525,600 minutes

chapter 17

"I can't believe we have the whole place to ourselves. How did Mr Schue pull this off?" Artie yelled, whoever had found the stereo had pumped the volume.

"I think I know." Rachel nodded to their teacher who was standing next to a pint sized blonde. "I always thought she had a thing for him."

"April Rhodes. Hall of fame cougar." Puck said appreciatively.

"Keep it in your pants." Mike warned. "Quinn will kill you, if she starts talking to you again."

"Maybe you should save the advice until your girlfriend is talking to you!" Puck shot back.

"Whoa, hey! We just won sectionals!" Matt cheered trying to keep the two from punching each other. "You're not buying this are you?"

"Both of you just chill out, we're meant to be celebrating not rehashing your sad CW love lives." Indi paused. "That was meant to sound comforting."

"It didn't." Brittany and Artie said at the same time. "JINX!"

"Oh so you guys are finally admitting that Manhands here is a troll?" Santana giggled. "She is a jinx, how else do you explain that nose?"

Rachel couldn't even respond, she had mistakenly thought that maybe for one night they could all put aside their differences and just celebrate their achievement. The tears sprung to her eyes quickly taking her by surprise; after putting all of her emotions into their performance she was drained and not in the right state of mind to deal with this. It was like the last year of building up her self-esteem and learning to stand up for herself had been all for naught.

"Oh my god. Is she actually crying?" Quinn asked in disgust. "Way to bring down the party Debbie Downer."

"You two are the ones who are bringing this party down." Puck snapped making a motion for the two to keep walking which they did after rolling their eyes.

Rachel wiped at her face, thankfully she had opted for waterproof mascara for the competition. She wasn't about to let these two break her down. She took a deep breath to steel her for what she was about to do, striding purposefully she stopped just in front of the two girls.

"What do you want?"

"To do this." She replied evenly, pulling her hands from behind her back she threw the contents of the two cups at the girls drenching them, having not been prepared and not used to a slushee facial both howled in pain from the substance getting in their eyes.

"You bitch!"

"It's called karma. What goes around comes around and we all know how much you like to go around." Mercedes told Santana coming to stand behind Rachel. "She offered a clean slate and you threw it back at her, looks like you got yours."

"You'll pay for this." Quinn growled. "Anything you have or want I can take it from you easily. Finn's only sniffing around you because he can't be with me. You will always be the consolation prize."

"Right, so that's why he kissed her when he was with you?" Artie spoke up. "Twice."

"Finn doesn't have the guts to have done that to me." Quinn said confidently.

"Nice to know what you really think." The boy in question stated slipping in behind Rachel and grabbing her hand. "I did kiss Rachel twice when we were together and if you hadn't told me you were pregnant I would have broken up with you."

"You asshole!" Quinn reached out to slap him, her hand never made it to his cheek, her wrist was held in a vice grip by Rachel.

"Don't. I have put up with you because I mistakenly thought that perhaps there was something redeemable in you. But I was so wrong. You are rotten down to your core. I actually feel sorry for you with your delusions of grandeur." Rachel paused releasing the blonde's wrist. "Listen up, your reputation from high school doesn't matter. I'm kind of sick of having to keep repeating that."