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ms_beccaTitle: Shadows of What Might Have Been
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
becca_radcgg
Rating: R
Characters:Rachel, Finn, Puck, Quinn, mentions of other glee kids and parents, and Sarah Puckerman (thanksohladybegood)
Summary: She wants him to be in love with her - enamoured and twitterpated - so he understand what it's like.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. Sarah Puckerman is just being borrowed. If I have referenced any other fics in this (which aren't mine) I apologize profusely!
AN:This is not a happy story. Fictable # 25 - Shadow
Thanks to Ky, A, Ali, Sam, Sheena, and various others for their support and whatnot during the writing and editing process.
She feels like a consolation prize (stuffed and mounted on a wall screaming second place finish to anyone who will listen). She knows that given the option he'd be with someone else, knows that really she's a placeholder until something better comes along. And it hurts.
It's this hideous burning deep in her stomach, a fire that can't be put out by kind words or his lips on hers late at night. In fact, those things only make it worse.
She wants him to be in love with her - enamoured and twitterpated - so he understands what it's like. How it tears at her already tattered heart, how she’s so open to him that it shuts her down just a little bit more each time he looks to that other girl.
But he's not.
He simply uses her when he needs or wants someone to be there, to talk to, to kiss him and love him.
And she lets him every time.
---------------
Her days are all static - never changing, consistent, pointless - from the moment she wakes up to her song to the moment she returns to bed, teeth freshly brushed, and lies down with her novel. She goes through the same tedious motions, the personal hygiene, the decision to wear knee socks or tights, the preparation of lunches, the monotonous pouring of cereal. Sometimes she wonders how her dads haven't figured it all out and called her on it.
School is monotonous. She attends all her classes and hands in all the assigned work, sits with her boyfriend at lunch surrounded by his friends, never hers. She kisses him quickly before the lunch bell goes and spends the rest of the day wondering what the hell she's doing. On the days when she has glee practice she sings but never really performs the music to the best of her ability. Mr. Schue has insisted that everyone be able to showcase his or her talents during the competitions this year, their second together as a group.
Matt and Brittany are singing together, so she can sway in the background. She might not be cultivating her talent but honestly, she doesn't care.
She sits in her chair and sings, stands by her boyfriend and dances, and wonders why she does this at all.
-----------
Someone notices.
-----------
Puck confronts her at her car after glee that day.
"What the fuck, Berry? Where is your head at?" He finally shaved off the stupid Mohawk in June of last year, almost seven months ago. His skin is weirdly tanned considering the miraculous lack of winter sunshine. His eyes are still that weird shade that's not quite green but not quite brown either. Most importantly she still gets that strange quiver in her stomach whenever he talks to her like they're friends, because they're not.
"Please control yourself, Noah. There is no need for profanity."
"Why the zombie act?" If he had an expression of concern or caring she probably wouldn't answer him, but he's looking at her like she's out to destroy the club or at the very least him personally.
As it is she plays the ignorant card. "I don't know what you're referring to."
He doesn't believe her, that much is obvious. "You can't bullshit a bullshitter, Berry." He steps closer to her and moves his hand in an echo of their former intimacy stopping just before his fingers graze her cheek.
And she wants to tell him, to tell someone what's going on. But she can't, so she reacts.
"Why do you care? You're Finn's friend not mine." She covers her mouth with her hand. Did she really just let that slip?
Fortunately, he lets it go. "Whatever, Berry, but it’d better be you not your walking dead counterpart at practice tomorrow!"
She nods briefly and gets into her car to drive away before she says something else she regrets.
------------
She and Finn are two days away from celebrating their six month anniversary the first time she really notices the way his eyes linger on another girl. Not just any girl.
The girl.
She can't compete with her, as much as she wants to. She can share her first moments with Finn (and she does) but his firsts are almost exclusively with another girl with green eyes and blonde hair.
She can't fight against the pull of first love.
She feels the thrill of it through her own body whenever she looks at him, but watching him watch Quinn is something akin to Chinese Water Torture. It's slow and harmless for a while, but after a time has passed it begins to grate (Drip. Stop. Drip. Stop. Drip). Like that one note that always sounds just a little bit forced whenever she hits it.
Still, she loves him (she knows she does) so she stays. He doesn't talk about Babygate ever, though he and Puck have managed to duct tape the pieces of their relationship back to a shadow of what it used to be. She's certainly not one to claim perfection but she sometimes wonders if or how those two boys could ever forgive Quinn for what she did.
Cheating is unpardonable.
-----------
Two months later Rachel's opinion on monogamy will change.
-------------
Finn continues to watch Quinn.
Rachel continues to watch Finn and each time hurts a little bit more. And each time she misses a note or her cue Noah is there staring at her like he already knows the answer to the question he hasn’t asked.
------------
He meets her at her house after school on a Tuesday. Finn is at some kind of an athletic practice.
Or so he says.
She doubts everything he says to her now. Everything is a lie, everything.
The fact that Puck (Noah, whatever) is at her house seems to suggest that maybe she has a reason for that belief. Puck is on the basketball team.
Puck.
Basketball.
She’s fairly certain she should be more upset but at this point all she feels is a sad sense of resignation, like it was always going to come down to this, and nothing could stop it.
“What are you doing here?” She says after he walks through her front door.
He plops down on the couch in their living room like he’s been here before. He has, of course; their parents are acquaintances. But he puts his feet up on the coffee table like this is his house and he can treat her furniture like it’s the junk he undoubtedly owns.
“What the fuck is up with you, Berry? You haven’t been yourself in, like, weeks. Is Hudson refusing to put out or some shit?” He just stares at her and she feels her cheeks grow flushed with a mortifying sort of embarrassment. She stands there thinking of what she could say to change the subject get him off this track. “Oh my God, that’s it isn’t it? Little Finny hasn’t come out to play and you’re just aching to get off.”
“Finn has been nothing but a true gentleman to me. There’s no reason to be vulgar.” She sits down in the love seat adjacent to him and folds her hands demurely on her lap.
“Well, if you’re in need of some cock you can use mi-“
“Noah, shut up!” She finally looks at him and something shifts. His eyes aren’t... it looks almost like he –
But that can’t be right.
“For real, Berry, what’s going on?” He leans forward resting his arms (the guns of Puckerone, a sad allusion to a novel he’s probably never read) on his legs.
She wants to tell him.
“Why would you think that anything was going on?” She studies the white wear pattern in his jeans. It runs from the cuff all the way to the waist band she can only partially see.
“Well.” He shifts further forward on the couch. “You missed your cue in the song today. You didn’t hit that note you’re always bitching to Kurt about. You fucked up the dance last week. You haven’t been arguing about every solo Schue gives away to someone else. You haven’t even mentioned your two gay days in fucking weeks. And as far as I can tell, you aren’t talking to anybody, not even your boytoy. You’re fucking up my life, Berry. I can’t get San, Britt, Tina or Mercedes to put out because all they’ll fucking talk about is you and how you’re turning into a fuck up.”
