All I Did Was Help You Tell A Lie
Title: All I Did Was Help You Tell A Lie
Chapter: 1/1
Warning: PG. Fictable prompt #35 - Candle
Character: Rachel, Rachel/Puck
Summary: He came in through her window often enough. Once every few weeks. Always late at night, always alone, sometimes drunk.
Word Count: 10,150
Disclaimer: Don't own.
He came in through her window often enough. Once every few weeks. Always late at night, always alone, sometimes drunk.
The first time was strange, she knew, and it scared her, the way he looked at her, swayed on his feet just a little. It was like he was only half there and the rest of him was somewhere else, somewhere far away that she couldn't even fathom and was too afraid to ask.
They'd just broken up. She'd told him it wasn't going to work out and they had a bit of a heart-to-heart, and she thought maybe they'd be okay until he told her that anything that lead her to believe they'd still even talk to one another was clearly a misread signal on her part. That was fine. She could get by without his friendship. She'd gotten by just fine without any friends at all.
But he'd climbed up the side of her garage, walked over the roof of the porch and tapped on her window glass and she nearly jumped out of her skin until she saw who it was. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to look like she was about to cry when he stood in front of her. He'd apologized ("Shit. Shit, Rachel. Sorry, baby.") and hugged her tightly, and she could smell the marijuana, the alcohol, but she couldn't tell him to leave.
She learned that night that Noah opened up a lot more when under the influence. He'd told her he didn't hate her, not by a long shot, and that he really was trying to make something work with her, even if she talked a lot about things he didn't care about. He told her he really did like her, but this thing with Quinn...
He left it at that, didn't give her any more details and she didn't want them. Yes, she would have rather that conversation take place somewhere other than her bedroom at 2:30 in the morning while his eyes were bloodshot and his reaction time was delayed, but she'd learned by that point to take what she could get. From him, and from everyone else.
Then there was another night, the night he told his mother about the baby, when he'd tapped on the glass with the bottle of whiskey he was drinking from, and she'd ushered him into the house and he'd talked to her for hours about how he didn't want to disappoint anyone, even if it was too late for that. He told her he didn't want to disappoint his baby, told her there was just something in his eye when he said 'his baby' out loud to someone other than Quinn or his mom. Rachel listened, didn't interrupt, didn't offer opinions until the very end, when she'd pried the bottle from his hands, tucked it under her pillow and somehow gotten him to forget about it. She'd touched his arm over the jacket he refused to take off, and told him he wasn't a disappointment to anyone, looked him in the eye so he'd see she meant every last word. When he leaned his forehead against her temple, his breath fanned out against her cheek as he spoke a single word ("Rachel.") before he got up and left the same way he came.
It was 9:30 on a school night and he slipped in through the window, completely sober and with a grin on his face. She'd told him he could have used the front door, but he shrugged and told her it was way more fun to sneak in. She'd rolled her eyes and said something under her breath that he still heard anyway and laughed at. ("No wonder everyone thinks you're a delinquent.") He'd pestered her until close to midnight when she told him she was going to bed and he had to leave. He gave her a look, his eyes lingering a little bit somewhere around her hips, and she didn't give him the chance to say whatever disgusting comment he was no doubt going to make. She pushed him to the window and he left without a thank you.
After that, she told him to at least let her know if he was on his way. She knew there was no stopping him, and at least she wouldn't be scared half to death when she heard his shoes scraping on the shingles.
How her fathers hadn't found out, she had no idea.
He came to her the night she was going to give herself to Jesse. She told him he was lucky she was alone, and he looked at her in her purple nightgown and matching cape and said than yeah, he was. He tugged at the ties near her neck and pulled the cape off her, tossed it in the corner of the room. ("The fuck is that thing, Berry? A sex cape? You some kind of super hero? Not hot.") He laughed when she told him the story of how her evening had gone (she didn't know why, they just trust one another somehow) even though she explicitly told him not to laugh. She asked him what on earth he was doing there, and he said Quinn was dancing around his room like some fucked up Lifetime teen-pregnancy movie, listening to Madonna and whatever, and he just couldn't take it anymore. They watched Braveheart on The History Channel, and she didn't realize she was holding his hand until the end of the film when he pulled it away.
After the baby was born, after losing Regionals and losing her mother and losing Jesse (and losing to Jesse), it was she who texted him and told him he could come over if he wanted to. It wasn't 10 minutes until she heard him walking outside her window, coming inside and kicking his shoes off just below the windowsill (a rule she imposed after the third time he showed up). She grabbed that bottle of Jack Daniels from where she'd hidden it under her bathroom sink. He told her he'd already had three beers, but he was thankful she'd kept that bottle. ("Fuckin' love you for this shit, Rach.") She had a tiny sip, hated the way it burned her throat, and handed the bottle back to him. She turned out the light and lit a candle so her fathers wouldn't think she was still awake.
And then the two of them sat back against the pillows on her bed and cried for a while. She said only two words before he had his arm around her. ("My mom...") He said only two words before she had the front of his shirt in her fist. ("My kid.")
The first big party of the summer, he showed up before midnight, claimed the thing was lame and said he'd rather punch himself in the throat than watch Santana drink herself into a blackout and dance on a dining room table, again. He asked Rachel why she didn't go, you know, since she was dating Finn, and she shrugged her shoulder and told him it wasn't exactly her pace, parties like that. He'd told the truth she couldn't. ("They'd eat you alive at that party. I mean, Finn'd stand up for you, but he's kind of an idiot, you know?") She'd argued him that Finn was most definitely not an idiot and he finally took it back, but did so rolling his eyes. They couldn't find any good movies on television, so she modeled her entire summer wardrobe for him, and when he asked to see bathing suits she told him he was crazy, but still managed to somehow step out of her bathroom in her two piece (her first ever) while he laid on her bed with far too satisfied a smirk on his face.
When she and Finn broke up right before the end of summer, Noah actually called her for maybe the second time ever, told her to stop crying because he was coming over. ("Seriously, Rachel. I see tears and I'm outta there.") Once he was in her room and had given her the half-eaten box of vegan chocolates ("I'd never had 'em before. Had to try.") she'd asked him what was the cause of his aversion to crying women. No jokes, no sarcasm, he'd told her that his mother cried every night before bed for a year after his dad left and he'd filled his lifetime quota of making women stop the tears. There was something so bittersweet about that it made her start crying again. She laughed and grabbed his hand when he tried to stand and leave, and he let her turn on Dirty Dancing and didn't even make fun of it at all.
A new girl transferred to McKinley and stole Rachel's lead male and threatened to steal her spot in glee club. Finn was enamoured, wouldn't believe anyone when they told him the girl was just Rachel in a different package. He and Holly started dating immediately, and Rachel held her head high during the days and hid in her bedroom at night, learning all kinds of stupid angry girl songs she didn't even particularly like.
She went to Noah's the night of the Homecoming dance. She had no idea how it was possible for a girl to be Homecoming Court when she'd only been at the school less than two months. Anyway, Rachel had stood there in her pretty white dress with Matt (the only boy who asked her, and she could have done much worse, she knew) standing behind her with his hand lingering near her waist, and watched Finn and Holly collect their crowns. She had Matt drop her off at home before the after party, thanked him for inviting her and told him he was a wonderful date.
Then she grabbed her keys and texted Noah, who hadn't gone to the dance at all, to tell him she was coming over. She stood outside his house looking up at his bedroom window for five minutes, trying to figure out how to scale a brick wall in three inch heels and a floor-length satin dress. He opened the door and told her to just come inside already. ("What the hell are you waiting for? You're creeping out the neighbours.") He'd already heard about the dance, and he still wouldn't give her a straight answer as to why he wouldn't go, though she knew his claim that Homecoming is for suckers was probably what he believed to be true. Once they were in his room, he smiled and looked at her and told her she looked beautiful, and she'd never heard him say the word before, not ever. So when she kissed him, she told herself it was just a thank you. And when he rest his hands on her cheeks and kissed her a little harder, she only kissed him back because he wasn't letting her pull away. When he lay her on his bed, half his weight on her and his hand skimming up her thigh, it was because he was clearly skilled and making her feel things she didn't know existed.
When he reached for the zipper of her dress, she bolted upright and stood so quickly he was left sitting stunned on his bed. She tried to explain herself. ("I've never...And I don't want...I'm not ready.") He'd tried to placate her, tell her it was alright. ("'S'okay. And you don't have to have sex to get naked.") She'd blushed ten shades of red, apologized for some reason, and left his room.
She didn't speak to him directly for a month unless she was forced to.
Finn kissed her after Sectionals, in the dressing room at the concert hall with his girlfriend standing 20 feet away on the other side of the door. He said words she couldn't trust and didn't want to hear. ("I miss you, Rachel. It's not the same singing with you but not singing with you.")
She'll never understand how Noah knew she needed him to come over. He didn't text or call or anything like that, and apparently it didn't matter that they hadn't spoken in ages and she hadn't looked at him all day. He slipped into her room and laid on top of her on her bed and kissed her like she'd wanted to be kissed since she knew what kissing was. He spoke every time she tried to catch her breath. ("You're so fucking hot." "He doesn't know what he's doing." "Is this okay? I can stop, Rach, I promise." "So pretty. Serious." "He just misses you, is all.")
She realized, as his hand pressed against her through her shorts before she could really react, that he'd spoken to Finn, or Finn had spoken to him. The only reason Noah had come over and kissed her like that was because someone had told him about something that had happened in her day. Not that she wanted it to happen at all, but she thought maybe Finn would have kept those words just between them and not told his best friend. She realized that no one would ever assume she and Noah were anything more than acquaintances. She was letting him kiss her, touch her, whisper things to her, and he scarcely said hello to her in the hallway at school if there were more than a handful of people around. She closed her legs, pushed at his chest and told him to leave.
He did.
She wanted so badly for someone to stay. For someone to fight for her.
She supposed she just wasn't the kind of girl boys fought for.
