A New Beginning

On Monday, I walked into school, feeling half-asleep. I wiped my hand down my face and took a deep breath, blinking rapidly, trying to wake myself up a little.

“You okay?” Finn questioned. I was itching to tell Finn about what had happened between Puck and me, but I knew that simply wasn’t an option, since Finn thought Puck and I were already a couple.

“Yeah. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep. Rough weekend.”

He winced as he remembered. “Oh, yeah. Did you and your aunt make up yet?”

“Nope. She’s just as stubborn and mean as Santana. Guess I can’t really blame Santana for being the way she is as much, can I?” Chuckling slightly, I spun the combination on my locker and took out my chemistry notebook.

“You shouldn’t get grounded this week so we can hang out Saturday for real this time,” he laughed.

“I’ll try not to. But I dunno. Next time, I could accidentally shut my bedroom door too hard and get sent to foster care.” My tone was biting, I knew, but I couldn’t help but be a little indignant that Aunt Marisol had threatened to send me away.

Unfortunately, Finn started looking very, very worried. “What do you mean foster care? You’re not leaving, are you? I mean, you just got here!”

“No, not yet,” I assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder for a second before turning and starting to walk down the hallway. He fell into step easily beside me. “Aunt Marisol just said it was an option.”

“She was just trash talking, right? Like, she just said it in the heat of the moment?”

“I think so.” No use scaring him.

I got to my class and stopped outside it. “I’ll catch you at lunch, Finn, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” He smiled at me before I turned my back on him, disappearing into the classroom.

Some of the people were whispering to each other, giggling, sneaking glances at me every so often.

Rolling my eyes dramatically so they’d take notice, I sat down in my seat and grabbed my notebook, preparing myself to take a million notes.

* * *

At Glee Club, Puck sat next to me, as usual. “Are we going to do our performance today?” I whispered to him so no one else could hear us.

He shrugged.

“Look, Puck,” I sighed, rubbing my temples, “I don’t want there to be hard feelings between us. I just said that I don’t know what I feel, okay?”

I felt some eyes on us, and I turned to find Kurt staring at us, clearly eavesdropping. “Get lost,” I snapped at him, maybe a little too harshly, making a shooing motion with my hand.

He looked thoroughly offended, despite the fact that he’d been the one at fault, as he stood up, storming away.

Puck looked at me. “Okay.”

“So are we cool?” I stuck out my fist, waiting for him to bump it.

“Fine,” he laughed, connecting his fist with mine, then exploding with a little sound effect.

“That mean we can do the performance today?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Just then, Mr. Schue walked into the room, a creepily huge smile on his face. “Ellie, Puck, you guys up to performing?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded, jumping to my feet and grabbing Puck’s hand.

Although we didn’t rehearse as much as we should have, and we probably should have been rusty, we weren’t. The performance went extremely well, perfectly even.

At the end, we got a standing ovation from a couple of people. “I totally would stand if…well, you know,” Artie joked, gesturing to his wheelchair.

I laughed, feeling like I was on air. “I appreciate the thought.”

Puck’s arm snaked around my waist, pulling me close to him. I knew the gesture was supposed to be for the crowd, to be a symbol of our relationship, but it still startled me a little bit.

“Great job, you guys,” Mr. Schue congratulated, getting up from his chair and clapping a couple times. “And what a perfect song for the assignment.”

“Gracias, Mr. Schue,” Puck grinned as we made our ways back to our seats.

“That was the last performance for the sexuality assignment, right?” Mr. Schue’s eyes grazed across the crowd, waiting for someone to object. When no one did, he turned around, going to his handy white board that he wrote every assignment on as he said them, as if we weren’t capable of understanding if he simply said it.

“Queen! Awesome!” Finn cheered, fist-pumping.

“Queen rocks,” Puck nodded in agreement.

“Wait, I didn’t know the queen had any songs,” Brittany piped up, looking confused.

“Queen the band, you idiot,” Santana sneered, rolling her eyes. Well, that was nice.

“Oh,” Brittany mumbled.

“Anyway,” Mr. Schue continued, pretending like the rude exchange didn’t happen. “I think you guys get what your objective is going to be. You can go now.”

I got up from my seat, ready to head to Cheerios. “You driving me home?” I asked conversationally as Puck and I walked down the hall to our practices.

“Yeah.”

“Good. ‘Cause I don’t want to get in trouble for being late again.” I smiled at him and opened the door to the girls’ locker room. “See you later!”

Eyes followed me as I made my way to my gym locker to put my stuff away.

“Hey,” Camila asked, that girl who I stepped on all that time ago, “did you and Puck make up?”

I raised my eyebrow at her. “Yes. But is it really any of your business?”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s my business or not.” She shrugged. “Everyone knows about it. Welcome to the Cheerios.”

She walked away, swinging her hips like she thought she was the shit. God, for a pretty girl, she had kind of an ugly personality.

Just then, Santana walked by me, not paying any attention at all to my existence, whether positive or negative. Almost as if we didn’t even know each other.

I sighed and threw my hair up into a ponytail, making sure that it was absolutely perfect. Then, I made my way to practice, ready to take on the next challenge.