She lets it echo in her head for a while. Not that he’s trying to hook up with the all the Glee Girls but her (which shouldn’t make her as nauseous as it does) but that all Glee is talking about is how much she’s screwing up. She’ll never make it to Broadway or, hell, the Lima Community Stage if she doesn’t pull herself together, but she really doesn’t need Puck rubbing her face in it.
“A fuck up, huh?”
He smiles at her and all she can think is that she wants to smack him or hit him, or fuck him.
That last thought makes her really shut down.
“I think you should leave.”
“Right, whatever, Berry.” He stands up and walks to the door. She watches his hand land on the knob, turn and pull towards him letting the cool winter air into the house. “Just... Leave your personal shit at the door then.” He doesn’t look at her while he says it and closes the door behind him quietly.
She wonders if maybe she misjudged him.
----------------------
She shows up for the next practice. Really shows up. Doesn’t miss a beat. Hits every damn note. Smiles to perfection beside her perfect boyfriend.
Like she’s finally remembered that she’s a performer; that the stage is her calling and her life depends on making this “Rachel Berry” believable. She even manages to sneak in a comment about her two gay dads when the issue of song choice for regionals comes up.
By the end of practice she looks over at Puck who is looking at her with a smirk on his face like he knows that this, her reappearance in the land of the living, was all his fault.
---------------------
For the first time (in a long time) she doesn’t think about how Finn’s eyes linger on Quinn. Or how Quinn’s do the same.
----------------------
Finn comes over to her house after school and they do homework. She helps him with his math, because he really doesn’t understand math for some reason (perhaps he’s just a kinaesthetic learner and incapable of linear/rational thinking).
He kisses her goodbye before he drives off in his mom’s second hand station wagon. It seems too soft, too light, too meaningless.
Still, she smiles as she moves back into her bedroom and sets up her camera for the first time in weeks. She knows exactly the song to sing tonight.
----------------------
Puck sits beside her in Biology and Math.
She wonders if people, meaning Puck, will start to get a complex or something.
Maybe he’s just using her for her answers.
-------------------
Except he doesn’t stop. He sits beside her every day, eventually they become partners for their dissections. She writes up the lab reports and he does the “slicing and dicing” as he calls it.
It’s actually quite pleasant. Sometimes they even talk about things outside of animal and insect physiology, like music, or glee.
Never Finn.
She wonders if Puck is a little bit psychic as well, because he seems to know that she doesn’t want to talk about Finn.
So they talk about other things, normally involving unimaginative profanity from him and a scolding from her. He really must expand his vocabulary. She doesn’t understand how he can ever expect to get out of Lima if he doesn’t score well on his S.A.T.s.
One day he tells her that he’s really not as stupid as he makes himself out to be, just figures that school is for pussies and he really has no need for it other than it being a massive fuck pool in which he can swim whenever he wants.
She just smiles, refusing to take offense at his unseemly opinion on education as a whole.
----------------
It’s a Friday night, and she’s sitting in the stands watching Finn score. The balls makes this significant swooshing sound as it runs through the hoop, meeting the resistance of the net piece underneath. She ponders, not often, but on occasion, how someone so awkward and uncoordinated can have such a prestigious role in all of these sports teams.
Puck runs onto the court and she notices, not for the first time at all, how shapely his legs are, in a very masculine and muscular way, of course. If he knew that she studied his physique during these games he would probably insist in some completely inappropriate fashion that she was welcome to study him at length in various stages of undress. And at this point in their relationship she might not even be shocked by it.
Puck receives the ball and dribbles it quickly down the court before bouncing it to Finn who jumps and throws the ball toward the hoop, counting another two points. She claps her hands loudly but only one of the boys looks up at her, and it’s not necessarily the one that should.
--------------------
Things never start the way they should.
--------------------
Puck sits beside her now in Glee practice, like he wants someone to know that they’re friends.
She just can’t figure out who that someone is.
---------------------
She and Finn have plans to go to a romantic comedy that Friday.
He doesn’t show.
Normally he’d at least call or text or leave her a note or something. But even sitting beside each other in Spanish today, he hadn’t mentioned a single thing.
Her brain tells her it’s probably his mom. Mrs. Hudson is very protective and sometimes a bit needy, and Finn loves her in a way that Rachel finds extremely admirable.
Her heart says differently.
-----------------------
She refuses to call him and become one of those girlfriends who whines and complains each time plans get broken.
She texts Puck (Noah?) instead, asking if he wants to come over. She doesn’t know which Noah she wants: her friend, her boyfriend’s friend, or the school bad boy who might just make her forget about all of this mess.
----------------------
They watch a movie in her room, an action movie Noah brought with him, because there was no way he was watching Babs sing all her angst out on a tug boat. They sit on her bed somewhat awkwardly with both their eyes on the screen and their bodies close enough that she feels the intense heat of his skin through his jeans.
She shivers as he leans forward to stretch his arms out, bending his back. She watches the fabric of his t-shirt stretch over muscles as he touches his toes for a minute before rolling back to sit beside her again.
He’s closer somehow now, and she can’t breathe without smelling his soap, crisp and clean.
She wants to curl up against him, to feel his arms around her (maybe to feel someone holding her or maybe to feel something else). But she can’t, so she turns her attention back to the movie, letting herself escape into the plot.
It’s not until much later that Noah starts talking about how Bruce Willis is really the shit, and she questions why they’ve watched the movie at all if he didn’t like the lead actor.
Which leads into a discussion of modern colloquialisms and their meanings.
(“No, Berry, not ‘shit.’ The shit. It means awesome.”
“Why would someone being called ‘the shit’ take that as a compliment? Surely anyone with half a brain would think of the negative connotations of the word and be offended.”
“The fuck?”
“Noah, you really must cease using curse words so liberally, they lose all impact and meaning.”
“It’s slang, Berry. Chillax.”
“What?”)
And before she knows it, her dads are at her door, politely telling her that it’s curfew and that she needs to say goodnight to her young man.
Noah doesn’t correct them at all, but then neither does she.
(Finn has been over to their house a dozen times, but not recently. Maybe they’ve recognized the signs and are assuming that they are broken up. She can’t stop to process this right now)
She walks him to the door, his DVD in her hand.
He’s tall, she’d forgotten that, somehow. And he’s so lovely to look at, and he talks to her, and listens and...
He’s staring at her lips, and she’s chewed off all the gloss, so she knows it’s her lips and not the shine pulling his eyes down. She feels heat spread up her body, her heart beats faster, she shifts closer and higher so that if he really wanted to, all he’d have to do was lean down just a bit.