She learned Finn had given Holly a little white gold promise ring with three tiny diamonds and she'd never felt more like hitting someone in all her life. He could barely make eye contact with her. Noah hadn't spoken to her since that night in her room when things were about to go too far and she got upset and stopped them. But Noah caught her eye in the parking lot when she was tearing up in her car after glee rehearsal (why she still cared about Finn, she has no idea whatsoever; chalk it up to first love, she supposed). He texted her at 1:00 am, told her to open her window and leave a light on for him.
She didn't.
She'd come to realize what their late night visits meant now, and kissing him, pushing things further than she wanted to go, was not going to make her feel better. The sad thing was, she knew him well enough to know he would only kiss her because he didn't think he possessed any other skills to make her feel better. It wasn't true. She would have given anything to go back to the beginning of this whole thing, when they'd just talk, or not, and somehow that was enough. She wondered when it stopped being enough for him. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why she thought she wanted to be enough for him.
He tapped on her window for better than a minute before the sound stopped and he left. It was the first time since it all started that she didn't let him in.
That didn't mean she didn't want to.
The next time, it was during winter break and he was drunker than she'd ever seen him. It scared her. He hadn't called or texted. He stumbled through her window and dropped onto the floor, and her father called up the stairs and asked what the racket was. She said she bumped into her dresser and they seemed to buy that, even as she helped Noah stand up straight and forced him to look her in the eye. She had a bottle of water on her desk and handed it to him, telling him he had to drink or he'd be sick, even if she knew he'd probably be sick anyway. She asked him the reason behind his drinking. ("Just a Friday night.") She asked him why he'd come over.
"Miss you a little, 'kay? Fuck."
"You don't miss me," she insisted, shaking her head as they sat down at the edge of her bed. She knew, however, that he told only the truth when he was drinking, and if he tried to lie he had this little smirk that gave him away.
"Do so."
"You miss...what we were doing."
He laughed a little, laid back on her bed and closed his eyes. She didn't want to trust the smirk on his lips, but she still liked it more than she should have.
"Well, yeah," he mumbled. His hand reached out and ran along the top of the waistband of her flannel pajama pants.
She didn't move away as quickly as she should have. By the time she did, he was asleep with his hand a little too close to her behind. She said his name three times and he wouldn't wake up, and she was starting to get scared, so she got onto her knees next to him, slapped his face lightly until his eyes fluttered open. He grabbed her hand and held it in his. She insisted he had to leave, and he shook his head a little, told her his mom was home and that he didn't feel like leaving Rachel's bed. She most definitely should not have let her cheeks flare at that comment, even if he wasn't in any frame of mind to remember it later. He just pushed himself up against her pillows, pulled off his shirt and told her he was just going to sleep for a bit.
She woke up in the morning with his arm over her waist, his chest against her back, and an apology in her ear. She didn't want him to leave, but she couldn't tell him that and he did it anyway. She'd never slept in a bed with a boy before. She missed him as soon as he was gone.
She hated that they never spoke at school. She hated that when, their first day back to glee rehearsal, everyone was talking about their breaks and no one asked her what she'd done. She thought she might hug him then and there when he jutted his chin lazily in her direction and included her. ("Yo, what about you?") Really, the only thing she had to report that anyone would even care about in the slightest was the night he'd slept in her bed. She mentioned a weekend trip to see her Bubbie in New York, and everyone seemed to tune her out after that. Noah 'accidentally' bumped her leg with his heel as he tried to step over her to get to the other side of the room. He sent her a wink when she looked up at him.
She wondered if maybe that night was the best one of his break, too, before reminding herself that he probably couldn't even remember it all that well anyway.
He drove her home from school one day, came back after dark and handed her a slushie. She sipped it with a smile and didn't bother asking how on earth he climbed the side of the garage with it in his hand. He didn't let her finish the whole thing ("God, don't you know how to share? Gimme.") and she spent the rest of the evening thinking if she kissed him, he'd taste like grape and it wouldn't feel right. Okay, maybe she was just trying to keep herself from kissing him.
"You could use the door sometimes, you know," she said, watching as he walked out of her bathroom buckling his belt.
He shrugged his shoulder, smirked at her and slipped his shoes back on. "Boring."
She laughed, and he held his hand up for a high five. She locked the window behind him after he'd left.
She noticed his phone on her bedside table, changed into her pajamas and unlocked the window again, knowing he'd be back. He must have waited until she turned out the light, because he came in just minutes later, pressed a kiss to her shoulder through her tee shirt and ran his hand beneath the blankets to touch her hip over her pajama pants as he lay there next to her. She whispered his name in the dark, turned her head a little to try and look over her shoulder at him. He just nuzzled against her hair and dug his fingers into her hip a little bit. His lips found her skin again, the side of her neck and that place on her jaw that only he'd ever kissed enough to know how much she liked it.
"Don't," she whispered. He didn't stop, just pressed himself against her a little more, even with her comforter and sheets between them. And she liked it. "Noah."
"What?" he asked, and there was a cheeky quality to his voice that made her smile for half a second before she came to her senses.
She asked the worst question she could have asked and realized it five seconds too late.
"Did you leave your phone on purpose?"
He pulled away so quickly it was almost insulting (almost as insulting as her question) and it made her realize just how badly she didn't want him to stop.
"Are you kidding me?" he asked, standing from her bed and running a hand over his head as she sat up. "If I wanted to kiss you, I'd fuckin' kiss you. I don't need to trick you into it."
She was not going to let him see her cry. Apparently she was desperate and easy enough that he knew it wouldn't take much convincing. Her throat was tight and she was glad it was mostly dark because he definitely would have seen her eyes shining with tears had there been any light.
"Oh."
"You're ridiculous, Rach, you know that?"
He grabbed his phone off her table and clicked a button to illuminate the screen, and she laid down on her side with her back to him again. She thought maybe she was daring him somehow, like she was just inviting him to do it again if he wanted to.
"D'you think I climb through everyone's windows or something?" he asked.
"I don't want you coming here for that," she admitted, still with her back to him. She heard him scoff. "You're either my friend all the time, or not at all."
He laughed quietly, and she ignored the way he fussed with her blankets, like he was either going to tuck her in or yank the covers back all together.
"Take a look around, Rach," he said
He left again and she cried, trying to figure what he meant by what he said.
She didn't go to school the next day. She told her fathers she was sick and had them call the school. Only one person texted her all day, and the only surprise was that he would text her or talk to her at all. ('Hit me back and lemme know ur not dead.') She texted him back nothing but two words telling him she was fine. She curled back into her bed with her Barbra marathon and her cup of tea and studied Barbra's nuances in Funny Girl, because her talent was going to get her out of Lima and she'd never have to deal with any of this again.
And only once (for at least 10 minutes, but still) she thought that she'd miss Noah if she left and left him behind. Other than her fathers, he was really all she had.
She went to his house, knocked at the door and his little sister lead her to his room. She hadn't called or anything, and she knew her fathers' questioning looks when she left the house meant they wondered if she was ever sick at all. The way Noah barked out a, "What?" after she knocked indicated that maybe it wasn't such a fantastic idea to just show up unannounced.
He was laying on his bed with a textbook beside him that she was most definitely surprised to see. And there was a little smile on his face when he saw it was her. It disappeared immediately, but she still saw it. She pushed the door closed and, though she still couldn't tell you why, she walked right over to the bed and straddled his lap, resting her hands on his shoulders as he sat back against his headboard. Despite the fact that he was clearly surprised, his hands found her hips easily over her sweatpants, pushing up her grey McKinley sweatshirt just a bit.
"You're my friend," she stated, because somewhere between his front door and stepping into his bedroom, she realized it.
"Yeah."
She noticed his eyes dart down to her lips, his thumbs slide along the skin just above the waistband of her pants.
"My friend who I kiss."
She smiled when he laughed softly. "If you wanna." She giggled and nodded, realized that in some strange ("totally fucked up," he'd say later) way, their being friends would always include kissing. She leaned in, but he stopped her. "Wait."
She was completely confused until he reached over, pulled a lighter from the drawer in his bedside table, and lit the dark green candle next to the bed before switching off the lamp. Then he fitted his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer, kissed her a few times, gently, until they both got comfortable how they were sitting.
"It smells really good," she admitted, pulling back from him a little. It smelled like pine needles. She was thankful; it finally gave her an answer to her constant wondering where that scent on him came from.
He looked up at her, brushed her hair back behind her ear. "Damn. You look so hot right now."
She looked down at her attire, then back at him with doubt in her eyes. "Really?"
He just nodded and kissed her again. They kissed so long that Noah's mother came home and Rachel ended up having to sneak through the window, with pointers from him on how to do it safely, of course. ("Just...Fuck. Just don't fall or something.")
It happened enough nights that Hannah and Noah's mother got to know Rachel a little bit. She still wondered if they knew how many nights Noah showed up outside her window, climbed inside and pinned her back against her mattress. He surprised her, brought that candle from his room. Or so she thought. ("Stole it from Sheets 'N' Things for you. I know you liked it.") She wasn't sure how many hours of kissing it added up to, but eventually, one night when they were half-talking, half-making out, that candle burned down and the flame went out. (He stole her another one and brought it the next day. She didn't let on how sweet she actually thought it was.)
When she saw him in the hall with Santana in front of him, her back against the lockers, hands on his shoulders as she spoke into his ear, Rachel realized that maybe she and him were friends in the same way he was friends with all the other girls. The thought of him kissing other people, kissing Santana especially, turned her stomach in a way she wasn't prepared for. It was stupid, really, since he wasn't her boyfriend and he wasn't committed to her. Actually, maybe that was the stupidest thing about it all. She should have insisted he couldn't kiss her if he wasn't her boyfriend. Given that he would hardly admit they were even friends, it was probably completely absurd to even consider that he'd ever want to be her boyfriend. She realized very quickly that while she'd raised her standards to even allow him to kiss her, she hadn't raised them nearly high enough.
So she held her head up as she passed, made sure to send him a disappointed look when she knew he was paying attention.
He went to her house that night unannounced, sat on the roof outside her window, tapped on the glass. She left the blinds up, sat on her bed with her laptop on her knees and promptly ignored him until he went away.
At least that was the plan.
