Coming of Age in Lima: Chapter 7
Chapter 7. In which Fiona does homework, Mr Schue skips class, and hospital visits are made.
I was cleaning out my school bag Sunday evening when I found the note. Mr Schue would write reminders in our work books each week for stuff that we needed to get better at, or assignments that we should start on, or stuff that was overdue. There was something written in Spanish, and then “by Monday”, and then a sad face of epic proportions. I madly scrambled back through my workbook. Crap, of course.
What I did last summer.
So there went my evening, spent in a mad scramble. I called Kurt but, of course, he’d already handed things up. “I’ll help you tomorrow morning,” he said. “I kinda need to talk to my dad about something.”
I was up all night trying to put it together. My workbook was no help, since I kind of suck at taking notes, and the internet is always less help than it could be. I considered writing out the lyrics to some Beach Boys songs in Spanish. Points for effort, right?
“You get no sympathy from me,” mom said in the morning.
“I just forgot, I swear.”
“Uh huh,” she checked her watch. “I’m late. Come to the hospital after school, and we’ll go out for dinner to celebrate your miraculous save on this.”
I grunted a reply, trying to write in my book and spoon cereal into my mouth at the same time. I gave up, and tried for calling Kurt and eating cereal instead.
“You’re in luck, I still have my book from last year.”
“Thanks, Kurt. You really are the Head Bitch. Hey, how did the talk with your dad go?”
“Good,” he said. “I think. Look, I have to go. I can’t coordinate an outfit properly unless I give it my complete concentration.”
*
I had my head bent over one of the outside tables, trying to piece together my few sentences with Kurt’s notes that didn’t have anywhere near enough English in them, when I got a text from my mom.
**Looks like you have an extra day**
I had no idea what that meant, right up until Spanish, which was being taught by Miss Pillsbury. “Now, Mr Schuester is off sick today, but he tells me that you’re about halfway through ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’?”
“Don’t worry,” she said to me after the lesson. “I’m sure there will still be a Glee practice tomorrow. And, hey, that’s cool, right?”
Note to self, look less sad around Miss Pillsbury.
But the badness of the situation didn’t hit me until lunch time. Mr Schue was off sick, I get a note from my mom, my mom works at a hospital. To be honest, it may have taken people to restrain me.
“It’s probably fine,” Mercedes said. “People go to the hospital for all kinds of things. Don’t mean it’s life-threatening.”
“Right,” Rachel said. “Maybe he’s broken a bone.”
“Or maybe,” Mercedes said, glaring at Rachel, “it’s nothing at all.”
Artie looked back and forth between us. “She said there’d still be Glee tomorrow, right? So it can’t be anything really bad.”
Rachel looked at me again. “Can’t you just ask your mom?”
“No,” I said glumly. “There’s privacy issues and stuff.”
“Look,” Kurt said, holding a hand up to silence us. “I think the real question here is why aren’t you wearing any of the fabulous things you got yesterday?”
I looked down at my polo and the jeans with a little hole by the knee. “Because we’re at school?” I tried.
Mercedes gave me a long look. “That ain’t gonna fly with us,” she said. “Even my boy Artie here makes an effort.”
“Yea- hey.”
*
I went straight to the hospital after school. Everyone there knows me - with my build, I’m pretty unforgettable - so they’re used to me wandering around and playing with the bandages. Here’s a tip for if you ever want to just wander around a hospital: when you go into a wing, just memorise the name of two departments. If you get caught, just ask for the one you’re not standing next to, and nod when they give you instructions. It’s not like anyone’s going to follow you - nurses have got shit to do, you know?
It took a while, working through emergency and the outpatients block first, but eventually I stumbled upon him sitting on a long bench outside a small room in the ICU.
“Hey,” I said, walking over to him. “You weren’t in school today.”
He looked up at me, and tried to give me a smile. “Don’t tell anyone I was skipping,” he said, and I smiled weakly.
“Are you okay?” I asked. There were no obvious wounds, but he looked really tired.
“I’m fine. It’s just my... friend. He did something stupid last night, and I’m waiting for things to clear up before I drag him home.”
I nodded. “Hospitals suck if you’re the visitor,” I said.
He gave me a look that was almost amused. “I don’t think they’re much better for the patient,” he said.
“Are you kidding? You get fed, and someone else has to clean up after you, and the DVD collection is huge.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, looking back at the floor beneath his feet.
