One and Only

“The funny thing is, you broke my heart first.”

Jesse’s words rang through her mind again, and again, taking her already broken heart and splintering it into more pieces. Rachel slumped against the wall of her bedroom, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. She stared across the bedroom at the golden star with her name on it, and recalled another part of the conversation.

“I have this psychological want to be popular, for people to like me. I thought you, a fellow rising star, would understand that.”

“On that level, I do. But as the guy who gave up everything to be your one and only, I don’t.”

Rachel wanted to run over to the wall and tear down the golden star, tear down the playbills, tear down everything and anything that reminded her of the dream that she had used as an excuse to break Jesse’s heart. She wanted to storm over and knock over the stereo that was playing the Funny Girl soundtrack so she could mourn in silence.

But Rachel didn’t have enough energy to get up. She felt as if everything had been drained out of her when she had sung that final note to Jesse and he didn’t give her a second glance, just walked right out of the Glee room, taking half of her heart with her. The other half had stayed with her as a bitter reminder of the horrible mistake she had made.

She reached out and grabbed her phone, hopelessly dialing the ever-so-familiar seven digits and putting the phone to her ear. It rang too many times before Jesse’s voicemail picked up.

Hey, this is Jesse. Sorry I didn’t make it to the phone in time, but if it’s really important leave a message. I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. No promises, though. His light-hearted laugh before the beep stunned Rachel, and she dropped the phone. It snapped shut and clattered on the floor, but she didn’t care.

Rachel Berry didn’t cry often. If her fathers had taught her anything it was that crying was for the weak and if she were to make it on Broadway she would have to learn that being weak was something she couldn’t afford to be. She hadn’t cried when she fell over while learning how to ride a bike, she hadn’t cried on her first day of school or when she broke her ankle in ballet, she hadn’t cried when she missed a note for the first time or when she had her first slushie-facial, but Rachel Berry felt the unfamiliar sensation of tears burning in her unused tear ducts and Rachel didn’t have the energy to stop them. They rolled down her cheeks one by one at first, leaving salty trails. Soon, Rachel was full-on sobbing, her face buried in her hands, her breaths coming in heaves, her body shaking as she cried everything she had been holding in. All the embarrassment, all the weakness, all the feelings for Jesse and Finn (and if she was going to be honest, Puck), all the stress of following her dream and the stress of never having anyone to go to when she just needed to talk poured out of her, rolling down her cheeks in the form of tears.

When Rachel had cried every ounce of any feeling in her, she numbly climbed into her bed, barely taking the time to take off her shoes before burying herself in the blankets and falling asleep.

She woke up the next morning feeling groggy and blurry. For a moment, she was blissfully unaware of reality. In her semi-sleeping state, she sat up slowly, glancing around her room. Why hadn’t her alarm gone off? Perhaps she had woken up earlier than usual. She glanced to her left where her clock was sitting.

It read 10:52, and Rachel’s eyes bugged out in shock. How had she slept through her alarm? She threw her blankets off and tried getting out of bed, but the woozy feeling of the sudden alertness mixing with her sleepy body sent her back into the bed.

“Dad?” She called out, her voice weak. Luckily, her dad had been waiting nervously in the hallway for Rachel to wake up, and he rushed in immediately.

“How do you feel, sweetheart?” He asked, moving swiftly to her side and putting his hand on her forehead.

“I’m fine, Dad. Why didn’t you wake me up? I’m late for school.” Rachel asked, looking up at him. To be honest, school was the last thing she wanted right now. School meant Glee which meant seeing the faces of Je- everyone she hurt.
She couldn’t think of his name. She didn’t want a repeat of last night, especially not in front of her dad.

“Rachel, honey, you slept right through your alarm. I figured you might be sick, so we decided that it would be best if you just stayed home today.” He said soothingly, gently moving her hair out of her forehead. Rachel sighed, closing her eyes.

“Perhaps a sick day is in order.” She said, and she didn’t need to open her eyes to know her dad had on an amused smile.

“Do you want some soup?” He asked, and Rachel nodded.

