Chapter 7

"Mom?"

"Oh my gosh, she remembers me." The older woman told Hiram and Leroy as they all looked down at her.

"Of course I remember you. It's kind of hard to forget the woman who didn't think that I was good enough to keep." Rachel spat as she glared at the woman. She wasn't surprised with the hurt expression on her face. She didn't care, she deserved it.

"Rachel!" Her daddy scolded.

"Apologize to Shelby this instant!" Her father yelled.

"The only people that should be apologizing are the two of you. This is the first time in 8 years that I ever ask either of you to come up to New York, and you know, since I'm your only daughter and I haven't seen you guys in so long, that you two would accept the offer without hesitation. But you didn't! I was really looking forward to you guys coming, and then you turned me down like you always do. For what? Your stupid jobs.. I understood that you guys missed graduation because we were struggling with the bills and stuff, but I'm a damn surgeon. I can support myself.. What's your excuse now? I know, the two of you are obsessed with your jobs.. You guys should've just let me get put in foster care.. I'm sure It would've been a hell of a lot better than being ignored by my parents for most of my childhood!" She yelled as she walked pass them and ran to the elevator.

The tears had finally made their escape after holding them in for what seemed like days. Rachel couldn't believe she ever even said that she was excited for this day. Why couldn't she just have a normal birthday with the family she loved? Oh right, because her parents probably never loved her in the first place. All she ever wanted to do was impress them. She brought home the grades, got the role of valedictorian at high school graduation, got offers from many colleges, including two Ivy League, Yale and Princeton, went to medical school. Everyday she woke up and went to her job, she felt a sense of pride, knowing that she was making her parents proud. But they were never there for her. No matter how much she hurt inside, she thought that they were doing the best they could for her. She ignored the hour long sympathetic lectures from Finn, about how she deserved better than to be treated that way. She ignored the dirty looks from Santana or Quinn, and even Sam when she would get overly excited about a card that they would send in the mail at Christmas time. She ignored all of it because she knew they weren't like that. Or at least she thought she did. That was until tonight, when she finally realized that they were to busy for their own little girl.

Sniffling the tears back, Rachel wiped under her eyes to make sure her make up wouldn't smear. She had pressed the elevator button at least 10 times already and she was becoming a little impatient. It was still on the 2nd floor. Sighing, she walked to the large door to the right of it, which said stairs on it. Running up as far as she could go, she sobbed as loud as she could, not caring of the pain on her knees a few trips and missing of steps caused her. All she wanted was to be away from every single person on this planet.

Once she couldn't go up any further, she sniffed some more before she opened the door to the roof, and walked out. She was taken aback by how could the air was, but it was November in New York, so she couldn't really be surprised by it. Walking to the edge, she placed her hands on the concrete wall protecting her from falling off the side, like a balcony. As the tears made their way down her face, she gazed out at the wide span of skyscrapers and buildings that rose above her in the farther distance. She could even see the Empire State Building.

This was the perfect escape for her. New York City. The city had always been her refuge, even when she was back in Lima. Every time she would get a bad thought or have a bad day, the thought of the big city and bright lights always cheered up. There was no place on this earth that she would rather be than right here. This was her home.

Today was supposed to be the one day out of the entire year where she could just let all of the stress from every other day float away and have fun with her friends and family. Why did everything have to be so complicated? She was already 27 years old and she was still longing for the days when she had never heard of the word checkbook or insurance. she missed the days where life was all about drawing the most perfect flower on your notebook during free time in class or at recess and trying not to step on the cracks on the sidewalk or else your back would crack. The simple days of her first grade year where she first met the tall handsome goof that she now called her best friend and the love of her life, even if he didn't know it.

After all of this time, it was nice to know that she could still remember the day they met. She remembered every single little thing, detail to detail.

When they met Finn was a 3rd grader who was at the top of his class. He was like the Danny Zuko of middle school, or so she would hear when she walked into the big girl's bathroom and all of the 2nd and 3rd grade girls would be talking about what he was wearing that day or how his hair would look on that specific day. Rachel had never really seen Finn before they met, neither did she really care about who he was. All she was focused on at the moment was organizing an imaginary cheerleading team with some of her fellow students. During reading time, she would take out her tiny folded up paper and write down who would go where in the organized order.