He sat there outside her window for an hour talking to her through the glass ("I'm not with her, Rach.") until she checked the weather and saw how far below freezing it was and finally unlocked the window. She didn't open it, though, left that part to him and went back to her laptop so she could close the Broadway message board she knew he'd make fun of her for being a member of. He sat down on her bed with his jacket still on, pulled the blanket from where it was always folded on that little bench at the end of her bed, and shot her a glare as he wrapped it around his shoulders.
"Well, no one told you to sit on my roof in the cold."
"Wouldn't have had to if you'd opened the damn window."
"Doesn't Santana have a ground floor bedroom? Probably easier to get through her window." She hated how bitter she sounded, hated how smug he looked, like his claims for the last hour of her jealousy were right and he'd known it all along. "Whatever."
She never said that word. He always did.
"I don't want to get into Santana's room," he told her, as seriously as he could when a shiver ran through him and his cheeks were as red as they were.
"That's not what it looked like today."
"You don't know what you saw," he said, and her eyes met his dangerously. Didn't he know by now not to tell her what she felt, what she saw? "Okay, fine. Fuck. Whatever. Santana's..."
"Maybe you should go," she said, because listening to him fumble his way through an explanation was really not something she wanted to do. Not at all. She watched him pull the blanket from his shoulders and drop it between them on the bed, then scrub a hand over his face.
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not fucking leaving," he insisted in a harsh whisper. She knew he was doing it because he wanted to yell, but didn't want her fathers to know he was there.
"Well, I don't want to talk to you any more," she said, a little quieter, a little more resigned, like she knew that if they had the conversation they were supposed to have, everything would change and she wouldn't like it. If they never had the conversation, she could pretend it wasn't necessary.
"Fine," he mumbled. He pushed her laptop closed (partly just to make her mad, she was sure), and she looked at him. "Wanna make out?"
She couldn't tell if he was serious or not. She glared, knowing that was an appropriate reaction regardless.
"I can't believe you even have the nerve to ask me that."
"It was a joke. God."
"Sorry if I don't find you very funny right now," she said, pulling back the covers and sliding into bed. She didn't miss the way his eyes seemed to darken and rake over her body. "Don't expect an invitation."
He stood, tipped his head back and groaned. "You're being such a bitch," he told her. "You're freaking out over nothing, and it sucks."
"Then leave!" she very nearly shouted. She turned onto her side, tucked her hands up under her cheek. He looked at her, then away quickly, and she knew that was one of the moments he'd usually compliment her. ("You look fuckin' cute right now. Don't tell anyone I said that.")
"I don't really want to."
Other than that one night when he was almost too drunk to function, he'd never, ever implied he wanted to stay. Even if they'd kissed for a while and it was clear he wanted more than she was willing to give, he'd never said he didn't want to leave.
"Then stay," she said quietly.
She'd never asked him to do that, either.
But he shrugged his jacket to the floor, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his jeans, pulled off his shirt and lay down facing her. He pulled the covers up to his chin, and she could tell he didn't know what to do with his hands if he was laying so close to her and she didn't want him to touch her. She just closed her eyes and let him figure it out on his own. Eventually she felt his arm above her head on the pillow. She tensed when she felt him start to toy with her hair.
"I like your hair a lot," he said quietly.
She took a small breath, knew she couldn't pretend to be sleeping. "Thank you," she whispered.
He took the fact that she was speaking to him to mean that he could put his hand on her waist, slide it up her back and pull himself closer to her. She didn't mind, really, liked being close to him.
"You're not my girlfriend," he said after a while, and she opened her eyes. She could barely make him out in the darkness, and it was probably a good thing, she realized, since whatever look was on his face would certainly break whatever piece of her heart he had. "I don't do that. Have a girlfriend."
"I never asked..."
"Whatever," he interrupted. "You want to be." She couldn't deny it, so she said nothing. "I fuck everything up. I'd just..." He sighed, frustrated with himself. "You're, like, the last person I want to fuck over."
"So don't," she said before she could stop herself. He pulled her closer, like he didn't want to have to tell her it wasn't that easy. "I don't understand why you can't trust yourself as much as I do."
"You don't know me like I do. I don't care about other people."
She pulled away, enough that his hand slipped from her hair. "You don't care about me?"
He groaned again. "I didn't say that."
"Sorry," she said, and she had no idea why. She had nothing to apologize for, except maybe liking him more than he liked her, wanting him more.
And the tears were inevitable, but she really hoped the conversation was over so she could turn to her other side so she could hide them a little better.
"It's fucked, but I don't...It's like there's this good guy in me and he's saving you from what a dick I really am," he said. The fact that he thought of himself in such deprecating terms made her angry and sad and the tears fell from her eyes. "I dunno. That sounds stupid."
She didn't know what to do other than shake her head. She didn't want to play dumb and pretend she didn't understand, because hearing him tell her any more harshly that he didn't want to be with her might have made her do something ridiculous, like push herself closer to him again and insist she'd take him however he was.
But really, she did know his reputation. Yes, she saw the best in him and trusted him more than probably anyone else, but the fact of the matter was that he'd been in one serious relationship and ended up getting another girl pregnant sometime during the course of it. If he didn't trust himself not to cheat, maybe she shouldn't either.
The part of her brain controlled by a 'love conquers all' attitude wondered why he wouldn't even give it a chance - give them, him, a chance - before writing the concept off completely.
But maybe it was true that without sex, she'd never be able to hold his attention. Especially if he was already standing close with Santana and giving the entire student body the impression they were 'on' again.
There was a part of her, a self-loathing, over-thinking part of her, that wondered if he'd done it on purpose to bring up the whole topic in the first place.
She didn't want to think about it anymore.
"Fine," she said quietly, and she let him kiss her once, his lips lingering against hers for a few moments, before turning so her back was to him. She knew he could tell she was crying, but he didn't say anything, just rest his hand on her hip like last time. She let him continue to play with her hair as she drifted off.
She pretended to be asleep in the morning when she felt him get up and heard him getting dressed. He kissed her temple in a sweeter way than she'd ever known him to do anything, then headed for the window and left without an apology or a goodbye.
She didn't know if either would have made the whole thing better or worse.
She saw him around school, Santana around him. He'd avoid her eyes and ignore her instructions in glee club, and Santana would say mean things and he'd smile a fake smile that only Rachel could ever tell was fake. He'd pretend to hate her and Santana would hate her, and she'd think, often actually, that those two were perfectly suited to one another. She heard him one day talking to Matt, and he'd said the same thing. Even if he was teasing, it still probably made sense. ("Two fucked up halves make one really fucked up whole.") Rachel didn't stick around to hear the inevitably dirty joke Noah made in response to that.
And Matt. Matt who was sweet and nice and treated her well when no one else would. He'd asked her to Homecoming and she'd gone, and he asked her to dinner, so she decided to go to that, too. Santana loudly claimed during glee club that no one would ever get into Rachel's granny panties and that her bed probably had barbed wire around it so no guys could get near it. Amid the laughter, Rachel made out Noah's voice ("Fuck, San, don't be a cunt.") and despite the language, she appreciated the sentiment. She looked his way, and maybe it was guilt on his face, or maybe she was just making that part up. The truth was, they both knew he was the only boy who'd ever spent any significant amount of time in her bed.
Matt took her out and bought her dinner in a restaurant he'd put actual thought into. ("I know you're vegan and stuff, so I Googled restaurants, and I hope this is okay.") He listened to her when she spoke and smiled politely at the waiter and left a generous tip and she thought that if she had any romantic feelings for him at all, he'd be a perfect boyfriend.
Noah happened to be around the following Monday when Quinn actually, nicely, asked how Rachel's date with Matt went. He walked into the room just after Rachel had explained that it was lovely, smiled at her and walked over to sit next to her, then put his arm around the back of her chair. The shocked looks from everyone and the angry look from Noah almost tempted her into explaining that she and Matt mutually agreed that they were just better as friends.
She got word, early in the spring, that Noah 'cheated' on Santana with Holly's older sister. Rachel thought she hid her disgust well, but probably not. And she bit her tongue and didn't let the lump in her throat grow into anything else as she watched, along with everyone else in the choir room, Santana yell things in at least two languages at Noah, who was trying to defend himself without a leg to stand on other than to point out that he was more than happy to turn his head regarding her relationship with Brittany. Holly looked uncomfortable, and Finn rubbed her back. Kurt, Rachel was almost positive, was filming it all from his place in the back row, and Quinn just sat next to Rachel with her hands clasped in her lap, looking downward.
He came to her window that night with a hand print on his cheek and a litany of curses not meant for her as he paced her bedroom floor. She wondered if he realized they hadn't been alone together since nearly two months earlier, that he hadn't set foot in her room, that the candle he'd stolen for her hadn't been lit since days before they ended whatever it was they had been. Eventually, she told him she didn't want to hear any more, and he looked at her like she was the meanest person ever, said something that would have been far too easy to turn into a call back to their first break up. ("Fuck, Rach, I just needed a friend, alright?")
"I hate her!" she'd said in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. "Is that what you want me to say? That I hate Santana? Because I do." She could tell he didn't know whether to be amused or angry. "She's mean, and rude, and she treats everyone like she's better than them. The only thing she's ever done for a person other than herself was force them to take a trip to the free clinic for antibiotics, and don't even deny that, because I know the story about Brett Lanning."
Her hating Santana had nothing to do with anything, and it was like they both realized it at the same time.
"Venting?" he asked, a smirk on his lips.
"I can't stand her, and she didn't deserve the downright deplorable thing you did to her, but I don't want to hear about her anymore."
"She wasn't my girlfriend. It wasn't cheating."
Rachel scoffed, shook her head and avoided his eyes. "You should go."
"Rachel."
"How many other girls have you used the same words with?" she asked, maybe just to let him know the real reason she was so upset.
His eyes flashed dangerously and she knew she'd taken it too far, but honestly, he was lumping she and Santana into the same category, and she really didn't appreciate it. All along, she'd thought that what she had with him was different, special, maybe. She thought maybe he really meant the things he said to her. Finding out he said them to other people didn't seem to be sitting well.
