Coming of Age in Lima: Chapter 8
Chapter 8. In which Puck is a pussy, Mercedes is a diva, Quinn drops a bombshell, and Rachel has a picnic.
“So,” Puck said, leaning against my locker after school. “What was all the noise about at lunch? You looked like you were getting swamped.”
“Nothing,” I said, shoving him out of the way. Puck waited for me to say more, but I was keeping my mouth shut.
“What?” he said. “You’re keeping secrets from me now?”
I snorted. “Yeah, because you tell me everything.” He got this weird expression on his face then, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Anyway, it’s nothing. Just some Glee stuff.”
Puck snorted, and let his head fall back against the wall of lockers. “How come you don’t sit with us anymore?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the pieces of underpants that are still stuck to my locker, thanks to you and your friends? Maybe it’s because no one really wants me around anyway? Maybe it’s because I have some friends who like having me around for once.”
“I like having you around,” Puck said. He crossed his arms across his chest, and glared down the hall. “Hey, do you want to hang out? Matt gave me copies of some horror movies he downloaded.”
“I can’t,” I said, shutting my locker and giving Puck a wide, sweet smile. “I have Glee practice.”
“So? Skip it.”
“I’m not skipping Glee.” Puck’s face twisted into something that was essentially a sulk. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
I punched his arm. “Don’t be a douche. What?”
Puck shifted his shoulders, like he didn’t fit in his own skin right. “I’m used to other girls blowing me off all the time, but not you,” he said at last. “I thought we were cool.”
“We are cool,” I said. “I just don’t have the time anymore.”
Puck looked down at his feet, scowling. “Right,” he said.
“Look,” I said at last, hauling my bag up onto my shoulder. “You want to hang out? Come join Glee.”
Puck snorted. “Right. Like I’m gonna join that one-way ticket to swirly-ville.”
“I thought you were a badass,” I said.
“I am.”
I snorted. “No way. Badasses aren’t so pussy. Look, I’m late. I’ll catch you later.”
*
When I got to Glee, Rachel was already talking Mr Schue’s ear off. She had some rule book out, and was flipping back and forth through it, and had printouts and all sorts. I bet she even had a chart stashed off to one side.
“- and I looked at previous year’s winners, and it seems that the judges favour show tunes. Now, we’ll also need a ballad, and I’ve compiled a short list-” she dug out three pages of song titles, “-that I think would be both appropriate, and suit my own vocal range.”
“Wow, okay. You really did your homework on this, Rachel.”
Rachel stepped back, a pleased smile on her face. “We want to compete, Mr Schue. And we know that you don’t have a lot of free time, so I decided it would be in everybody’s interest to spend my weekend productively.”
Mr Schue looked a little sad for a moment. “I’m really going to try to be around more for you guys,” he said. “It’s not fair on you that you’ve had to do so much on your own. I mean, you’ve been great, but you’re right, Rachel. We do need some more structure in this club if we’re going to succeed.”
“Great,” Rachel said. “Now, moving on to sheet music...”
“She totally steamrolled him,” Tina whispered to me as I sat down.
“She didn’t even give him a chance,” Artie agreed.
Kurt shook his head slowly. “I honestly think she could talk someone to death.”
“Hey,” I whispered back. “At least she’s getting things done.”
Mr Schue looked up, and saw us all sitting and staring. “Hey, guys, get over here. Let’s see if we can’t pick out some numbers and start practicing for Invitationals.”
It took Mercedes all of three seconds to find a fault in Rachel’s homework. “Why are there no R’n’B songs?”
“And why do half of these have your name written at the top?” Quinn asked, holding a sheaf of paper between her thumb and forefinger.
“Look, guys, I only had what the library had to offer. And my own collection, of course.”
“It’s okay,” Mr Schue said. “I can probably find some stuff to fill in the gaps. Let’s just try to work with what we’ve got for the moment.”
“I want to sing this one,” Quinn said, handing over the sheet music for a song called 'Summertime'.
“Are you for real?” Mercedes asked, snatching the music away. “You think a white girl like you could to justice to a black song like this?”
Quinn arched an eyebrow, and I slowly edged away from her. “You don’t think that maybe the message of the song could be felt by people of all colours? We do live in Lima.”
