at the decorations and thinking about how hard it must have been for Rachel to blow up all of the balloons that covered the ceiling of the gym.

Of course, by the time he finished asking the question to himself in his head, Rachel had surprised him.

"You never told me you were coming alone," she said from behind him, surprising him and sending a chill up his spine. Finn spun around quickly and nearly choked when he saw Rachel.

If he hadn't recognized her voice, he certainly wouldn't have recognized her just by looking at her.

Rachel was wearing a white, strapless, floor-length number that cinched at her waist and was embellished with rhinestones that glittered underneath the lights in the gymnasium. Her hair framed around her face and had been set into loose curls that fell down her back, her bangs pinned back out of her eyes.

She looked beautiful – more beautiful than Finn ever would have expected.

"Hey," he said, watching as she walked up to him. The skirt of her dress trailed behind her, her hair fanning out around her face. "Quinn's out on the dance floor somewhere," he explained, watching as Rachel ladled herself her own glass of punch.

"Right," she said between sips. "You're not just standing here awkwardly hoping that some girl will come up and ask to dance with you."

Finn looked at her, watching as she looked at him with a smile. "I'm kidding," she said, pushing her hair away from her eyes. "I think it's good that she's not just dancing with you all night. It makes her seem less clingy."

"Isn't there some rule about not wearing a white dress to stuff?" He asked, gesturing down to her dress with a smile. Rachel shook her head and started to laugh.

"That's to a wedding," she said, leaning against the table where the punch bowl was. "I thought I looked nice tonight."

"You do," he told her, hoping she wasn't taking him seriously.

Judging by the way she was laughing at everything he was saying, however, she didn't seem to be taking him too seriously.

Once he had complimented her, however, her face started to turn red underneath the bright lights and she started giggling nervously. Her head tipped down and she looked at her feet, almost looking like she was afraid to speak to him.

"T-thanks," she said, stammering nervously. Rachel took another sip from her punch and looked out towards the dance floor.

"The decorations are awesome, by the way," Finn told her, watching her as she looked back up at him again.

"Thanks," she said, tipping her head up to the ceiling. "You would not believe how long it takes to blow up 500 balloons."

"No way." He looked at her with wide eyes. "That's how many there are?"

She nodded and sighed, like it was some masterpiece she had just completed. "Yeah. I mean, it's not the Sistine Chapel, but you know…" Her voice trailed off and they both started laughing, Rachel leaning into Finn's side slightly.

The music changed and an upbeat rock song started to play, extracting a cheer from the crowd. Rachel turned to Finn and her face lit up, grabbing him by the arm.

"Dance with me," she said, starting to pull him towards the dance floor before he got a real chance to give her an answer. Finn nearly tripped over his own two feet before she ended up in front of him, not really touching him or grabbing onto any part of him; dancing in front of him and jumping up and down to the song that was being pumped through the gym.

He laughed as she pumped her fist in air and jumped up and down, lips synching along with the words in the song. She didn't dance like the other girls with their dates; backs pressed into their chests and grinding their hips into the waists of their dates to a song that wasn't even about sex.

Finn was positive that it was how Quinn was dancing with Santana at the moment, but he didn't care. The only person he could really pay attention to was Rachel – he was dancing with her, after all.

"Why'd you ask me to dance with you?" He asked, shouting slightly above the music. Rachel spun around to face him, still moving her feet to the beat as she looked at him.

"I don't know," she said, her voice carrying over the music. "I didn't have a date; your date is busy dancing with someone else…" She placed her arms on his shoulders and swayed her hips to the beat of the song. "And prom's for dancing, isn't it?" She giggled and grabbed his hands, practically forcing him to dance with her.

Finn smiled and managed to spin her around, only causing her to laugh even more.

"Don't you have prom committee stuff to do?"

She shook her head and leaned in to speak to him. "I think I can spare you one song." She winked at him and continued to dance in front of him, joining the rest of the crowd as they started to jump up and down to the song being played.

The music eventually changed and Rachel grabbed Finn by the hands, squeezing them for a moment.

"I've got to go," she said, Finn looking down at her with a smile. She was slightly taller than him for once because of the heels that she wore, but still not by much. "I'll see you later, alright? I've got to go count the votes for prom king and queen."

Finn looked at her with a smile and walked her off of the dance floor slightly, smiling as he looked at her.

Without thinking, he pulled her in for an embrace, squeezing her tightly. His fingers pressed into the bare skin of her back and he felt her try to resist him at first; eventually melting into him and hugging him back.