“Do you want me to go?” I asked. “I mean, I’m here because my mom works here, and I saw you. But I could leave you alone, if you want. But if you need anything, like coffee or a pillow, or to sing it out...”
This time he really did smile, even if it was only brief. “I think if I raise my voice one more time, I’m going to get thrown out,” he said. There was a pause as he tugged at his fingertips. “But some company wouldn’t go astray.”
“Sure,” I said. “Here, you can help me with my homework.”
“Oh really?” he said, turning to watch me as I dug through my bag.
“Yeah. There’s this big essay thing, that I kind of forgot about, and it’s kicking my ass.”
“But surely you’re the kind of dedicated student that hands everything on time,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” I lied. “Totally. It’s just the one thing...”
And so we spent a good half an hour bent over my Spanish essay, him determined not to help me but kind of helping anyway, and me split between paying attention to the little hints and prompts he gave me, and just plain paying attention to him. He had the shortest layer of stubble on his cheeks, and I wondered what it would feel like under my fingers. Would it be sharp, or like a soft fuzz, or more like the friction of fine sandpaper? His hair was messed up, and I wondered if he’d woken up like that, or had spent the day tugging at his hair the way he does when he’s at a loss.
He smelled nice. Like him, but more, if that makes sense. I don’t know. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to perv on your teacher while you’re keeping him company in the ICU, but hell, I did it anyway. Sometimes he’d go silent, and lean back against the wall and I’d wonder what would have happened if he had been hurt, if he was the one in the hospital bed. Would they let me feed him jello? What if he was all drugged up? What would I be dumb enough to say to him if I thought he wouldn’t remember?
I was pulled from my thoughts by the snack trolley being pushed past. Cathy, who works in the cafeteria whispered a “Psst” at me, and flipped me a muffin. I nodded at Mr Schue, and she flipped me a second one. I nudged him with my elbow, and pressed it into his limp hands. He was slow to look up, like he’d been thinking about something and was a million miles away. But he gave Cathy a smile that showed his perfect, white teeth, and said thank you. When he looked away she winked at me, and I tried not to look too embarrassed.
“See?” I said, biting into my muffin. “Hospitals are cool. How often do you get free muffins?”
“This is indeed my first free muffin for the week,” he agreed, tearing off little pieces of muffin and pressing them past his own lips with the pad of his thumb. For a moment I imagined they were my fingers feeding him sweet cake and chocolate chip, and I had to turn away quickly and think of something else.
We ate in silence, each of us thinking our own things, until the light tap of Miss Pillsbury’s heels sounded down the corridor.
“Hi, Will,” she said, smiling at him. I don’t know if she looked worried. I mean, she always looks worried. What I mean is, I don’t know if she looked more worried than usual.
“Hey, Emma,” he replied.
Then she looked at me, and I suddenly realised how weird it probably was to be hanging out with a teacher at a hospital. “Hey,” I said awkwardly.
“Fiona was kindly keeping me company,” Mr Schue explained.
Miss Pillsbury smiled at me. “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “Do you mind if I take over?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to stand up and pack away my things and not drop what little was left of my muffin all at the same time. “Thanks for the help,” I said to Mr Schue. “And I hope your friend gets well soon.”
He smiled without really looking at me, and didn’t say anything.
I walked around the nearest corner, and then into the nearest room. I cut through that one into another, smaller room, which had a second door that led out into the corridor right where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were sitting. I snuck over to that door, and sat down beside it, my ear near the little vent at the bottom. That’s what I loved about the hospital, it was like a maze.
“Will...”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Well, I think maybe you need to hear it anyway.”
There was a long pause, and he sighed.
“Will, you can’t go on like this. This isn’t healthy.”
“It’s not like this happens all the time.”
There was another long pause.
“Do you know how hard it is for me, for your friends to hear you defending him, what he did like that?”
“Emma-”
“What would you say to one of your students if they were in a relationship like this, Will?”
“But I’m not a student, Emma. And relationships are about more than just... just holding hands in a movie theatre. It’s about caring about someone, supporting them.”
Another pause.
“Do you think maybe a relationship should also be about being happy? Or that maybe the people involved should treat each other like equals? Will, this isn’t a good relationship.”