“Are you honestly comparing living in Lima to being a slave? Please tell me you are not being so dumb in my presence.”
“You know,” Kurt said, having to raise his voice to be heard over their argument. “I’m not finding anything suited to my voice either.”
“Here,” Rachel said handing over some music. “I got this one especially for you.”
I looked over Kurt’s shoulder. The song was 'Castle on a Cloud'. “Very cute, Berry,” Kurt replied, and Rachel gave him a small, proud smile in return.
I looked over at Mr Schue, who looked like he couldn’t decide whether trying to break Mercedes and Quinn up would be more trouble than it was worth. “Do you think you could find some rock? Like we did earlier?”
“Sure,” he said. “Was there anyone you had in mind?”
I must have turned into Rachel for a moment, because I had a freaking list of people.
*
Mr Schue decided to resolve the Mercedes and Quinn issue by getting them to sing it out. “Whoever does the song better, gets to keep it. You can practice before the next rehearsal-”
“Mr Schue,” Quinn interrupted. “I’m ready to go now.”
“Me too,” Mercedes said. “But I want to go first. No need for you to embarrass yourself, once you seen how much I got this.”
I actually knew the song pretty well - it had been playing in Quinn’s car on the weekend. Mercedes did it well, filled it with runs and sharp hand moves, and really showed off her voice. She didn’t even need to glance at the music.
Quinn did it differently. She stood still, with her hands clasped over her stomach, and her eyelids lowered. She just looked so small compared to Mercedes. And she didn’t dress it up, if you get what I mean. She just sang, and her voice was strong, and sad, and bitter. It was kind of hard, and I guess that was when I finally got what the song was about, you know? That none of the stuff in the lyrics was going to come true.
We all kind of sat there stunned after she finished. I looked over at Mr Schue, and he looked really floored. And then he kind of pulled himself together, and realised that he had to make a decision on this.
“I think this is a great example,” he said at last, “of how two people can each bring something very different to a song. And it’s something we should all keep in mind when doing our numbers.”
“B-b-but who won?”
Mr Schue looked back and forth between Quinn and Mercedes. “I have no idea,” he said at last.
Mercedes looked Quinn up and down. “Alright,” she said. “You proved your point. That was good.”
Quinn gave Mercedes a guarded look in return, before gracing her with a small smile. “You were pretty good yourself.”
“Pretty good? Pretty good? Girl, I was amazing. I was a diva with that song.” Mercedes paused as Quinn’s mouth cracked into a real smile, laughing gently at her. She turned and looked at Mr Schue. “I respectfully bow out,” she said. “I think we need more smiling and less fighting anyway.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Mr Schue replied.
“Yeah, well, I want you all to remember this moment if I ever need to take one of you to the carpet, understand?”
*
I walked Quinn to her car, telling her how great she was. She, well, she had the kind of voice I wished I had. I mean, Rachel was amazing, and Mercedes just had such a powerful voice, but Quinn. There was just something in there, you know? It didn’t feel like a performance when she sang.
“You’re really good too,” she said. “You just don’t know it.”
I’m not great with compliments, so that kind of killed the conversation until we got to her car. Usually she’d climb in, and I’d start walking home, and we’d wave as she drove past me in the parking lot. But she just stood there by the door of her car, looking at the door handle and frowning. I wondered if she’d lost her keys or something. I do that all the time, and it totally sucks. Mom has to keep a few spare pairs hidden in the yard, because when I use a spare I usually forget to put it back in its spot.
“Fee, can I tell you something?”
I blinked. “Sure.”
“And you won’t tell anyone? You’ll just... it’ll be a secret?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my eyebrows go all confused. “Of course.”
She took a deep breath, with her hand on her stomach, staring at the door handle of her car. And then she looked up at me, and I realised that her eyes were shiny. I almost didn’t hear what she said, because her voice kind of died halfway and it ended in a whisper.
“I’m pregnant.”
I blinked at her, kind of dumb. And then I looked down at her stomach. Her fingers tightened, gripping the red fabric of her Cheerios uniform. I looked back up at her face. “For real?”
