Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

“Pregnant?!” I repeated in a squeal. Well, who the hell would have thought that Puck could have been right? “You’re pregnant?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what happened, really. I mean, I was on the pill, but for some reason, I was that faulty .1%.” Callie took a deep breath, as if calming her stomach, and leaned over to start washing her hands. “So here I am, two months pregnant.”

“Why didn’t you say anything that first day when I asked you if you were alright? That would have saved me a whole hell of a lot of worrying about you.”

“Because that’s why I left my old school.” She finished drying her hands and leaned back against the sinks, her eyes boring into me as she spoke. “Some people found out, and they started giving me hell about it. Taunts in the hallway, shit like that. I tried not to let it bother me, but when they spray painted my locker and my car, I felt like it was time to leave.”

That took me off guard. How was it that Callie had been so abused at her old school, and yet still had a happy-go-lucky disposition that seemed to radiate from her in waves? It didn’t make any sense that she had gone through so much more than the rest of us, and yet was always in a better mood than anyone else. “What about the father? Didn’t he stick up for you?” I finally broke through the silence.

“Nope. ‘Course not. He was kind of the stereotypical teen dad. I told him that I was pregnant, and despite the fact that we’d been going out for almost a year, he ditched. I have a suspicion that he was even the one that spray-painted ‘whore’ on my car. That was fun to explain to Mommy Dearest.”

I was quiet for a little while longer, not knowing what to say beyond that. How was I supposed to respond, anyway?

But Callie clearly had enough of talking about serious stuff because she patted my shoulder and nodded toward the door. “The bell’s gonna ring soon. I know you’d just die if you were late to class.”

At that moment, though, I didn’t care at all whether I was late or not. I was still kind of in shock about her confession. I figured that she wouldn’t have moved to Lima of all places to escape stuff about pregnancy. She could get stuck here forever, being the perfect example of a Lima loser.

“Do you know what you’re going to do with the baby?” I asked as the bell rang, signaling that everyone was leaving lunch.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I figure that I have seven months left before an official decision has to be made. But I’ll probably keep it, if only because it’s another challenge that I can overcome.”

With that, she just left without saying another word to get to class, concluding that I wasn’t coming just then. And I wasn’t, since I stood there, staring at the back of the door, even after the late bell had sounded.

After all of the things that I’d found out that day, the thing that confused me most was that Callie seemed so calm about the whole thing, none of the expected emotions really coming out of her.

* * *

“So Tina and Artie are performing today for…” Puck stopped when I closed my locker and looked over at him. “Whoa. Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest and staring at the floor.

He just raised an eyebrow at me, a silent expression to tell me to stop trying to play stupid. “Hm, I don’t know. It just kind of looks like you’ve seen a ghost. And I know that you skipped almost half of chemistry.”

“Who told you that?” A good liar would have played cool when confronted. I just sounded shocked and guilty.

“Mercedes told me.” Shit. I forgot Mercedes was in that class.

“I’m just kind of surprised that she told you. I figured that she’d be more loyal to me than to you.”

“She was ‘worried about you,’” he informed me, using air-quotes and everything. “I don’t know why, though. I mean, it’s not like you were dead.”

“Could have been. I’m not exactly the skipping type, am I?”

“Not to anyone else, you’re not. But I know that you are. Remember last year?”

How could I have ever forgotten the time that I beat Puck’s ass in Super Monkey Ball? It was a perfect time in my life. Well, nearly perfect.

“Yeah, well. That was only one time because I had no other choice.”

“Which means that I know you have a good excuse this time. And I, being your boyfriend again, get to know that that excuse is.”

“Ah, but you can’t. It’s a secret.” We walked into Glee Club, and all heads turned toward us at the mention of the word ‘secret’. If there was a place where gossip flourished, it was within the walls of the chorus room. Even the Cheerios did not feed off rumors like the Glee Club did.

“What’s a secret?” Kurt asked immediately when my butt hit the seat.

“It wouldn’t be very secret if I told you, now would it?” I replied, setting my bag at my feet. When he didn’t answer, I followed smugly, “Exactly.”

“Just because something’s a secret doesn’t mean that it can’t come out. Like me being gay.”

“Oh, trust me,” I chuckled. “That was never a secret.”

He looked offended for a second before he got over it. “Well, whether it was or not, it still came out eventually. So what are you hiding?”

“Nice try,” I smiled, “but it’s not my secret to tell.”

Kurt smirked at me like his gossip senses were tingling, but didn’t say anything else, as he sat back in his chair. I thought that was because he had given up his quest, but that was proved wrong when Mr. Schue walked into the classroom, introducing the day in his peppy tone.

“Alright, Tina. Why don’t you go now?” He smiled and stepped off to the side so that the front of the room would be available for Tina’s performance.

She was just getting to a great part of Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves when I shifted positions, accidentally knocking over my bag. And, apparently, I had forgotten to switch on Hold when I put my iPod away because Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie started playing at a ridiculous volume. Who even knew that I had been listening to it that loudly?

My face flushed bright red as I tossed the crap around in my bag, trying to find my iPod. When I finally found it at the bottom, underneath a textbook (that would be what turned it on, I guessed), I shut it off and switched on Hold. On a second thought, I ripped the ear buds out of the plug, too, just for safe measure.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “Didn’t mean to ruin the performance.”

“God, it’s like you’re sabotaging everyone else’s performances so that your mediocre vocals will look better,” Rachel scoffed, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Sorry, but that sounds more like your personality, doesn’t it?” I snapped without thinking. After a couple minutes of me giving her the worst, most venomous death glare possible, she finally turned away, looking slightly abashed.

“That’s right, bitch,” I muttered under my breath. Then, turning back to Tina, I put on a smile and apologized again.

“It’s o-o-okay,” she assured me before turning back to Brad, instructing him to pick off where they’d left off.

“Easy, Tiger,” Puck whispered in my ear to keep from taking away from Tina’s singing again.

I let out a little snicker with my nose, deciding not to answer as I turned back to the front of the classroom.