Even now she laughed at how crazy it sounded. A 6 year old telling other 6 year olds where to go. Even at the young age of 6, Rachel adapted her bossy and ambitious attitude and she didn't care what anyone else thought of it. She was the captain of the team and she didn't care when Santana Lopez would roll her eyes or when Brittany S. Pierce would scoff when they'd learn a new dance.

One day, it started thundering and lightening the class right before recess and it ended up being held in the tiny gym that the school had. Once they were finished using the restrooms, the group of girls, which consisted of Santana Lopez, Brittany S. Pierce, Quinn Fabray, Tina Cohen-Chang, and Mercedes Jones, were the first ones in the gym besides-another few other students sitting on the bleachers. Getting permission from the teacher on look-out duty, Rachel and the girls made their way to the middle of the court to practice their cheers and dances as they had been doing every recess.

Once they were situated in their normal positions, Rachel began reciting the words to one of the many cheers she knew by heart. The other ones she would have to get another look at from the cheerleaders.

About halfway through the movements, Santana and Quinn abruptly stopped and started screaming looking to their left. By the time Rachel's eyes could process what was going on, she was surrounded by a gust of wind and a bunch of guys running past her. All she could do was hold her head in her hands and close her eyes.

After a few minutes of standing there with the other girls, Rachel started to get the gist of what was going on around them. A group of boys were playing a basketball game around them.

Becoming frustrated, Rachel walked over to a slightly tall, for his age, boy with brown hair and dark amber eyes and grabbed the ball right out of his hands as he was slowly dribbling it across the court.

"Hey, give me back the ball!" He exclaimed as all of the other boys started to get behind Finn.

"We were here first!" She replied, as the other five girls got behind her and nodded their heads in agreement.

"Basketball courts are not meant for stupid cheerleaders. They're meant for actual basketball players. Now give me back the ball, or else..." He crossed his arms.

"Or else what?" She arched an eyebrow.

"Or else I'll make you give it to me." He said, with a bit of a smirk when he saw the terror on the other girls faces. For some reason, she wasn't afraid of him at all.

"What? You're gonna beat me up?" She asked, while crossing her own arms.

"Maybe.." He threatened.

"Mrs. Robins says that boys aren't allowed to hit girls.. So you're not!" Quinn answered.

"Fine. Then let's go get another one." He began.

"You can have your stupid ball back." Rachel said holding it up. "Basketball is stupid anyways. But first, you have to go get it." She said, throwing it as far as she could across the gym.

Watching all of the boys go to retrieve the ball, Rachel turned to the girls and looked at the small Hello Kitty watch on her wrist. She hadn't really learned the time yet in class, but she liked to pretend that she did.

"Let's go on the stage, girls. We have ten minutes left of recess." She said, looking at her watch, pretending to know what all the numbers meant to make her look smart.

After that day, Rachel developed a small loathing for Finn Hudson. Not only because he stole her cheering spot that rainy day at recess, but because he made it a daily thing to make fun of her princess lunch box. She was glad that they weren't in the same grade, because if she had to see him all day, she didn't know what she would do with herself.

One day, Rachel was walking to the bus stop from school when she felt someone's hands against her back as she jerked forward and fell on the hard cement. Looking up at the person who was behind her, it was Thomas Owens, a boy in the 2nd grade. Once she felt the pain coming from the scrape against the cement, she started crying really hard. To make it even worse, the one grown up that was around was helping some of the other students and she didn't want to cause a stir. She hated when people saw her cry.

As the blood dripped down her knee, she sniffled away as the tears kept falling down her red cheeks.

The only thing she could remember was being pushed and hearing Thomas say, "Girls are stupid" before running away. After about 2 minutes of crying and holding her knee, a person was standing in front of her and it wasn't a teacher. She was actually surprised by who it was. It was Finn.

Kneeling down beside her, she tried to look away from him, not wanting him to see her crying and giving him another thing to make fun of her about. He surprised her when he opened one of the pockets in his backpack and took out a first aid kit.

Once she looked at him with curiosity, he made sure to explain himself.