She nodded, and then a tear rolled down her cheek, and all I could think was fuck, she’s sixteen. Fuck, how the hell is she dealing with this so well? And then I realised that she was crying in a parking lot, talking to me of all people, and I realised that maybe she wasn’t coping so well.
I kind of swallowed her up in a hug, wrapping my arms around her and I was so tall that she could bury her face in the front of my shirt, and just hide there for a while. Her hands gripped the front of my open jacket, and it was like she was trying to crawl under the bed covers or something. Fuck.
“It’ll be okay,” I told her, and I rested my chin on her head, because that’s what my mom does when she hugs me, even though I have to bend down or fall across her for her to do it. “I don’t know how, exactly, but it’ll be okay. We’ll make it okay.”
Quinn nodded, but she kept crying into my shirt, and I just stood there and kept hugging her, and wondering how the hell I was going to follow through on that promise.
Seriously, this was all kinds of not-okay.
*
Needless to say, the next day was pretty hard for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that there were a lot of people who it was harder for. But I was carrying around Mr Schue’s crack-head boyfriend, and Quinn’s baby, and Kurt was kind of out of the closet now but we were all still watching our mouths because, really, there are worse things than getting thrown in a dumpster and we didn’t want to go around inviting any of them.
And then Rachel cornered me and dragged me off to the auditorium for some one-on-one training. I get that she takes the singing stuff seriously, but there was just no way I was up to it. That didn’t stop her, though. Rachel can be a very hard person to say no to. I guess, on the bright side, there was no chance of me blabbing anything else incriminatory around my friends. The downside was that I spent the lunch period by myself, with Rachel.
She made me do scales all through lunch, and then into the next period which was History, but who wouldn’t want to skip that, right? It wasn’t until my stomach rumbled that I realised that I hadn’t gone to the cafeteria, which meant that I hadn’t eaten lunch, which meant I was starving.
“It’s okay,” Rachel said. “I packed some extra.”
I don’t know how much Rachel usually eats, but there was enough there to feed both of us, and yeah, I can eat a whole pizza. Sandwiches and sticks of vegetable, and a whole stack of sugar cookies. Apparently everything was vegan-friendly, which I think is like organic but more expensive. But we sat on the stage of the auditorium, and she shared her lunch with me and told me about her two gay dads and how one of them could cook but never had the time, and how the other couldn’t but tried anyway, so she’d learnt from pretty young how to fix things in the kitchen. I mean, I hear Rachel talk - a lot - but it was the first time I’d heard her talk about herself, and her family.
“Hey,” I said suddenly. “How come you never eat lunch with us?”
Rachel stopped smiling, and looked down at her hands. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t really... fit in, with you guys. It’s not like you all like me.”
“Yeah we do.” Rachel gave me a look. “Well, okay, I do.”
“I know,” she said, looking back down at her hands. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Finn. Sometimes I think you’re the only one I have.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that, because it was probably true, but I knew I had to say something. “Well, you know. Most of the people in this school, they suck, you know? Like the jocks and the cheerleaders, thinking that being good at something, or being bad at something together, thinking that it makes you something. When it doesn’t. It just makes you a jerk who pushes people around. And you, you’re awesome, Rachel. It’s just that people don’t realise it. And the people who do, well, they probably hate you a little. Not because of who you are or anything, well, maybe a little. But it’s because we’re a whole stupid sucky town of losers, and we’re all going to grow up, and stay here, and we’re all going to be losers. But you’re not. And everyone knows it.”
Rachel looked at me for a long time. “I don’t think you’re a loser.”
I snorted. “Yeah I am. I’m not smart, I’m not pretty. I’m not good at anything except being tall. And that just means I hit my head on doorways sometimes.”
“You’re kind,” Rachel told me. “You’re a good person. You’re good at lots of things.” She leaned forwards and brushed my fringe out of my eyes. “And I think you’re pretty.”
“Thanks,” I said. We stayed like that for a while, Rachel leaning towards me and her hand on my cheek.
“You know,” she said at last, “experimentation in order to discover one’s sexuality is really quite common in teens.”
“Really?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Uh-huh. I read a book on it. Growing up with two gay dads means that you grow up being aware that there’s more than just what’s in the box, what society expects of you. You should feel free to explore new things.”
“Well, that sounds like good advice.” Was she going to suggest some new song for Glee or something? She usually just came out and said whatever was on her mind.
