And Here's What You Missed on...GLEE

“Ellie,” my friend Lisa whined, leaning against my locker, “will you hurry? We’re going to miss the bus, and my mom will kill me.”

I put my English reading book into my backpack, not looking in her direction. “Just go. It’s fine. I can walk home.”

“You sure? Don’t you usually get nervous when you’re walking home by yourself?”

“I’ll be okay,” I laughed. “Just go before you miss the bus, too.”

She nodded, sending her dark hair slipping in front of her shoulders, before rushing down the hallway to the doors at the front of the school.

Biting my lip to hide a smile, I stood up and threw my bag over my shoulder. I had an ulterior motive to what I was doing, but I couldn’t let Lisa know that. I couldn’t even let myself know that.

So I played along with my charade, walking to the front of the school. “Damn,” I mumbled, “might as well stay now.”

Walking back into the school, I noticed that the hallways were mostly empty, only a few stragglers left making their way home. I could hear every one of my footsteps in the hallway, echoing. It felt strange to be in the school after everybody had gone. Lonely, almost.

Then, I heard singing, but not just regular singing. It was layers upon layers of perfect voices, singing a classic Journey song. Glee Club.

Hanging outside the classroom, I listened as they sang Separate Ways. It was really awesome, and I couldn’t help but wonder why they were looked down upon so much. They got made fun of everyday for being outcasts, and yet they had more talent than the whole school put together.

High school was not fair.

“Um…Ellie, right?” a familiar voice asked. My eyebrows drew together in confusion I turned around, wondering what was happening.

The guy had short brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was extremely tall, well over six feet, and had a good build. And, of course, he was really, really cute.

Finn Hudson was talking to…me? Even though we were in the same grade, we had never talked before then. I was shocked he even knew my name. After all, he was one of the most popular guys in school, and I was right-in-the-middle-of-the-social-ladder Ellie.

Not that Finn paid attention to social classes. After all, despite the fact that he was the school quarterback, he was dating Rachel Berry, who was one of the most annoying people in the school, her place on the social ladder being around the bottom rung.

“Yeah,” I replied after a second of staring at him in shock.

“Can we help you? Any reason you’re standing right in front of Glee Club?”

“Just…listening, I guess. You guys are really great.” For a second, I contemplated why he was even standing in front of me before I realized that he was probably just running late.

“Thinking about joining?”

“Maybe,” I admitted before blushing. Had I really just said that? I didn’t even want to admit to myself that I wanted to join Glee Club just because it was practically social suicide. Sure, some of the kids maintained their popular status, like Santana, Brittany, Puck, and somewhat Finn, but most of the other kids got harassed. For a time, Quinn was a social outcast, too, since she was pregnant, but once the baby was out, she climbed her way back to the top and was accepted with open arms.

“Cool. Well, I’ll see you around.” He smiled at me before walking into the meeting. I stayed out of view of the room, but I could still hear everything that was going on inside.

“Sorry I’m late. My history teacher kept me late because the whole class was loud,” Finn apologized quickly.

“Who were you talking to outside?” a voice I recognized as Puck’s questioned.

“Oh, just this girl named Ellie. She’s nice.”

“Why were you talking to Ellie?” Rachel scoffed. I snickered at how easily she got jealous. If there was a girl talking to Finn, then she took it offensively, figuring that the girl was trying to steal him from her. It was just a part of her controlling nature.

“She’s thinking about joining,” Finn responded. I let out an angry breath. Why did he have to go telling everyone that I was considering it?

“Well, if she does, she is not stealing any of my already seriously lacking solos,” Rachel declared. I could almost see the defiant look on her face as she crossed her arms across her chest.

“Who’s Ellie?” Puck asked again. “Is she hot? Is she still out there?”

My face went white as I turned and started to hurry down the hallway. The first thing I saw was the bathroom, so I ducked inside for refuge. After all, how embarrassing it would be if someone caught me eavesdropping on the club? Totally humiliating.

I stared in the mirror, taking in my pale skin, freckles across my nose, dark red hair, and dark blue eyes. I wasn’t exactly what most people would consider pretty, but I wasn’t that bad.

It was staring in that reflective glass that something caught the corner of my eye. Was that…a urinal…?

SHIT! I hissed inside my head, my eyes growing wide. How the hell did I manage to mix up the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms?!

Okay, I told myself, it will be fine. There’s no one in the school except Glee Club, and they’re all rehearsing for their next performance. So I can easily just slip out of the room without anyone knowing, and this will just be an embarrassing moment in my history that no one knows about.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled open the door and poked my head into the hallway, looking around to make sure that no one was there. All prepared to smile with my victory, I closed the door behind me quietly and turned around.

“What were you doing in the dude’s bathroom?” Puck questioned suddenly.

He was tall and muscular with darker toned skin and a shaved head with black stubble starting to grow back. His eyes were a really light brown. I wasn’t going to lie, though he wasn’t my type, he was definitely hot. The whole cocky thing was kind of a downside, but it could be overlooked if he kept his mouth shut.

I jumped, since he scared the crap out of me. Then, without thinking about it, I blurted, “I dropped an earring and it rolled in there.”

This didn’t make sense for two reasons. One was the fact that it was a heavy push door that had no spaces underneath for anything to roll under. The other was the apparent fact that my ears weren’t even pierced.

“Oh,” he replied.

“Well, I better get going,” I smiled before stepping around him. I heard him going into the bathroom after I left, and let out a sigh of relief. It definitely did come in handy that Puck almost had the IQ of a brick. He wasn’t quite to brick standards, but if he studied really hard, he might reach it one day.

Shaking my head to try to forget the whole debacle, I started walking home before any more embarrassment could be reached.