A New Beginning

Puck just smirked at me, sipping through the straw of his pop again. “If you really hated me, then you wouldn’t have come.”

“I didn’t know that I hated you yet. I just thought that you were kind of awful.”

Wincing, I watched him shove a handful of French fries into his mouth. When did his appetite end…?

“Can I ask you why you don’t like me?”

For a second, I couldn’t help but stare, wondering if he was actually serious. “You really want me to answer that?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.” Taking a pause to clear my throat, I compiled my thoughts and started listing everything, using my fingers to keep track of each individual reason why I didn’t like him. “You hit on me at a party when you were drunk-”

“But I was drunk. You can’t hold that against me.”

“I can,” I responded with narrowed eyes, “and I will. Then, you puked everywhere that night before acting like a jerk to me the next day, even though I basically saved your ass-”

“What happened to ‘watching your mouth’?” Puck smirked, using air-quotes.

“Are you going to let me talk or not?” I sighed. “Because I’m just getting started.”

His only response was to put his hands up in defense and sink back into his chair.

“Thank you,” I replied sarcastically, even though he didn’t say anything. “So where was I…? Oh, yeah. You sleep with my disease-riddled cousin on a regular basis, you’re an overall manwhore, you still hit on me, even after you were kind of a jerk-slash-crazy-drunk. You won’t accept that I don’t like you at all, and, when you finally got me to say yes to you, which was just because I wanted you off my back, you take me to McDonald’s. Not that the date means a damn thing to you, since you just wanted to add one more mark to your tally of girls that you’ve gone out with. You’re just an awful person.”

Puck was quiet for a little bit before he laughed. “God, be blunt, would you?”

“You asked. I merely gave you an answer. Will you take me home now?”

“Not until you eat something.” He picked up one of the various disgusting sandwiches and waved it under my nose. I’m sure that his intention was to make me want to take it, but he was just kind of making me nauseas.

“Cut that out,” I snapped at him, whacking his hand away. “Do you enjoy irritating me?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s funny how easily you get annoyed.”

“Glad you’re amused.” Rolling my eyes at him, I took a sip of my pop. “But I’m not eating anything. It’ll kill me slowly.”

“Guess I’m dying then,” Puck smiled.

“Thank God.” Though I meant the statement to be venomous, I found myself laughing right along with him.

“See?” he teased. “You can’t hate me that much.”

“Moment of weakness,” I explained, regaining my composure. “Plus, I was laughing at the fact that it’s pathetic that you found me thanking God for your death funny.”

Puck shrugged before standing up, stretching and making loud noises. “Will you shut up?” I demanded, throwing all his trash onto the tray, along with the uneaten food.

“You are so moody, I swear. It’s like hanging around with my mom when she’s PMS-ing.”

“Which makes it all the more interesting that you pushed for this date,” I reminded him. Then, not looking back, I just tossed everything into the trash can before he could stop me. Maybe he’d forget that I didn’t touch a single bit of food.

“Yeah, well. Like you said earlier: I just needed to add you to my tally.” There was something there that was more stinging than any of his other jerky remarks, and it caught me off-guard.

“Are you saying I’m not?” I questioned finally.

“I’m not saying anything.” With that, he started walking out of the joint, leaving me behind. After glaring at a tile on the wall for a good few seconds, I heaved a big breath and started to make my way out to the car.

The ride back to my house was kind of uncomfortable, since neither of us said a word. Instead, I just kept my head against the window, the feeling of the cool glass making it through all my hair, straight to my scalp. On the radio was some kind of rock song that I couldn’t identify.

After what seemed like an eternity, Puck pulled into my driveway and parked, just idling, not saying a word.

“Well,” I cut through the silence, clearing my throat. “Thanks for the date?”

“No problem. I had…fun.” He laughed, showing that he wasn’t serious. At all.

I opened the door and started to get out before turning back to him. “Are you not coming in to fool around with Santana?”

“No. I don’t feel like it.”

That surprised me, but I tried my best not to show my emotion. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you around then.”

While the door started to slam shut, I heard Puck’s voice call out, “Hey, Australia!”

“What?” Leaving the door just a bit open, I slipped my head back into the car.

“Will you tell me something?”

“Sure,” I responded before thinking about all the awful things that he could possibly ask me.

“Do you hate me just because I walked in on you singing that one time?”

Earlier, I had purposely left that part out, since I didn’t want him knowing how important singing really was to me. After all, I had to play like I didn’t want to join Glee Club with everything that was in me. I had to pretend that I didn’t like singing in public, that I just wanted to stay away from Santana…although the latter was very true.

I should have lied, of course. Who was Puck to me, anyway? Just a jerk. But there was something about the blunt way that he asked the question, and how he’d asked if he could say anything in the first place, made me feel like he deserved a real, true answer. “Partly, yeah.”

“If singing is that important to you, then why-?”

“It’s complicated,” I rushed. “I gotta get inside now, so I’ll talk to you later okay?”

“You’ll talk to me later?” he smirked.

“Good-bye, Puck.” Smiling in spite of myself, I shut the door loudly and made my way inside the house.

Santana was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of black tea, when I passed her. I could feel her angry stare, but I chose to ignore it instead of asking her what her problem was.

After showering and getting changed into pajamas, I snuggled down between the warm covers of my bed and closed my eyes, smiling slightly.

Shockingly, I might have actually had a little fun on my date with Puck. Even if he was a douche.