“What I mean is, if you wanted to kiss me, that would be okay.”
Oh. Oh. That seriously came out of nowhere. Like, you’d think that she’d build up to it, or something. I looked at Rachel, really looked at her. She looked... worried. She often looked worried, when I thought about it. She stood up for herself in Glee, and probably in class, but when she was on her own, she was different. And I figured, hey, we’re really alike. I mean, we weren’t alike at all, but she knew about not fitting in, and I figured that I was probably the lucky one, despite her having two parents and a big bed and all that stuff, because I’d had Puck for almost all of my life, and she hadn’t really had anyone.
I don’t know if maybe I moved or something, or what happened, but she pressed her lips against mine, and I figured, well, if we were kissing anyway. Her lips were sticky with lip gloss, and when she tilted her head and we opened our mouths she tasted that weird chemical way that lip stuff usually does. But once that taste got off my tongue she tasted like apple juice, and sugar biscuits, and her skin smelled like cocoa. She had her hand on my face still, and her thumb stroked my cheek. I put my hand on her waist, and she leaned forwards more, pressing against me.
And then we heard doors slam open and feet in the halls, and I jerked back, away from her. Her cheeks were red, and she looked a lot more composed than I was sure I did. “Uh,” I said.
“We should go. I have French now.”
“Right,” I said. “That was...”
Rachel paused, looking me up and down. It was like she was looking for something written on me in pen, but she couldn’t find it. “It was just a kiss,” she said. She turned away, and started packing containers into her bag. “This kind of thing happens all the time. There are statistics on it.”
“Oh,” I said. “So you won’t... tell anyone? It didn’t mean anything?”
She turned back to me, and stared at me for a long time. “Of course not,” she said at last. “It was just two friends, being silly.”
“Oh,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Cool.” I slung my bag over my shoulder, and stood around awkwardly while she packed up the last of her things. “You know, you should sit with us tomorrow.”
Rachel looked away from me, tucking her long hair behind her ear. “Maybe,” she said at last. And then she headed off the stage, and towards the back of the auditorium. Her head was down as she walked, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong.
Great. Another thing to worry about.
Next Chapter
Back to Master Post
“So,” Puck said, leaning against my locker after school. “What was all the noise about at lunch? You looked like you were getting swamped.”
“Nothing,” I said, shoving him out of the way. Puck waited for me to say more, but I was keeping my mouth shut.
“What?” he said. “You’re keeping secrets from me now?”
I snorted. “Yeah, because you tell me everything.” He got this weird expression on his face then, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Anyway, it’s nothing. Just some Glee stuff.”
Puck snorted, and let his head fall back against the wall of lockers. “How come you don’t sit with us anymore?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the pieces of underpants that are still stuck to my locker, thanks to you and your friends? Maybe it’s because no one really wants me around anyway? Maybe it’s because I have some friends who like having me around for once.”
“I like having you around,” Puck said. He crossed his arms across his chest, and glared down the hall. “Hey, do you want to hang out? Matt gave me copies of some horror movies he downloaded.”
“I can’t,” I said, shutting my locker and giving Puck a wide, sweet smile. “I have Glee practice.”
“So? Skip it.”
“I’m not skipping Glee.” Puck’s face twisted into something that was essentially a sulk. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
I punched his arm. “Don’t be a douche. What?”
Puck shifted his shoulders, like he didn’t fit in his own skin right. “I’m used to other girls blowing me off all the time, but not you,” he said at last. “I thought we were cool.”
“We are cool,” I said. “I just don’t have the time anymore.”
Puck looked down at his feet, scowling. “Right,” he said.
“Look,” I said at last, hauling my bag up onto my shoulder. “You want to hang out? Come join Glee.”
Puck snorted. “Right. Like I’m gonna join that one-way ticket to swirly-ville.”
“I thought you were a badass,” I said.
“I am.”
I snorted. “No way. Badasses aren’t so pussy. Look, I’m late. I’ll catch you later.”
*
When I got to Glee, Rachel was already talking Mr Schue’s ear off. She had some rule book out, and was flipping back and forth through it, and had printouts and all sorts. I bet she even had a chart stashed off to one side.