"My mama told me to always be prepared for emergencies."

She watched as he opened up the kit and took out a piece of gauze and used it as a napkin to wipe up all of the blood. Rachel cried a little more at the sting of the pain, but Finn squeezed her hand and everything was better. Then he applied a disinfectant cream over the scrape and finally covered it with a bandaid.

"Why are you being so nice to me? I thought girls were stupid." She asked as she wiped away her tears.

"I was just mad that you took my ball. And you started it." He replied.

"You stole our cheering spot. So, you started it." She protested.

"Nah-ah." He answered.

"Yeah-huh." She threw back. "And you made fun of my lunchbox."

"Princesses are for babies." He said.

"No they're not!" He yelled, hitting him on the shoulder.

"Ow! Take it back!" He exclaimed, holding his arm.

"Make me!" She stuck her tongue out.

"Okay." He smiled, holding up tickling fingers. He reached forward and out came her contagious laughter. After they finished, they both sat in silence for a few moments. Then Finn broke it.

"Rachel, let's be best friends.."

"What's that?" She asked.

"You know, like friends but no one can come above your best friend. Like a brother and sister without fighting." He explained.

"Okay. Wanna come play at my house? I have a treehouse." She asked, smiling.

"Let's go!" He smiled as they all got on the bus together.

Soon enough, Rachel and Finn were inseparable. They were the best of friends and they didn't spend a day apart. Everyday after school, Rachel would either go to Finn's or Finn would go to Rachel's. There parents also became accustomed to the new friendship that they had found in each other. Hiram and Leroy Berry loved Finn as their own son and Carol and Burt loved Rachel as the daughter they never had it was like one big family.

As they got older, they began to know more and more about each other. They had already even seen things they weren't supposed to have seen When they went skinny dipping in one of the lakes in the back of Finn's house. They swore to secrecy that they would never tell, and that's exactly how it stayed to this very day.

The only thing that was a minor obstacle was the two year age difference. So when Finn got to eighth grade, Rachel was only in 6th grade, which meant that she would have to spend two more years at the middle school by herself. So, when Finn graduated, Rachel was heart broken. But, they still hung out every weekend and all summertime.

You could imagine Rachel's excitement once she became a freshman at William McKinley high school. The first thing that Rachel did was find Finn in the large crowd of people. He wasn't hard to find since he was the quarterback of the football team and anyone you asked knew who he was. It also helped that he was possibly the tallest person in high school and could be spotted from miles away.

Once she found him, she figured out his schedule and he figured out hers and it turned out that they had lunch together which made her happy. One thing that did sort of complicate things, though, was his popularity. Things weren't the same as they were in middle school. There were a lot more people that knew him and wanted to hang out with him at school and over the weekends. So Rachel often took rain checks often. The only time they would ever get to talk was if she found him early at lunch, in glee club, on the car ride home, and texting each other at night. Other than that, she tried to give him his space as she found some friends her own age.

By the time Finn graduated from high school, Rachel became a little depressed. Knowing that she would never see him again, especially with the newly grown feelings she had for him, she sort of kept to herself the rest of the two years she had there. The only thing that really kept her going was the glee club and singing out all of her problems.

Once graduation rolled around, Rachel was glad to see that Finn had came to see her graduation as we'll has Carol and Burt, with Kurt being in her graduating class. It was a little disappointing that Rachel's parents couldn't make it to her graduation to hear her speech, but what made her happier was that Finn told her that he was there for her and only her.

Once she got her acceptance letter to NYU, Rachel packed up everything and joined Finn in New York City, which she attended for 4 years before going to med school for another 4 years. Which, led to where they are now. To where she is now. Alone and sobbing on a roof top in New York City, the one thing she feared most. As she sobbed a little louder, she held onto her arms tight, scared that if she let go, she would fall apart.

Why couldn't things be the way they were before? She wanted to go back to that small bench at the bus stop to the girl who met the boy that made her feel like the specialist person alive, who still does to this day.

Before she could get any further into her thoughts, she heard the door to the roof slam behind her. As she quickly wiped away her tears, she turned and smiled when she saw who it was.

"Finn.."