you belong with me

chapter 16

Rachel had her phone in her hand, her right thumb hovering over the "call" button under Puckerman's contact. All she had to do call him and tell him the truth, easy as that. She laughed to herself, of course it wasn't that easy. It couldn't be. Puck wouldn't understand. He was positive that Finn would never change back into who he used to be and that was that.

She stopped thinking like that. Thinking negatively would never help her gain the courage to call him. Telling herself that she would be much happier with Finn would give her courage.

Rachel knew that even if she hadn't gotten together with Finn, things probably wouldn't have worked out with Puck anyway. Puck liked her, and she liked him, but maybe not the same kind of like. He was beyond sweet to her and she knew that he would have treated her like a Queen, but she couldn't make the transition from friends to more than with him. In the simplest terms, they just weren't meant to be. Of course Rachel felt bad for needing to let him down this way, but it was what she had to do. Knowing Puck, he wouldn't listen to her reason that it wouldn't work out anyway. He would only focus on the Finn part of things and assume that was the key reason. He would believe that she was leaving him because Finn was forcing her to or was tricking her into thinking he had changed.

She let out a long sigh, knowing that she needed to stop stalling and get the break up over and done with so she could officially move on. Her thumb was still hovered over the green call button, ready to make the call. She slowly pressed the button and placed the phone against her ear as it started to ring. The ringing continued to go on and on for what seemed like forever until it came to his voicemail. At first she felt a little relieved, but one she realized she still had to talk to him the weight on her shoulders seemed to get even heavier.

Rachel jumped in her seat as her cell phone began ringing, but she settled once she realized that it was only Santana calling her.

"Hey, Santana," Rachel said, walking into the kitchen so she could pour herself a glass of much needed water. "What's up?" She got her favorite glass and poured water from the pitcher in the fridge into the cup.

"What happened to you last night?" Santana's voice came through the phone. "Brittany and I looked for you everywhere after the dance was over but we couldn't find you anywhere. I figured you'd need a ride home after Puckerman got kicked out."

"Oh, I found another ride," Rachel said slowly, waiting for Santana to ask her who gave her a ride.

"Who with?" Santana asked.

"Finn," Rachel said quietly, knowing very well that Santana had the same view on Finn as Puck did.

"Finn? Oh, come on, Rachel. Really? Why were you even talking to him in the first place? Was he messing with you?" Santana said, sounding very defensive. "Can you even imagine what Puckerman would say if he knew you left the dance with Finn?"

"No, Santana, he was not messing with me, and I know that Puck would be upset about this," Rachel replied. "I know that you and Puck have your reason to be upset with him, I know that, but I don't. I never really got to speak to him again since I had left, and we had some things that we needed to talk about and clear up."

"Fine," Santana said after a long pause. "But I think you should call Puck up. You two need to talk about what happened last night. The not Finn related parts."

"I already tried calling him up earlier, but I just got his voicemail," Rachel said. She drank a lot of her water to calm her heightened nerves again.

"That's weird. Puck's basically attached to his phone," Santana said. "Why don't you try calling him again? Maybe he was still sleeping or something like that. It's still a little early in Puck time."