“- and I looked at previous year’s winners, and it seems that the judges favour show tunes. Now, we’ll also need a ballad, and I’ve compiled a short list-” she dug out three pages of song titles, “-that I think would be both appropriate, and suit my own vocal range.”
“Wow, okay. You really did your homework on this, Rachel.”
Rachel stepped back, a pleased smile on her face. “We want to compete, Mr Schue. And we know that you don’t have a lot of free time, so I decided it would be in everybody’s interest to spend my weekend productively.”
Mr Schue looked a little sad for a moment. “I’m really going to try to be around more for you guys,” he said. “It’s not fair on you that you’ve had to do so much on your own. I mean, you’ve been great, but you’re right, Rachel. We do need some more structure in this club if we’re going to succeed.”
“Great,” Rachel said. “Now, moving on to sheet music...”
“She totally steamrolled him,” Tina whispered to me as I sat down.
“She didn’t even give him a chance,” Artie agreed.
Kurt shook his head slowly. “I honestly think she could talk someone to death.”
“Hey,” I whispered back. “At least she’s getting things done.”
Mr Schue looked up, and saw us all sitting and staring. “Hey, guys, get over here. Let’s see if we can’t pick out some numbers and start practicing for Invitationals.”
It took Mercedes all of three seconds to find a fault in Rachel’s homework. “Why are there no R’n’B songs?”
“And why do half of these have your name written at the top?” Quinn asked, holding a sheaf of paper between her thumb and forefinger.
“Look, guys, I only had what the library had to offer. And my own collection, of course.”
“It’s okay,” Mr Schue said. “I can probably find some stuff to fill in the gaps. Let’s just try to work with what we’ve got for the moment.”
“I want to sing this one,” Quinn said, handing over the sheet music for a song called 'Summertime'.
“Are you for real?” Mercedes asked, snatching the music away. “You think a white girl like you could to justice to a black song like this?”
Quinn arched an eyebrow, and I slowly edged away from her. “You don’t think that maybe the message of the song could be felt by people of all colours? We do live in Lima.”
“Are you honestly comparing living in Lima to being a slave? Please tell me you are not being so dumb in my presence.”
“You know,” Kurt said, having to raise his voice to be heard over their argument. “I’m not finding anything suited to my voice either.”
“Here,” Rachel said handing over some music. “I got this one especially for you.”
I looked over Kurt’s shoulder. The song was 'Castle on a Cloud'. “Very cute, Berry,” Kurt replied, and Rachel gave him a small, proud smile in return.
I looked over at Mr Schue, who looked like he couldn’t decide whether trying to break Mercedes and Quinn up would be more trouble than it was worth. “Do you think you could find some rock? Like we did earlier?”
“Sure,” he said. “Was there anyone you had in mind?”
I must have turned into Rachel for a moment, because I had a freaking list of people.
*
Mr Schue decided to resolve the Mercedes and Quinn issue by getting them to sing it out. “Whoever does the song better, gets to keep it. You can practice before the next rehearsal-”
“Mr Schue,” Quinn interrupted. “I’m ready to go now.”
“Me too,” Mercedes said. “But I want to go first. No need for you to embarrass yourself, once you seen how much I got this.”
I actually knew the song pretty well - it had been playing in Quinn’s car on the weekend. Mercedes did it well, filled it with runs and sharp hand moves, and really showed off her voice. She didn’t even need to glance at the music.
Quinn did it differently. She stood still, with her hands clasped over her stomach, and her eyelids lowered. She just looked so small compared to Mercedes. And she didn’t dress it up, if you get what I mean. She just sang, and her voice was strong, and sad, and bitter. It was kind of hard, and I guess that was when I finally got what the song was about, you know? That none of the stuff in the lyrics was going to come true.
We all kind of sat there stunned after she finished. I looked over at Mr Schue, and he looked really floored. And then he kind of pulled himself together, and realised that he had to make a decision on this.
“I think this is a great example,” he said at last, “of how two people can each bring something very different to a song. And it’s something we should all keep in mind when doing our numbers.”
“B-b-but who won?”
Mr Schue looked back and forth between Quinn and Mercedes. “I have no idea,” he said at last.