"That's shitty," he said seriously, pointing at her before dropping his hand again. She raised one brow (like he would) to challenge him. "You know what? Fine. Whatever. Believe whatever you want. I don't need this shit." He headed for the window, jammed his feet into his shoes. "Both of you are fuckin' nuts. I'm surprised you aren't best friends."
Slapping him had never crossed her mind. Doing so further proved his point that she and Santana shared at least some similarities. He grabbed her wrists after, when the welt on his face was getting even more colour, and stared at her as he gritted his teeth. She could faintly see the hinge of his jaw moving as he did it. She'd never been scared of him before, but when she tried to tug her wrists away and he wouldn't let go, there was a moment where she wondered what he'd do to her.
He kissed her. He pulled her closer to him by the wrists and kissed her, pressed his lips to hers a little harder than he normally would, didn't move them much at all, just let them sit there against her own until she had the good sense to move her head back. He followed her, though, and rest his forehead against hers.
He shook his head, pulled away, scrubbed a hand over his jaw and mumbled something she pretended not to hear. ("This is so fucked up.") He didn't look at her before he left, and she told herself she was not going to cry. But as she'd learned, telling yourself you're not going to do something doesn't actually stop you from doing it.
Matt asked her to prom. They were still friends, and he still had some kind of feelings for her, even if she couldn't for the life of her fathom why. They may have been better as friends, but apparently that didn't stop him from wanting more. The most startling thing of all was that she understood that so well it almost made her laugh.
Her dress was black, something completely different for her. It was floor length, and low cut, and cut down to the small of her back. And at the end of the night, at 1:30 in the morning when Matt dropped her off at home, she noticed Noah's truck parked down the street and knew, somehow, that he'd be coming through her window in a matter of minutes. She probably should have left it locked, but she couldn't. She didn't want to. Noah hadn't gone to prom and there was a part of her, a big part, that just wanted him to see her in her dress. To accomplish what, she wasn't sure.
She was taking things out of her clutch purse when he stepped into the room and said what she assumed he meant as a compliment. ("Holy shit.") She didn't bother to look up at him. He walked around the bed and stood behind her, let his hand run from the back of her neck all the way down her spine to where her dress started covering her at the small of her back. She swallowed thickly. She knew he could hear it, and she shut her eyes as his other hand curved around her hip in a way that felt far too good. She whispered his name and he said something they both knew she hated. ("Shut up.") His fingers dipped just beneath the fabric of her dress on her back, and every instinct in her body was telling her to push him away and force him to stop. She told herself he just wouldn't do it instead of admitting she really didn't want him to.
"You should have come," she said quietly before she could stop herself. She would have loved to see him wearing a tuxedo, danced with him, maybe.
"No."
"Why are you here?"
She felt him shrug his shoulder, shake his head a little bit and step closer to her, effectively trapping his hand between them. "Don't know." His hand slid around to rest on her stomach, then traveled upward until his thumb was between her breasts, sitting on the bare skin where her dress was cut low. "You look so good."
It seemed to hit her hard and all at once that he wasn't her boyfriend and didn't want to be, and there was no reason - other than just hormones - to let him touch her like that. If he didn't want her all the time, he couldn't have her at all. She shouldn't have even let him inside. She wasn't sure why she ever did in the first place, way back when all this started.
"Stop," she said, knowing he'd hate it but knowing she had to say it. He didn't move his hands. She turned in his arms and tried not to notice how sad he looked. "You can't just come here and say that, Noah."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, and she could tell he really didn't know, that he really needed an answer.
She could think of a lot of different things she wanted him to do. Speak with her outside the walls of her bedroom. Treat her like she knew she deserved. Smile at her. Kiss her. Make love to her. Love her.
She knew he wouldn't do any of those. Not one. And anyway, she'd never have the nerve to ask, for fear she'd be rejected.
She bowed her head, closed her eyes and ignored the way his hold on her seemed to tighten. "It was easier when you hated me," she said quietly.
"When was that?" he asked. It was his way of telling her he never hated her. She had a hard time believing him. She laughed softly, humourlessly, but didn't look at him. "C'mon, Rach. I just wanna..."
"What?" she asked, taking a step back from him. He didn't say anything, just reached for her hand and sighed when she pulled it away before he could take it. "This isn't fair. I want you to go."
"Baby."
She looked at him then, saw that his eyes were a little red and knew he'd been smoking. She thought she'd smelled weed earlier but got distracted by his hands and his breath on her ear and the things he was saying.
"I'm not your baby, remember?"
He put his hands on his hips, closed his eyes. If this were a few months ago, she would have insisted he stay until his high had worn off, that it wasn't safe for him to drive. Not that she didn't still care about his well being, she just knew that if he stayed, they'd talk (or not) and she'd end up letting him touch her more and she'd be right back where she started from.
"This is so stupid," he said louder than he should have. He threw his hands in the air and she flinched, then he lowered his tone. "I don't know what you want from me."
She wanted to tell him that was exactly the problem. She couldn't have said it better herself. He didn't know what she wanted, and she wondered if that meant he didn't know her.
He was practically her only friend, and he really didn't have a clue.
"Just go. Please." The last word came out as more of a whisper than she wanted it to, and the tear fell down her cheek before she could stop it.
"Fuck, Rachel," he said sympathetically, stepping towards her. "Don't cry. Why are you crying?" She shook her head because she couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't make her sound completely pathetic. "I'm sorry, okay?" She wiped her face, took a step backwards when he tried to touch her. Her back met the wall with a thud and he stood right in front of her there. "Fine."
She didn't want him to give in, not really. She knew he would if she pushed him hard enough.
"Can you go now?" she asked quietly. It was always unnerving lately when he stood that close.
"Yeah."
He leaned over, brushed his lips across her forehead, then left through the window like always; without looking back.
She was sitting on her bed one night early in the summer, her thumb hovering over the power button on the remote for her television. There was really nothing on at all and she didn't know why she even had the television on, other than it was a Saturday night and she wanted a distraction from the fact that Kurt was having a party and she had not been invited.
You'd think that after two years of that treatment, it would start to hurt a little less.
She switched on a movie, An Affair to Remember, and curled up in her nightgown on her bed with a bottle of vitamin water and some low fat, low sodium popcorn. Halfway through the movie, her phone buzzing on her bedside table startled her. No one ever called her anymore, except Quinn, oddly enough, once in a while.
It was a text from Noah, asking if he could come up. He'd never asked before, just told. Against her better judgment, or maybe because she missed him far more than she'd ever admit, she wrote him back and told him yes. That was all. One word. Yes.
Minutes later, he was stepping through her window. His jeans and white tee shirt were wrinkled and his hair seemed considerably longer than it did when she saw him last, three weeks ago on the last day of school.
He glanced to her bedside table where her candle was burning, smirked a little bit. She suddenly wished she'd thought to blow that out before he came in. And the way he was looking at her made her wish she'd changed, too. Her pale pink nightgown wasn't anything she ever thought he'd see.
"Hey," he said, hands in his pockets.
"Hi," she said quietly. She looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was drunk or under the influence of anything else. It didn't appear so.
"Can I hang out?" he asked. He still hadn't taken his shoes off, still hadn't moved from just inside the window.
There was something different, very different from the very beginning of it, than all the other nights. He was almost being polite, which he'd rarely been before. And he looked nervous, a little shy maybe. The last thing she wanted was to be sucked back into that whole thing again, the wanting him and him not wanting her back.
She nodded and he seemed to sigh a little, toeing off his shoes before sitting down on her bed, back against the pillows like she was. She slipped her legs beneath the sheets, partly to keep him from staring and partly to keep herself from constantly checking to see if he was staring.
"Why aren't you at the party?" she asked after he tossed the DVD case back onto the bed (she was sure there was an eye roll in there, too, but she chose to ignore it). He grabbed a handful of popcorn and stuffed some into his mouth, shrugged his shoulder.
"Lame," he answered nonchalantly. She was just looking at him, waiting for a proper answer. "Rather sit here with you."
She really tried not to smile too widely. It was nice to be chosen first for once.
"Really?"
He looked over at her and slouched down on her bed a little. "Just said so, didn't I?" She didn't want to remind him that he'd strung her along in the past. He probably wouldn't see it like that, even if she did. He must have noticed her staring, because he sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, how many times do I have to tell you I miss you before you start believing it?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, looking to her lap. "How many times do I have to ask you to leave before you realize you want to stay?"
His brow furrowed, like he was trying to figure out if that even made sense. Knowing him, he didn't think it did, and he'd just ignore it for what he really wanted to hear.
"I'm here, aren't I?"
She bowed her head again. "For now."
He sighed, closed his eyes, then turned his body so it was mostly facing her. "The fuck, Rachel? I didn't come over to solve your damn riddle."
"Why did you come over?" she asked, looking at him. He rolled his eyes. She hated when he did that.
"I don't even know now," he mumbled, running his hand over his face.
They sat there quietly for a few minutes, just the movie playing. Rachel tried to pay attention, she did. She listened to Cary Grant, tried to focus on how handsome he was, how talented. But every time Noah took a breath, she was distracted. He sat back against her headboard again, closer to her this time, and his elbow bumped hers. She didn't want to jerk her arm away, since that would be far too obvious and he'd be angry. She couldn't decide if she wanted him to stay or go. She didn't want to do anything too suddenly to make him do either.
"I don't wanna go," he said without looking at her. His voice was quiet and more sincere than it usually was. She liked it like that. She wondered if it meant she could trust him a little more.
"You don't have to."
It was embarrassing, more than anything, knowing he knew how she felt about him. He'd told her months ago that he knew she wanted to be his girlfriend. To be honest, she didn't know if she still wanted that, really, but she knew he'd assume her feelings were still the same. When he kicked back the sheets she noticed the way he grinned a little, looking at her legs again. She rubbed them together self-consciously, but that only made his eyes travel up her body until they met hers again. He pulled the covers back up over both of them and slipped his arm around her shoulder before she could stop him. She wasn't sure she would have anyway.
"Get comfortable," he told her, speaking a little softer than he had to.
She bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling, even as she tried very hard not to read into what he'd said. Their whole problem was that it was far too easy for her to be comfortable around him. That was what got them here in the first place.
