Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. It's also good to see the Story Alerts and Favorite Stories as well. So this is Rachel's backstory and hopefully explains Rachel's behavior towards Jesse. Reviews are love! Enjoy!
Life hadn't gone exactly according to plan for Rachel over the last ten years. She had dated Finn off-and-on her junior year and then Puck her senior year, but she knew that neither relationship would last beyond high school. Neither boy could ever quite live up to the one that she compared them to constantly in her mind. She had wondered if anyone would be able to.
She had capped off her four years at McKinley with the coveted National title that she had been dreaming of, but that Fall instead of heading off to New York to attend NYU, like she'd imagined she would earlier in her high school career, she began matriculating at the University of Michigan. They had a great a Musical Theater program and it was much more affordable than NYU. Her dads had told her that they would do whatever it took if NYU was really where she wanted to be, but after visiting Michigan's campus she decided that she wanted the college experience that only a non-urban campus could give her.
Her Broadway dreams could wait a little bit longer.
She had loved her life at school. She had been worried that it would be much like high school when it came to her social life, but it wasn't anything like it. She had tons of friends, she went to football games with them all decked out in the maize and blue school colors and to the movies with them and got pizza with them. She even went to frat parties. She auditioned for every school production she could possibly audition for. She landed a few minor roles her freshman year, but finally in the spring of her sophomore year she got the role of Elphaba in a school production of Wicked. Rachel knew that if standing on the stage while the audience gave them a standing ovation felt this good for a school production, Broadway was going to be the best thing ever.
She met Donovan, who was two years older than her, while she was doing Wicked. He played Fiyero. She had seen him before in a couple of school productions, but she'd never spoken to him. She knew it was so cliché and silly to fall for her co-star, but she was smitten the moment she met him.
He had dark-brown curly hair and soulful green eyes that made her think of another curly-haired, green-eyed boy from long ago. The similarities between Donovan and Jesse didn't end there. He had that arrogant charm that she had loved about Jesse so much. He had an amazing voice, not as good as Jesse's, but still wonderful. He'd also been in glee club at his high school in Illinois and they'd even gone to Nationals. He told her how they had lost to another show choir from Ohio called Vocal Adrenaline.
Rachel never said a word about Jesse.
It was so long ago that it didn't matter. But she knew that deep down it did because otherwise she would have told him about it.
Unlike Rachel, Donovan had been on the five-year plan, so by the time Donovan moved to New York to pursue his dreams of being on Broadway they had been together a year. Rachel was concerned that a long distance relationship wouldn't last, but they made it work. He came to visit her as often as he could and she would go to New York every once in awhile.
On one of her visits, Donovan wanted to surprise her so he took Rachel to see a new musical that had just moved from Off-Broadway to Broadway earlier in the year and Rachel had felt her heart stop when she saw Jesse's name on the marquee above the theater. A part of her was happy for him that he had made it. He'd done what both of them had talked about so many times as they cuddled on her couch when her dads were home or as they lazily lay on her bed wrapped in each other's arms on rainy afternoons.
But there was this irrational part of her that hated that he had done it before her. A part of her had always wanted to star in a Broadway production before him. It was stupid, she knew, but she couldn't help herself.
He was brilliant, just like she knew he would be. Hearing his voice again after all that time gave her goose bumps and brought tears to her eyes. She hated being a girl sometimes.
After the show Donovan wanted to wait by the stage door to see if they could meet any of the actors, Rachel tried to protest but when he pouted slightly she just rolled her eyes and let him lead the way to the stage door. Rachel's heart pounded in her chest each time the stage door opened in anticipation that it would be Jesse. And each time it wasn't, she would breathe a silent sigh of relief.
Then he emerged to cheers from the awaiting fans and it was like he walked out in slow motion. The noise of the crowd became muffled and distant as she watched Jesse wave and smile. She saw a glint of something shiny on his left ring finger, and Rachel didn't know why, but it felt like an enormous weight was pressing on her chest and it hurt to breathe.
He was married.
She began to panic as she saw Jesse's head turning in her direction. She quickly told Donovan that she was going to wait off to the side for him and just before she turned away, she looked up and locked eyes with Jesse. She saw his smile falter a bit when her face registered with him. Then she ran away like a coward.
When she got back to Donovan's, she told him that she needed to make a phone call so she stepped out into the hallway just outside his apartment and sat down on the stairs. She went through her contacts list and found the one person that might be able to understand what she was feeling in that moment: Kurt.
"Rachel?" Kurt had answered.
"He's married!" she wailed without greeting Kurt at all.
"Who's married?" he asked puzzled.
"Jesse!" she cried, tears streaking her cheeks.
"How do you know?"
"I saw him tonight after his Broadway show," she said, almost inaudibly and sniffling quietly.
