Finn glanced over at the clock that read 11:15 at night. Rachel would be home with food soon. He knew that because it was the routine they'd fallen into the few days he'd been in New York. If he didn't go to her show she'd show up between 11:15 and 11:45 with food, most of which only got half eaten before they got distracted with each other. All he wanted was to get distracted by her and for the voice in his head to go away.

"Hey," Rachel warmly greeted him before she placed the bag of take-out down on the coffee table. "How was your evening with Kurt?" She asked as she moved to the sofa then climbed on his lap to straddle him.

"Kurt drug me to some fancy restaurant with him and Charlie. Well first he made me go buy clothes," Finn motioned down at his clothing before he rested his hands against her back as she peppered his face with kisses. "Then he drug me out to some fancy dinner with Charlie."

"Typical Kurt," she whispered against his ear before she softly sucked on the flesh below his ear lobe.

"Un huh," Finn muttered and moved his hand to Rachel's face. "Typical Kurt," he repeated as he moved her lips to his. He wanted to get lost in her kiss; get lost in her and let it all go. Her mouth opened against his and he deepened the kiss, his hand moving to her neck and holding her in place against his lips. She tasted like Rachel, and he was desperate to focus in on that sense.

A purr left her mouth as she broke away and spoke with her eyes still closed, "As much as I would love to stay like this; that kiss makes me believe I'm going to need energy tonight and if that is in fact the case I'm going to need to eat first." She spoke against his lips as she tried to pull away.

"No," he whispered, his hand on her neck still holding her in place. "Not yet," he said and pulled her mouth back against his. His kiss was full of need and desperation. He knew that and there was nothing she could do to stop it and he didn't care. As long as she stayed there against him, as long as he was absorbed in her there was nothing else in his head but her. With that kiss he begged her not to pull away, not to leave him and let his thoughts take over. He broke away long enough for a breath but it was a breath too long.

"I have to eat," she giggled and quickly crawled off his lap before he had a chance to catch her again. "I didn't know if Kurt would feed you, so I got you food too if you're hungry."

He wasn't hungry. In fact he felt sick. He knew that the next words from his mouth were going to open something up they'd yet to deal with, but as he leaned against the kitchen counter he couldn't stop the words from coming out, no matter how much he wanted to. "Why did you leave?" His voice raspy as the words left his lips.

"I went to work," she answered clearly puzzled; clueless to what he really meant continuing to rummage through the refrigerator

"Not tonight. After graduation. Why did you leave?" He watched as Rachel's body stiffened in response; her reaction only feeding into his sickened feeling.

"It was ten years ago. Do we really need to talk about it?" She asked, as she closed the refrigerator then turned to face him.

Finn blew out a breath and watched as a lump moved down Rachel's throat. "You left. Three weeks after graduation you left to come here and you were supposed to come back. We were supposed to have an entire summer together. I was supposed to have an entire summer to convince you that we were gonna beat the odds. But you left and you didn't come back. And you didn't answer calls or text messages or voice mails where I begged you to tell me what was going on. And you did it because you thought it was what was best but you asked Kurt about me and you kept up with my life and I need to know why. What was it best for?"

"I was eighteen years old and I made a decision. I was eighteen years old and I made a decision that I have wished I hadn't had too since the moment I made it." Her voice came out in a choked whimper as they stood on opposite sides of the kitchen staring at each other

Finn gripped the counter behind him until his knuckles were white and as the questions passed his lips he wasn't even sure he wanted her to keep talking. At that moment he wasn't sure of anything anymore. "A decision for who? Who the hell were you, leaving without ever speaking another word to me until ten years later, making a decision for?"

Rachel squeezed her eyes closed as she fought away the start of tears, "I couldn't. I couldn't talk to you again. I couldn't hear your voice. I knew if I did I'd be on the first plane I could back to Lima because I loved you so much that I knew it would break me. Just like I love you right now." Her voice broke barely above a whisper as she tried to swallow her tears to make it stronger. "You were going to come here. You were going to follow me here and I knew that and it scared me. It scared the hell out me Finn because I knew why I was coming here. I was following a dream I was following something I'd always wanted but," her chest shook with silent sobs as she forced the words out. "I didn't know what you were following other than me. I couldn't see what you dream was. And it scared me."