She did it anyway, let him trace circles on her shoulder with his thumb.
Chapter: 1/1
Warning: PG. Fictable prompt #35 - Candle
Character: Rachel, Rachel/Puck
Summary: He came in through her window often enough. Once every few weeks. Always late at night, always alone, sometimes drunk.
Word Count: 10,150
Disclaimer: Don't own.
He came in through her window often enough. Once every few weeks. Always late at night, always alone, sometimes drunk.
The first time was strange, she knew, and it scared her, the way he looked at her, swayed on his feet just a little. It was like he was only half there and the rest of him was somewhere else, somewhere far away that she couldn't even fathom and was too afraid to ask.
They'd just broken up. She'd told him it wasn't going to work out and they had a bit of a heart-to-heart, and she thought maybe they'd be okay until he told her that anything that lead her to believe they'd still even talk to one another was clearly a misread signal on her part. That was fine. She could get by without his friendship. She'd gotten by just fine without any friends at all.
But he'd climbed up the side of her garage, walked over the roof of the porch and tapped on her window glass and she nearly jumped out of her skin until she saw who it was. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to look like she was about to cry when he stood in front of her. He'd apologized ("Shit. Shit, Rachel. Sorry, baby.") and hugged her tightly, and she could smell the marijuana, the alcohol, but she couldn't tell him to leave.
She learned that night that Noah opened up a lot more when under the influence. He'd told her he didn't hate her, not by a long shot, and that he really was trying to make something work with her, even if she talked a lot about things he didn't care about. He told her he really did like her, but this thing with Quinn...
He left it at that, didn't give her any more details and she didn't want them. Yes, she would have rather that conversation take place somewhere other than her bedroom at 2:30 in the morning while his eyes were bloodshot and his reaction time was delayed, but she'd learned by that point to take what she could get. From him, and from everyone else.
Then there was another night, the night he told his mother about the baby, when he'd tapped on the glass with the bottle of whiskey he was drinking from, and she'd ushered him into the house and he'd talked to her for hours about how he didn't want to disappoint anyone, even if it was too late for that. He told her he didn't want to disappoint his baby, told her there was just something in his eye when he said 'his baby' out loud to someone other than Quinn or his mom. Rachel listened, didn't interrupt, didn't offer opinions until the very end, when she'd pried the bottle from his hands, tucked it under her pillow and somehow gotten him to forget about it. She'd touched his arm over the jacket he refused to take off, and told him he wasn't a disappointment to anyone, looked him in the eye so he'd see she meant every last word. When he leaned his forehead against her temple, his breath fanned out against her cheek as he spoke a single word ("Rachel.") before he got up and left the same way he came.
It was 9:30 on a school night and he slipped in through the window, completely sober and with a grin on his face. She'd told him he could have used the front door, but he shrugged and told her it was way more fun to sneak in. She'd rolled her eyes and said something under her breath that he still heard anyway and laughed at. ("No wonder everyone thinks you're a delinquent.") He'd pestered her until close to midnight when she told him she was going to bed and he had to leave. He gave her a look, his eyes lingering a little bit somewhere around her hips, and she didn't give him the chance to say whatever disgusting comment he was no doubt going to make. She pushed him to the window and he left without a thank you.
After that, she told him to at least let her know if he was on his way. She knew there was no stopping him, and at least she wouldn't be scared half to death when she heard his shoes scraping on the shingles.
How her fathers hadn't found out, she had no idea.
He came to her the night she was going to give herself to Jesse. She told him he was lucky she was alone, and he looked at her in her purple nightgown and matching cape and said than yeah, he was. He tugged at the ties near her neck and pulled the cape off her, tossed it in the corner of the room. ("The fuck is that thing, Berry? A sex cape? You some kind of super hero? Not hot.") He laughed when she told him the story of how her evening had gone (she didn't know why, they just trust one another somehow) even though she explicitly told him not to laugh. She asked him what on earth he was doing there, and he said Quinn was dancing around his room like some fucked up Lifetime teen-pregnancy movie, listening to Madonna and whatever, and he just couldn't take it anymore. They watched Braveheart on The History Channel, and she didn't realize she was holding his hand until the end of the film when he pulled it away.
After the baby was born, after losing Regionals and losing her mother and losing Jesse (and losing to Jesse), it was she who texted him and told him he could come over if he wanted to. It wasn't 10 minutes until she heard him walking outside her window, coming inside and kicking his shoes off just below the windowsill (a rule she imposed after the third time he showed up). She grabbed that bottle of Jack Daniels from where she'd hidden it under her bathroom sink. He told her he'd already had three beers, but he was thankful she'd kept that bottle. ("Fuckin' love you for this shit, Rach.") She had a tiny sip, hated the way it burned her throat, and handed the bottle back to him. She turned out the light and lit a candle so her fathers wouldn't think she was still awake.
And then the two of them sat back against the pillows on her bed and cried for a while. She said only two words before he had his arm around her. ("My mom...") He said only two words before she had the front of his shirt in her fist. ("My kid.")
The first big party of the summer, he showed up before midnight, claimed the thing was lame and said he'd rather punch himself in the throat than watch Santana drink herself into a blackout and dance on a dining room table, again. He asked Rachel why she didn't go, you know, since she was dating Finn, and she shrugged her shoulder and told him it wasn't exactly her pace, parties like that. He'd told the truth she couldn't. ("They'd eat you alive at that party. I mean, Finn'd stand up for you, but he's kind of an idiot, you know?") She'd argued him that Finn was most definitely not an idiot and he finally took it back, but did so rolling his eyes. They couldn't find any good movies on television, so she modeled her entire summer wardrobe for him, and when he asked to see bathing suits she told him he was crazy, but still managed to somehow step out of her bathroom in her two piece (her first ever) while he laid on her bed with far too satisfied a smirk on his face.
When she and Finn broke up right before the end of summer, Noah actually called her for maybe the second time ever, told her to stop crying because he was coming over. ("Seriously, Rachel. I see tears and I'm outta there.") Once he was in her room and had given her the half-eaten box of vegan chocolates ("I'd never had 'em before. Had to try.") she'd asked him what was the cause of his aversion to crying women. No jokes, no sarcasm, he'd told her that his mother cried every night before bed for a year after his dad left and he'd filled his lifetime quota of making women stop the tears. There was something so bittersweet about that it made her start crying again. She laughed and grabbed his hand when he tried to stand and leave, and he let her turn on Dirty Dancing and didn't even make fun of it at all.
A new girl transferred to McKinley and stole Rachel's lead male and threatened to steal her spot in glee club. Finn was enamoured, wouldn't believe anyone when they told him the girl was just Rachel in a different package. He and Holly started dating immediately, and Rachel held her head high during the days and hid in her bedroom at night, learning all kinds of stupid angry girl songs she didn't even particularly like.
She went to Noah's the night of the Homecoming dance. She had no idea how it was possible for a girl to be Homecoming Court when she'd only been at the school less than two months. Anyway, Rachel had stood there in her pretty white dress with Matt (the only boy who asked her, and she could have done much worse, she knew) standing behind her with his hand lingering near her waist, and watched Finn and Holly collect their crowns. She had Matt drop her off at home before the after party, thanked him for inviting her and told him he was a wonderful date.
Then she grabbed her keys and texted Noah, who hadn't gone to the dance at all, to tell him she was coming over. She stood outside his house looking up at his bedroom window for five minutes, trying to figure out how to scale a brick wall in three inch heels and a floor-length satin dress. He opened the door and told her to just come inside already. ("What the hell are you waiting for? You're creeping out the neighbours.") He'd already heard about the dance, and he still wouldn't give her a straight answer as to why he wouldn't go, though she knew his claim that Homecoming is for suckers was probably what he believed to be true. Once they were in his room, he smiled and looked at her and told her she looked beautiful, and she'd never heard him say the word before, not ever. So when she kissed him, she told herself it was just a thank you. And when he rest his hands on her cheeks and kissed her a little harder, she only kissed him back because he wasn't letting her pull away. When he lay her on his bed, half his weight on her and his hand skimming up her thigh, it was because he was clearly skilled and making her feel things she didn't know existed.
When he reached for the zipper of her dress, she bolted upright and stood so quickly he was left sitting stunned on his bed. She tried to explain herself. ("I've never...And I don't want...I'm not ready.") He'd tried to placate her, tell her it was alright. ("'S'okay. And you don't have to have sex to get naked.") She'd blushed ten shades of red, apologized for some reason, and left his room.
She didn't speak to him directly for a month unless she was forced to.
Finn kissed her after Sectionals, in the dressing room at the concert hall with his girlfriend standing 20 feet away on the other side of the door. He said words she couldn't trust and didn't want to hear. ("I miss you, Rachel. It's not the same singing with you but not singing with you.")
She'll never understand how Noah knew she needed him to come over. He didn't text or call or anything like that, and apparently it didn't matter that they hadn't spoken in ages and she hadn't looked at him all day. He slipped into her room and laid on top of her on her bed and kissed her like she'd wanted to be kissed since she knew what kissing was. He spoke every time she tried to catch her breath. ("You're so fucking hot." "He doesn't know what he's doing." "Is this okay? I can stop, Rach, I promise." "So pretty. Serious." "He just misses you, is all.")
She realized, as his hand pressed against her through her shorts before she could really react, that he'd spoken to Finn, or Finn had spoken to him. The only reason Noah had come over and kissed her like that was because someone had told him about something that had happened in her day. Not that she wanted it to happen at all, but she thought maybe Finn would have kept those words just between them and not told his best friend. She realized that no one would ever assume she and Noah were anything more than acquaintances. She was letting him kiss her, touch her, whisper things to her, and he scarcely said hello to her in the hallway at school if there were more than a handful of people around. She closed her legs, pushed at his chest and told him to leave.
He did.
She wanted so badly for someone to stay. For someone to fight for her.
She supposed she just wasn't the kind of girl boys fought for.
