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

“Breathe,” Puck told me, his hands on my shoulders, staring seriously at me. “You’ll be fine.”

I took a deep breath, my eyes growing wide and getting a slightly wild look to them.

“Feeling better?” he questioned.

Nodding, I continued to breathe deeply to calm my racing heart. “I think so.”

“Good.” He sighed and shook his head at me. “I don’t know why you’re so nervous. You’re gonna be fine.”

“How could I not be nervous?” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Sectionals are tomorrow, Puck. I’m freaking out.”

“Why? Because you have a solo? You’ll be fine.”

“Fine is not going to get us first place. Fine will get us last place. I need to be good. I need to be great. We need to go over the song again.”

Reaching for the radio dial, Puck put his hand over mine. “Red, will you stop? We don’t need to go over the song again. Your voice isn’t going to change.”

“I still can’t dance. We need to do that.”

“Your dancing is-”

Turning to him, I pointed accusingly at his chest. “If the next word out of your mouth is fine, I’m going to skin you with a steak knife.”

Puck laughed for a second, mostly out of frustration, but I could tell by the fact that he didn’t finish the sentence that I was completely right about it. “Anyway, we’re going to do well. We’re up against criminals and deaf kids. I think we stand an alright chance.”

“But what if they’re better? I haven’t seen them. They probably have better voices than I do.”

“They’re deaf,” he reminded me, as if that changed anything.

“They’re inspirational.” I threw myself on my bed and stared at the ceiling. “Rachel should have gotten this solo.”

“Ew. I wouldn’t want to sing a song with Rachel. In Glee Club, it’s fine, but I wouldn’t want to do it in front of everyone.”

“That’s sweet of you.” I rolled my eyes for a second before my worries again suffocated my sarcasm. “Oh my God. I still cringe every time Santana sings. What if I do that onstage? It’ll point more attention to her seriously lacking vocals, even if she does only have three lines of a solo.”

Another snort of laughter. “Her voice isn’t that bad.”

I gave him a ‘yeah, right’ look before staring at a wall. Why did I have to have a tendency to overstress? It was really harmful, totally throwing me off my game. That was, of course, if I even had a game to begin with.

“God, if you’re like this for Sectionals, I don’t even want to see you at Regionals, where we have actual competition.”

Letting out a squeak, I covered my eyes. Breathe, Ellie…just breathe. Easier said than done.

“Yeah, Vocal Adrenaline is hardcore. Their lights give them sunburns. Plus, their vocals are awesome, and their dancing is perfect. That Jesse kid that’s at the front of them, even though I kind of hate his guts, he’s a good singer. Really good.”

“PUCK!” I screamed, throwing a pillow at him. “You’re not helping!”

“I was trying to get your mind off Sectionals,” he chuckled.

“Well, now I’m stressing about Regionals, too, and that’s months away. I hate you.”

“Aw, you don’t hate me,” he grinned, coming over and sitting next to me. “You know you don’t.”

“No, but I feel like sticking your head in a blender and pressing, ‘liquefy’.”

He winced, rubbing his head absentmindedly. “Uh, ow.”

“It’s not like you need it anyway,” I scoffed.

“See this?” He pointed to his face, putting on a cocky smile. “This has reeled in more girls than I can count. Hot girls. Though, of course, the arms don't hurt." He put up his arm and flexed for a second. Before I could start drooling, I forced his arm back to his side with an eye roll.

“I know. I’ve been at the school for a while. However, you better not be using it now, ‘cause you’ve got me.”

“Wait…are we exclusive?”

For a second, I stared at him, scared out of my mind. Was he serious? I thought we had kind of been over it, how I told him that he better not cheat on me. We’d been over it multiple times! What the hell?

“I’m kidding,” he elaborated before my head exploded. “Relax.”

I punched him jokingly in the shoulder. “You’re a dick.”

“You forgot about Sectionals though, didn’t you?” Oh, he was so proud of himself. It was written all over his face.

“Oh my God!” I threw myself back on my bed and put a pillow over my face. “I’m going to fail…I hate this. How do you stand it?”

“In a language I understand?”

Taking the pillow off my face, I repeated what I said in a voice that bordered on a scream. Then, the pillow took its place back. After a couple minutes, I placed it next to me, since it was kind of making it hard to breathe.

“I kind of like the nervousness,” Puck told me.

That caught me off guard. I sat up and stared at him, waiting for him to say more. “Really?”

“Sure. It’s kind of cool, and then when you’re onstage, you look out at all the people, and you know that they’re analyzing you, thinking, “Wow, that dude’s hot. I wonder if he goes for cougars.” Which I do, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” I cut in, but he acted like I hadn’t said a word.

“Performing is just a cool feeling. I like it. You’ll realize what I mean when we go onstage tomorrow.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I sighed.

He leaned forward and kissed me quickly. “I gotta get home. Mom’s ordering pizza.”

“Okay,” I nodded. Before he left, I kissed him one more time and assured him that I’d see him the next day at Sectionals.

It took me two and a half hours to go to sleep that night, my mind never failing to create a new worry or concern. Finally, I was so exhausted of worrying that my brain just gave out.

* * *

The next morning, my alarm woke me up at eight thirty. Even though I didn’t have to be at the school until three, I wanted to make sure that I was completely ready and prepared.

So that meant showering and getting dressed in my navy blue button-down shirt and light washed jeans with my Converse. I stared in the mirror, wondering how it was going to look along with everyone else’s similar clothes. Wearing matching clothes kind of made me nervous, since it made everything a little more real.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the front door opening and closing downstairs, since I figured that Mom would probably just be leaving for the day to do whatever she did. She knew about Sectionals, but she didn’t know they were as big as they were. Nor did she know that parents were allowed to come, which was how I liked it.

After I finished straightening my hair and clipping on a necklace with a silver key pendant, there was a knock at the door.

Drawing my eyebrows together, I opened it. “Mom, I thought you were-”

But it wasn’t Mom. It was Grayson. With his brown eyes bright, he lifted up a plastic cup for me to take.

“MOM!” I yelled. When she didn’t answer me, I just ran down the stairs, finding her running a brush through her hair as she made her way out the door. “What the hell?”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone,” she corrected. “What’s so wrong with watching Grayson?”

“You know I have a Glee Club thing today.” It occurred to me that I sounded like a whining child, but I didn’t care at that moment. There was no way that I was going to lose this argument. Grayson was not going to stay at home by himself again.

“Just bring him with you,” she smiled.

I started to retort that she should bring him with her, but she was out the door and running. Wow, she was a great listener. Really. No wonder she was a therapist.

“Ellie,” Grayson spoke from behind me. I turned around to find him with his arms in the air, stomping his feet, begging to be picked up.

Though I loved Grayson to death…what the hell was I going to do with a toddler at Sectionals?