“Chicken soup.” She felt the bed move as her dad left, and she heard him shut the door behind him. Her eyes stayed closed as she tried to relax, taking in deep central, calming breaths to soothe her. There was no reason to cry. She was Rachel Berry, and she wouldn’t cry. She would be strong and move past this. She would move past him. She would take a day off from school. That did not show weakness. Broadway stars took days off too, and Rachel Berry was a Broadway star in the making. She would allow herself this one day to rest and then tomorrow she would be back in school, as proud as ever.

Rachel smiled slightly to herself, opening her eyes. Yes, that’s what she would do. She would be fine. She sat up slowly, careful to not repeat the woozy feeling of the last time she had sat up. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and sighed. She figured her eyes had to be puffy and bloodshot and she knew she had to look like a mess, but it didn’t matter. The only people who would see her this unsightly would be her fathers, and they wouldn’t mind. She sighed, letting her hands fall to her sides. She waited quietly, humming part of the Spring Awakening soundtrack, waiting for her dad to return with her soup.

She glanced at her phone, which, during her sleep, had made it from the floor onto her bedside table next to her clock. She was slightly afraid to pick it up and see the empty screen; void of any missed calls or worried texts, because Rachel had realized that the only person who would have cared that she was Je-

She closed her eyes, furiously willing the tears to go away. She would not, could not cry. She refused to. She had already cried for him, she was moving past that now.

A quick and sharp beep from her phone caused Rachel to open her eyes. She didn’t look at the phone, just stared straight ahead at her wall. She was scared, she could admit that. She couldn’t hope, wouldn’t allow herself to hope, that it was someone from Glee. She knew that they weren’t big fans of hers to begin with, and this stunt she had pulled, hurting not only Jesse but Finn and Puck (and herself) hadn’t helped her at all. They probably all hated her now, more than they had before.

She left the phone, slowly climbing out of bed and moving towards the door. She paused at the mirror, running a brush through her hair and pulling it back into a messy ponytail. It was completely un-Rachel like, but she was allowing herself this one day to be imperfect. Just this once.

She moved into the hallway and she heard a murmuring of voices in her living room. She could recognize the voices of both of her fathers, but there was another voice, one she couldn’t quite place. It blended with her fathers’ in a worried murmur. She frowned slightly; who was in her house?

She moved down the stairs and paused at the foot of them. It was easier to hear the voice now, she could tell it apart from her dad and her father’s voices. But Rachel knew she had to have been mistaken, it just wasn’t possible. She flew into the living room, needing to know if this was some sort of hallucinatory symptom of over-sleeping.

Three familiar heads turned to look at her. There was the two well-known faces of her fathers’, looking at her with slight concern. Her dad had a bowl of steaming soup in his hands, and her father had been in the middle of a sentence to the third head. The third face was looking at her with worry and pain and relief and a cool distance that came with a broken heart.

“Jesse?” Rachel croaked out, staying where she was. She looked at him with a sense of wonder and pain and regret and apologies written all over her face. She didn’t move from her spot near the stairs, afraid that if she made a move, he would disappear and prove to be a figment of her imagination. The only break in her frozen state was her fingers, which twitched, yearning to reach out and touch his.

“Rachel,” Jesse replied, his voice controlled and his face smooth. Rachel’s eyes flicked to his, knowing that he kept all emotion hidden in his eyes. They held pain and want, and Rachel’s shattered heart broke some more, knowing that it was her fault he was like this.

“It was nice meeting you, Mr. and Mr. Berry. Do you mind if I talk to Rachel?” He asked, always polite and courteous. Her father nodded.

“We’ll be upstairs if you need us, Rachel.” He said, and her dad put the bowl of soup down on the table, moving past Rachel up the stairs after giving her a reassuring rub on the back.

It was silent after the Berry men had gone upstairs. For what seemed like an eternity Rachel and Jesse just stared at each other, neither knowing what to say.