"I'll see you," he said, backing away from her awkwardly after realizing what had happened. Finn began to rub the back of his neck nervously and looked at her as she looked down at her feet.

"Yeah," she said, beginning to leave. "I'll see you too."

:.:.:

He really wasn't expecting it when it happened.

Granted, he should have been expecting it. Quinn was a perpetual liar and he should have known not to trust her in a million years.

Rachel wasn't expecting anything, obviously. He had been watching her from behind on the stage and she looked so happy when she walked up and got to stop the music, holding the envelope in her hands that had the answers that everyone had been waiting to hear all night.

Of course, Quinn had managed to ruin that before she even got the chance to say anything.

Finn hadn't been expecting the two to actually go on with their plan that Quinn had announced to him at the tie shop, but they had. Quinn and Santana had rigged up a bucket of fruit punch to spill all over Rachel when she opened up the letter for prom king and queen in front of the entire school. It ruined her dress and her hair and caused everyone to start laughing at her before she even got the chance to process what had happened to her.

Amidst the laughter she had managed to make her way off of the stage and through the back doors of the gym, Finn quickly springing off of the stage after her.

"Finn," Quinn hissed, eyes wide. "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up your mess," he said, pushing his way through the crowd to make it out the same doors Rachel had pushed open on her way out of the gym.

It wasn't hard to tell where she had been; Finn following the trail of fruit punch that he was expecting her dress had left behind as she made her way down the hall.

He found her, eventually. Rachel was on the ground in the main hallway of the school's first floor, hugging her knees and crying as she hid her face in her lap.

"Rachel," was all he could say, kneeling down next to her. She started to cough through her sobs and looked up to see who was next to her, her now-stringy hair falling in her eyes.

"What?" She asked, her voice bitter and weighed down with tears. Finn placed a hand on her back and looked at her stained dress, watching her as she continued to break down in front of him. "Finn, I don't want to talk right now-"

"Rachel, I'm so sorry," he continued, moving his hand after realizing how sticky her skin was. "I should have done something, and I didn't think they would actually go through with any of it-"

"You knew about this?" She looked up at him, her mascara painting black roadmaps down her eyes.

He realized how bad it sounded after he said it.

"No, Rachel, I don't mean it like that, I just-"

"You mean you knew that they were going to do this to me? Who are they?" She sniffled and wiped her nose as she looked at him.

Finn felt his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach. "Santana and Quinn."

"Of course," she said, rolling her eyes and leaning her head back against the wall. "Of course, your girlfriend is the one who wants to make me look like a laughing stalk in front of the entire school." Rachel sniffled again and stood up from her position on the ground, now towering over Finn.

It was funny how things worked out.

"Rachel, it's not like that-"

"No, of course it's not like that," she started, pacing in front of him. "It's not like you've spent the last two years standing by and watching while she's made every second of everyday a living hell for me."

Finn didn't say anything and looked down at his feet, still crouching down on the floor down by the red stain Rachel had left on the floor.

"All you've ever done is pretended like nothing's been wrong in your perfect little world, with your perfect little girlfriend," she spat at him, tears running down her face. "You let her step all over me and you must care to some extent, because you care about me, but you clearly don't care enough to do anything about it."

"Look, I get it, alright?" Finn said, raising his voice as she finished. "I've been an asshole, Rachel. I get it."

"No, you don't," she said, wiping her tears from her eyes. Finn tipped his head up to look at her, but it was too hard. She looked rather pathetic with her punch-soaked hair and stained dress and smudged eye makeup. "You're a coward, an-and a liar, and you don't care about anything besides what other people think of you," she told him, swallowing a sob. "Whatever Quinn did to me, you ignored it like it was normal, and then you would go and be nice to me whenever she wasn't around, and I just…" She closed her eyes and sighed. "You confused me."

She looked him square in the eye and sighed, doing everything in her power not to start crying in front of him.

"All you've ever done is pretended like nothing's ever been wrong in your perfect little world and avoided the pain going on around you."

Finn stood up and looked at her, watching as she turned her back to him.

"Rachel, I promise, I'm sor-"

"No," she said, laughing bitterly. "I'm done." She turned around to face him, starting to shiver. "I'm done with you, and I'm done trying to be friends with you, and I'm done trying to be involved in anything you do," she said, wiping her tears from her eyes.

"I hope you and Quinn live happily ever after, Finn. I really do."

"Rachel, wait-"

But it was too late. Rachel had already started making her way around the corner of the hall, Finn deciding not to follow after her.

There wasn't a point to it, really. Rachel had made up her mind and seemed like she was sticking to it.

Finn, however, knew he had many more important decisions to make.