A New Beginning

Later that night, I was on my laptop and logged into Facebook to poke Finn back (it was a very intense poke war), only to find that Finn hadn’t held up his end of the war and that I had a dumb relationship request from Puck.

Clenching my jaw, I clicked accept, but I felt gross. Why did lying to everyone make me feel like scum? It wasn’t like they were oh-so-nice to me.

Then I realized that I was also lying to Finn, which did bother me. And the knot in my stomach was probably more about the lack-of-poke than for being Facebook-official in Puck’s and my “relationship.”

No sooner than I let out a sigh about being the worst friend ever, my door slammed open. Santana stormed in with her eyes looking crazier with anger than I’d ever seen them. The weirdest thing was that no other feature on her face showed any anger.

“What the fuck is this?!” she accused, shoving her computer in my face.

I backed up to avoid any contact with my nose, but kept all emotion buried in my stomach. Lighting up the screen was my profile, that little box saying that I was in a relationship with Puck Puckerman. Not kidding, that was his name on Facebook. Such an idiot.

“What’s the problem?” I asked in a voice that was so sickeningly sweet, I was sure that I rotted a tooth.

“You know that Puck is mine.”

“I thought you’ve said on several occasions that sex isn’t dating,” I replied, again, being over-the-top nice. “So I thought he was available. And what can I say? He just really likes me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “There’s no way he likes you. You’re not a cheerleader, you’re ugly, you’re fat, and you don’t even cover up your pimples with makeup.”

Okay. The sick act was officially done. “Okay, let’s get some things straight,” I almost growled as I stood up from my bed, shoving her laptop against her stomach. “Just because I’m not a cheerleader doesn’t mean that I don’t matter. If I’m ugly, then so are you, because, remember, we’re related. And I hate to tell you, but we kinda look it. Just because I’m not so skinny that my ribs are fucking poking out of my skin doesn’t mean that I’m fat. And I get, like, one pimple a month, if that. So, unlike you, I don’t have anything to cover. Now get the fuck out of my room before I chuck you out the window.”

Santana laughed evilly. “You have no idea the Panda box that you just opened.”

“It’s Pandora’s box, you ignoramus!”

“WHATEVER! It doesn’t even fucking matter.” Then, she lowered her voice and said, “Just because you use big words doesn’t mean that you know anything about how McKinley’s run. All I have to do is slip something to someone, and it’ll be around the school like wildfire.”

“You don’t have anything else to use against me,” I reminded her. “Not that anybody cares about it, now that I’m Puck’s girlfriend. I hate to tell you, but my status has shot up.”

“It will never be as high as mine.” She turned around and exited, and I rolled my eyes dramatically. Santana never ceased to amaze me with just how huge her ego was. The more she convinced herself that her status was firmly locked in place, the more I was itching to knock her down a few pegs. Or off the Empire State Building. Either would work.

I looked over at my laptop and saw that I had a new message. Scrunching up my eyebrows, I clicked on it.

The message was from Finn. Even though I don’t want to put it on the update, since I don’t like Puck, I’m happy for you. Really.

What confused me was that I got a rock in my stomach. Why would that make me uncomfortable, that Finn was supposedly happy for Puck and me?

Maybe because I hoped that he would be the one person to see through the fakeness of the whole thing? Inside, I knew that it was good that Finn believed it, since that meant that we must have been convincing.

But it still felt weird. Adjusting my position, I just closed the message, noted that Finn still didn’t poke me back, and logged out. Then, I shut down my laptop and stood it up against my night table.

After getting ready for bed, I finally shoved all thoughts of why I felt the way I did out of my head. It was nothing, anyway.

* * *

The next morning, Finn pulled into the driveway right on time. My stomach clenched, nervous that he was going to ask a million questions that I wasn’t going to be able to answer. It reminded me that Puck and I hadn’t made up a single story so that everyone who wondered how we got together would get the same made-up explanation.

But I didn’t have to worry. Finn didn’t even look at me when I got in the car, and the air was thick with silence the whole way to school. It was completely awkward, but I had no idea what to say in order to make things more comfortable.

Instead, I just gnawed on the inside of my cheek and hoped that something would come to me.

Of course, with my luck, I didn’t come up with anything before Finn pulled into his parking spot. He walked with me until we got to the front of the school, where Puck was playing something on his iPod.

“See you later,” Finn mumbled, the first thing he’d said all day.

“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding.

I started walking over to Puck, and when I was standing right in front of him, I opened my mouth to say something. However, I was cut off by him screaming, “SHIT!”

“What?” I questioned, irritated that he just scared the crap out of me, along with about twenty other students.

“Just hit a fucking bomb in this dumb game.” He clenched his jaw.

“You’re playing Fruit Ninja, aren’t you?” I laughed. I pulled myself onto the wall next to him and watched as he started a new game. “This game is so annoying.”

“But addicting,” he agreed. The next time he hit a bomb, which was right after he cleared a hundred, he almost chucked his iPod into the parking lot. Thankfully, I took it away before he had the chance.

“We should get to class,” I told him, stuffing his iPod into my pocket. The last thing I wanted was for him to be playing Fruit Ninja in class and do something he’d regret to his iPod.

“I guess,” he mumbled, climbing off the wall before me. I jumped off and landed next to him. “So what did Santana do when she saw that we were Facebook-official?”

I rolled my eyes dramatically, remembering the drama, before telling it to him.

He just laughed and looked at me with a mischievous smirk. “She doesn’t even know half of it.”