A New Beginning

School was uncomfortable. I walked through the hallways alone after Finn left before first period to catch up with some of his football buddies. I hadn’t told him about my argument with Puck, since I didn’t know how to explain it without admitting that Puck and I were a fake couple.

The only time I saw Puck throughout the entire day was before lunch, when he was leaning up against a locker and flirting shamelessly with some girl I’d never seen before. We looked at each other for a second before he turned away.

That was basically all the prompting I needed to know that we were no longer together.

It was kind of what I wanted from the beginning, but I still felt shitty. Sure, Puck was a douchebag and he irritated the hell out of me. Despite all that, there was a small part of me (very, very small and buried very, very deep) that kind of liked him, that felt like we had a connection of sorts. After all, he was the first person who knew about what had happened to me in my past. He was the first person who had ever heard me really sing. He sometimes seemed to care a little bit about me.

Sighing, I slipped into the cafeteria and looked around for a while to find somewhere to sit. It only took me a second to see that Finn was sitting alone. When he saw me, he waved a little bit before gesturing to the seat next to him.

“Puck doesn’t have this lunch today, right?” Finn asked as I sat down.

“Right,” I replied with a smile. It did help to ignore the problem if Puck wasn’t in my lunch so people couldn’t stare at the fact that we weren’t sitting together. “Good memory.”

Finn grinned and took another bite of his lunch. “Ready for that test in Spanish today?”

“Don’t even talk about it,” I mumbled. “You’d think that Mr. Schue would be easy on us, since we’re in Glee Club and he loves us, but no. He seems hell-bent on making us fail.”

“It might not be that bad. I mean, how hard can figuring out whether to use preterit and imperfect tense be?”

“Finn, how many practice questions have you gotten right during class?” Personally, I knew that I got somewhere around three to five of all the practice questions right during class out of the fifty that we’d done, but I didn’t know if he was in better shape.

However, from the look on his face, he wasn’t. “Good point,” he muttered. “Now I think I should have studied more.”

“I’m sure you studied more than I did,” I cringed, remembering about how I had lied in my bed, staring at the ceiling for hours and hours, thinking about everything (especially Puck) before finally passing out around two thirty.

“I doubt it. I only studied for a half hour.”

“Not even a second. We’ll fail together! Up top!” I put my hand up for a high-five, which Finn slapped before laughing.

“You’re so weird. I don’t know anyone else who would be optimistic about failing.”

“Then you don’t know many quality people.” I started eating my small lunch, which made sure that I could avoid drinking those bulimic-inducing shakes that Coach Sylvester forced on the rest of the Cheerios. While she had given me the recipe, I was hoping that I could fool her into thinking I was drinking it without actually doing so.

“I certainly don’t know anyone like you.” He took a gulp of milk. “So how do you like Cheerios so far?”

I rolled my eyes. “I think you basically got the gist of my frustrations yesterday after practice.”

“Oh, right. I bet you’re great, though.”

Shrugging, I responded, “Eh. Not really. Clearly, I got some of the Lopez rhythm, but not as much as I would like.” I took a short sip of water. “Not as much as Coach Sylvester would like either, judging my how much she yells at me and how she put me in the back of the dancers.”

“I’m pretty sure she does that with all the newbies.” I shot him a confused look. “Quinn told me when we were going out.”

“Oh.”

“But don’t worry, you’ll get better.” He gave me a smile before getting up from the table to get rid of his tray.

I put my empty salad container away in my book-bag and crossed my arms on the table, leaning my chin on top of them. My lack of sleep was starting to get to me a little bit, which was not a good thing at all.

Coincidentally, right as I was wondering how to wake up a little bit, I felt some freezing liquid being poured over my head. It soaked right through my uniform within seconds and chilled me straight to the bone, and I knew the bright orange color would stain immediately.

When I turned around, some meaty football player was high-fiving his friend. “There was your initiation to Glee Club and Cheerios!” he laughed.

“What the hell, Karofsky?” Finn yelled from behind me. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, man. I was just trying to be welcoming.” The kid named Karofsky (probably a last name) looked back at me, still looking amused, before walking away.

I was cussing under my breath as I stood up from the table, shivering slightly. “C’mon, let’s get you to the bathroom. That stuff has probably already stained your uniform.”

“Whatever. Who was that dickhead, anyway?” I went to pick up my bag, but Finn took it for me, probably to keep me from getting any slushie on it. I muttered a thanks under my breath, which Finn nodded to, before he answered my question.

“Dave Karofsky. He thinks he’s the greatest thing to happen to this school since it started, but he’s wrong. His friend was Azimio, who can be a jerk, too.”

I shook my head, sending a few pieces of ice flying. “What kind of practice is that?”

“You’ve never seen anyone get slushied?” Finn sounded astonished, and even more shocked when I nodded hesitantly. “It’s kind of a tradition. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it. Kids in Glee Club always get slushies thrown in their faces. It’s embarrassing and is hell to get out of your clothes.”

“Lucky me. Coach Sylvester is going to shoot me if there’s an orange stain on my uniform.”

“Hopefully, your aunt has some stain remover.”

“She probably does,” I sighed. The bell rang, filling the entire hallway with people. “I’ll see you in Spanish, okay?”

“Alright. Good luck.” He gave me a sheepish smile before walking away.

Quickly, I scurried toward the girls’ bathroom door that was a few feet away.

The first sight that hit me was Puck pressed up against some girl, the same one he’d been flirting with twenty minutes earlier, hardcore making out.

“Wow, you’re cool,” I pointed out coldly.

Puck looked up at me, and actually looked a little embarrassed for getting caught. “Umm…”

“You know,” I told the girl rudely, “the bell already rang. And from what it looks like, you need all the intelligence you can get if you were making out with that moron. It might be within your best interests to get your ass to class.”

She registered my evil smile for a second before grabbing her bag. When she looked back up at Puck, I started shoving her toward the door. “Trust me, he won’t call you. You didn’t even sleep with him.”

Maybe Santana was wrong, and I would actually be able to blend in just fine with the Cheerios.

Once the girl was wrong, Puck and I just stared at each other, neither of us wanting to break the silence first.