“Look. I know that we have some... problems. But we can work them out. And things haven’t been great lately, but I’ve been busy and I just need to-”
“Will, stop. Please just stop. I just... I don’t know if you can hear yourself. I hope that maybe you can’t, that you don’t realise how you sound. Because if you did. If someone as sweet, and kind, and-and as great as you are, if you knew that you were being like this, making excuses for that man...”
“Emma-”
“No, Will. Bryan is a bad person. He is bad to you, and he is bad for you, and you just... you need to see that.”
Another pause, filled with Miss Pillsbury’s shaking breath, and total silence from Mr Schue. And then she added, in a very small voice.
“There are worse things than being alone, Will.”
I held my breath through the next pause, keeping time with my heart beating in my ears.
“Come on,” he said eventually. “Let’s go get some coffee.”
I could hear them standing up, some joints cracking and I could imagine Mr Schue stretching his arms up over his head, making his shoulders pop.
“You know,” she said as they walked down the hall, “hospitals really aren’t that clean, despite what you may think. Do you think they’ll let me use my own cup?”
I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore. And then waited even longer still, to make sure they weren’t in sight. Then I slo-o-o-owly opened the door back into the hallway, and stuck my head out. No one around. Perfect. I dropped my bag on the bench, and peered into the room opposite. A guy with blond hair was unconscious in the bed, some tubes poking into him, but no face-raping oxygen mask, so I figured he was probably okay. I figured he was probably also the guy who sucked face with Mr Schue outside of the bar. I peered at his charts. So, this was Bryan.
Bryan Ryan.
Despite it being a major violation of privacy, and a little illegal, I totally riffled through his papers. I mean, looking at charts and papers and stuff doesn’t actually tell you much - it’s all short hand, and have you seen how medical people write? Whenever I get told off for bad handwriting I just want to point my teachers to the nearest hospital. But I do know some of the short hand, because mom had to learn it a few years ago when she started working here, and we made some flash cards and everything. We joke about it a lot, turning everything we can into shorthand, even if it takes longer to figure out what we’re talking about than saying it normally. Anyway, I guess this is getting off topic. The short of it was that I saw the notes after diagnosis, and my mouth literally fell open.
Mr Schue’s boyfriend was in for a heroin overdose.
Mr Schue was dating a crack-head.
*
“You took your time this afternoon,” mom said over hamburgers at the diner three blocks away. That was mom-talk for ‘dear, you are so busted’.
“Um,” I said. “I was finishing my essay,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie. I mean, I lie to my mom less than most sixteen year olds do, so this one practically didn’t even count, right?
Mom flicked her eyes up at me, and stared at me for a long moment. Huh, I guess it did.
“So,” I said, trying to be all casual. “What would you do if someone you knew, someone really great, was in a bad relationship?”
Mom dragged a chip through the epic pool of tomato sauce on my plate. “I guess that depends on the person and the relationship. I mean, if one of your school friends were messing with a bad crowd, that would be one thing.” She paused to bite the end off her chip. “But if this person were an adult, and was your teacher, and was messing around with the kind of bad that gets the whole town talking,” she looked up at me, very serious, “I’d stay out of it.”
I tried for a casual ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ laugh, and failed completely. “Right,” I said. “Officially staying out of it.”
*
And that’s what I intended to do. I mean, it really wasn’t any of my business. And the reality was that he was my teacher and I was just one of his dumb students, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have people looking out for him. I mean, he’s BFF with the school counsellor, and she’d be way better at dealing with this than me. And he probably wouldn’t want me poking my nose in, what with me being a student and all. Even if he had wanted me to keep him company.
But still. I made a vow to keep my nose out of his personal life, and to never breathe a word of what I’d learned at the hospital to anyone.
Which lasted right up until lunch the next day.
*
“So,” Artie said when I sat down. “I guess Mr Schue’s okay.” He nodded over to where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were walking down the hall on the other side of the long glass windows looking out of the cafeteria.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s fine.”
I could feel them all exchanging looks as I dug into whatever weird kind of pasta was being served that day. It was just the five of us, since Quinn had been sitting with the other Cheerios since the shopping trip on the weekend. I guess she’d overdosed on Glee.
Mercedes fixed me with a look. “So, was he actually in hospital?”
I struggled with that one for a little bit. “He was in the hospital, but not like, in in.”
“So he wasn’t a patient?”
“No,” I said. “He was visiting someone.” I could have kicked myself when I said that, because I saw Kurt’s eyes go wide, and judging from the way everyone else exchanged looks, he’d told everyone about what we’d seen outside the bar.