Mercedes looked Quinn up and down. “Alright,” she said. “You proved your point. That was good.”
Quinn gave Mercedes a guarded look in return, before gracing her with a small smile. “You were pretty good yourself.”
“Pretty good? Pretty good? Girl, I was amazing. I was a diva with that song.” Mercedes paused as Quinn’s mouth cracked into a real smile, laughing gently at her. She turned and looked at Mr Schue. “I respectfully bow out,” she said. “I think we need more smiling and less fighting anyway.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Mr Schue replied.
“Yeah, well, I want you all to remember this moment if I ever need to take one of you to the carpet, understand?”
*
I walked Quinn to her car, telling her how great she was. She, well, she had the kind of voice I wished I had. I mean, Rachel was amazing, and Mercedes just had such a powerful voice, but Quinn. There was just something in there, you know? It didn’t feel like a performance when she sang.
“You’re really good too,” she said. “You just don’t know it.”
I’m not great with compliments, so that kind of killed the conversation until we got to her car. Usually she’d climb in, and I’d start walking home, and we’d wave as she drove past me in the parking lot. But she just stood there by the door of her car, looking at the door handle and frowning. I wondered if she’d lost her keys or something. I do that all the time, and it totally sucks. Mom has to keep a few spare pairs hidden in the yard, because when I use a spare I usually forget to put it back in its spot.
“Fee, can I tell you something?”
I blinked. “Sure.”
“And you won’t tell anyone? You’ll just... it’ll be a secret?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my eyebrows go all confused. “Of course.”
She took a deep breath, with her hand on her stomach, staring at the door handle of her car. And then she looked up at me, and I realised that her eyes were shiny. I almost didn’t hear what she said, because her voice kind of died halfway and it ended in a whisper.
“I’m pregnant.”
I blinked at her, kind of dumb. And then I looked down at her stomach. Her fingers tightened, gripping the red fabric of her Cheerios uniform. I looked back up at her face. “For real?”
She nodded, and then a tear rolled down her cheek, and all I could think was fuck, she’s sixteen. Fuck, how the hell is she dealing with this so well? And then I realised that she was crying in a parking lot, talking to me of all people, and I realised that maybe she wasn’t coping so well.
I kind of swallowed her up in a hug, wrapping my arms around her and I was so tall that she could bury her face in the front of my shirt, and just hide there for a while. Her hands gripped the front of my open jacket, and it was like she was trying to crawl under the bed covers or something. Fuck.
“It’ll be okay,” I told her, and I rested my chin on her head, because that’s what my mom does when she hugs me, even though I have to bend down or fall across her for her to do it. “I don’t know how, exactly, but it’ll be okay. We’ll make it okay.”
Quinn nodded, but she kept crying into my shirt, and I just stood there and kept hugging her, and wondering how the hell I was going to follow through on that promise.
Seriously, this was all kinds of not-okay.
*
Needless to say, the next day was pretty hard for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that there were a lot of people who it was harder for. But I was carrying around Mr Schue’s crack-head boyfriend, and Quinn’s baby, and Kurt was kind of out of the closet now but we were all still watching our mouths because, really, there are worse things than getting thrown in a dumpster and we didn’t want to go around inviting any of them.
And then Rachel cornered me and dragged me off to the auditorium for some one-on-one training. I get that she takes the singing stuff seriously, but there was just no way I was up to it. That didn’t stop her, though. Rachel can be a very hard person to say no to. I guess, on the bright side, there was no chance of me blabbing anything else incriminatory around my friends. The downside was that I spent the lunch period by myself, with Rachel.
She made me do scales all through lunch, and then into the next period which was History, but who wouldn’t want to skip that, right? It wasn’t until my stomach rumbled that I realised that I hadn’t gone to the cafeteria, which meant that I hadn’t eaten lunch, which meant I was starving.
“It’s okay,” Rachel said. “I packed some extra.”
I don’t know how much Rachel usually eats, but there was enough there to feed both of us, and yeah, I can eat a whole pizza. Sandwiches and sticks of vegetable, and a whole stack of sugar cookies. Apparently everything was vegan-friendly, which I think is like organic but more expensive. But we sat on the stage of the auditorium, and she shared her lunch with me and told me about her two gay dads and how one of them could cook but never had the time, and how the other couldn’t but tried anyway, so she’d learnt from pretty young how to fix things in the kitchen. I mean, I hear Rachel talk - a lot - but it was the first time I’d heard her talk about herself, and her family.
