Stepping back and releasing Rachel from his embrace, they just looked at each other for a moment. Jesse wanted to go down to the bar just a few blocks away and have this conversation in public. But he knew that was unfair to Rachel, so he stepped around her without touching her and nodded his head towards his building, letting her know to follow him.
"Where are we going?" she asked in a low voice as she fell in step beside him and they approached the entrance to his building.
"The rooftop," he simply replied, looking down at her with a deep sadness in his eyes. It tore at Rachel's heart.
"But what if Isla sees us?" she whispered as they walked through the lobby doors and towards the elevator.
"She's asleep." Rachel looked at him with a puzzled expression wondering how he could know that when he hadn't even been inside his apartment yet. "She called me before the show to let me know that she had an early day tomorrow," he explained, leaving out the part where Isla had told him to wake her when he got home. He knew that was the last thing that Rachel wanted to hear.
The elevator dinged and Jesse held the door open, motioning for Rachel to get in it. Following her inside the elevator, he pressed the button for the top floor and watched the elevator doors close. His fingers itched to reach out and touch her but he kept his distance. In the reflection of the elevator door, they looked almost like strangers standing far apart, neither one looking at the other. Silent.
Rachel turned her head finally, and studied Jesse's profile. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and noticed Jesse's hand clenching and unclenching. She knew that it was killing him not to touch her like he normally would have if they were alone in an elevator, away from prying eyes. The truth was, it was killing her too.
Finally, the elevator came to a stop and Rachel stepped out of the elevator into the hallway and then walked out the door to the rooftop terrace. She looked around and noticed that it was deserted. She remembered how not so long ago they had made the momentous decision to be together on Kurt's rooftop. It seemed as though everything was coming full circle.
She could feel Jesse not too far behind her, following her to wherever she was going to take them. She walked to the railing of the rooftop garden to look at the Manhattan skyline. Jesse's arm brushed against hers as he came and stood beside her. They stared at the cityscape in front of them, trying to delay what was next as they stood in silence.
Rachel could feel all of her emotions bubbling to the surface, so she finally said something. "Is there a part of you that still wants to be with her?" she choked out, still staring straight ahead at the cityscape in front of her.
"What?" Disbelief written all over his face as he turned his head and looked at her. "No," he said, matter-of-factly.
She turned to look at him with a fire in her eyes. "Then how could you sleep with her?" she cried out, throwing her hands up in the air. "I know I said that it doesn't bother me and that I knew it would happen, but I lied. It does bother me. It makes me sick thinking of you touching her and kissing her and…and…being with her." Unable to even get the word out.
"How do you think I feel about you and Donovan?"
"I wanted to get even with you so badly today. To make you feel what I felt when you told me… that last night, but I couldn't even kiss Donovan without it making me feel sick with betrayal over you. Yet you somehow managed to have… sex with Isla."
"Rachel…" he started, but she cut him off.
"I can't breathe when I think about her having your children and you guys starting a family together," she told him angrily as hot tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. "Yesterday, I was imagining a future with you. What it would be like to be your wife and grow old with you and now…" She shook her head sadly, the fight leaving her completely.
"It was a mistake. I made a mistake. I know what I want, Rach," he told her, his hands on her arms holding her in place.
"I used to think you did, but now…," she paused, looking down at his chest before continuing. "I'm not so sure anymore, Jesse."
"Rachel, I love you." He didn't know what else to say.
Standing on her tip-toes, Rachel brought her lips to Jesse's as the desperation they were both feeling manifested itself in their kiss. Their tongues collided in a frantic duel, as Jesse wrapped his arms around Rachel, his hands tightly fisting the back of her shirt. "I love you too," she told him, slightly out of breath as she pulled away from him and looked up. The anguish she saw on his face nearly ripped her in two as she reached up to caress his face. "I'm sorry."
Jesse knew what was coming. "No," he said emphatically, irrepressible desperation bubbling its way to the surface. "No, no, no."
"I thought I could do this," her voice was soft and devoid of all emotion as she rubbed his cheek. She dropped her gaze, unable to look him in the eyes anymore.
"Don't. Please don't," he pleaded with her. It couldn't end like this. It just couldn't.
"Good-bye, Jesse," she said, a single tear finally trickling down her cheek. They both knew exactly what her good-bye meant. They would see each other at the theatre the next day, but there would be no secret rendezvous. There would be no extra caresses in their love scenes. There would no alone time in the quiet of their dressing rooms. They would go back to being virtual strangers again. Not meeting Jesse's eyes and without another word, Rachel dropped her hand back down to her side and turned on her heel as she headed for the door they had come through just a short while before.
