I Can't Bring Myself To Say This Is The End (1/3)
Written for the Puckleberry Drabble Meme (Part One)
Prompt: Puck finding out Rachel cheated on him
Characters: Rachel Berry & Noah (Puck) Puckerman
Rating: T
((XX))
Rachel slumped against the wall of the trembling elevator as it slowly crept towards the third floor of the old apartment building. One glance at her watch confirmed that it was close to one in the morning, and she failed to suppress a yawn.
She was tired. She was tired of auditioning for show after show after show, failing to receive a part every single time. She was tired of working day after day in a tourist popular diner, just so the bills could be paid and food could be bought. She was just tired.
As she walked down the hallway, grateful that the elevator hadn’t broken down (again) trapping her in (again), she listened to the sounds of late night Friday. A television playing late night infomercials, a couple arguing the floor above her, the squeaky bedsprings of another couple on her floor, a baby’s screams coming from somewhere in the five floor building.
She stopped outside her front door, noting the silence behind it as she fumbled in her handbag for the key ring. Noah had to work in the morning; he was probably passed out in their bed by now.
She was twenty five years old. A decade ago, when she had been the doe-eyed wilful leader of McKinley High’s Glee Club she had a plan; high school, college, New York City, the Great White Way. She had never stopped to consider what would happen if the last point in her four-point plan to stardom never materialized.
Slipping through the front door, dead bolting it behind her, she dumped her handbag on the small table next to the door and kicked off her shoes. She wanted to curl up into bed next to Noah, and forget that this week even happened.
Turning on the overhead light for the small kitchenette, she looked up and jumped; the sight of Noah himself sitting on the couch, half obscured by the shadows of the night startling her.
“What are you still doing awake?” After she calmed herself down, she continued in her midnight routine; fixing herself a quick snack and pouring herself a glass of water to take to bed. “Don’t you have work in the morning?”
“Do I make you happy Rachel?” He joined her in the kitchen, his voice low. “Don’t I try to give you everything you want?”
“Of course you do.” Rachel rubbed her hands up his arms, “What’s going on Noah?”
“Do you love me Rach?” He hated how…pansy he sounded at the moment; but he couldn’t help it. “I love you so fucking much, do you love me?”
“Of course I do.” She reached up on her tiptoes to brush her lips over his. “You know I do.”
“You want to marry me, you don’t feel obligated to or something?”
Her right hand brushed over the small engagement ring on her left hand; she didn’t understand the interrogation. “Of course I want to marry you Noah. What is this all about?”
“Then tell me that this is a joke, tell me that it’s the angle of the camera.” She hadn’t noticed that he had been holding his cell phone until it was shoved at her. Glancing down, hazel eyes paled in realization.
“No…Noah…” She stuttered, looking back at him in a hurry. He had taken a step back distancing himself from her. He looked disgusted.
“Tell me it’s a joke.” He repeated; more force in his words this time.
“I…I…” Rachel stuttered again, what could she say to comfort her fiancé when the proof of her infidelity was staring them in the face?
She watched as Noah closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Noah Puckerman had created a shield when they were only teenagers, in the form of Puck. Never show emotion, never show weakness, never get hurt.
Rachel Berry had been the first and only person, outside his mother and sister to see Noah.
And she would be the one to break him.
He wanted to hit something, he wanted to break something. He opened his eyes again, the image of his Rachel making out with another guy in the middle of a crowded Manhattan street, in the middle of the day, burned into his memory.
He had been staring at the image since a friend had sent him the picture message, with the attached text I thought you should know.
He had spent hours staring at it, trying to think of a logical, sensible explanation for it; one that didn’t involve Rachel cheating on him.
He couldn’t.
“Please, Noah...”
Unable to control himself, he picked up the first thing he could reach; the empty glass Rachel had pulled out of the cabinet when she first got home and flung it at the wall.
Rachel flinched as the shards of glass fell to the floor.
“It wasn’t, I can...” Rachel’s voice wavered as she tried to explain away the photo.
“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses.” His voice was harsh and unforgiving. “Do you remember right when we first got together? You were so insecure that I would get tired of you, that I would go back to sleeping around, that I would leave you?”
Rachel’s eyes were quickly filling with tears that she refused to let fall. She wasn’t the victim this time; she had actually been the one to hurt someone else. She nodded.
“When you’re alone in our bed, remember you’re the one that made me leave. That it was you screwed this up.”
“Please don’t leave, Noah.” The first full sentence she had been able to form, it came out as a strangled whisper.
He ignored her, grabbing the duffel bag he had thrown together earlier off the couch.
She beat him to the front door, her petite frame blocking his exit. “Move, Rachel.” He growled. She didn’t budge.
“You haven’t let me speak.” The words were coming easier now that she was threatened with the reality that Noah was leaving. She put her palms on his chest, hoping that her gentle touch would calm him down somehow. “It’s the middle of the night Noah, you can’t go anywhere like this. Not now.”