“Hey,” I said suddenly. “How come you never eat lunch with us?”
Rachel stopped smiling, and looked down at her hands. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t really... fit in, with you guys. It’s not like you all like me.”
“Yeah we do.” Rachel gave me a look. “Well, okay, I do.”
“I know,” she said, looking back down at her hands. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Finn. Sometimes I think you’re the only one I have.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that, because it was probably true, but I knew I had to say something. “Well, you know. Most of the people in this school, they suck, you know? Like the jocks and the cheerleaders, thinking that being good at something, or being bad at something together, thinking that it makes you something. When it doesn’t. It just makes you a jerk who pushes people around. And you, you’re awesome, Rachel. It’s just that people don’t realise it. And the people who do, well, they probably hate you a little. Not because of who you are or anything, well, maybe a little. But it’s because we’re a whole stupid sucky town of losers, and we’re all going to grow up, and stay here, and we’re all going to be losers. But you’re not. And everyone knows it.”
Rachel looked at me for a long time. “I don’t think you’re a loser.”
I snorted. “Yeah I am. I’m not smart, I’m not pretty. I’m not good at anything except being tall. And that just means I hit my head on doorways sometimes.”
“You’re kind,” Rachel told me. “You’re a good person. You’re good at lots of things.” She leaned forwards and brushed my fringe out of my eyes. “And I think you’re pretty.”
“Thanks,” I said. We stayed like that for a while, Rachel leaning towards me and her hand on my cheek.
“You know,” she said at last, “experimentation in order to discover one’s sexuality is really quite common in teens.”
“Really?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Uh-huh. I read a book on it. Growing up with two gay dads means that you grow up being aware that there’s more than just what’s in the box, what society expects of you. You should feel free to explore new things.”
“Well, that sounds like good advice.” Was she going to suggest some new song for Glee or something? She usually just came out and said whatever was on her mind.
“What I mean is, if you wanted to kiss me, that would be okay.”
Oh. Oh. That seriously came out of nowhere. Like, you’d think that she’d build up to it, or something. I looked at Rachel, really looked at her. She looked... worried. She often looked worried, when I thought about it. She stood up for herself in Glee, and probably in class, but when she was on her own, she was different. And I figured, hey, we’re really alike. I mean, we weren’t alike at all, but she knew about not fitting in, and I figured that I was probably the lucky one, despite her having two parents and a big bed and all that stuff, because I’d had Puck for almost all of my life, and she hadn’t really had anyone.
I don’t know if maybe I moved or something, or what happened, but she pressed her lips against mine, and I figured, well, if we were kissing anyway. Her lips were sticky with lip gloss, and when she tilted her head and we opened our mouths she tasted that weird chemical way that lip stuff usually does. But once that taste got off my tongue she tasted like apple juice, and sugar biscuits, and her skin smelled like cocoa. She had her hand on my face still, and her thumb stroked my cheek. I put my hand on her waist, and she leaned forwards more, pressing against me.
And then we heard doors slam open and feet in the halls, and I jerked back, away from her. Her cheeks were red, and she looked a lot more composed than I was sure I did. “Uh,” I said.
“We should go. I have French now.”
“Right,” I said. “That was...”
Rachel paused, looking me up and down. It was like she was looking for something written on me in pen, but she couldn’t find it. “It was just a kiss,” she said. She turned away, and started packing containers into her bag. “This kind of thing happens all the time. There are statistics on it.”
“Oh,” I said. “So you won’t... tell anyone? It didn’t mean anything?”
She turned back to me, and stared at me for a long time. “Of course not,” she said at last. “It was just two friends, being silly.”
“Oh,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Cool.” I slung my bag over my shoulder, and stood around awkwardly while she packed up the last of her things. “You know, you should sit with us tomorrow.”
Rachel looked away from me, tucking her long hair behind her ear. “Maybe,” she said at last. And then she headed off the stage, and towards the back of the auditorium. Her head was down as she walked, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong.
Great. Another thing to worry about.
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