Jesse just stood there, shell-shocked as he watched her retreating back disappear through the glass door and then into the elevator.
Rachel had thought that the tears would just flow freely as she got on that elevator and left Jesse standing alone on the rooftop, but they hadn't come. Not that she should have been surprised, considering how much crying she had done in the comfort of her own apartment earlier in the day.
Digging in her bag, she found her phone and went to her text messages. She found Kurt's name in her recent text conversations and typed out a quick text to him.
Can we have lunch tomorrow?
She sighed and gazed out the window at the passing buildings as she waited for Kurt's response.
Of course. Just let me know the time and place and I'll be there.
Rachel smiled as she read Kurt's text. She really was so thankful to have Kurt in her life especially after all these years. She couldn't ask for a better best friend.
11:30. I'll text you with the restaurant in the morning. Love you!
She wished that she could talk to him now but it wasn't fair to constantly disrupt Kurt and Daniel's lives with her personal drama. Tonight, she would just have to go home and pretend like everything was fine even if things were far from it.
Jesse didn't know how long he stood on the rooftop, just gazing out at the cityscape and thinking. Thinking about his mistakes and regrets and decisions. Past, present and future. He headed down to his apartment in a complete trance-like state. Not even completely aware of what he was doing. Just going through the motions.
He quietly let himself into his apartment, but once he'd locked the door behind him, he stood unmoving looking around at his apartment for a little while. Eventually making his way to the bedroom, he silently walked into the room and looked at his still-sleeping wife in the dim light shining through the windows.
Were Rachel and Thomas right? Did he still want to be with Isla? He remembered when they had first gotten engaged and how happy they had both been. How in love they had been. The beginning of their marriage had been wonderful. Jesse let out a bitter silent laugh as he thought about that. The beginning of their marriage. They were still in the beginning of their marriage. After all, they had only been married four short years.
As he stood there looking at Isla, he thought about how he was more willing to do whatever it took to ensure that Rachel was a part of his life and that the future that she had dared to dream of for them would become a reality than he was to work on his marriage with the woman that he had committed his life to. The thing was, he didn't see that there was anything left of his marriage worth salvaging.
So why had he slept with Isla? Other than the obvious reason, of course. Was it because up until Rachel had said it out loud, Jesse had actually started to doubt the depth of her feelings for him? Had he wanted to see if it was truly over with Isla? If they could find again what they had obviously lost: romance, love…happiness? He and Isla hadn't been happy for so long that he had almost forgotten what happiness felt like until Rachel came back into his life then he remembered what it was like again.
Only it was a different sort of happiness with Rachel. He smiled as he remembered all those years ago when he transferred to William McKinley High School to be with Rachel. He remembered how being with her had been so completely comfortable, like home, and how the longer he had stayed there with her, the less and less he had wanted to go back to Carmel. He had been disappointed the day that she had told him that she wanted to know about her mom because the moment she had said that, he had known it was only a matter of time before it was all over for them. And he hadn't been wrong.
The first girl he had ever loved and he'd had to walk away from her. If only he could go back and tell his teenage self that the love he felt for Rachel Berry then would pale in comparison to how he felt about her now. He couldn't walk away again. His heart might never recover.
The next morning, Jesse groaned as his phone rang on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. He looked at the clock and realized that it actually wasn't as early as he had thought it was. He looked at the display on his phone and saw that it was his agent calling.
"Good morning, Adam," Jesse said in greeting.
"Did I wake you, sleeping beauty?" Adam cracked at the sound of Jesse's groggy tone.
"Actually…"
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, I just got a call from a charity and they're putting together a cabaret for around the holidays and are trying to line up some Broadway stars to be a part of it. So, naturally, you were at the top of their list," he explained.
"Sure I was," Jesse remarked with a roll of his eyes.
"I'm not shittin' ya, Jesse. They want both you and Rachel to perform, together and separately." So there was the caveat. They wanted him and Rachel to perform together. It was one thing for them to be in character and say someone else's words. But for them to have to perform in front of a live audience, as themselves, that was something else entirely.
"Do you know if Rachel's agreed to it yet?" It was important that he know this because as much as he worried about how their sure to be tenuous relationship would affect their performance, he wouldn't do it without her.
"They said that they got confirmation from her agent that she would do it just before they called me."
Jesse nodded and let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "Okay, I'll do it."
"Great. I'll let 'em know and I'll get all the details on the event and get back to you."
He was about to hang up when he thought of something. "Hey, Adam."
"Yeah?"
"You lied. I wasn't at the top of their list. Rachel was," Jesse said in mock seriousness, before letting out a low chuckle. He knew Adam would know he was just messing with him, but he just couldn't resist giving his agent a hard time.
