Easy Come, Easy Go

“All right, let me see your backpack.”

Adelaine sighed and slipped her backpack off of her shoulders, holding it out to her uncle. She wasn’t used to this strictness, but she didn’t mind so much. Her uncle had been so happy to have her move in. He was kind, and the rules may be a bit of a nuisance, but it was, in a way, a welcome change, having someone who cared enough for her to put rules in place meant to protect her.

He talked to her. He cared about her day and her opinions. She actually had family dinners that involved talking to each other and joking.

It was nice.

“I’m not drinking anymore. You don’t have to check every bag I bring in and out of the house.” She said good naturedly as she headed into the kitchen. Her uncle followed her with the backpack.

“Yes I do. I promised your brother I would keep an eye on you, and besides, it was part of the agreement if you came and lived with me. You would straighten out. No wild parties, no alcohol, no cigarettes. None of that stuff. You’d do all of your homework and not skip classes.” He sat down at the kitchen table as he spoke and unzipped her backpack.

“I never smoked. I wouldn’t harm my lungs that way, it would impair my singing. Even I’m not that stupid.” Adelaine said calmly. “And to be fair, I wasn’t required to go to classes at Carmel. And I still went half the time. I even usually did homework. It wasn’t until recently I stopped going all together.” She pointed out as she searched the fridge for food. She was completely, 100% off her old Vocal Adrenaline diet now.

“But McKinley High is different, right?” He asked, finishing his inspection of her backpack.

“You can say that again.” She said dryly, settling on reheating some leftover pizza from last night. She grabbed a slice of cheese pizza, closing the fridge and retrieving a plate from the cupboard.

“How was your first day?”

Adelaine crossed to the microwave and punched in a time on the panel before turning to her uncle. “Awful. The classes are much harder. And not just because I skipped the last few weeks of classes before break at Carmel. McKInley classes are way ahead of Carmel’s classes. I’m used to being popular, to having people love me for being in show choir, you know? These kids don’t even know I exist. And they worship the football players and Cheerios. What’s so great about them? Oh great, you can throw a ball around. Oh, you’re so amazing because you can twirl around in a too-short skirt.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. The microwave beeped and she opened it, grabbing her pizza and shutting the door harder than necessary before walking over to the table, annoyed. “I’m invisible there. I always hated being invisible, and now it’s happening again. Not to mention none of my VA ‘friends’ will speak to me since I left.”

“Hard day, huh?”

“I heard they gave my lead position to Katy. Katy. I hate Katy.” She dropped into a seat, frustrated.

“Well what about the show choir at McKinley? Did you audition?”

Adelaine frowned again. “Yeah.”

“And…?”

“And I got in.”

“So that’s good, right?” He raised his eyebrows at her flat tone.

“No, yeah, yeah. It’s good. It’s great. I just…there’s this person I really messed things up with. I want to fix things, but what if they’re unfixable? What if I messed things up beyond repair?”

“Have you spoken to this person?”

“Yes. Well, no, not directly. I sang him a song…although, he didn’t know it was for him…”

Her uncle shook his head. “You show choir kids and your songs. You know, I know the stage is your life, but it’s not everybody’s. The deeper meaning, the symbolic meaning…that’s great. But sometimes you need to just sit down and talk directly to someone.” He shoved her backpack at her. “Do your homework.” He said, standing up and moving towards the door. He stopped halfway there and studied her. “And go to bed earlier tonight. You look exhausted.” With that he left the kitchen, leaving her alone.

Reluctantly, Adelaine pulled her backpack to her and began pulling out books and paper. She took a bite of her pizza, opening one of her textbooks to do the assigned reading. She stared blankly at the words. They made almost zero sense to her. How could she be this far behind?

Her phone rang, Hummingbird Heartbeat pulling her from her daze. She glanced at the screen before answering.

“Hey Jesse.”

“We need to talk.” He sounded annoyed.

Adelaine sighed. “About what? I know you talked to Uncle Pat, and yes, he’s insanely strict with me. Trust me, I’m not going to start drinking again.”

“I know, it’s not about that.”

“Then what?” Adelaine leaned back in her chair, glad to have an excuse to put off this impossible reading.

“Noah Puckerman.”

She sat straight up, her heart suddenly pounding. How did he-? But she had never-…No. No no no. She had been careful to make sure he never knew about Puck. He was so overprotective she never let him know about any of her boyfriends. They were so often just flings, but with Puck it was even worse. She had slept with him.

And, as she had discover today, apparently that was all he had wanted from her. Even though he had told her he loved her…

God, nothing made sense anymore.

“Adelaine, are you listening?” Jesse sounded impatient.

“Yeah. I am. What about him?”

“He’s your ex?”

“How do you know?”

“I asked around VA. Katy told me.”

That bitch.

Adelaine sighed. “So what if he is? Ex. As in over. We’re done, Jesse. Over. Finished. We broke up a long time ago.”

“You told me you still care about him.” Jesse continued.

Damn that alcohol. Okay, she was definitely never drinking again. It made her say stupid things.

“What’s the point of this Jesse?”

“The point is that I know Puck. He’s a womanizer. A jerk. He only wants one thing from girls. He doesn’t treat them well. He just uses them. He’s not somebody you should be giving your heart to. Just stay away from him, all right? Him and Finn Hudson. I know you transferred there to fix things, but I’m asking you not to. He’ll just hurt you again. I don’t mind you staying at McKinley. I prefer having you there than in VA getting drunk. I like having Uncle Pat keep an eye on you. But Puck is bad news.”

Hearing all of this after Puck’s earlier comment of her just being a fling made everything even worse. That familiar feeling of wanting just to run rose up inside of her, but she shoved it away for now.

“Don’t worry about me, all right? I’m just going to focus on my schoolwork right now. Improve my grades. Speaking of which, I have a pile of homework sitting in front of me I need to do. So we can finish this conversation later.”

“Adelaine, I-“

“I’ll call you later Jesse. Bye.” She hung up, even more stressed than she’d been ten minutes ago. She didn’t know what to think anymore, and she definitely didn’t know what to do when it came to Puck.

So she did the only think she could think of doing at that moment. She pulled her textbook towards her and began to struggle through her reading.

It was something productive to do anyway.