She learned Finn had given Holly a little white gold promise ring with three tiny diamonds and she'd never felt more like hitting someone in all her life. He could barely make eye contact with her. Noah hadn't spoken to her since that night in her room when things were about to go too far and she got upset and stopped them. But Noah caught her eye in the parking lot when she was tearing up in her car after glee rehearsal (why she still cared about Finn, she has no idea whatsoever; chalk it up to first love, she supposed). He texted her at 1:00 am, told her to open her window and leave a light on for him.
She didn't.
She'd come to realize what their late night visits meant now, and kissing him, pushing things further than she wanted to go, was not going to make her feel better. The sad thing was, she knew him well enough to know he would only kiss her because he didn't think he possessed any other skills to make her feel better. It wasn't true. She would have given anything to go back to the beginning of this whole thing, when they'd just talk, or not, and somehow that was enough. She wondered when it stopped being enough for him. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why she thought she wanted to be enough for him.
He tapped on her window for better than a minute before the sound stopped and he left. It was the first time since it all started that she didn't let him in.
That didn't mean she didn't want to.
The next time, it was during winter break and he was drunker than she'd ever seen him. It scared her. He hadn't called or texted. He stumbled through her window and dropped onto the floor, and her father called up the stairs and asked what the racket was. She said she bumped into her dresser and they seemed to buy that, even as she helped Noah stand up straight and forced him to look her in the eye. She had a bottle of water on her desk and handed it to him, telling him he had to drink or he'd be sick, even if she knew he'd probably be sick anyway. She asked him the reason behind his drinking. ("Just a Friday night.") She asked him why he'd come over.
"Miss you a little, 'kay? Fuck."
"You don't miss me," she insisted, shaking her head as they sat down at the edge of her bed. She knew, however, that he told only the truth when he was drinking, and if he tried to lie he had this little smirk that gave him away.
"Do so."
"You miss...what we were doing."
He laughed a little, laid back on her bed and closed his eyes. She didn't want to trust the smirk on his lips, but she still liked it more than she should have.
"Well, yeah," he mumbled. His hand reached out and ran along the top of the waistband of her flannel pajama pants.
She didn't move away as quickly as she should have. By the time she did, he was asleep with his hand a little too close to her behind. She said his name three times and he wouldn't wake up, and she was starting to get scared, so she got onto her knees next to him, slapped his face lightly until his eyes fluttered open. He grabbed her hand and held it in his. She insisted he had to leave, and he shook his head a little, told her his mom was home and that he didn't feel like leaving Rachel's bed. She most definitely should not have let her cheeks flare at that comment, even if he wasn't in any frame of mind to remember it later. He just pushed himself up against her pillows, pulled off his shirt and told her he was just going to sleep for a bit.
She woke up in the morning with his arm over her waist, his chest against her back, and an apology in her ear. She didn't want him to leave, but she couldn't tell him that and he did it anyway. She'd never slept in a bed with a boy before. She missed him as soon as he was gone.
She hated that they never spoke at school. She hated that when, their first day back to glee rehearsal, everyone was talking about their breaks and no one asked her what she'd done. She thought she might hug him then and there when he jutted his chin lazily in her direction and included her. ("Yo, what about you?") Really, the only thing she had to report that anyone would even care about in the slightest was the night he'd slept in her bed. She mentioned a weekend trip to see her Bubbie in New York, and everyone seemed to tune her out after that. Noah 'accidentally' bumped her leg with his heel as he tried to step over her to get to the other side of the room. He sent her a wink when she looked up at him.
She wondered if maybe that night was the best one of his break, too, before reminding herself that he probably couldn't even remember it all that well anyway.
He drove her home from school one day, came back after dark and handed her a slushie. She sipped it with a smile and didn't bother asking how on earth he climbed the side of the garage with it in his hand. He didn't let her finish the whole thing ("God, don't you know how to share? Gimme.") and she spent the rest of the evening thinking if she kissed him, he'd taste like grape and it wouldn't feel right. Okay, maybe she was just trying to keep herself from kissing him.
"You could use the door sometimes, you know," she said, watching as he walked out of her bathroom buckling his belt.
He shrugged his shoulder, smirked at her and slipped his shoes back on. "Boring."
She laughed, and he held his hand up for a high five. She locked the window behind him after he'd left.
She noticed his phone on her bedside table, changed into her pajamas and unlocked the window again, knowing he'd be back. He must have waited until she turned out the light, because he came in just minutes later, pressed a kiss to her shoulder through her tee shirt and ran his hand beneath the blankets to touch her hip over her pajama pants as he lay there next to her. She whispered his name in the dark, turned her head a little to try and look over her shoulder at him. He just nuzzled against her hair and dug his fingers into her hip a little bit. His lips found her skin again, the side of her neck and that place on her jaw that only he'd ever kissed enough to know how much she liked it.
"Don't," she whispered. He didn't stop, just pressed himself against her a little more, even with her comforter and sheets between them. And she liked it. "Noah."
"What?" he asked, and there was a cheeky quality to his voice that made her smile for half a second before she came to her senses.
She asked the worst question she could have asked and realized it five seconds too late.
"Did you leave your phone on purpose?"
He pulled away so quickly it was almost insulting (almost as insulting as her question) and it made her realize just how badly she didn't want him to stop.
"Are you kidding me?" he asked, standing from her bed and running a hand over his head as she sat up. "If I wanted to kiss you, I'd fuckin' kiss you. I don't need to trick you into it."
She was not going to let him see her cry. Apparently she was desperate and easy enough that he knew it wouldn't take much convincing. Her throat was tight and she was glad it was mostly dark because he definitely would have seen her eyes shining with tears had there been any light.
"Oh."
"You're ridiculous, Rach, you know that?"
He grabbed his phone off her table and clicked a button to illuminate the screen, and she laid down on her side with her back to him again. She thought maybe she was daring him somehow, like she was just inviting him to do it again if he wanted to.
"D'you think I climb through everyone's windows or something?" he asked.
"I don't want you coming here for that," she admitted, still with her back to him. She heard him scoff. "You're either my friend all the time, or not at all."
He laughed quietly, and she ignored the way he fussed with her blankets, like he was either going to tuck her in or yank the covers back all together.
"Take a look around, Rach," he said
He left again and she cried, trying to figure what he meant by what he said.
She didn't go to school the next day. She told her fathers she was sick and had them call the school. Only one person texted her all day, and the only surprise was that he would text her or talk to her at all. ('Hit me back and lemme know ur not dead.') She texted him back nothing but two words telling him she was fine. She curled back into her bed with her Barbra marathon and her cup of tea and studied Barbra's nuances in Funny Girl, because her talent was going to get her out of Lima and she'd never have to deal with any of this again.
And only once (for at least 10 minutes, but still) she thought that she'd miss Noah if she left and left him behind. Other than her fathers, he was really all she had.
She went to his house, knocked at the door and his little sister lead her to his room. She hadn't called or anything, and she knew her fathers' questioning looks when she left the house meant they wondered if she was ever sick at all. The way Noah barked out a, "What?" after she knocked indicated that maybe it wasn't such a fantastic idea to just show up unannounced.
He was laying on his bed with a textbook beside him that she was most definitely surprised to see. And there was a little smile on his face when he saw it was her. It disappeared immediately, but she still saw it. She pushed the door closed and, though she still couldn't tell you why, she walked right over to the bed and straddled his lap, resting her hands on his shoulders as he sat back against his headboard. Despite the fact that he was clearly surprised, his hands found her hips easily over her sweatpants, pushing up her grey McKinley sweatshirt just a bit.
"You're my friend," she stated, because somewhere between his front door and stepping into his bedroom, she realized it.
"Yeah."
She noticed his eyes dart down to her lips, his thumbs slide along the skin just above the waistband of her pants.
"My friend who I kiss."
She smiled when he laughed softly. "If you wanna." She giggled and nodded, realized that in some strange ("totally fucked up," he'd say later) way, their being friends would always include kissing. She leaned in, but he stopped her. "Wait."
She was completely confused until he reached over, pulled a lighter from the drawer in his bedside table, and lit the dark green candle next to the bed before switching off the lamp. Then he fitted his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer, kissed her a few times, gently, until they both got comfortable how they were sitting.
"It smells really good," she admitted, pulling back from him a little. It smelled like pine needles. She was thankful; it finally gave her an answer to her constant wondering where that scent on him came from.
He looked up at her, brushed her hair back behind her ear. "Damn. You look so hot right now."
She looked down at her attire, then back at him with doubt in her eyes. "Really?"
He just nodded and kissed her again. They kissed so long that Noah's mother came home and Rachel ended up having to sneak through the window, with pointers from him on how to do it safely, of course. ("Just...Fuck. Just don't fall or something.")
It happened enough nights that Hannah and Noah's mother got to know Rachel a little bit. She still wondered if they knew how many nights Noah showed up outside her window, climbed inside and pinned her back against her mattress. He surprised her, brought that candle from his room. Or so she thought. ("Stole it from Sheets 'N' Things for you. I know you liked it.") She wasn't sure how many hours of kissing it added up to, but eventually, one night when they were half-talking, half-making out, that candle burned down and the flame went out. (He stole her another one and brought it the next day. She didn't let on how sweet she actually thought it was.)
When she saw him in the hall with Santana in front of him, her back against the lockers, hands on his shoulders as she spoke into his ear, Rachel realized that maybe she and him were friends in the same way he was friends with all the other girls. The thought of him kissing other people, kissing Santana especially, turned her stomach in a way she wasn't prepared for. It was stupid, really, since he wasn't her boyfriend and he wasn't committed to her. Actually, maybe that was the stupidest thing about it all. She should have insisted he couldn't kiss her if he wasn't her boyfriend. Given that he would hardly admit they were even friends, it was probably completely absurd to even consider that he'd ever want to be her boyfriend. She realized very quickly that while she'd raised her standards to even allow him to kiss her, she hadn't raised them nearly high enough.
So she held her head up as she passed, made sure to send him a disappointed look when she knew he was paying attention.
He went to her house that night unannounced, sat on the roof outside her window, tapped on the glass. She left the blinds up, sat on her bed with her laptop on her knees and promptly ignored him until he went away.
At least that was the plan.