Finn's eyes narrowed and his jaw dropped for a beat. "You!" The words boomed from his mouth in a mixture of anger and disbelief. "You! You were my dream. I didn't see myself as anything until I met you. You and a future with you; that was my dream!" He took harsh breaths through clenched teeth as he tried to fight away the pain that built in his chest. A pain composed of the emotions he'd kept buried for so long.

"That's part of your problem Finn, that's part of why you've spent all this time hiding from the world!" Rachel's words came out somewhere between a cry and plea, desperate for him to understand her actions. "You've never had your own dreams. You've never dreamed a future based on what you wanted. You had Quinn and the baby and after that you threw everything you wanted on me. And after I left you put it all into someone else again and where did it leave you other than locked in some house hiding from the world because everyone failed you?" Her tone changed. She was no longer begging him to listen, rather she was telling him to look inside himself and give her an honest answer and that fueled a burning rage inside him. They were no longer hashing out the past with tears. The way she asked him to question himself had created a battlefield.

"Fuck you!" He spit out wanting words that would make her feel the way he felt as he let the emotions flood through like a broken dam. "You don't know shit about my relationship with Alison or the last ten fucking years of my life because you walked away! You left me!" He yelled as stormed down the hallway and stopped only to slam his fist against the bedroom door frame before he began to snatch his clothes from around the room and stuff them into his bag.

Rachel flinched when he hit the door frame. The conversation had gone too far, the emotions were out of hand and all she wanted to was regain some kind of grip on everything. She closed her eyes as she tried to collect herself before she followed him into the bedroom. "Finn." Her voice was weak as she spoke his name.

"No!" He snapped back as he straightened himself up to face her. "No! Whatever you're about to say no! You don't know shit because you weren't there. You left!" He pointed his finger at her then thrust it towards the ground. "All these years and you weren't something that got taken away from me. You left and that was your choice!" He moved down and snatched the zipper on his bag closed before he harshly slung it over his shoulder.

"Finn, wait," she darted after him as he made his way to the front door. "Don't leave like this."

With his hand on her doorknob he whipped his body around to face her, his eyes cold and distant. It was the same dark expression he had when she found him hiding in a conference room at Kurt's wedding reception. "At least you know I'm leaving." His said with venom in his voice as he stormed out; slamming the door behind him.

Finn didn't let himself look back as he made his way out of her apartment building as fast as he could. He didn't look back as he hailed the first cab he could and climbed in.

"JFK." He growled out as he slung his bag onto the passenger seat beside him. The driver put the car in drive and in that moment Finn let himself look back his eyes drifting up to Rachel's window. "As fast as you can."

00000

Finn counted his steps. There were five steps up to porch on the small gray house that sat on Lilac Drive. Three steps on the porch and you were at the front door. It never changed. It never failed him. It never surprised him. Nothing about the walk to the front door asked him to question anything about the way he lived. His eyes closed as he adjusted the bag on his left shoulder and switched the plastic bag in his right hand over as he fumbled with his keys.

Once the door unlocked he pushed it opened and took a deep breath. The noise in his mind went quiet and his eyes closed in relief. He'd never had to fight with this house. It never asked him to feel something he wanted to keep bottled up. He dropped his duffle bag by the front door and walked straight up the stairs to sink into his father's old chair. And he waited. He waited for his jaw to unclench. He waited for the pain to subside. He waited for the peace to come. He waited for the emotions to fizzle down back into the place where he kept them bottled up. He waited for all these things to happen. And when they didn't he reached into the plastic bag he'd brought home for help. The glass of the bottle was cold and smooth against his fingers. He tried not to let it remind him of the way Rachel's skin had felt against them. The liquid that filled his mouth was bitter and surged his body with warmth that made him shiver and he tried to fight away the memory of how her touch made him shiver. He took another sip, and another, until he longer shivered at the sensations. All he wanted was to feel numb again and he was going to make that happen.