For a breath, she thinks he’s going to do it, thinks he’s going to kiss her and really make her forget about everything except his body and hers and how they fit together. She really wants him to.
But he exhales and grabs the DVD from her hands, saying a quick, “Later,” before practically running to his truck.
Rachel watches him drive away with one hand trying to still her heart and the other on the door.
---------------------------
She obsesses over it all weekend long, almost calls him a dozen times. She doesn't know what she would say if she'd ever gotten past dialing the number.
How do you tell someone that all weekend you've been thinking about kissing him and not about your boyfriend? Though to be perfectly fair, it wasn’t just kissing that was happening in her head.
Finn calls her on Sunday as she's trying to write a text to Noah.
"Sorry about Friday, Rachel. My mom needed my help at home. Do you want to try tomorrow night?"
She doesn't know but she tells him yes just the same.
When she hangs up, she puts her phone away. She turns on "Funny Girl" and cries out her confusion at a love that should last but doesn't.
-------------
Monday morning arrives and Noah sits beside her like always, like nothing has changed at all. But everything has.
Still, all he has to do is look at her with that smirk and some kind of snarky comment about the assignment, and she melts and cracks up simultaneously.
He actually does the work this time, completes the assignment with her help during class time.
By the time the bells rings she's already happier than she's been in a long time.
-------------------
Finn takes her out to see a movie, and their fingers brush as she dips into the popcorn bag they both share. Her heart beat speeds up but it's nothing like before.
(She doesn't say before what.)
------------
Finn calls her up the following Saturday to break their plans.
"What's up?" she asks him over the phone.
"Some stuff just came up, Rach. I'll make it up to you, I swear." She's heard that from him before. It's almost always an empty promise.
She thinks about calling Noah (she ignores the fact that her palms sweat at just the thought of being in the same room with him), but chooses not to. It’s Saturday night, he’s probably off having a tryst, or possibly many of them.
She decides to go to the mall; there's a new Michael Bublé album out and she's heard that his covers of the standards are quite exquisite.
That's when she sees them.
Sitting there, dipping their spoons into two ice cream sundaes in the mall foodcourt.
She doesn’t mind Finn being friendly with his ex, but she does have a problem with him flaunting his torrid affair where anyone and everyone can see.
She feels cheap and stupid, her eyes burn at the corners. She turns away from them before they notice her.
-----------------
She forgets all about the album.
------------------
She texts Noah. She's ninety percent sure that he will already have plans, but she doesn't have anyone else. Mercedes is a fair-weather friend. Kurt and Tina have been so wrapped up in their new tasks as soloists that they haven't really had time for her. And Artie... Artie isn't really her friend at all, though he hangs out with Noah on occasion.
Still, when she gets a text back three minutes later saying now?, she’s not quite prepared.
She types back before she has a chance to change her mind: Now.
He shows up ten minutes later dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. “What’s up, Berry?” He pushes his way through the door and into her living room. Her dads are out. It’s their date night, too, and they’ve gone into the city leaving her... well, she was supposed to be with Finn, but now she’s alone.
With Puck.
“I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“Finn.” She sits down on the couch in the living room. He sits beside her, far enough away to be considered friendly but not boyfriendly.
“Well, you are dating him, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She says it automatically. “No. Maybe?”
He turns to face her, shifting his legs so one is folded under the other.
“What happened, Rach?”
To be honest, she doesn’t really want to talk about it at all. “I just... I saw him. We had plans and he broke them. Then he was at the mall... I just... Do you want to watch some T.V.? I don’t want to be by myself right now.”
She’s glad that he doesn’t ask her about it. He just sits there, with his foot brushing against hers, until she finds some crime procedural that looks somewhat interesting.
By the time she starts crying about everything, he’s managed to sit right up next to her, so all she has to do is turn slightly to rest her head in the crook of his shoulder. His arm drapes over her shoulder, running long lines up and down her arm.
When the credits roll at the end, the tears are dry on her face and she’s thrilled that she owns only waterproof mascara. He’s been so kind to her, listening, coming over on a Saturday night when she knows he probably had other things planned. He’s been a wonderful friend to her. So she turns her head and presses her lips to his quickly. She pulls back, looking at his face for a moment, before trying it again, longer this time. The third time, his lips warm and open on hers, but when her tongue reaches out to touch his he shifts away.
“Rachel, you’re still seeing Finn, aren’t you?” His voice is rough but quiet.
“Yes. No. Maybe?” It seems to be the answer of the day.
He gets up from the couch. “When you know for sure, let me know.”
“But...” She watches him walk to the front door.
“I can’t do that to him again. I won’t. And you... you deserve better than that.” He opens the door and turns to face her once more. “I’ll see you in Bio on Monday morning.”
When the door closes behind him it makes a strange click, an echo of the one she heard in her head when his lips moved on hers. She wonders if that means something.
---------
She sees him first thing Monday morning, walking with Santana. It would normally make her absolutely crazy (Santana is not her biggest fan), but she lets her anger fade as his eyes lock with hers.
All she can think about is kissing him again.
She wants it more than anything.
-----------------
She avoids Finn, hoping that he'll understand that they're over. She doesn't really need to worry about it, because he's walking the halls with Quinn and doesn't even see her.
---------------
She sits in the same place for Biology and Puck sits beside her, but they barely speak except to do the think-pair-share with the class.
At the end of the block she waits for him and they walk to her next class together.
"Talk to you later, Berry." He says it so causally it burns in her chest.
She’d give just about anything to hear him call her Rachel again like he did.
--------------
She receives no calls or texts from Finn for the next three days.
----------------
She walks up to him in the hallway on Wednesday afternoon, when he’s rummaging through his backpack.
It breaks her heart to look at him (though the pain is less than it used to be).
“I don’t understand, Finn.”
He looks up, shock or confusion (maybe both) on his face. “Oh, hey Rach!”
“I don’t know why you couldn’t have just been honest with me. Why couldn’t you just talk to me? I thought that we were friends. I understand if you’re not over her. I do. I can even - I just don’t understand why you would do this to me.”
He stares at her with his mouth just a little bit open, in that way he does when his brain is trying to catch up.
“Goodbye, Finn.” She breathes heavily as she walks away.
--------------
They're over.
She knows it and, apparently, so does he.
And she's tired of being alone and crying in her room.
So she makes a choice.
---------------
She calls Noah.
--------------
He comes over in sweats again, spinning his car keys in his hand. “I was just about to go for a run when you called.” She puts on her own workout clothes and goes with him.
Running isn’t as beneficial to her as her elliptical machine, but still, there’s something to be said for having someone with her.
She knows that he slows his pace for her a little bit, but it feels really good to be on the road, putting one foot in front of the other. She feels all her anger at her situation leave as she gets farther from her house, and she thinks this may be the best idea ever.
