I'm sorry. I've got to start with that. I'm sorry it took so long for this. I'm and evil, evil person. I'd love to list my excuses, but none of them are sufficient. I'm just a loser and I apologize.

Moving forward, this is the last chapter. Rachel's POV. I've got to admit, I'm a little sad. It's been fun. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with it!

PLEASE REVIEW, GUYS! Thanks! :D

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Method acting.

Any actor with an once of talent knows how to do it—even if they haven't been taught.

For those less-cultured readers I will explain the concept.

Method acting is a fundamental tool that all actors use at one point or another. It is the art of applying your own real-life experiences and emotions to the situation that you are trying to project. Though some find this technique difficult, seasoned actors like myself find it easy—a natural approach to theatre.

Just to give you an example, pretend that you are playing a character whose pet just ran away. If you yourself have ever had a pet run away or experienced a similar loss, you would recall the emotions you felt at that point in time and recreate them.

Now there is a very good chance you're thinking 'what does this have to do with anything?'. Be patient. I'll get there.

While this technique is really rather rudimentary, I believe that all good actors should practice it daily and continue to accumulate emotions for their repertoire. From an early age I have trained myself to observe my surroundings. I have taken every emotion and reaction that I have ever experienced and learned and grown as an actor. I still do.

Just this year my catalog of resources has grown significantly. I'll bet you can see where this is going now. See? I told you.

Let's just list a few, shall we? Love, anger, hate, pain, sorrow, heartbreak, betrayal, hurt, sadness, happiness—I'm sure that you can add a few yourself.

Now you're probably thinking: 'Hasn't she ever felt these before this year?'. Well of course I have. But anyone who has ever been a teenager can tell you that it's completely different. It's one thing to experience heartbreak or pain when you're ten. Experiencing it at fifteen? Not fun.

It's the difference between having someone steal your crayons and having someone steal your heart. It's the difference between being pricked by a needle and being stabbed by a knife.

Okay. That might be a little dramatic. Seriously, though, what else would you expect from me?

But just think about it. My words have truth. Moving on…

There are just so many feelings that I thought I knew but were really foreign to me.

For example…

Finn crushed me. Yes, sure he's a great guy and everything's worked out well, but he crushed me. Imagine being totally head over heels for a guy, having him kiss you (note the HIM kiss YOU part) then having him run away. He gets his girlfriend pregnant. Well, not really, it was his best friend, but you think he did. Then you finally get to be with him for like five seconds and he dumps you because you're not cool enough.

Wow.

When I say that all in a row I feel like I'm on Degrassi or something.

But you get the point, right? He crushed me. Sure he made up for it, but he still can't change it.

And then you have everyone else in Glee—no, wait, everyone at school. I'm the school punching bag. It's amazing how nice you can be to everyone just to have them shove it back in your face. The fellow glee-clubbers are the worst, though. Just when I thought that we could be friends something would happen and everything would change. They'd go back to hating me. Yes, sometimes it was my fault, but if they were really my friends it wouldn't matter, right?

My mom. Enough said.

Ha, like that was ever true for me. Everything with my mom was like a dream that never ended. Maybe a nightmare… Meeting my mom was the kind of thing I fantasized about. I never thought that I would meet her, and I definitely didn't think that she would try to find me, and then leave me. For no reason, might I add. It's the kind of disappointment and heartbreak that's just indescribable. Abandonment. It's the only word to describe it.

Jesse. Oh, Jesse. Last but not least. You'd probably think that everything with my mom would hurt most, but you'd be wrong. With my mom it was too good to be true. I didn't expect us to be best friends forever. Sure I didn't expect her to cut all ties, but that's another story. With Jesse I thought it was forever. I know that it sounds stupid, but since when did the thought process of a teenage girl sound smart?

He was the perfect boyfriend. Well, now that I know he was just playing me he doesn't seem so perfect, but at the time he did. He told me that he just wanted to make me happy and make my dreams come true. He believed in me—at least he said he did.

What some of you may not realize is that when he broke up with me it was totally out of the blue. We didn't have a fight or anything. I just went to school one day and there he was, standing on the stage with Vocal Adrenaline. Ugh, it was so infuriating and heartbreaking at the same time!

Then comes the worst part: He egged me. He. Egged. Me. Seriously? Why did he have to do that? Yes I understand the whole rivalry thing, but still. That's about as horrible as you can get. Well, maybe not. It still hurt though. When he said, "I loved you" I just wanted to punch him in the face. And I'm a pacifist. In a manner of speaking. He egged me and then he left me. It's amazing how many times someone has left me this year.

Now we get to the good emotions. My fellow glee clubbers may not be the greatest friends all the time, but they rallied around me then. I had five guys ready to rearrange Jesse's face for me. Three of them were jocks! The same guys who were throwing slushies in my face at the beginning of the year were ready to go defend me. The girls weren't violent about it, but they were nice-ish to me. Santana went a whole day without giving me a new degrading nickname. Big step. For the first time I felt like I had friends. I can't even begin to try and explain how amazing that felt.

Maybe my heartbreak is juvenile to what others have gone through. Maybe my happiness and friendship is just passing. In the end, I don't really care. I know that I've talked mainly about the bad, but think of it this way, think of the difference between a dark corner in a bright room and a ray of light in a dark one. Which is more powerful? A single ray of light can illuminate the darkest of spaces. As long as I hold on to that nothing else will matter.

This all, dare I say it, goes beyond method acting. It's not about the future for once. It's about the present. It's about what matters. Friendship and pain and happiness and heartbreak—it's about making today matter. My whole life I've been so concerned about being big on Broadway it's never occurred to me to try and make friends. But now that I've had a taste of it I don't want it to end. I want to like high school, not dread it. There will be plenty of the bad stuff, but as long as there's some good it's worth it, right?

I never expected the possibility of making friends. I never expected to fall in love. I never expected to have my heart broken up and sewn back together so many times. I never expected to think that anything was more important than my future.

If I could use one word to describe all of this, can you guess what it would be?

THE END

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Wow. That got sort of preachy and inspirational, didn't it? Sorry if it was too much. I was trying to be a bit overdramatic, seeing as I was being Rachel. I'm also sorry if this is OOC. I'm still working to master my Berry.

I'd like to thank libertykid for the prompt. It was a good one! I'd also like to thank EVERYONE who reviewed. You guys are awesome. Really thanks to anyone who stuck with this story all the way through. I'm sorry I'm such a suckish updater.

I'd really appreciate any closing thoughts you have to offer. PLEASE REVIEW! Thanks so much! :D