The conversation was cut off by the arrival of Rachel, who had a plate of salad and some pasta without sauce on it. “It is disgusting and discriminatory that the cafeteria still doesn’t cater for vegans,” she said as she sat down. She then rummaged through her bag, and pulled out her own bottle of pasta sauce. “It’s a good thing I have the lunch menu memorised, or else I wouldn’t eat at all.”
“That’d be a tragedy,” Mercedes agreed. “Since it’s the only time you’re quiet.”
Rachel sniffed, ignoring Tina’s giggle. “It’s not my fault I’m naturally verbose. I was raised to never be afraid to express myself.” She paused to take a big bite out of a leaf of lettuce. “So what were you talking about?”
There was an awkward silence. I can’t speak for everybody else, but I knew that I had my doubts about telling Rachel about the Mr Schue situation. I mean, she was definitely the kind of person who wouldn’t be able to stay out of it, and Mr Schue was spending too much time away from Glee as it was. I didn’t want anyone inside the club pushing him away as well.
Thankfully, for once, it wasn’t me who cracked under Rachel’s stare.
“M-m-mr Schue has a b-boyfriend.”
“I know,” Rachel said, pausing to delicately fork some pasta noodles into her mouth. “What? My two gay dads are the secretary and treasurer of the Lima PFLAG association, and the GLBT alliance.”
I stared at Rachel, wondering how anyone could pronounce so many capital letters so clearly. “I have no idea what those are,” I said.
“Anyway, Mr Schue was involved for a few years, but apparently some things got messy. They don’t talk about it, but I get the impression that it was quite scandalous. His boyfriend runs the car dealership over in West Lima.”
“The one with the Hummers?” Kurt asked. “My dad nearly bought a car from there, but I talked him out of it. With the money we saved on fuel, I was able to order three jackets from Europe.”
“I figure he must be an okay guy,” Rachel continued, ignoring Kurt completely. “I mean, it’s Mr Schue. It’s not like he’s going to be getting involved with some West Lima crack-head.”
Everyone turned and looked at me, and I felt my face going red. “I don’t know if he actually lives in West Lima.”
And then they really started on me.
Next Chapter
Back to Master Post
I was cleaning out my school bag Sunday evening when I found the note. Mr Schue would write reminders in our work books each week for stuff that we needed to get better at, or assignments that we should start on, or stuff that was overdue. There was something written in Spanish, and then “by Monday”, and then a sad face of epic proportions. I madly scrambled back through my workbook. Crap, of course.
What I did last summer.
So there went my evening, spent in a mad scramble. I called Kurt but, of course, he’d already handed things up. “I’ll help you tomorrow morning,” he said. “I kinda need to talk to my dad about something.”
I was up all night trying to put it together. My workbook was no help, since I kind of suck at taking notes, and the internet is always less help than it could be. I considered writing out the lyrics to some Beach Boys songs in Spanish. Points for effort, right?
“You get no sympathy from me,” mom said in the morning.
“I just forgot, I swear.”
“Uh huh,” she checked her watch. “I’m late. Come to the hospital after school, and we’ll go out for dinner to celebrate your miraculous save on this.”
I grunted a reply, trying to write in my book and spoon cereal into my mouth at the same time. I gave up, and tried for calling Kurt and eating cereal instead.
“You’re in luck, I still have my book from last year.”
“Thanks, Kurt. You really are the Head Bitch. Hey, how did the talk with your dad go?”
“Good,” he said. “I think. Look, I have to go. I can’t coordinate an outfit properly unless I give it my complete concentration.”
*
I had my head bent over one of the outside tables, trying to piece together my few sentences with Kurt’s notes that didn’t have anywhere near enough English in them, when I got a text from my mom.
**Looks like you have an extra day**
I had no idea what that meant, right up until Spanish, which was being taught by Miss Pillsbury. “Now, Mr Schuester is off sick today, but he tells me that you’re about halfway through ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’?”
“Don’t worry,” she said to me after the lesson. “I’m sure there will still be a Glee practice tomorrow. And, hey, that’s cool, right?”
Note to self, look less sad around Miss Pillsbury.
But the badness of the situation didn’t hit me until lunch time. Mr Schue was off sick, I get a note from my mom, my mom works at a hospital. To be honest, it may have taken people to restrain me.