He doesn't say anything to her unless she asks which direction. She just assumes that he knows where he's going. He takes them into the park by his house and slows to a walk as they approach the swings there.
He sits down and it almost annoys her that he's not even a little winded.
They sit there, rocking back and forth, and Rachel feels the sweat start to dry along her back.
"You must bring all the girls here." She smiles at him because she's sure that he's formulating some kind of rude response.
"This is my premium make-out spot," he says with a straight face. "Swings are a total panty dropper. You'd get a hell of a show if I were wearing them today!"
She leans over to hit him, hiding her laughter as best she can. But she can’t deny that there’s a pull deep in her body insisting that she might just love that show.
"Okay, enough play time. Race you back." Rachel jumps off her swing and starts the run back to her house.
----------
Noah wins.
---------
He showers in her bathroom because they’ve decided to hang out and make cookies. Noah insists that he’s a very accomplished baker (“Baby, I can bake the shit out of anything”), and Rachel really doesn’t want their afternoon of escapism to end.
She sets out everything they’ll need on the kitchen counter, after cleaning it fastidiously with a cloth. Then takes a pull from her bottle of water.
(She’s trying so hard not to think about the naked boy in her bathroom, standing under the hot spray of water, washing the sweat off his body with her soap.)
She walks up the stairs, grabbing some clean clothes, and waits on her bed until the door to the bathroom opens.
He’s changed into some clothes he had in the trunk of his car (why is it that boys always seem to keep stuff in the back of their vehicles?). She sneaks into the bathroom, trying hard not to picture him in dishabille.
---------
She showers in record time, keeping her hands far away from any sensitive areas.
----------
She doesn’t know what Noah does while she’s in the bathroom; she’s not sure she wants to know.
----------
He’s sitting on her bed when she comes out. She thinks of how easy it would be to just walk over to him and push him down on her bed.
Instead, she calls to him from the doorway. “You ready?”
He nods and they head downstairs.
----------
She sends him home hours later (his mouth and hers find an interesting way to pass the time) with his own batch of sugar cookies.
---------
She’s never felt this way before. Not with Finn, not with Jesse. It’s like whenever she’s around Puck, she needs to touch him. When they kiss, she can’t be close enough to him.
And when he touches her, she never wants him to stop.
He’s still the same Noah who sits beside her in class, but on Thursday morning, when she takes the chair beside him, he puts his hand at the small of her back. It’s the most intimate touch she’s ever felt and it’s through two layers of clothing.
His hand is impossibly hot on her and she closes her eyes (for just a second) to imagine what that hand would feel like if it were really touching her.
When Mrs. Owens starts her lecture on the mechanics of the human heart, Noah shifts closer so his writing hand can trace soft and sensual patterns on hers. He doesn’t even bother to pick up his pen, and Rachel can barely concentrate past the intense sexual pull.
He does it on purpose.
---------------------
She goes to his house after school, and they work on Biology homework before they really start to learn about Human Physiology.
With his mouth on hers and his hand under her shirt, she thinks she might actually learn a lot from him.
---------------------
It’s more than just that though. He still does things like go for runs with her. And he handles her moods with aplomb, for the most part.
But having that physical side (and her body would attest that it’s a fabulous physical thing) after everything is amazing.
---------------------
He doesn’t make a fuss over their relationship at school. It’s almost like they have this big secret and they’re both happy to keep it quiet for the time being.
---------------------
She spends the night on Friday. They don’t have sex, but she tells her dads that she having a slumber party with Tina and Puck’s sister has some kind of soccer tournament, so his mom is away.
She ends up half naked on his bed and she doesn’t even really care.
He stops them.
She’s been broken up with her boyfriend for less than three days. She thinks that is completely considerate (if somewhat unnecessary).
“There are ways to take care of sexual arousal without having intercourse, you know. I’ve studied the subject extensively, but have yet to do any hands-on research.” She smiles, stretching her arms up to pull his mouth down to hers.
“I suppose I could volunteer for that experiment,” he murmurs against her lips.
-----------
Finn meets her in the hallway on Monday morning.
He apologizes for being so absent from her life, tells her that's not the kind of boyfriend he wants to be, and all she can think about is the dull ache of her muscles and the tension in her stomach that just won't go away.
She remembers a brush of hand on bare skin.
She looks for Noah in the halls, but he’s not there to support her, to wordlessly tell her what she needs to do.
“Look, Rach, I know that I’ve been a little preoccupied lately. My mom’s been going through some stuff and Quinn has been a really good friend to me. I just... I couldn’t lay that stuff on you. I needed some time to think about things.”
“Oh.” She almost smiles at him.
She hears a different voice in her memory: “Are you really sure about this? You can't just take it back you know."
“But, things are better now. Quinn and I had some ice cream at the mall a few days ago and she told me to stop being such a jerk where you were concerned or I’d lose you, and Rachel, I really don’t want to lose you. You’ve-”
She feels a ghost of soft lips on hers.
“I thought we were broken up.”
“What?” He stops and looks at her.
“I... I thought we’d broken up. I saw you with Quinn. You didn’t - You never called. I thought –“ She feels sick to her stomach.
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought - I can’t be with you, Finn. I can’t. Not when I’ve just...”
He looks at her and she wants to cry, because it’s like he’s finally here and he finally wants her the way that she’s needed him to. But it’s all too late.
“I - Noah and I are... Well, I'm not exactly sure, but we're something.”
He steps back. “What?”
“I care about him, he’s my friend. He was there for me when you – I thought you were cheating on me. With Quinn. I saw you together.” She understands now, and she’s glad that Noah isn’t around to see this, to hear this.
“I wasn’t. I only ever thought about you. I’m,” his voice drops to a whisper. “I’m in love with you.”
She inhales sharply and just looks at him, because this might be the last time. He doesn't wait for her to respond, just turns around and walks off.
------------
She skips Glee.
------------
Noah shows up at her door after practice.
She greets him with a smile.
"You weren't broken up?"
Her smile falls. "What?"
"Finn said you weren't broken up. How could you do that? We talked about it Rachel, you agreed and then..." He doesn't even try to come inside the house, and she's afraid that they're going to have this conversation where anyone could hear them.
"Come inside, please?" She's scared. Like really afraid that this can't end well.
"No." She wants to touch him still. More, she wants to feel his hands on her body so that she can forget all about today and the mess that she's made of her life. "I won't be your escape, Rachel. And I know if I touch you, I won't want to stop."
"Noah, I can expl-"
"I don't want to hear it right now, Berry. You obviously need some time to figure your shit out. I'm going to give you that. I'll see you at school tomorrow."
She can't watch him leave, so she closes the door and leans against it, sliding until she's sitting on the cold tile floor.
She tries (unsuccessfully) to breathe through the burning in her stomach. Wishing for a numbness that never comes.