"I'll give you a call later, Jesse," Adam replied with a good-natured laugh of his own before hanging up the phone.
Rachel sat at the booth near the back of the restaurant waiting for Kurt. Her face lit up the moment she saw him and she gave a little wave so he would see where she was sitting. Scooting out of the booth, she stood up and hugged him as he came over to the table. She held on a little tighter and longer than she had intended to, immediately giving away to Kurt that something was definitely wrong.
He had thought something was up when she'd text messaged him so late just to ask him to meet her for lunch, but he'd been half-asleep when he had received her text and hadn't had the energy to inquire more. As they sat down on opposite sides of the booth, he studied her face looking for hints of what might be going on.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look too good sweetie," Kurt told her, giving her hand a squeeze across the table. When she didn't open her mouth to explain, he pressed. "I take it your getaway with Jesse didn't go as planned?"
Rachel sighed before answering. "It was perfect." She had thought that once Kurt was in front of her that she would pour her heart and soul out to him, but for some reason, the words just wouldn't come at the moment.
"But…" Kurt encouraged. "Come on, Rachel, something obviously happened and judging by the look on your face it wasn't something good."
"He told me that he was with Isla recently," she finally confessed. She hoped that Kurt would understand what she meant so she wouldn't have to say it out loud.
"I'm not following you here."
Judging by the puzzled look on his face, Rachel knew she was going to have to elaborate. "He had… sex with Isla," she told him, practically spitting out the word with disgust.
Kurt's mouth hung open slowly as he took in Rachel's words. "How recently?"
"Last week." Rachel could feel that familiar anger starting to rise within her as she thought about it.
"So I'm taking it that since your getaway was perfect that he told you at the end." She nodded in affirmation.
"I took the train back on my own and left him in the Hamptons. I needed some time to think about things by myself."
"And what did you decide?"
"I…" and just as quickly as the anger had risen inside of her, she was overtaken by a wave of complete sadness. She felt Kurt give her hand another encouraging squeeze as she took a deep breath to keep the tears from coming. "I ended it."
Kurt's eyes grew wide at her admission. He hadn't necessarily approved of her relationship with Jesse, but he knew that Jesse made her happy. He also knew that she was completely in love with Jesse. "Rachel…"
And now the tears that she couldn't seem to cry the night before welled up in her eyes, completely obscuring her vision. "I had to, Kurt. We both have some decisions to make…" Kurt got out of his side of the booth and slid over next to her, wrapping his arms around her tightly.
"And Jesse?"
Her vision swam with the image of Jesse as he'd begged her not to end it. "He was upset," she mumbled against Kurt's chest. "But he'll see it was for the best." She felt Kurt nod and they sat their in silence for a moment longer as he let her compose herself a bit before he let go of her.
"Better?" he asked with a sympathetic smile. She nodded and he moved back to his side of the booth. "So have you thought about what's next?"
"I have to break up with Donovan." She paused for a moment and looked down at the ring that was currently on her left ring finger before continuing. "I don't love him anymore. Well, not the way that I should love a man that I'm engaged to be married to."
"You are always welcome at my place. Anytime. Day or night."
"Doesn't Daniel get sick of me being around so much?" Rachel asked, cracking a smile.
"Please," he waved her off. "He adores you. He'd probably kick me out of bed and cuddle with you if he could." He winked at her, effectively lightening the mood, making her smile grow even wider.
Then Rachel remembered the phone call that she'd received from her agent this morning. "Oh, you need to clear your schedule the first Sunday night in December."
"And why would I need to do that?" he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.
"Because I will be performing at a cabaret for charity that night with some other Broadway actors and you will be there. Front and center."
Kurt sighed dramatically. "I'll have to check my schedule. I might be able to fit you in."
Rachel just smiled widely at his teasing. "You can help me with my song selections."
"Well, why didn't you say so. Then of course I'll be there," he joked, trying to dodge Rachel's playful swat from across the table.
Rachel fired off a text to Donovan on her way back to her apartment after the show later that night.
Are you at home?
She didn't have to wait long for his reply. No, I'm out with the guys. Why?
I need you to meet me at the house.
I'll see you in fifteen. ;) Rachel sighed as she saw his semi-flirtatious response.
When she got home ten minutes later, she sat down on the couch and stared at the front door waiting for Donovan to walk through it. As promised, it took him fifteen minutes to make it home and the moment he walked through the door and saw Rachel, a grin spread across his face.
