Forever Has to Start Somewhere

Chapter 8: Audition

"School starts tomorrow," Jesse declared. He was sprawled out on his dorm room floor, surrounded by textbooks and sheet music. He was ignoring it all in favor of resting his head on the open pages of his calculus book as he spoke into his phone. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Rachel said. Jesse hummed softly. "Really, Jesse. I am fine."

"It's okay if you're nervous," he said. "This summer was great for you and school has never been."

"Sometimes, I think you ignore the words coming out of my mouth."

He chuckled softly. "That's because I know you well enough to know when they're lies."

Rachel took a deep breath.

Jesse let his eyes drift shut, listening to her breath.

He could see her lying in her bed, face down with her legs propped up in the air. She'd have pillow tucked between her elbows and her chest.

"I may be a little nervous," Rachel admitted. Jesse's lips quirked just a bit. "It's just...Like you said, this summer was good for me. I'm worried that when school starts, I'll lose everything I gained."

"You won't," he assured.

He practically hear her rolling her eyes. "You can't know that Jesse."

"I can," he said. "You are going to go to school tomorrow and you are going to have everything you had today. Kurt will still be irritating and bossy, Mike and Matt will still be creepily in-sync, Puck will still be a total softie under all his bravo, and I will still be here waiting for you to call and tell me all about it."

"I hope you're right."

"I always am."

The statement startled a laugh out of her. His small smile spread into a full grin.

He peeked one eye open, focusing on the alarm clock set up on his roommates desk.

"Rach, it's getting pretty late. You should go to bed."

He heard the creak of her bed as she shifted around. "Oh. You're right." She was quiet for a moment before murmuring, "Sing to me? It'll calm me down enough to sleep."

"Of course."

He let his eyes close again as he worked through the catalog in his head, figuring out which one would work best.

"Alright," Rachel said after a moment. "I'm ready."

He thought of her buried under her pink comforter, her phone on her pillow with the volume all the way up so she could hear him.

Affection filled his chest as he started singing, "When life has cut too deep and left you hurting, the future you had hoped for it now burning and the dreams you held so tight lost their meaning and you don't know if you'll ever find the healing. You're gonna make it. You're gonna make it and the night can only last for so long."

When he'd finished calming Rachel down from her tears, Jesse hung up. He pulled his phone away from his ear just long enough to punch in another number.

He heard the phone pick up and spoke before the person on the other end could, "My girlfriend is crying in the fucking auditorium because she thinks all of you hate her. Fix this, Chang."

Mike didn't miss a beat, exclaiming, "You can't expect us to act like she did nothing wrong."

"Actually, I do," Jesse answered. "Because she didn't."

"She sent a girl to a crack house!"

"An inactive one!" Jesse responded. He heard the squeak of the door opening and glanced over to see his roommate, Brody, walking in with a bag of cheetohs in his hand. "And she only did it in the first place because your club treats her like shit."

"You really that's an acceptable reason to send an innocent girl into a dangerous situation?"

Jesse flashed Brody a smile when he raised an eyebrow at him. To Mike, he said, "I think that Rachel is absolutely terrified that you guys are going to leave her alone and that all she'll have left is singing. I think that when confronted with the idea of losing her solos, she got rid of the competition like any serious performer would. And I think you reacted by getting angry at her and proving her right about your friendship."

Silence settled on the other end of the line.

Brody must have noticed because he took the chance to murmur, "Trouble?"

"A bit," Jesse answered. "Thought you had class?"

"Canceled. What's up with your girlfriend?"

Jesse didn't hesitate to tell Brody, "She got rid of her competition by sending a girl to an inactive crack house. Her friends don't understand."

"Could be worse," Brody mused as he popped his chips open. "I was never into show choir, but my dance team once drove the freshmen to the shady part of town and made them walk to their houses. One guy almost got stabbed."

Mike spoke now, interrupting the conversation, "Fine, I get it. Serious performers are crazy and don't care about others feelings."

Brody must have been able to hear him because he and Jesse spoke in unison, "Not really, no."

"Go to the auditorium," Jesse said. "Let her know that she still has friends. Have her call me when glee club ends."

He waited for Mike to let out an agreeing hum before saying goodbye.

"Your girlfriend sounds interesting," Brody said as Jesse tossed his phone onto his bed.

Despite his exasperation at the whole situation, because honestly couldn't New Direction's go even a week without drama?, Jesse couldn't help smiling. "Very. She's amazing and I love her all the more for it."

E/n: This is one of the shorter chapters thus far but hopefully you all enjoy it. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to add.

SO YEAH tho, Brody! I mentioned before that I wanted Jesse to be friends with him and Adam, so I made Brody his roommate. I think it's canon that Adam's exchange program is only for his senior year (That might be fanon im not sure) but we're gonna ignore that whenever I decide to introduce him.

The song Jesse sings to Rachel is The Sun Is Rising (Britt Nicole).

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