He sat there outside her window for an hour talking to her through the glass ("I'm not with her, Rach.") until she checked the weather and saw how far below freezing it was and finally unlocked the window. She didn't open it, though, left that part to him and went back to her laptop so she could close the Broadway message board she knew he'd make fun of her for being a member of. He sat down on her bed with his jacket still on, pulled the blanket from where it was always folded on that little bench at the end of her bed, and shot her a glare as he wrapped it around his shoulders.
"Well, no one told you to sit on my roof in the cold."
"Wouldn't have had to if you'd opened the damn window."
"Doesn't Santana have a ground floor bedroom? Probably easier to get through her window." She hated how bitter she sounded, hated how smug he looked, like his claims for the last hour of her jealousy were right and he'd known it all along. "Whatever."
She never said that word. He always did.
"I don't want to get into Santana's room," he told her, as seriously as he could when a shiver ran through him and his cheeks were as red as they were.
"That's not what it looked like today."
"You don't know what you saw," he said, and her eyes met his dangerously. Didn't he know by now not to tell her what she felt, what she saw? "Okay, fine. Fuck. Whatever. Santana's..."
"Maybe you should go," she said, because listening to him fumble his way through an explanation was really not something she wanted to do. Not at all. She watched him pull the blanket from his shoulders and drop it between them on the bed, then scrub a hand over his face.
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not fucking leaving," he insisted in a harsh whisper. She knew he was doing it because he wanted to yell, but didn't want her fathers to know he was there.
"Well, I don't want to talk to you any more," she said, a little quieter, a little more resigned, like she knew that if they had the conversation they were supposed to have, everything would change and she wouldn't like it. If they never had the conversation, she could pretend it wasn't necessary.
"Fine," he mumbled. He pushed her laptop closed (partly just to make her mad, she was sure), and she looked at him. "Wanna make out?"
She couldn't tell if he was serious or not. She glared, knowing that was an appropriate reaction regardless.
"I can't believe you even have the nerve to ask me that."
"It was a joke. God."
"Sorry if I don't find you very funny right now," she said, pulling back the covers and sliding into bed. She didn't miss the way his eyes seemed to darken and rake over her body. "Don't expect an invitation."
He stood, tipped his head back and groaned. "You're being such a bitch," he told her. "You're freaking out over nothing, and it sucks."
"Then leave!" she very nearly shouted. She turned onto her side, tucked her hands up under her cheek. He looked at her, then away quickly, and she knew that was one of the moments he'd usually compliment her. ("You look fuckin' cute right now. Don't tell anyone I said that.")
"I don't really want to."
Other than that one night when he was almost too drunk to function, he'd never, ever implied he wanted to stay. Even if they'd kissed for a while and it was clear he wanted more than she was willing to give, he'd never said he didn't want to leave.
"Then stay," she said quietly.
She'd never asked him to do that, either.
But he shrugged his jacket to the floor, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his jeans, pulled off his shirt and lay down facing her. He pulled the covers up to his chin, and she could tell he didn't know what to do with his hands if he was laying so close to her and she didn't want him to touch her. She just closed her eyes and let him figure it out on his own. Eventually she felt his arm above her head on the pillow. She tensed when she felt him start to toy with her hair.
"I like your hair a lot," he said quietly.
She took a small breath, knew she couldn't pretend to be sleeping. "Thank you," she whispered.
He took the fact that she was speaking to him to mean that he could put his hand on her waist, slide it up her back and pull himself closer to her. She didn't mind, really, liked being close to him.
"You're not my girlfriend," he said after a while, and she opened her eyes. She could barely make him out in the darkness, and it was probably a good thing, she realized, since whatever look was on his face would certainly break whatever piece of her heart he had. "I don't do that. Have a girlfriend."
"I never asked..."
"Whatever," he interrupted. "You want to be." She couldn't deny it, so she said nothing. "I fuck everything up. I'd just..." He sighed, frustrated with himself. "You're, like, the last person I want to fuck over."
"So don't," she said before she could stop herself. He pulled her closer, like he didn't want to have to tell her it wasn't that easy. "I don't understand why you can't trust yourself as much as I do."
"You don't know me like I do. I don't care about other people."
She pulled away, enough that his hand slipped from her hair. "You don't care about me?"
He groaned again. "I didn't say that."
"Sorry," she said, and she had no idea why. She had nothing to apologize for, except maybe liking him more than he liked her, wanting him more.
And the tears were inevitable, but she really hoped the conversation was over so she could turn to her other side so she could hide them a little better.
"It's fucked, but I don't...It's like there's this good guy in me and he's saving you from what a dick I really am," he said. The fact that he thought of himself in such deprecating terms made her angry and sad and the tears fell from her eyes. "I dunno. That sounds stupid."
She didn't know what to do other than shake her head. She didn't want to play dumb and pretend she didn't understand, because hearing him tell her any more harshly that he didn't want to be with her might have made her do something ridiculous, like push herself closer to him again and insist she'd take him however he was.
But really, she did know his reputation. Yes, she saw the best in him and trusted him more than probably anyone else, but the fact of the matter was that he'd been in one serious relationship and ended up getting another girl pregnant sometime during the course of it. If he didn't trust himself not to cheat, maybe she shouldn't either.
The part of her brain controlled by a 'love conquers all' attitude wondered why he wouldn't even give it a chance - give them, him, a chance - before writing the concept off completely.
But maybe it was true that without sex, she'd never be able to hold his attention. Especially if he was already standing close with Santana and giving the entire student body the impression they were 'on' again.
There was a part of her, a self-loathing, over-thinking part of her, that wondered if he'd done it on purpose to bring up the whole topic in the first place.
She didn't want to think about it anymore.
"Fine," she said quietly, and she let him kiss her once, his lips lingering against hers for a few moments, before turning so her back was to him. She knew he could tell she was crying, but he didn't say anything, just rest his hand on her hip like last time. She let him continue to play with her hair as she drifted off.
She pretended to be asleep in the morning when she felt him get up and heard him getting dressed. He kissed her temple in a sweeter way than she'd ever known him to do anything, then headed for the window and left without an apology or a goodbye.
She didn't know if either would have made the whole thing better or worse.
She saw him around school, Santana around him. He'd avoid her eyes and ignore her instructions in glee club, and Santana would say mean things and he'd smile a fake smile that only Rachel could ever tell was fake. He'd pretend to hate her and Santana would hate her, and she'd think, often actually, that those two were perfectly suited to one another. She heard him one day talking to Matt, and he'd said the same thing. Even if he was teasing, it still probably made sense. ("Two fucked up halves make one really fucked up whole.") Rachel didn't stick around to hear the inevitably dirty joke Noah made in response to that.
And Matt. Matt who was sweet and nice and treated her well when no one else would. He'd asked her to Homecoming and she'd gone, and he asked her to dinner, so she decided to go to that, too. Santana loudly claimed during glee club that no one would ever get into Rachel's granny panties and that her bed probably had barbed wire around it so no guys could get near it. Amid the laughter, Rachel made out Noah's voice ("Fuck, San, don't be a cunt.") and despite the language, she appreciated the sentiment. She looked his way, and maybe it was guilt on his face, or maybe she was just making that part up. The truth was, they both knew he was the only boy who'd ever spent any significant amount of time in her bed.
Matt took her out and bought her dinner in a restaurant he'd put actual thought into. ("I know you're vegan and stuff, so I Googled restaurants, and I hope this is okay.") He listened to her when she spoke and smiled politely at the waiter and left a generous tip and she thought that if she had any romantic feelings for him at all, he'd be a perfect boyfriend.
Noah happened to be around the following Monday when Quinn actually, nicely, asked how Rachel's date with Matt went. He walked into the room just after Rachel had explained that it was lovely, smiled at her and walked over to sit next to her, then put his arm around the back of her chair. The shocked looks from everyone and the angry look from Noah almost tempted her into explaining that she and Matt mutually agreed that they were just better as friends.
She got word, early in the spring, that Noah 'cheated' on Santana with Holly's older sister. Rachel thought she hid her disgust well, but probably not. And she bit her tongue and didn't let the lump in her throat grow into anything else as she watched, along with everyone else in the choir room, Santana yell things in at least two languages at Noah, who was trying to defend himself without a leg to stand on other than to point out that he was more than happy to turn his head regarding her relationship with Brittany. Holly looked uncomfortable, and Finn rubbed her back. Kurt, Rachel was almost positive, was filming it all from his place in the back row, and Quinn just sat next to Rachel with her hands clasped in her lap, looking downward.
He came to her window that night with a hand print on his cheek and a litany of curses not meant for her as he paced her bedroom floor. She wondered if he realized they hadn't been alone together since nearly two months earlier, that he hadn't set foot in her room, that the candle he'd stolen for her hadn't been lit since days before they ended whatever it was they had been. Eventually, she told him she didn't want to hear any more, and he looked at her like she was the meanest person ever, said something that would have been far too easy to turn into a call back to their first break up. ("Fuck, Rach, I just needed a friend, alright?")
"I hate her!" she'd said in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. "Is that what you want me to say? That I hate Santana? Because I do." She could tell he didn't know whether to be amused or angry. "She's mean, and rude, and she treats everyone like she's better than them. The only thing she's ever done for a person other than herself was force them to take a trip to the free clinic for antibiotics, and don't even deny that, because I know the story about Brett Lanning."
Her hating Santana had nothing to do with anything, and it was like they both realized it at the same time.
"Venting?" he asked, a smirk on his lips.
"I can't stand her, and she didn't deserve the downright deplorable thing you did to her, but I don't want to hear about her anymore."
"She wasn't my girlfriend. It wasn't cheating."
Rachel scoffed, shook her head and avoided his eyes. "You should go."
"Rachel."
"How many other girls have you used the same words with?" she asked, maybe just to let him know the real reason she was so upset.
His eyes flashed dangerously and she knew she'd taken it too far, but honestly, he was lumping she and Santana into the same category, and she really didn't appreciate it. All along, she'd thought that what she had with him was different, special, maybe. She thought maybe he really meant the things he said to her. Finding out he said them to other people didn't seem to be sitting well.
"That's shitty," he said seriously, pointing at her before dropping his hand again. She raised one brow (like he would) to challenge him. "You know what? Fine. Whatever. Believe whatever you want. I don't need this shit." He headed for the window, jammed his feet into his shoes. "Both of you are fuckin' nuts. I'm surprised you aren't best friends."
