A New Beginning

“Do you need help getting to your first class?” he questioned, gesturing to the map in my hands, which was slightly crumpled from my frustration.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” I agreed with a sigh of relief. “Do you know where Mr. Rucker’s room is?”

“Oh, that’s my class, too,” he smiled. “C’mon. You were really close.”

We literally walked two doors down and Finn opened the door for me. “Well,” I coughed as I stepped inside. “That was embarrassing.”

The bell rang then, and everyone’s eyes journeyed to the door to see who was late. Making a very tight-lipped smile, I went up to Mr. Rucker, an aged man with wispy gray hair that surrounded his head, leaving a bald spot in the middle, stubble covering his chin and neck, and an expansive stomach.

“Hi,” I greeted. “I’m Sydney? I’m new here.”

“Of course!” he exclaimed in a booming voice. When he smiled, I noticed that he was missing two of his front teeth on the top. At least only one of them was one of the actual front teeth. “Sydney Lopez?”

I felt the heat rush to my face. “No, actually. It’s Sydney Fulton. The system messed up.”

“Are you related to Santana?” he inquired. I could feel the stares of the entire class boring into my back, burning my skin under my shirt.

“Unfortunately,” I muttered.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered before leaning back in his seat. “Take a seat wherever you want and we can get started!”

Immediately, I sat down next to Finn. “See?” he spoke softly as Mr. Rucker started his lesson. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Nope. But everyone’s still staring at me.” I looked around for a while, feeling my face heat up even more.

“Don’t worry about them. You should probably get used to it, since you’re new and all. Actually…I’m surprised that you’re not used to it already.”

I knew that was supposed to be some sort of trap so that I could ask what he meant by that, and he’d awkwardly say that I was really pretty. So I decided to skip all that shit and said, “I’m actually used to everyone looking at the person with me, whether that be my best friend, who was gorgeous, or my cousin…”

“Your cousin?”

“Yup.” Score. He hadn’t heard Mr. Rucker’s and my conversation from the front of the class. That was pretty cool. If my luck held out, then no one else in the class had heard it.

“Hm. You close with your cousin?”

“Physically, way too close. Emotionally, I want to hang her by her toes from a tree,” I responded coolly, sitting back in my seat and watching the notes being scrawled across the white board.

Finn just looked at me with wide eyes before turning away from me, probably shocked that I was so violent.

If he was surprised about that, then he was in for quite a few shocks with me. I was the kind of person that threatened anything that I didn’t like with violence.

As we were leaving the class after the bell rang, Finn checked my schedule and sighed. “We don’t have next class together, but we have Spanish together after that. Your classroom’s down that way.” He pointed down the hallway, veering toward the right.

“Okay, thanks,” I smiled, turning around and walking away. He was really nice, but I wasn’t planning on making any friends-

“Sydney!” he exclaimed, interrupting my thoughts as his heavy footsteps came toward me once again. “I forgot. So, if you’re looking for something to do after school or whatever, there’s this club-”

“If you’re trying to convert me to a Glee-Clubber, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m not a singer or a dancer. At all.”

Finn gave me a questioning look, surely wondering how in the world I knew what he was going to ask me. But Santana had given me strict orders not to join the club, and I was willing to agree. The less time with her, the better.

“That’s alright. You should check it out anyway, you know, see if you like it. I bet you’re a better singer than you think.”

“Maybe if I was one of those girls that talks down about themselves to fish for compliments.” I rolled my eyes. “But I’m not. I’m realistic. What I say is how it goes. Now I’m going to class, and I’m not going to join Glee Club. We cool?”

He nodded, so I spun on my heels and headed toward my next class, feeling a little guilty about yelling at Finn. After all, he didn’t know about my life or anything.

And that was how I was planning to keep it.

* * *

“So,” Aunt Marisol started at dinner, breaking through the silence that had settled, “how was your first day?”

I shrugged, shooting a fast look at my Uncle John. He just shrugged, not bailing me out of having to talk about how my day went. How boring.

“It was alright,” was the best I could come up with. “There was a mess up in the system saying that my last name was Lopez.”

“I’m sorry,” Aunt Marisol sighed. “They must have just assumed, since we signed as guardians.”

“People are stupid,” I grumbled, stabbing a piece of chicken with my fork angrily and trying not to chip my teeth with how tightly my jaw was locked. “So where’s Santana?”

“I think she said that she was going over Brittany’s house to study for a biology test that they have tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I answered nonchalantly, but I was struggling with all my might not to let out a snort. Like Santana would ever study…and like Brittany would be any help.

From the look on Aunt Marisol’s face, she knew this just as well as if I’d said it aloud, but she didn’t want to admit it. If my daughter was like Santana, I wouldn’t want to admit it to myself either that she was a slut.

Though if my daughter turned out like Santana…I would probably disown her. Maybe not that severe, but…she would be sorry that she chose that lifestyle.

After dinner, I just hid out in my room, reading a really great book that I had picked up right before I moved to Ohio.

Around eleven, right when I was almost asleep, Santana burst into the bedroom, letting the bright, burning light from the hallway stab though my eyelids.

“Can I help you?” I snapped, rubbing my eyes.

“Did you talk to Finn Hudson today about joining Glee?” she yelled, slamming my door behind me.

“Um, no. He told me I should join, and I said no. Now can you get the fuck out of my room? Some decent people are trying to sleep.”

Santana smirked at me. “Good. Just remember our deal.”

“Yeah, whatever.” But at the mention of the deal made my stomach clench. Why did she have to keep bringing it up? I had almost successfully forgotten about it.

Her smile grew with my reaction before she went back out into the hallway, leaving my door open behind her.

That’s right, I remembered, groaning loudly as I got to my feet to get rid of the light source, Santana likes to watch people suffer.