Author:
becca_radcggRating: R
Characters:Rachel, Finn, Puck, Quinn, mentions of other glee kids and parents, and Sarah Puckerman (thanks
ohladybegood)Summary: She wants him to be in love with her - enamoured and twitterpated - so he understand what it's like.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. Sarah Puckerman is just being borrowed. If I have referenced any other fics in this (which aren't mine) I apologize profusely!
AN:This is not a happy story. Fictable # 25 - Shadow
Thanks to Ky, A, Ali, Sam, Sheena, and various others for their support and whatnot during the writing and editing process.
She feels like a consolation prize (stuffed and mounted on a wall screaming second place finish to anyone who will listen). She knows that given the option he'd be with someone else, knows that really she's a placeholder until something better comes along. And it hurts.
It's this hideous burning deep in her stomach, a fire that can't be put out by kind words or his lips on hers late at night. In fact, those things only make it worse.
She wants him to be in love with her - enamoured and twitterpated - so he understands what it's like. How it tears at her already tattered heart, how she’s so open to him that it shuts her down just a little bit more each time he looks to that other girl.
But he's not.
He simply uses her when he needs or wants someone to be there, to talk to, to kiss him and love him.
And she lets him every time.
---------------
Her days are all static - never changing, consistent, pointless - from the moment she wakes up to her song to the moment she returns to bed, teeth freshly brushed, and lies down with her novel. She goes through the same tedious motions, the personal hygiene, the decision to wear knee socks or tights, the preparation of lunches, the monotonous pouring of cereal. Sometimes she wonders how her dads haven't figured it all out and called her on it.
School is monotonous. She attends all her classes and hands in all the assigned work, sits with her boyfriend at lunch surrounded by his friends, never hers. She kisses him quickly before the lunch bell goes and spends the rest of the day wondering what the hell she's doing. On the days when she has glee practice she sings but never really performs the music to the best of her ability. Mr. Schue has insisted that everyone be able to showcase his or her talents during the competitions this year, their second together as a group.
Matt and Brittany are singing together, so she can sway in the background. She might not be cultivating her talent but honestly, she doesn't care.
She sits in her chair and sings, stands by her boyfriend and dances, and wonders why she does this at all.
-----------
Someone notices.
-----------
Puck confronts her at her car after glee that day.
"What the fuck, Berry? Where is your head at?" He finally shaved off the stupid Mohawk in June of last year, almost seven months ago. His skin is weirdly tanned considering the miraculous lack of winter sunshine. His eyes are still that weird shade that's not quite green but not quite brown either. Most importantly she still gets that strange quiver in her stomach whenever he talks to her like they're friends, because they're not.
"Please control yourself, Noah. There is no need for profanity."
"Why the zombie act?" If he had an expression of concern or caring she probably wouldn't answer him, but he's looking at her like she's out to destroy the club or at the very least him personally.
As it is she plays the ignorant card. "I don't know what you're referring to."
He doesn't believe her, that much is obvious. "You can't bullshit a bullshitter, Berry." He steps closer to her and moves his hand in an echo of their former intimacy stopping just before his fingers graze her cheek.
And she wants to tell him, to tell someone what's going on. But she can't, so she reacts.
"Why do you care? You're Finn's friend not mine." She covers her mouth with her hand. Did she really just let that slip?
Fortunately, he lets it go. "Whatever, Berry, but it’d better be you not your walking dead counterpart at practice tomorrow!"
She nods briefly and gets into her car to drive away before she says something else she regrets.
------------
She and Finn are two days away from celebrating their six month anniversary the first time she really notices the way his eyes linger on another girl. Not just any girl.
The girl.
She can't compete with her, as much as she wants to. She can share her first moments with Finn (and she does) but his firsts are almost exclusively with another girl with green eyes and blonde hair.
She can't fight against the pull of first love.
She feels the thrill of it through her own body whenever she looks at him, but watching him watch Quinn is something akin to Chinese Water Torture. It's slow and harmless for a while, but after a time has passed it begins to grate (Drip. Stop. Drip. Stop. Drip). Like that one note that always sounds just a little bit forced whenever she hits it.
Still, she loves him (she knows she does) so she stays. He doesn't talk about Babygate ever, though he and Puck have managed to duct tape the pieces of their relationship back to a shadow of what it used to be. She's certainly not one to claim perfection but she sometimes wonders if or how those two boys could ever forgive Quinn for what she did.
Cheating is unpardonable.
-----------
Two months later Rachel's opinion on monogamy will change.
-------------
Finn continues to watch Quinn.
Rachel continues to watch Finn and each time hurts a little bit more. And each time she misses a note or her cue Noah is there staring at her like he already knows the answer to the question he hasn’t asked.
------------
He meets her at her house after school on a Tuesday. Finn is at some kind of an athletic practice.
Or so he says.
She doubts everything he says to her now. Everything is a lie, everything.
The fact that Puck (Noah, whatever) is at her house seems to suggest that maybe she has a reason for that belief. Puck is on the basketball team.
Puck.
Basketball.
She’s fairly certain she should be more upset but at this point all she feels is a sad sense of resignation, like it was always going to come down to this, and nothing could stop it.
“What are you doing here?” She says after he walks through her front door.
He plops down on the couch in their living room like he’s been here before. He has, of course; their parents are acquaintances. But he puts his feet up on the coffee table like this is his house and he can treat her furniture like it’s the junk he undoubtedly owns.
“What the fuck is up with you, Berry? You haven’t been yourself in, like, weeks. Is Hudson refusing to put out or some shit?” He just stares at her and she feels her cheeks grow flushed with a mortifying sort of embarrassment. She stands there thinking of what she could say to change the subject get him off this track. “Oh my God, that’s it isn’t it? Little Finny hasn’t come out to play and you’re just aching to get off.”
“Finn has been nothing but a true gentleman to me. There’s no reason to be vulgar.” She sits down in the love seat adjacent to him and folds her hands demurely on her lap.
“Well, if you’re in need of some cock you can use mi-“
“Noah, shut up!” She finally looks at him and something shifts. His eyes aren’t... it looks almost like he –
But that can’t be right.
“For real, Berry, what’s going on?” He leans forward resting his arms (the guns of Puckerone, a sad allusion to a novel he’s probably never read) on his legs.
She wants to tell him.
“Why would you think that anything was going on?” She studies the white wear pattern in his jeans. It runs from the cuff all the way to the waist band she can only partially see.
“Well.” He shifts further forward on the couch. “You missed your cue in the song today. You didn’t hit that note you’re always bitching to Kurt about. You fucked up the dance last week. You haven’t been arguing about every solo Schue gives away to someone else. You haven’t even mentioned your two gay days in fucking weeks. And as far as I can tell, you aren’t talking to anybody, not even your boytoy. You’re fucking up my life, Berry. I can’t get San, Britt, Tina or Mercedes to put out because all they’ll fucking talk about is you and how you’re turning into a fuck up.”
