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

“PUCK!” I yelled, banging my fist against his door in the morning. “GET UP!”

The only response was a dramatic groan. So I knocked a couple of more times, so loudly that the noise echoed in my own head. “I’m not kidding! If you’re not downstairs in ten minutes, I’m coming in there.”

“But I’m not dressed!” he replied in an innocent voice. “Poor Red’s virtue would be scarred!”

“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes, though he couldn’t see them, before running down the stairs. As I nibbled on an English muffin, I watched the clock like a hawk, waiting for the opportunity to run up the stairs and drag Puck out of bed.

But at nine minutes, he kissed me on the cheek, sending a wave of minty smell into my nose. “Good morning.”

“If you want to know the truth,” I laughed, “I was expecting you to stay in bed just so that I could go in there and get you.”

“Nah. We gotta get to school by quarter of if we want to go to Glee Club. And now you got me actually wondering if we’re doing that show.”

“I hope we are. That feeling of performing was just…” I let out a long sigh, followed by a smile. “Let’s get to school before we’re late and I have a heart attack.”

“Heart attack at fifteen? That’s new.”

“Almost sixteen,” I reminded him. “A month and three days.”

“Right…” he trailed off as we walked to his car.

“You didn’t remember, did you?” I narrowed my eyes at him. When he didn’t answer, I pressed him again. “Did you?”

“No,” he answered through a cough before smiling at me, sending me the message 'but you still love me anyway!'

Letting out a breath, I got into the passenger’s seat, watching him climb in his side. “I can’t believe you forgot my birthday!”

“I’m not sure I knew in the first place,” he defended as I put on my seatbelt. “Plus, I’m sure as the time got closer, you would have been like, ‘Oh my God! I’m turning sixteen soon! YAYYY!’”

It was hard to be angry when he imitated me like that. The high-pitched, squeaky sound coming from him was probably one of the most amusing things that I had witnessed in my life.

“I don’t sound like that!”

“Not to you, you don’t.”

“I’m going to let this go now. Don’t make me hit you.”

“And I’m scared of a girl?” I glared at him for a second, raising an eyebrow, and he rolled his eyes, but he shut up.

Once we got into the school, I noticed that the halls were mostly empty, minus a few stragglers. “I’m going to kill you,” I hissed at Puck before kissing him quickly and darting down the hall.

I ended up making it to biology a few seconds early and sat down, smiling at my success.

No thanks to Puck, of course.

* * *

“What if I told you,” I mused at lunch, staring at the sandwich in front of me, “that I was hungry and ate my shoe?”

The entire table, consisting of Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Artie, and Mike, stared at me. Puck was sitting with his football buddies, which I didn’t care about. It wasn’t like we would never see each other.

“Are you on drugs?” Kurt questioned seriously. “I mean, I know that Puck’s kind of hard to deal with but-”

“What? No! I was just trying to make some conversation. It was quiet.” My face flushed a little as I took a bite of my food, feeling a little embarrassed. “That’s not exactly the way I want my news that I ran away to be received.”

“So is Puck’s mom going to adopt you now?” Mercedes asked. “So that your mom can’t try to take you back to her house?”

“Uh…not that I know of…” I trailed off awkwardly. “But if she did…then Puck and I would kind of be brother and sister in a way…” Shuddering, I stopped my sentence right there. Awkward central.

“Good point,” Artie voiced. “That would be…”

“Awful,” I finished his thought. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t really see my mom coming after me, not after how I treated her.”

“But what about your cousin? Grayson?” Mike inquired.

“I dunno. I have a feeling that Aunt Piper won’t really be bringing him to my mom anymore, considering she’s been caught in her little scheme. Even Aunt Piper knows the extent of just how bad Mom’s become.”

“Alright, this is depressing me and making my face wrinkle,” Kurt interrupted, and I was thankful for the subject change. “Who heard about the show that we may or may not do to intimidate Vocal Adrenaline?”

“I DID!” I yelled, sticking my hand across the table. They turned to look at me again, and I felt my face fill with blood. “Sorry, I just got excited that I was in the loop for once.”

Tina, Mike, and Artie laughed, but Kurt and Mercedes just rolled their eyes. Some friends they were.

As I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them, I listened as Kurt explained exactly what he’d heard, which was way more than Rachel. That surprised me, since she was all hardcore about Glee and everything. Kurt even knew the date that Mr. Schue was planning to hold it.

“How the hell do you know all this?” I gasped, shocked.

Kurt ran his fingers through his bangs as he replied, “I have my ways.” Just the way he said it made me not really want to know.

“I cannot wait for Glee Club,” I grinned, rolling up my aluminum foil into a near perfect sphere. “I want to know what songs we’re singing!”

“That, I don’t know,” Kurt confirmed.

“Thanks. I kind of got that from your lack of saying it.” From where I was sitting, I shot the sphere toward the trash, expecting it to go on. I didn’t spend four years of my life playing basketball for nothing.

But apparently, I did, because the shot was way off, almost hitting someone in the back.

“Don’t try out for basketball,” Mike told me, eliciting a laugh from Tina.

“Ha-ha,” I grumbled to myself as I went to retrieve my aluminum foil. “Let’s laugh at the total fail that is Ellie. It’s so much fun to laugh. Har. Friggin’. Har.”

“Talking to yourself?” someone said from behind me.

Blushing fiercely, I turned to look at the kid. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my hand on it.

“Dan?” he offered with a smile. “The kid you saved from the dumpster?”

“Right,” I nodded, laughing. “Puck hasn’t tossed you in trash recently, has he?”

“Nope. Puck hasn’t really tossed anyone into a dumpster recently. So out of character for him.”

“What can I say? I guess I’m just a good influence.” I grinned at Dan one more time before walking back to my table.

But it occurred to me that while I might be a good influence on Puck…he was just as much of a bad influence on me.