“If you’re going to say that it wasn’t what it looked like; that’s a lie, and we both know it.” He glared down at her. “I can’t get that fucking photo out of my head. I’ve stared at it, trying to find another explanation for it. There is none. Now move.”
Rachel shook her head again. She was stubborn, and she wasn’t going to let him just walk out of them that easily.
Noah was stronger though. He didn’t want to physically hurt her, but it was easy to lift her out of the way.
“Noah...” Rachel cried out again, falling to the floor as the wood door slammed shut.
#
Throwing a couple of green bills towards the driver, Puck climbed out of the taxi. He hadn’t known what he was going to do when he stormed out of the apartment, he had been too busy thinking of other things; but it hadn’t taken him long to decide.
There was no effing way he was staying in the city, not when he had spent the last six years here starting his life with Rachel. He didn’t really want to go back to Ohio, back to Lima; but right now there was no other choice.
Anyway, he’d only be there long enough to work out what he was going to do next.
#
Rachel didn’t fall into bed until after the sun had broken over the New York skyline. After making sure that every glass fragment had been cleaned up, she had taken refuge on the couch, waiting and hoping that Noah would walk back through the door at any second.
Hoping that she hadn’t completely screwed up their relationship.
She fell into bed, saturating her pillows as the tears continued to fall; the smell of Noah clinging to the sheets.
She had called into work sick; with a stuffed up nose and hoarse throat from crying all night she had sounded convincing. She sat on the couch all day, wrapped up in her robe, staring listlessly at the ring that still adorned her left ring finger.
She wasn’t going to take it off, because taking it off meant that they were over. She wasn’t going to accept that.
When her cell phone rang she had almost ignored it, except for the miniscule possibility that it was Noah. It was a Puckerman, but it was Noah’s sister Rebecca.
“I can’t really talk at the moment Bec.” Rachel tried to sound okay as she answered the phone.
“What the hell happened between you two?” Rebecca hissed. “Noah just showed up at the front door, didn’t say two words to me or mom and then locked himself in his bedroom.”
“He’s in Lima?” She figured that was the last place he would want to be.
“He’s twenty six Rachel. He’s not meant to show up and act like a moody teenager.”
“It’s nothing Bec, we...we had an argument. Listen; don’t tell him you called me okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
#
He hated his childhood bedroom. He wasn’t Noah in here, he was Puck. He was the reckless teenager who impregnated his best friend’s girlfriend, he was the boy who slept his way through the female population of Lima, he was the boy who had slushied Rachel every day.
“Noah?” He heard his mother through the door; she had been standing outside the locked door for the last five minutes trying to work out if she should say something. “Noah, honey, do you want to talk?
He scoffed, it was an involuntary action; a reflex. “No.” He called back simply. “Honey, you and Rachel...” She tapered off. She loved Rachel, the tiny singing diva had tamed her son, had seen him when others had turned their backs to him, had made him want to become someone of himself. She didn’t want to think what had happened in New York. She didn’t want to even entertain the idea that the wedding was off.
Instead, Abigail Puckerman headed back down the stairs; leaving her brooding son in peace. She glanced at her seventeen year old daughter who merely shrugged her shoulders; she had gotten absolutely nothing useful from Rachel.
#
She had grumbled handing over the credit card at the ticket counter at JFK airport; the five hundred dollars for her ticket, plus whatever Noah had charged on it was going to push the card to its limit.
And when the plane had finally made it into the air, time had stalled; making the two and a half hour flight as long and torturous as possible.
Behind her, a family of four were returning back to the Midwest state after a holiday in New York City. After twenty minutes of listening to the little boy jump up and down, blabbering about their weeklong trip she had slipped her earphones on blocking him out.
She hadn’t meant to kiss Jesse St. James. She hadn’t meant anything by it. It was his stupid smile, and the playful glint in his eye.
She hadn’t seen him in years; not since he had returned to Lima in her junior year of high school, just after she had started seeing Noah, to help coach Vocal Adrenaline for sectionals. (She had made sure he knew who the superior team really was.)
He had kissed her first, and she couldn’t think of a reason why she had returned the kiss; why she hadn’t pushed him away and kicked him where it hurt. She slumped back in her seat.
Of course Noah hated her, she hated herself.
#
“You must be starving Noah.” Abigail Puckerman was back at the door to her son’s bedroom. “I made you a sandwich.”
He didn’t budge.
“I’m not going to make you talk Noah.” She called out again. “I just want you to eat.”
He unlocked the door, taking the plate that his mother was holding. Cold cuts sandwich and a bag of crisps.
“When you’re ready to talk, I’m just downstairs.” She narrowly avoided her face getting hit as the door slammed shut again.
#
Continued here