She lets it echo in her head for a while. Not that he’s trying to hook up with the all the Glee Girls but her (which shouldn’t make her as nauseous as it does) but that all Glee is talking about is how much she’s screwing up. She’ll never make it to Broadway or, hell, the Lima Community Stage if she doesn’t pull herself together, but she really doesn’t need Puck rubbing her face in it.
“A fuck up, huh?”
He smiles at her and all she can think is that she wants to smack him or hit him, or fuck him.
That last thought makes her really shut down.
“I think you should leave.”
“Right, whatever, Berry.” He stands up and walks to the door. She watches his hand land on the knob, turn and pull towards him letting the cool winter air into the house. “Just... Leave your personal shit at the door then.” He doesn’t look at her while he says it and closes the door behind him quietly.
She wonders if maybe she misjudged him.
----------------------
She shows up for the next practice. Really shows up. Doesn’t miss a beat. Hits every damn note. Smiles to perfection beside her perfect boyfriend.
Like she’s finally remembered that she’s a performer; that the stage is her calling and her life depends on making this “Rachel Berry” believable. She even manages to sneak in a comment about her two gay dads when the issue of song choice for regionals comes up.
By the end of practice she looks over at Puck who is looking at her with a smirk on his face like he knows that this, her reappearance in the land of the living, was all his fault.
---------------------
For the first time (in a long time) she doesn’t think about how Finn’s eyes linger on Quinn. Or how Quinn’s do the same.
----------------------
Finn comes over to her house after school and they do homework. She helps him with his math, because he really doesn’t understand math for some reason (perhaps he’s just a kinaesthetic learner and incapable of linear/rational thinking).
He kisses her goodbye before he drives off in his mom’s second hand station wagon. It seems too soft, too light, too meaningless.
Still, she smiles as she moves back into her bedroom and sets up her camera for the first time in weeks. She knows exactly the song to sing tonight.
----------------------
Puck sits beside her in Biology and Math.
She wonders if people, meaning Puck, will start to get a complex or something.
Maybe he’s just using her for her answers.
-------------------
Except he doesn’t stop. He sits beside her every day, eventually they become partners for their dissections. She writes up the lab reports and he does the “slicing and dicing” as he calls it.
It’s actually quite pleasant. Sometimes they even talk about things outside of animal and insect physiology, like music, or glee.
Never Finn.
She wonders if Puck is a little bit psychic as well, because he seems to know that she doesn’t want to talk about Finn.
So they talk about other things, normally involving unimaginative profanity from him and a scolding from her. He really must expand his vocabulary. She doesn’t understand how he can ever expect to get out of Lima if he doesn’t score well on his S.A.T.s.
One day he tells her that he’s really not as stupid as he makes himself out to be, just figures that school is for pussies and he really has no need for it other than it being a massive fuck pool in which he can swim whenever he wants.
She just smiles, refusing to take offense at his unseemly opinion on education as a whole.
----------------
It’s a Friday night, and she’s sitting in the stands watching Finn score. The balls makes this significant swooshing sound as it runs through the hoop, meeting the resistance of the net piece underneath. She ponders, not often, but on occasion, how someone so awkward and uncoordinated can have such a prestigious role in all of these sports teams.
Puck runs onto the court and she notices, not for the first time at all, how shapely his legs are, in a very masculine and muscular way, of course. If he knew that she studied his physique during these games he would probably insist in some completely inappropriate fashion that she was welcome to study him at length in various stages of undress. And at this point in their relationship she might not even be shocked by it.
Puck receives the ball and dribbles it quickly down the court before bouncing it to Finn who jumps and throws the ball toward the hoop, counting another two points. She claps her hands loudly but only one of the boys looks up at her, and it’s not necessarily the one that should.
--------------------
Things never start the way they should.
--------------------
Puck sits beside her now in Glee practice, like he wants someone to know that they’re friends.
She just can’t figure out who that someone is.
---------------------
She and Finn have plans to go to a romantic comedy that Friday.
He doesn’t show.
Normally he’d at least call or text or leave her a note or something. But even sitting beside each other in Spanish today, he hadn’t mentioned a single thing.
Her brain tells her it’s probably his mom. Mrs. Hudson is very protective and sometimes a bit needy, and Finn loves her in a way that Rachel finds extremely admirable.
Her heart says differently.
-----------------------
She refuses to call him and become one of those girlfriends who whines and complains each time plans get broken.
She texts Puck (Noah?) instead, asking if he wants to come over. She doesn’t know which Noah she wants: her friend, her boyfriend’s friend, or the school bad boy who might just make her forget about all of this mess.
----------------------
They watch a movie in her room, an action movie Noah brought with him, because there was no way he was watching Babs sing all her angst out on a tug boat. They sit on her bed somewhat awkwardly with both their eyes on the screen and their bodies close enough that she feels the intense heat of his skin through his jeans.
She shivers as he leans forward to stretch his arms out, bending his back. She watches the fabric of his t-shirt stretch over muscles as he touches his toes for a minute before rolling back to sit beside her again.
He’s closer somehow now, and she can’t breathe without smelling his soap, crisp and clean.
She wants to curl up against him, to feel his arms around her (maybe to feel someone holding her or maybe to feel something else). But she can’t, so she turns her attention back to the movie, letting herself escape into the plot.
It’s not until much later that Noah starts talking about how Bruce Willis is really the shit, and she questions why they’ve watched the movie at all if he didn’t like the lead actor.
Which leads into a discussion of modern colloquialisms and their meanings.
(“No, Berry, not ‘shit.’ The shit. It means awesome.”
“Why would someone being called ‘the shit’ take that as a compliment? Surely anyone with half a brain would think of the negative connotations of the word and be offended.”
“The fuck?”
“Noah, you really must cease using curse words so liberally, they lose all impact and meaning.”
“It’s slang, Berry. Chillax.”
“What?”)
And before she knows it, her dads are at her door, politely telling her that it’s curfew and that she needs to say goodnight to her young man.
Noah doesn’t correct them at all, but then neither does she.
(Finn has been over to their house a dozen times, but not recently. Maybe they’ve recognized the signs and are assuming that they are broken up. She can’t stop to process this right now)
She walks him to the door, his DVD in her hand.
He’s tall, she’d forgotten that, somehow. And he’s so lovely to look at, and he talks to her, and listens and...
He’s staring at her lips, and she’s chewed off all the gloss, so she knows it’s her lips and not the shine pulling his eyes down. She feels heat spread up her body, her heart beats faster, she shifts closer and higher so that if he really wanted to, all he’d have to do was lean down just a bit.