Slapping him had never crossed her mind. Doing so further proved his point that she and Santana shared at least some similarities. He grabbed her wrists after, when the welt on his face was getting even more colour, and stared at her as he gritted his teeth. She could faintly see the hinge of his jaw moving as he did it. She'd never been scared of him before, but when she tried to tug her wrists away and he wouldn't let go, there was a moment where she wondered what he'd do to her.
He kissed her. He pulled her closer to him by the wrists and kissed her, pressed his lips to hers a little harder than he normally would, didn't move them much at all, just let them sit there against her own until she had the good sense to move her head back. He followed her, though, and rest his forehead against hers.
He shook his head, pulled away, scrubbed a hand over his jaw and mumbled something she pretended not to hear. ("This is so fucked up.") He didn't look at her before he left, and she told herself she was not going to cry. But as she'd learned, telling yourself you're not going to do something doesn't actually stop you from doing it.
Matt asked her to prom. They were still friends, and he still had some kind of feelings for her, even if she couldn't for the life of her fathom why. They may have been better as friends, but apparently that didn't stop him from wanting more. The most startling thing of all was that she understood that so well it almost made her laugh.
Her dress was black, something completely different for her. It was floor length, and low cut, and cut down to the small of her back. And at the end of the night, at 1:30 in the morning when Matt dropped her off at home, she noticed Noah's truck parked down the street and knew, somehow, that he'd be coming through her window in a matter of minutes. She probably should have left it locked, but she couldn't. She didn't want to. Noah hadn't gone to prom and there was a part of her, a big part, that just wanted him to see her in her dress. To accomplish what, she wasn't sure.
She was taking things out of her clutch purse when he stepped into the room and said what she assumed he meant as a compliment. ("Holy shit.") She didn't bother to look up at him. He walked around the bed and stood behind her, let his hand run from the back of her neck all the way down her spine to where her dress started covering her at the small of her back. She swallowed thickly. She knew he could hear it, and she shut her eyes as his other hand curved around her hip in a way that felt far too good. She whispered his name and he said something they both knew she hated. ("Shut up.") His fingers dipped just beneath the fabric of her dress on her back, and every instinct in her body was telling her to push him away and force him to stop. She told herself he just wouldn't do it instead of admitting she really didn't want him to.
"You should have come," she said quietly before she could stop herself. She would have loved to see him wearing a tuxedo, danced with him, maybe.
"No."
"Why are you here?"
She felt him shrug his shoulder, shake his head a little bit and step closer to her, effectively trapping his hand between them. "Don't know." His hand slid around to rest on her stomach, then traveled upward until his thumb was between her breasts, sitting on the bare skin where her dress was cut low. "You look so good."
It seemed to hit her hard and all at once that he wasn't her boyfriend and didn't want to be, and there was no reason - other than just hormones - to let him touch her like that. If he didn't want her all the time, he couldn't have her at all. She shouldn't have even let him inside. She wasn't sure why she ever did in the first place, way back when all this started.
"Stop," she said, knowing he'd hate it but knowing she had to say it. He didn't move his hands. She turned in his arms and tried not to notice how sad he looked. "You can't just come here and say that, Noah."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, and she could tell he really didn't know, that he really needed an answer.
She could think of a lot of different things she wanted him to do. Speak with her outside the walls of her bedroom. Treat her like she knew she deserved. Smile at her. Kiss her. Make love to her. Love her.
She knew he wouldn't do any of those. Not one. And anyway, she'd never have the nerve to ask, for fear she'd be rejected.
She bowed her head, closed her eyes and ignored the way his hold on her seemed to tighten. "It was easier when you hated me," she said quietly.
"When was that?" he asked. It was his way of telling her he never hated her. She had a hard time believing him. She laughed softly, humourlessly, but didn't look at him. "C'mon, Rach. I just wanna..."
"What?" she asked, taking a step back from him. He didn't say anything, just reached for her hand and sighed when she pulled it away before he could take it. "This isn't fair. I want you to go."
"Baby."
She looked at him then, saw that his eyes were a little red and knew he'd been smoking. She thought she'd smelled weed earlier but got distracted by his hands and his breath on her ear and the things he was saying.
"I'm not your baby, remember?"
He put his hands on his hips, closed his eyes. If this were a few months ago, she would have insisted he stay until his high had worn off, that it wasn't safe for him to drive. Not that she didn't still care about his well being, she just knew that if he stayed, they'd talk (or not) and she'd end up letting him touch her more and she'd be right back where she started from.
"This is so stupid," he said louder than he should have. He threw his hands in the air and she flinched, then he lowered his tone. "I don't know what you want from me."
She wanted to tell him that was exactly the problem. She couldn't have said it better herself. He didn't know what she wanted, and she wondered if that meant he didn't know her.
He was practically her only friend, and he really didn't have a clue.
"Just go. Please." The last word came out as more of a whisper than she wanted it to, and the tear fell down her cheek before she could stop it.
"Fuck, Rachel," he said sympathetically, stepping towards her. "Don't cry. Why are you crying?" She shook her head because she couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't make her sound completely pathetic. "I'm sorry, okay?" She wiped her face, took a step backwards when he tried to touch her. Her back met the wall with a thud and he stood right in front of her there. "Fine."
She didn't want him to give in, not really. She knew he would if she pushed him hard enough.
"Can you go now?" she asked quietly. It was always unnerving lately when he stood that close.
"Yeah."
He leaned over, brushed his lips across her forehead, then left through the window like always; without looking back.
She was sitting on her bed one night early in the summer, her thumb hovering over the power button on the remote for her television. There was really nothing on at all and she didn't know why she even had the television on, other than it was a Saturday night and she wanted a distraction from the fact that Kurt was having a party and she had not been invited.
You'd think that after two years of that treatment, it would start to hurt a little less.
She switched on a movie, An Affair to Remember, and curled up in her nightgown on her bed with a bottle of vitamin water and some low fat, low sodium popcorn. Halfway through the movie, her phone buzzing on her bedside table startled her. No one ever called her anymore, except Quinn, oddly enough, once in a while.
It was a text from Noah, asking if he could come up. He'd never asked before, just told. Against her better judgment, or maybe because she missed him far more than she'd ever admit, she wrote him back and told him yes. That was all. One word. Yes.
Minutes later, he was stepping through her window. His jeans and white tee shirt were wrinkled and his hair seemed considerably longer than it did when she saw him last, three weeks ago on the last day of school.
He glanced to her bedside table where her candle was burning, smirked a little bit. She suddenly wished she'd thought to blow that out before he came in. And the way he was looking at her made her wish she'd changed, too. Her pale pink nightgown wasn't anything she ever thought he'd see.
"Hey," he said, hands in his pockets.
"Hi," she said quietly. She looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was drunk or under the influence of anything else. It didn't appear so.
"Can I hang out?" he asked. He still hadn't taken his shoes off, still hadn't moved from just inside the window.
There was something different, very different from the very beginning of it, than all the other nights. He was almost being polite, which he'd rarely been before. And he looked nervous, a little shy maybe. The last thing she wanted was to be sucked back into that whole thing again, the wanting him and him not wanting her back.
She nodded and he seemed to sigh a little, toeing off his shoes before sitting down on her bed, back against the pillows like she was. She slipped her legs beneath the sheets, partly to keep him from staring and partly to keep herself from constantly checking to see if he was staring.
"Why aren't you at the party?" she asked after he tossed the DVD case back onto the bed (she was sure there was an eye roll in there, too, but she chose to ignore it). He grabbed a handful of popcorn and stuffed some into his mouth, shrugged his shoulder.
"Lame," he answered nonchalantly. She was just looking at him, waiting for a proper answer. "Rather sit here with you."
She really tried not to smile too widely. It was nice to be chosen first for once.
"Really?"
He looked over at her and slouched down on her bed a little. "Just said so, didn't I?" She didn't want to remind him that he'd strung her along in the past. He probably wouldn't see it like that, even if she did. He must have noticed her staring, because he sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, how many times do I have to tell you I miss you before you start believing it?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, looking to her lap. "How many times do I have to ask you to leave before you realize you want to stay?"
His brow furrowed, like he was trying to figure out if that even made sense. Knowing him, he didn't think it did, and he'd just ignore it for what he really wanted to hear.
"I'm here, aren't I?"
She bowed her head again. "For now."
He sighed, closed his eyes, then turned his body so it was mostly facing her. "The fuck, Rachel? I didn't come over to solve your damn riddle."
"Why did you come over?" she asked, looking at him. He rolled his eyes. She hated when he did that.
"I don't even know now," he mumbled, running his hand over his face.
They sat there quietly for a few minutes, just the movie playing. Rachel tried to pay attention, she did. She listened to Cary Grant, tried to focus on how handsome he was, how talented. But every time Noah took a breath, she was distracted. He sat back against her headboard again, closer to her this time, and his elbow bumped hers. She didn't want to jerk her arm away, since that would be far too obvious and he'd be angry. She couldn't decide if she wanted him to stay or go. She didn't want to do anything too suddenly to make him do either.
"I don't wanna go," he said without looking at her. His voice was quiet and more sincere than it usually was. She liked it like that. She wondered if it meant she could trust him a little more.
"You don't have to."
It was embarrassing, more than anything, knowing he knew how she felt about him. He'd told her months ago that he knew she wanted to be his girlfriend. To be honest, she didn't know if she still wanted that, really, but she knew he'd assume her feelings were still the same. When he kicked back the sheets she noticed the way he grinned a little, looking at her legs again. She rubbed them together self-consciously, but that only made his eyes travel up her body until they met hers again. He pulled the covers back up over both of them and slipped his arm around her shoulder before she could stop him. She wasn't sure she would have anyway.
"Get comfortable," he told her, speaking a little softer than he had to.
She bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling, even as she tried very hard not to read into what he'd said. Their whole problem was that it was far too easy for her to be comfortable around him. That was what got them here in the first place.
She did it anyway, let him trace circles on her shoulder with his thumb.