If things are bad, Shelby doesn't cry. She plans elaborate routines for Vocal Adrenaline, she creates new costumes while doing vocal warm ups until her heart stops hurting and she falls asleep, her mind mercifully blank.

When she leaves Rachel at the piano, (brown eyes so like her own)! her anguish burns, but she can't even remember the lyrics to "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina." She stands in the parking lot, a lone spotlight (streetlight, she reminds herself), highlighting her dark brown curls. Shelby tries, but her mind is swimming with images of Rachel- wailing as a baby, one chubby arm outstretched, walking dreamlike to stage and announcing who she was, and just now, the defeated look on her face as Shelby left her.

Again.

There are no vocal runs in the world that could heal this kind of hurt, she doesn't have the mental capacity to plan any numbers, and her sewing machine is at home.

Shelby needs a drink. She is not a woman who drinks a lot- because she is a woman who likes to be under control, and drinking is the fastest way she loses that control.

Today, Shelby doesn't care, and tosses her long hair over her shoulder and fumbles for her keys, gunning the ignition once she finds them.

She stops at the first bar she sees- in Lima, the bars are interchangeable- there are 9-5 guys straight from the job, a few couples, and always a lonely woman nursing a Cosmo, hoping that tonight will be there night that the stars will align and she will be plucked out this sleepy town.

Shelby heads to a table in the back, hidden. She orders a vodka tonic-no ice and gulps it down before the waitress leaves, and morosely orders another. And another. And another.

After her sixth drink, the bar blurs, dim lights mixing together, the patrons becoming indistinguishable.

"She's not hard like you," Will Schuester's voice rings in her ears. Shelby was too taken aback by his comment to react. Hard? Was she? After a life of disappointments and letdowns, her defenses have been built so well that people don't even recognize that she has feelings, that she hurts. Shelby has become an Impressionist painting. Perfection from afar. Accolades for as long as she can remember, trophies lining her walls, her stars smiling at her from every angle.

But up close, she is blur. A splotch of paint.

A mess.

Loneliness is something she is accustomed to. Her bed has been empty for more nights than she can recall, (she can make out with gay directors all she wants, but she can't turn them). Its the longing she can't handle. Shelby wants Rachel to be hers. She wants to hold Rachel when boys break her heart (and they will), to help her become the star that Shelby never was, to practice singing with her, and love her. Shelby wants to love her more than anything.

Her cell phone lights up, and she can just make out the name St. James before she picks up.

" 'Lo?" Shelby murmurs, then coughs and tries to regain her composure when she realizes how slurred her voice is.

"Shelby?" Jesse's voice sounds like its coming across a great distance. "What happened? Rachel is a mess- something about you and Gaga? Vocal perfection?"

Shelby laughs, and her voice cracks a little bit. "She said that? Almost perfect. She's sharp in some places, flat in others. But she's good, because she's mine. She's good because she's mine Jesse, do you hear me?" The end of her sentence comes out a slurred mess, and Jesse takes a deep breath.

"Where are you? Tell me where you are Shelby."

"I'm in a bar. Barrrr," She says, rolling her "Rs" deep in her throat, laughing at the sound.

"What bar? Can you drive?" He sounds worried, and Shelby feels like shit. No, worse than shit. She feels like a failure.

"No drive. Keys. Confusing." She tries to keep her sentences short, but her brain feels like its short circuiting.

"Shelby." Jesse is speaking firmly, and she tries to concentrate on his voice. "Where are you?"

"Jimmy's." Shelby whispers, focusing on the sign outside, it's lights blinking despondently.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes, okay?" She nods. "Don't leave."

"Mmmmk." Shelby mutters. She hangs up and orders another drink.