“I’m so sorry,” Rachel breathed, her voice on the verge of breaking into sobs, the tears burning at the edges of her eyes. “I know that whatever I say won’t change what I did, but I know it was wrong. I see it now, I know that it was stupid and dumb and going behind your back and doing it was the worst thing I could have done. You are more important than any stupid reputation, especially mine. You had given up so much for me and I was selfish and I didn’t see it. You understand me better than anyone in Glee club. You’re the only one that can tolerate me, let alone likes me. I threw that away for a song, a project, to impress people who don’t care about me, who don’t matter more to me than you do.” By this time, she was freely crying, but she didn’t care. She just needed to get Jesse to understand her.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been such a horrible person. I don’t know how you stood up with me, and I completely respect your decision to leave me.” She finished, unable to tear her eyes away from his. She braced herself for whatever he was about to say, not bothering to care that she had just been the most vulnerable she had ever been in front of another person that wasn’t her family.

It was silent as Jesse and Rachel stood across from each other, feeling miles away from each other. He blinked once, twice, before letting his cool composure fall, his face crumpling. He moved towards her quickly, his arms wrapping around her with a sense of urgency that scared Rachel. She buried her face in his chest, her arms wrapping around him and pulling him against her.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Jesse said, pulling back to look Rachel in the eye so she could see how dead serious he was. “I left New Directions. I’m going back to Vocal Adrenaline. I can’t stay there, Rach. Not after what happened. You were the only thing keeping me there. Yes, I liked it and the atmosphere was nice and the people were great. But you were the only reason I stayed. But now that I don’t know how you feel about me, or if you have feelings for only me, I can’t stay. I’m leaving McKinley. We won’t see each other again until Regionals. I won’t tell anyone at Vocal Adrenaline what you guys have been doing, but I can’t stay. I can’t sit there and look at you every day and know that I did something wrong to lose you to those other guys.”

Rachel felt more tears coming. She was crying more than she had before and she hated it.

“You didn’t lose me. I was being stupid, selfish! I don’t like Puck. I don’t like Finn. I like you, Jesse. Only you. I…I love you, Jesse.” Rachel said, looking up at him and straight into his eyes. This was unlike Rachel, this was vulnerable, this was weakness, this was emotion that wasn’t pride or strength, this was completely out of character for Rachel but she would have done or said anything if she could stop the pain in Jesse’s eyes.

Jesse exhaled, reaching up and grabbing her face in his hands, pulling her in and kissing her softly, gently, lovingly, with hurt and a sense of urgency that scared Rachel. She reached up, kissing him back, but he pulled away, staring into her eyes, resting his forehead on hers.

“I loved you too, Rachel. But that doesn’t change my mind. It just makes it harder.” He said softly. He leaned in, kissing her again, softer this time, his decision showing in this kiss. Rachel tried to keep him there, but he pulled away fully, taking a step back. Rachel bit her bottom lip and kept the tears at bay. She had heard the very obvious past tense and knew what that meant.

“Goodbye, Rachel.” He said softly, turning and walking out her front door. The door shut behind him, and he took everything they had with him.

“Goodbye, Jesse.” Rachel whispered, turning and stumbling up the stairs, barely making it to her bed before bursting into tears for the second time that day. She sobbed into her pillow, almost forgetting about the text message. She was afraid to open it, afraid that if it had been from Jesse she would burst into another frightening round of tears.

She blinked, feeling slightly ashamed of herself. She was Rachel Berry, afraid of nothing and no one. She wouldn’t let a boy stop her from anything. She reached over and grabbed the phone, wiping away the tears and flipping it open. Her eyes quickly scanned the screen, and she felt her lower lip shaking, and her eyes brimmed with tears again. She shut the phone, putting it back on the table and closing her eyes, willing herself to stop crying and be strong.

Where are you? Is everything okay? I’m sorry for getting so upset with you yesterday, it’s just you know…it was unexpected. Can we talk? Call me or something. Feel better.

The text message hadn’t been from Jesse, like she had expected. It had been from Finn, which had been ten times worse.

Rachel couldn’t believe it. She would have expected anger, or at the very least bitter hurt from Finn. She knew he should be angry at her; she had tricked him and used him. But instead he was worrying about her, caring about her, making sure she was okay.

She shakily picked up the phone and dialed his number, putting the phone to her ear and sniffling, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. She would fix things with Finn. If anything else, she would make sure Finn was always okay. He deserved nothing less from anyone, especially Rachel.

“Finn? It’s Rachel.”