“It’s probably fine,” Mercedes said. “People go to the hospital for all kinds of things. Don’t mean it’s life-threatening.”
“Right,” Rachel said. “Maybe he’s broken a bone.”
“Or maybe,” Mercedes said, glaring at Rachel, “it’s nothing at all.”
Artie looked back and forth between us. “She said there’d still be Glee tomorrow, right? So it can’t be anything really bad.”
Rachel looked at me again. “Can’t you just ask your mom?”
“No,” I said glumly. “There’s privacy issues and stuff.”
“Look,” Kurt said, holding a hand up to silence us. “I think the real question here is why aren’t you wearing any of the fabulous things you got yesterday?”
I looked down at my polo and the jeans with a little hole by the knee. “Because we’re at school?” I tried.
Mercedes gave me a long look. “That ain’t gonna fly with us,” she said. “Even my boy Artie here makes an effort.”
“Yea- hey.”
*
I went straight to the hospital after school. Everyone there knows me - with my build, I’m pretty unforgettable - so they’re used to me wandering around and playing with the bandages. Here’s a tip for if you ever want to just wander around a hospital: when you go into a wing, just memorise the name of two departments. If you get caught, just ask for the one you’re not standing next to, and nod when they give you instructions. It’s not like anyone’s going to follow you - nurses have got shit to do, you know?
It took a while, working through emergency and the outpatients block first, but eventually I stumbled upon him sitting on a long bench outside a small room in the ICU.
“Hey,” I said, walking over to him. “You weren’t in school today.”
He looked up at me, and tried to give me a smile. “Don’t tell anyone I was skipping,” he said, and I smiled weakly.
“Are you okay?” I asked. There were no obvious wounds, but he looked really tired.
“I’m fine. It’s just my... friend. He did something stupid last night, and I’m waiting for things to clear up before I drag him home.”
I nodded. “Hospitals suck if you’re the visitor,” I said.
He gave me a look that was almost amused. “I don’t think they’re much better for the patient,” he said.
“Are you kidding? You get fed, and someone else has to clean up after you, and the DVD collection is huge.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, looking back at the floor beneath his feet.
“Do you want me to go?” I asked. “I mean, I’m here because my mom works here, and I saw you. But I could leave you alone, if you want. But if you need anything, like coffee or a pillow, or to sing it out...”
This time he really did smile, even if it was only brief. “I think if I raise my voice one more time, I’m going to get thrown out,” he said. There was a pause as he tugged at his fingertips. “But some company wouldn’t go astray.”
“Sure,” I said. “Here, you can help me with my homework.”
“Oh really?” he said, turning to watch me as I dug through my bag.
“Yeah. There’s this big essay thing, that I kind of forgot about, and it’s kicking my ass.”
“But surely you’re the kind of dedicated student that hands everything on time,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” I lied. “Totally. It’s just the one thing...”
And so we spent a good half an hour bent over my Spanish essay, him determined not to help me but kind of helping anyway, and me split between paying attention to the little hints and prompts he gave me, and just plain paying attention to him. He had the shortest layer of stubble on his cheeks, and I wondered what it would feel like under my fingers. Would it be sharp, or like a soft fuzz, or more like the friction of fine sandpaper? His hair was messed up, and I wondered if he’d woken up like that, or had spent the day tugging at his hair the way he does when he’s at a loss.
He smelled nice. Like him, but more, if that makes sense. I don’t know. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to perv on your teacher while you’re keeping him company in the ICU, but hell, I did it anyway. Sometimes he’d go silent, and lean back against the wall and I’d wonder what would have happened if he had been hurt, if he was the one in the hospital bed. Would they let me feed him jello? What if he was all drugged up? What would I be dumb enough to say to him if I thought he wouldn’t remember?
I was pulled from my thoughts by the snack trolley being pushed past. Cathy, who works in the cafeteria whispered a “Psst” at me, and flipped me a muffin. I nodded at Mr Schue, and she flipped me a second one. I nudged him with my elbow, and pressed it into his limp hands. He was slow to look up, like he’d been thinking about something and was a million miles away. But he gave Cathy a smile that showed his perfect, white teeth, and said thank you. When he looked away she winked at me, and I tried not to look too embarrassed.
“See?” I said, biting into my muffin. “Hospitals are cool. How often do you get free muffins?”