She gave him a weak smile in return as he approached where she sat on the couch. He seemed completely oblivious to her somber mood as he sat down next to her and before she knew it, his lips were on hers. Rachel felt his tongue on her lips as he tried to deepen the kiss, but she planted her hands firmly on his chest and gave him a light shove.
The look on his face at her rejection made her heart fill with such incredible guilt. She knew she needed to say something. "I'm sorry, but that's not why I needed you to come home."
He looked at her with a baffled expression. "What the hell is going on with you lately? I know we've had our problems this last year and we had a huge fight but that was two months ago and I thought we'd moved past it," he replied, his voice full of frustration. "I can't even fucking touch you without you pulling away."
"I know," she agreed, trying to find the courage to say what she had called him home for.
"That's it? All you're going to say is 'I know'?" he scoffed. "We're getting married in May for Christ's sake, Rachel!"
"No, we're not," she said quietly. She wasn't sure if he had heard her or not.
"What did you just say?" Disbelief written all over his face.
"I can't marry you, Donovan." She knew it would be hard, but she didn't know how hard until the words had fallen from her lips.
"Are you serious?" he asked, his voice rising. Rachel flinched at the tone of his voice. "Are you seriously fucking doing this right now? I know I've been an asshole and we've had our problems but you don't just fucking give up, Rachel."
Rachel looked down at the ring on her finger and touched it lightly, her eyes filling with tears. She didn't want to look up, but she had to look him in the eyes when she said this. "I don't love you anymore." She had expected her words to make him even angrier because that she was prepared for.
The expression on his face made her want to look away again but she didn't. Her words had hurt him. They had cut deep and wounded him, probably his pride more than anything but they had wounded him nonetheless. Donovan ran a hand over his face, trying to regain his composure a bit. "I don't know what to say to that."
"We've been living in denial for so long, but neither of us is happy. You can't tell me that you're happy. That this," she gestured between the two of them, "is what you want for the rest of your life. I want more than this. I deserve more than this. And so do you."
Her words hung between them as the silence stretched on. Rachel wished that he actually would get angry and yell because it would be so much easier to deal with.
"Is there someone else?" he finally asked. She knew what he hoped her answer would be.
Rachel thought about lying just to make this all a bit easier to swallow for him, but she knew it wasn't fair. "Yes."
"How long?"
"A few months," she answered but then rambled on. "Well, technically that's when he came back into my life."
"Came back into your life?"
"He's an old high school boyfriend," she replied. Before she could stop them, the words left her lips. "My first love actually. The first boy that truly understood me and accepted me for who I was." She didn't know why she was saying all of this but she couldn't stop the words from leaving her mouth.
"Who in the hell is it? Have I met him before?" The anger was starting to creep back into his voice.
"It's Jesse."
"As in, St. James?" his voice dangerous. "As in, your fucking co-star? You never felt it might be important to let me know that Jesse St. James was your ex-boyfriend?"
"When we saw him on Broadway for the first time all those years ago, I didn't want you to feel intimidated by the fact that my ex was a star on Broadway already. And then when we saw him at various events, I didn't think it was important to tell you about a guy that wasn't a part of my life anymore. But once we were cast as the leads together, it had been so long that I knew if I told you that you'd be angry and you wouldn't trust me," she rushed out.
"You're damn right I wouldn't have trusted you! I would have had every right not to trust you!" he yelled, advancing on her. "Did he leave his wife for you?"
Rachel looked at him, puzzled and taken aback by his question. "What?"
"He didn't, did he?" his face contorting into a cruel sneer as he leaned down towards her. "You're going to end up all alone. With no one."
She knew it was a very real possibility that it may just turn out like that, but it was better than the life she was living now. Rachel simply nodded as she stood up slowly, twisting the ring off of her finger. "I'm sorry," she simply said then she set the ring down on the coffee table in front of her. She was walking towards the front door when Donovan's voice stopped her.
"I'll leave. I can't stand to be in this fucking apartment one more second," he spat as he walked towards her. He grabbed his bag off of the floor and swung the door open. Looking back with a complete look of disgust, he walked out the door and slammed it shut behind him causing Rachel to flinch at the sound.
Slowly, she turned her head towards the coffee table and tears rolled down her cheeks. Finally it was over. The ring was gone and so was Donovan.
Author's Note: No cliffhangers this time. I figured the least I could do after angsty!St. Berry was to have Rachel finally end things with Donovan. It needed to happen. Hopefully, it lived up to your expectations and I'm not killing you guys with the angst. If you guys have any suggestions for what Rachel should sing at the cabaret, I'd love to hear them. I pretty much know what I want Jesse to sing and Jesse/Rachel to sing as a duet but if you have any suggestions for those then let me know. As always, reviews are love so please leave one and let me know what you think.