For a breath, she thinks he’s going to do it, thinks he’s going to kiss her and really make her forget about everything except his body and hers and how they fit together. She really wants him to.
But he exhales and grabs the DVD from her hands, saying a quick, “Later,” before practically running to his truck.
Rachel watches him drive away with one hand trying to still her heart and the other on the door.
---------------------------
She obsesses over it all weekend long, almost calls him a dozen times. She doesn't know what she would say if she'd ever gotten past dialing the number.
How do you tell someone that all weekend you've been thinking about kissing him and not about your boyfriend? Though to be perfectly fair, it wasn’t just kissing that was happening in her head.
Finn calls her on Sunday as she's trying to write a text to Noah.
"Sorry about Friday, Rachel. My mom needed my help at home. Do you want to try tomorrow night?"
She doesn't know but she tells him yes just the same.
When she hangs up, she puts her phone away. She turns on "Funny Girl" and cries out her confusion at a love that should last but doesn't.
-------------
Monday morning arrives and Noah sits beside her like always, like nothing has changed at all. But everything has.
Still, all he has to do is look at her with that smirk and some kind of snarky comment about the assignment, and she melts and cracks up simultaneously.
He actually does the work this time, completes the assignment with her help during class time.
By the time the bells rings she's already happier than she's been in a long time.
-------------------
Finn takes her out to see a movie, and their fingers brush as she dips into the popcorn bag they both share. Her heart beat speeds up but it's nothing like before.
(She doesn't say before what.)
------------
Finn calls her up the following Saturday to break their plans.
"What's up?" she asks him over the phone.
"Some stuff just came up, Rach. I'll make it up to you, I swear." She's heard that from him before. It's almost always an empty promise.
She thinks about calling Noah (she ignores the fact that her palms sweat at just the thought of being in the same room with him), but chooses not to. It’s Saturday night, he’s probably off having a tryst, or possibly many of them.
She decides to go to the mall; there's a new Michael Bublé album out and she's heard that his covers of the standards are quite exquisite.
That's when she sees them.
Sitting there, dipping their spoons into two ice cream sundaes in the mall foodcourt.
She doesn’t mind Finn being friendly with his ex, but she does have a problem with him flaunting his torrid affair where anyone and everyone can see.
She feels cheap and stupid, her eyes burn at the corners. She turns away from them before they notice her.
-----------------
She forgets all about the album.
------------------
She texts Noah. She's ninety percent sure that he will already have plans, but she doesn't have anyone else. Mercedes is a fair-weather friend. Kurt and Tina have been so wrapped up in their new tasks as soloists that they haven't really had time for her. And Artie... Artie isn't really her friend at all, though he hangs out with Noah on occasion.
Still, when she gets a text back three minutes later saying now?, she’s not quite prepared.
She types back before she has a chance to change her mind: Now.
He shows up ten minutes later dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. “What’s up, Berry?” He pushes his way through the door and into her living room. Her dads are out. It’s their date night, too, and they’ve gone into the city leaving her... well, she was supposed to be with Finn, but now she’s alone.
With Puck.
“I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“Finn.” She sits down on the couch in the living room. He sits beside her, far enough away to be considered friendly but not boyfriendly.
“Well, you are dating him, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She says it automatically. “No. Maybe?”
He turns to face her, shifting his legs so one is folded under the other.
“What happened, Rach?”
To be honest, she doesn’t really want to talk about it at all. “I just... I saw him. We had plans and he broke them. Then he was at the mall... I just... Do you want to watch some T.V.? I don’t want to be by myself right now.”
She’s glad that he doesn’t ask her about it. He just sits there, with his foot brushing against hers, until she finds some crime procedural that looks somewhat interesting.
By the time she starts crying about everything, he’s managed to sit right up next to her, so all she has to do is turn slightly to rest her head in the crook of his shoulder. His arm drapes over her shoulder, running long lines up and down her arm.
When the credits roll at the end, the tears are dry on her face and she’s thrilled that she owns only waterproof mascara. He’s been so kind to her, listening, coming over on a Saturday night when she knows he probably had other things planned. He’s been a wonderful friend to her. So she turns her head and presses her lips to his quickly. She pulls back, looking at his face for a moment, before trying it again, longer this time. The third time, his lips warm and open on hers, but when her tongue reaches out to touch his he shifts away.
“Rachel, you’re still seeing Finn, aren’t you?” His voice is rough but quiet.
“Yes. No. Maybe?” It seems to be the answer of the day.
He gets up from the couch. “When you know for sure, let me know.”
“But...” She watches him walk to the front door.
“I can’t do that to him again. I won’t. And you... you deserve better than that.” He opens the door and turns to face her once more. “I’ll see you in Bio on Monday morning.”
When the door closes behind him it makes a strange click, an echo of the one she heard in her head when his lips moved on hers. She wonders if that means something.
---------
She sees him first thing Monday morning, walking with Santana. It would normally make her absolutely crazy (Santana is not her biggest fan), but she lets her anger fade as his eyes lock with hers.
All she can think about is kissing him again.
She wants it more than anything.
-----------------
She avoids Finn, hoping that he'll understand that they're over. She doesn't really need to worry about it, because he's walking the halls with Quinn and doesn't even see her.
---------------
She sits in the same place for Biology and Puck sits beside her, but they barely speak except to do the think-pair-share with the class.
At the end of the block she waits for him and they walk to her next class together.
"Talk to you later, Berry." He says it so causally it burns in her chest.
She’d give just about anything to hear him call her Rachel again like he did.
--------------
She receives no calls or texts from Finn for the next three days.
----------------
She walks up to him in the hallway on Wednesday afternoon, when he’s rummaging through his backpack.
It breaks her heart to look at him (though the pain is less than it used to be).
“I don’t understand, Finn.”
He looks up, shock or confusion (maybe both) on his face. “Oh, hey Rach!”
“I don’t know why you couldn’t have just been honest with me. Why couldn’t you just talk to me? I thought that we were friends. I understand if you’re not over her. I do. I can even - I just don’t understand why you would do this to me.”
He stares at her with his mouth just a little bit open, in that way he does when his brain is trying to catch up.
“Goodbye, Finn.” She breathes heavily as she walks away.
--------------
They're over.
She knows it and, apparently, so does he.
And she's tired of being alone and crying in her room.
So she makes a choice.
---------------
She calls Noah.
--------------
He comes over in sweats again, spinning his car keys in his hand. “I was just about to go for a run when you called.” She puts on her own workout clothes and goes with him.
Running isn’t as beneficial to her as her elliptical machine, but still, there’s something to be said for having someone with her.
She knows that he slows his pace for her a little bit, but it feels really good to be on the road, putting one foot in front of the other. She feels all her anger at her situation leave as she gets farther from her house, and she thinks this may be the best idea ever.