“This is indeed my first free muffin for the week,” he agreed, tearing off little pieces of muffin and pressing them past his own lips with the pad of his thumb. For a moment I imagined they were my fingers feeding him sweet cake and chocolate chip, and I had to turn away quickly and think of something else.
We ate in silence, each of us thinking our own things, until the light tap of Miss Pillsbury’s heels sounded down the corridor.
“Hi, Will,” she said, smiling at him. I don’t know if she looked worried. I mean, she always looks worried. What I mean is, I don’t know if she looked more worried than usual.
“Hey, Emma,” he replied.
Then she looked at me, and I suddenly realised how weird it probably was to be hanging out with a teacher at a hospital. “Hey,” I said awkwardly.
“Fiona was kindly keeping me company,” Mr Schue explained.
Miss Pillsbury smiled at me. “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “Do you mind if I take over?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to stand up and pack away my things and not drop what little was left of my muffin all at the same time. “Thanks for the help,” I said to Mr Schue. “And I hope your friend gets well soon.”
He smiled without really looking at me, and didn’t say anything.
I walked around the nearest corner, and then into the nearest room. I cut through that one into another, smaller room, which had a second door that led out into the corridor right where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were sitting. I snuck over to that door, and sat down beside it, my ear near the little vent at the bottom. That’s what I loved about the hospital, it was like a maze.
“Will...”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Well, I think maybe you need to hear it anyway.”
There was a long pause, and he sighed.
“Will, you can’t go on like this. This isn’t healthy.”
“It’s not like this happens all the time.”
There was another long pause.
“Do you know how hard it is for me, for your friends to hear you defending him, what he did like that?”
“Emma-”
“What would you say to one of your students if they were in a relationship like this, Will?”
“But I’m not a student, Emma. And relationships are about more than just... just holding hands in a movie theatre. It’s about caring about someone, supporting them.”
Another pause.
“Do you think maybe a relationship should also be about being happy? Or that maybe the people involved should treat each other like equals? Will, this isn’t a good relationship.”
“Look. I know that we have some... problems. But we can work them out. And things haven’t been great lately, but I’ve been busy and I just need to-”
“Will, stop. Please just stop. I just... I don’t know if you can hear yourself. I hope that maybe you can’t, that you don’t realise how you sound. Because if you did. If someone as sweet, and kind, and-and as great as you are, if you knew that you were being like this, making excuses for that man...”
“Emma-”
“No, Will. Bryan is a bad person. He is bad to you, and he is bad for you, and you just... you need to see that.”
Another pause, filled with Miss Pillsbury’s shaking breath, and total silence from Mr Schue. And then she added, in a very small voice.
“There are worse things than being alone, Will.”
I held my breath through the next pause, keeping time with my heart beating in my ears.
“Come on,” he said eventually. “Let’s go get some coffee.”
I could hear them standing up, some joints cracking and I could imagine Mr Schue stretching his arms up over his head, making his shoulders pop.
“You know,” she said as they walked down the hall, “hospitals really aren’t that clean, despite what you may think. Do you think they’ll let me use my own cup?”
I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore. And then waited even longer still, to make sure they weren’t in sight. Then I slo-o-o-owly opened the door back into the hallway, and stuck my head out. No one around. Perfect. I dropped my bag on the bench, and peered into the room opposite. A guy with blond hair was unconscious in the bed, some tubes poking into him, but no face-raping oxygen mask, so I figured he was probably okay. I figured he was probably also the guy who sucked face with Mr Schue outside of the bar. I peered at his charts. So, this was Bryan.
Bryan Ryan.
Despite it being a major violation of privacy, and a little illegal, I totally riffled through his papers. I mean, looking at charts and papers and stuff doesn’t actually tell you much - it’s all short hand, and have you seen how medical people write? Whenever I get told off for bad handwriting I just want to point my teachers to the nearest hospital. But I do know some of the short hand, because mom had to learn it a few years ago when she started working here, and we made some flash cards and everything. We joke about it a lot, turning everything we can into shorthand, even if it takes longer to figure out what we’re talking about than saying it normally. Anyway, I guess this is getting off topic. The short of it was that I saw the notes after diagnosis, and my mouth literally fell open.
Mr Schue’s boyfriend was in for a heroin overdose.
Mr Schue was dating a crack-head.