"Why are you so upset? It's been years, Rachel. You've moved on since then," Kurt said, slightly baffled by Rachel's reaction to seeing Jesse again.
"I…I…don't…know," she sobbed, her words hitching as she tried to get them out. "He was supposed to be mine. This was supposed to be ours," she told him, finally admitting outloud what she had never been able to before. She wiped at her tears as she continued to cry. "I know it's stupid but it's what I always thought."
"Donovan can't hear you, can he?" he asked.
"Kurt!" Rachel yelled, trying to get him to focus on what she was saying.
"Listen, Rachel, you've talked about Jesse but I didn't think you still had feelings for him," he said gently.
"I didn't think I did either until I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest tonight when I saw him," she stated. Even though she'd never told Jesse that she'd loved him, she had. He was her first love. He was always going to have a piece of her heart.
There was silence on the other end of the phone and Kurt sighed before finally saying, "Sweetie, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do you want me to come over?" Kurt had been attending FIT in New York for the last four years.
"I don't want you to do anything. I just had to tell somebody," Rachel replied, wiping angrily at the tears that wouldn't stop streaming down her face. "I'll let you go. Bye, Kurt."
"I'm sorry, Rachel," Kurt said just before she hung up the phone.
After taking deep breaths and letting her tears dry up, Rachel had walked backed into Donovan's apartment with her best showface on. She had sat next to him on the couch and started kissing him and then she told him to make love to her. As he did, she imagined another beautiful velvet-voiced, curly-haired, green-eyed man moving above her, kissing her neck and making her cry out in ecstasy.
Rachel had just been grateful that she hadn't screamed out Jesse's name.
Rachel had felt so guilty after that night that she'd banished all thoughts of Jesse St. James from her mind. She began to resent him for so many things. For never apologizing to her for shattering her heart in a million pieces when they were both teenagers. For being the catalyst that brought a mother into her life who didn't want to be her mother. For actually living the Broadway dreams that she wanted so badly.
When Rachel got back to Ann Arbor she couldn't wait to be done with school. It was the first time since she had began going to school at Michigan that she actually had some doubts and regrets about the path that she had chosen for herself. She was ready to take New York by storm and graduation couldn't come soon enough.
That summer after her graduation she moved to New York and began living with Donovan. He'd had some smaller roles in a couple of Off-Broadway productions but nothing like he had hoped. He had even auditioned to be Jesse's understudy in his still running Broadway show but he never got a callback. Rachel knew that it was going to be a long, hard road, but she was willing to pound the pavement to make it happen. She knew it could be years of auditioning without much success so she hoped for the best and prepared herself for the worst and got a job as a waitress to pay the bills.
Rachel heard about an audition for a role that was soon going to be vacated by the lead actress who was moving on to a new show in London. Rachel gave it her all in the audition, but she knew the likelihood of getting the part was pretty slim. Things just didn't work like that. There were so many hopeful actors that this never happened for, so why should she be any different? But she remembered what a boy she had once loved had told her so long ago.
A month later, she thought she could die of happiness as she sat in her dressing room trying to prepare for her first night onstage. She heard a knock on her door and opened it to see a PA standing there with a massive bouquet of flowers. She took the flowers from the PA with a smile and thanked him, shutting her door behind her to look at the card. She opened the card figuring it was from Donovan. She nearly dropped the flowers, her hand flying to her lips as she gasped once she read the card.
I told you that you being on Broadway was an inevitability. They won't know what hit them. Break a leg. – Jesse
She must have read the card ten times and her smile grew each time. He still believed in her. But that didn't change the fact that he was married. And truth be told, she wasn't sure she even wanted a friendship with him. It would just complicate her life. And his. So she had made the decision that she didn't want Jesse St. James in her life if she could help it.
When Rachel finally did run into Jesse a couple of months into her Broadway show, with Donovan by her side, she greeted him coolly. Almost like she barely knew him and didn't care to know him any further. After she had introduced Donovan, Jesse had politely excused himself and avoided her the rest of the night with the exception of a few stolen glances.
Donovan proposed a year later, Rachel said yes and their long engagement began. It was excuse after excuse as to why they couldn't set a date. Mostly, it boiled down to the fact that Donovan didn't want to get married until something happened with his career. Something that would make him happy. Rachel began to wonder if they would ever get married.
When Rachel was cast in a new production opposite Jesse, the dynamic between her and Donovan changed. She felt like he resented her and her success because he had yet to find that same success. Life at home was awkward and uncomfortable at times and they both started spending more and more time away from each other.
With the distance between them, he never even knew when Rachel checked out of their relationship.
Author's Note: Next chapter there will finally be some St. Berry interaction. So, yay!