He doesn't say anything to her unless she asks which direction. She just assumes that he knows where he's going. He takes them into the park by his house and slows to a walk as they approach the swings there.
He sits down and it almost annoys her that he's not even a little winded.
They sit there, rocking back and forth, and Rachel feels the sweat start to dry along her back.
"You must bring all the girls here." She smiles at him because she's sure that he's formulating some kind of rude response.
"This is my premium make-out spot," he says with a straight face. "Swings are a total panty dropper. You'd get a hell of a show if I were wearing them today!"
She leans over to hit him, hiding her laughter as best she can. But she can’t deny that there’s a pull deep in her body insisting that she might just love that show.
"Okay, enough play time. Race you back." Rachel jumps off her swing and starts the run back to her house.
----------
Noah wins.
---------
He showers in her bathroom because they’ve decided to hang out and make cookies. Noah insists that he’s a very accomplished baker (“Baby, I can bake the shit out of anything”), and Rachel really doesn’t want their afternoon of escapism to end.
She sets out everything they’ll need on the kitchen counter, after cleaning it fastidiously with a cloth. Then takes a pull from her bottle of water.
(She’s trying so hard not to think about the naked boy in her bathroom, standing under the hot spray of water, washing the sweat off his body with her soap.)
She walks up the stairs, grabbing some clean clothes, and waits on her bed until the door to the bathroom opens.
He’s changed into some clothes he had in the trunk of his car (why is it that boys always seem to keep stuff in the back of their vehicles?). She sneaks into the bathroom, trying hard not to picture him in dishabille.
---------
She showers in record time, keeping her hands far away from any sensitive areas.
----------
She doesn’t know what Noah does while she’s in the bathroom; she’s not sure she wants to know.
----------
He’s sitting on her bed when she comes out. She thinks of how easy it would be to just walk over to him and push him down on her bed.
Instead, she calls to him from the doorway. “You ready?”
He nods and they head downstairs.
----------
She sends him home hours later (his mouth and hers find an interesting way to pass the time) with his own batch of sugar cookies.
---------
She’s never felt this way before. Not with Finn, not with Jesse. It’s like whenever she’s around Puck, she needs to touch him. When they kiss, she can’t be close enough to him.
And when he touches her, she never wants him to stop.
He’s still the same Noah who sits beside her in class, but on Thursday morning, when she takes the chair beside him, he puts his hand at the small of her back. It’s the most intimate touch she’s ever felt and it’s through two layers of clothing.
His hand is impossibly hot on her and she closes her eyes (for just a second) to imagine what that hand would feel like if it were really touching her.
When Mrs. Owens starts her lecture on the mechanics of the human heart, Noah shifts closer so his writing hand can trace soft and sensual patterns on hers. He doesn’t even bother to pick up his pen, and Rachel can barely concentrate past the intense sexual pull.
He does it on purpose.
---------------------
She goes to his house after school, and they work on Biology homework before they really start to learn about Human Physiology.
With his mouth on hers and his hand under her shirt, she thinks she might actually learn a lot from him.
---------------------
It’s more than just that though. He still does things like go for runs with her. And he handles her moods with aplomb, for the most part.
But having that physical side (and her body would attest that it’s a fabulous physical thing) after everything is amazing.
---------------------
He doesn’t make a fuss over their relationship at school. It’s almost like they have this big secret and they’re both happy to keep it quiet for the time being.
---------------------
She spends the night on Friday. They don’t have sex, but she tells her dads that she having a slumber party with Tina and Puck’s sister has some kind of soccer tournament, so his mom is away.
She ends up half naked on his bed and she doesn’t even really care.
He stops them.
She’s been broken up with her boyfriend for less than three days. She thinks that is completely considerate (if somewhat unnecessary).
“There are ways to take care of sexual arousal without having intercourse, you know. I’ve studied the subject extensively, but have yet to do any hands-on research.” She smiles, stretching her arms up to pull his mouth down to hers.
“I suppose I could volunteer for that experiment,” he murmurs against her lips.
-----------
Finn meets her in the hallway on Monday morning.
He apologizes for being so absent from her life, tells her that's not the kind of boyfriend he wants to be, and all she can think about is the dull ache of her muscles and the tension in her stomach that just won't go away.
She remembers a brush of hand on bare skin.
She looks for Noah in the halls, but he’s not there to support her, to wordlessly tell her what she needs to do.
“Look, Rach, I know that I’ve been a little preoccupied lately. My mom’s been going through some stuff and Quinn has been a really good friend to me. I just... I couldn’t lay that stuff on you. I needed some time to think about things.”
“Oh.” She almost smiles at him.
She hears a different voice in her memory: “Are you really sure about this? You can't just take it back you know."
“But, things are better now. Quinn and I had some ice cream at the mall a few days ago and she told me to stop being such a jerk where you were concerned or I’d lose you, and Rachel, I really don’t want to lose you. You’ve-”
She feels a ghost of soft lips on hers.
“I thought we were broken up.”
“What?” He stops and looks at her.
“I... I thought we’d broken up. I saw you with Quinn. You didn’t - You never called. I thought –“ She feels sick to her stomach.
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought - I can’t be with you, Finn. I can’t. Not when I’ve just...”
He looks at her and she wants to cry, because it’s like he’s finally here and he finally wants her the way that she’s needed him to. But it’s all too late.
“I - Noah and I are... Well, I'm not exactly sure, but we're something.”
He steps back. “What?”
“I care about him, he’s my friend. He was there for me when you – I thought you were cheating on me. With Quinn. I saw you together.” She understands now, and she’s glad that Noah isn’t around to see this, to hear this.
“I wasn’t. I only ever thought about you. I’m,” his voice drops to a whisper. “I’m in love with you.”
She inhales sharply and just looks at him, because this might be the last time. He doesn't wait for her to respond, just turns around and walks off.
------------
She skips Glee.
------------
Noah shows up at her door after practice.
She greets him with a smile.
"You weren't broken up?"
Her smile falls. "What?"
"Finn said you weren't broken up. How could you do that? We talked about it Rachel, you agreed and then..." He doesn't even try to come inside the house, and she's afraid that they're going to have this conversation where anyone could hear them.
"Come inside, please?" She's scared. Like really afraid that this can't end well.
"No." She wants to touch him still. More, she wants to feel his hands on her body so that she can forget all about today and the mess that she's made of her life. "I won't be your escape, Rachel. And I know if I touch you, I won't want to stop."
"Noah, I can expl-"
"I don't want to hear it right now, Berry. You obviously need some time to figure your shit out. I'm going to give you that. I'll see you at school tomorrow."
She can't watch him leave, so she closes the door and leans against it, sliding until she's sitting on the cold tile floor.
She tries (unsuccessfully) to breathe through the burning in her stomach. Wishing for a numbness that never comes.