*
“You took your time this afternoon,” mom said over hamburgers at the diner three blocks away. That was mom-talk for ‘dear, you are so busted’.
“Um,” I said. “I was finishing my essay,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie. I mean, I lie to my mom less than most sixteen year olds do, so this one practically didn’t even count, right?
Mom flicked her eyes up at me, and stared at me for a long moment. Huh, I guess it did.
“So,” I said, trying to be all casual. “What would you do if someone you knew, someone really great, was in a bad relationship?”
Mom dragged a chip through the epic pool of tomato sauce on my plate. “I guess that depends on the person and the relationship. I mean, if one of your school friends were messing with a bad crowd, that would be one thing.” She paused to bite the end off her chip. “But if this person were an adult, and was your teacher, and was messing around with the kind of bad that gets the whole town talking,” she looked up at me, very serious, “I’d stay out of it.”
I tried for a casual ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ laugh, and failed completely. “Right,” I said. “Officially staying out of it.”
*
And that’s what I intended to do. I mean, it really wasn’t any of my business. And the reality was that he was my teacher and I was just one of his dumb students, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have people looking out for him. I mean, he’s BFF with the school counsellor, and she’d be way better at dealing with this than me. And he probably wouldn’t want me poking my nose in, what with me being a student and all. Even if he had wanted me to keep him company.
But still. I made a vow to keep my nose out of his personal life, and to never breathe a word of what I’d learned at the hospital to anyone.
Which lasted right up until lunch the next day.
*
“So,” Artie said when I sat down. “I guess Mr Schue’s okay.” He nodded over to where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were walking down the hall on the other side of the long glass windows looking out of the cafeteria.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s fine.”
I could feel them all exchanging looks as I dug into whatever weird kind of pasta was being served that day. It was just the five of us, since Quinn had been sitting with the other Cheerios since the shopping trip on the weekend. I guess she’d overdosed on Glee.
Mercedes fixed me with a look. “So, was he actually in hospital?”
I struggled with that one for a little bit. “He was in the hospital, but not like, in in.”
“So he wasn’t a patient?”
“No,” I said. “He was visiting someone.” I could have kicked myself when I said that, because I saw Kurt’s eyes go wide, and judging from the way everyone else exchanged looks, he’d told everyone about what we’d seen outside the bar.
The conversation was cut off by the arrival of Rachel, who had a plate of salad and some pasta without sauce on it. “It is disgusting and discriminatory that the cafeteria still doesn’t cater for vegans,” she said as she sat down. She then rummaged through her bag, and pulled out her own bottle of pasta sauce. “It’s a good thing I have the lunch menu memorised, or else I wouldn’t eat at all.”
“That’d be a tragedy,” Mercedes agreed. “Since it’s the only time you’re quiet.”
Rachel sniffed, ignoring Tina’s giggle. “It’s not my fault I’m naturally verbose. I was raised to never be afraid to express myself.” She paused to take a big bite out of a leaf of lettuce. “So what were you talking about?”
There was an awkward silence. I can’t speak for everybody else, but I knew that I had my doubts about telling Rachel about the Mr Schue situation. I mean, she was definitely the kind of person who wouldn’t be able to stay out of it, and Mr Schue was spending too much time away from Glee as it was. I didn’t want anyone inside the club pushing him away as well.
Thankfully, for once, it wasn’t me who cracked under Rachel’s stare.
“M-m-mr Schue has a b-boyfriend.”
“I know,” Rachel said, pausing to delicately fork some pasta noodles into her mouth. “What? My two gay dads are the secretary and treasurer of the Lima PFLAG association, and the GLBT alliance.”
I stared at Rachel, wondering how anyone could pronounce so many capital letters so clearly. “I have no idea what those are,” I said.
“Anyway, Mr Schue was involved for a few years, but apparently some things got messy. They don’t talk about it, but I get the impression that it was quite scandalous. His boyfriend runs the car dealership over in West Lima.”
“The one with the Hummers?” Kurt asked. “My dad nearly bought a car from there, but I talked him out of it. With the money we saved on fuel, I was able to order three jackets from Europe.”
“I figure he must be an okay guy,” Rachel continued, ignoring Kurt completely. “I mean, it’s Mr Schue. It’s not like he’s going to be getting involved with some West Lima crack-head.”
Everyone turned and looked at me, and I felt my face going red. “I don’t know if he actually lives in West Lima.”
And then they really started on me.
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