A.N: Insomnia has driven me to write this.
Rachel,
There is only one way to begin this letter, and that is by telling you that I love you. I know that, for you, this might seem like it has come out of nowhere; but believe me when I say that it has not. Every single thing I have ever done to hurt you has hurt me twice as hard. I'm sure that this feels like such an empty statement, because I wasn't the one going through what you went through, what I let you go through because of me. You have every right to hate me for making your life so difficult, for being so hurtful.
It may sound crazy, but I was hurting you to hurt myself. Because I was so sure that everything that I was feeling was wrong, loving you was so wrong, that I needed to hurt you, to hate you, and to make you hate me in return. If I couldn't have your love, if wanting your love was so wrong, I would have your hate. Twisted, as it might sound, this thought was my driving force for years. It became so ingrained in my mind that I forgot, or maybe I never really knew, what I really felt.
I'm not sure you will believe me; this probably seems like some elaborate prank. I know that you have learnt to expect the worst from me, and it's good that you do, I earned that. However, I'm baring my soul to you in an effort to help you understand that everything that I did and said back then, had little or nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I know that sometimes the way things turned out in high school still torments you, the slushing may have ended but you still feel cold and alone, and it's my fault.
I believe that you deserve an explanation, so here it is. From the moment I layed eyes on you, you awoke something within me that I desperately needed to keep hidden. Everything I had, and everything that I thought I was, would be compromised if I let myself be taken over by what I really wanted. Then I lost everything. It's really ironic that I'm sure a very important part of the reason I slept with Puck was keeping you out of my mind. The very thing I did in a desperate attempt to protect everything that I thought important was also the very thing that resulted in me losing it all.
When I lost everything I had a taste, albeit small in comparison, of what it was like to be on your end. I felt guilty, very guilty, but I also pushed that away. I had, I told myself, more urgent worries to attend to. I did not want to go back to treating you how I did before, I hope that to some extent I was successful. And yet I still desperately told myself that I hated you, and I was utterly terrified of asking the obvious question: Why did I want to hate you?
I found myself doing things that I shouldn't have been doing, because despite what I told myself I always ended up making an extra effort for you. Some of this things you can probably remember, others you never knew about, I'd like to keep it that way. I told you once that we were "kind of friends", and while at the time I told myself I was doing so to appear aloof and noncommittal I think that a part of me knew that I really wanted so much more. I opposed your marriage and told myself that it was a matter of principle, that I was being a friend, that I was watching out for you; but when I said that you where the brightest star of us all I could feel something more inside me, begging to be said. When I asked you if you where singing to Finn, and only to Finn, some delusional part of me was hoping that you were singing to me, thinking about me, like I thought of you when the words "never can say goodbye" left my lips, like I thought of you when I asked for anybody to find me somebody to love (even if back then I told myself that I wasn´t thinking of you, looking at you, yearning for you).
So much has happened to us, so much has happened between us, and yet you have always welcomed me into your life, swept all my cruelty under a rug, taken me as I was. I'm sure it is very taxing to do so, I'm sure it is even more exhausting to not know the motivations behind my actions and inactions. I know that you have thought about it, asked about it (please don't be mad at Kurt, he was only concerned about you).
There is only one way to end this letter, and that is by telling you that I'm sorry. And while I don't think I will ever deserve your forgiveness, I believe that you deserve an explanation. I hurt you because I loved you. I guess that makes me a monster. I can only hope that my words might bring you closure, so that you can move on to the wonders that lie ahead, because you are a brightest star of us all.
Sincerely (like I had never been before),
Quinn