Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

“Um, I can totally explain!” I shot up from the couch and ran my hand through my hair. I may have been tired before, but all that was completely gone now. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Aileen narrowed her eyes. “Any more clichés you want to throw at me?”

Groaning, I munched on my lip for a second. “How much trouble am I in?”

Instead of answering, she just threw the damning wrapper on the coffee table and heaved a huge sigh. It struck me that it seemed like she was trying to hold back tears. “You know, Ellie, I trusted you. And you took advantage of that by having sex with Puck when I wasn’t home? It was when I worked late, wasn’t it?”

Wow. There was a great way to make me feel like shit. No, even worse than shit. “I’m sorry. I really am.” I started sniffling. Annoyed, I wiped the tears that were threatening to fall and made a conscious effort to make sure that I made no eye contact with her.

“I’m sure you are now that you know I’m angry. I’m just…I’m so disappointed.”

The guilt felt even heavier in my stomach, which I didn’t even know was possible. It would be one thing if she was angry, screaming at me, for, basically, spitting in her face and disrespecting her after all she did to get me into her custody. Then I could scream back, make the defenses that I’d already thought of. But she was just…upset. Sad. It was written all over her face.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

Aileen just shook her head before turning and walking back up the stairs, leaving me standing there with heaving breaths, just trying not to cry. Using my sleeve to wipe off my face, I sniffled once and picked that dumb condom wrapper up off the table. Angrily, I ripped it into a million pieces over the trash in the kitchen, watched it sprinkle like confetti, then kicked the barrel for good measure.

Once I had some of my anger out, I walked up to my bedroom and shut the door. I looked around at the room that Aileen had designed and set up just for me and started to feel nauseas. Sinking to the ground, I crossed my arms on my knees and rested my head on top of them.

What was I thinking? How had I let all that Aileen had done for me slip my mind completely when I made my decision?

* * *

“Guess what Aileen found out?” I monotoned to Puck the next morning. I knew I looked like a mess, but I didn’t even care.

Puck made an ‘ouch’ face. “That you slept all afternoon yesterday?”

I had the urge to slap him upside the head, but refrained, though it was difficult. After taking a deep sigh, I said slowly, “Okay, I’m going to give you one more chance to guess. What could Aileen have possibly found out that made me look like this?” I gestured down my body, pointing out the fact that I wasn’t wearing makeup, my hair was a mess, and I was wearing sweats. All of which would make Kurt kill me, so I made a mental note to steer clear of him.

Puck let out a slow whistle. “Oh. That.”

“Yeah, that. I feel awful.”

“What? Was she mad?”

“I wish she was. She was just…so upset. And disappointed.” I bit my lip (another Kurt pet-peeve, I realized) and stared off into the distance. “I basically just sat in my room and cried all night. It was awful.”

“I don’t even get why she got upset. I mean, you’re sixteen. You can do what you want.”

I stared at him for a second, trying to figure out if he was serious or not. “Because she did so much for me and I took advantage of her trusting me to be responsible if I had you over when she wasn’t home. People don’t typically like being taken advantage of.”

He shrugged and stopped outside my classroom. “Whatever. You can take out your anger in Glee Club this afternoon.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“You know, The Beatles assignment…? Mr. Schue said that you’re performing today…?”

I didn't remember that in the least. How had that slipped my mind?

Puck narrowed his eyes. “Whoa, you really are miserable about Aileen finding out, aren’t you?”

“Duh!” I smacked his arm and sighed. “I have no idea what I’m going to sing! I guess I’m going to have to go through my iPod in class…” Reaching into my bag, I rummaged through the front pocket. Which was empty.

Ignoring the fact that we were in the middle of a crowded hallway where tons of students were passing by us to go to their first class, I screamed. A loud, piercing, everyone-stopped-to-look-at-me kind of screech.

My teacher walked out of the classroom and gave me a very angry look. “Ellie, that was completely uncalled for. I’ll see you after school tomorrow.” With another shot of daggers, she turned and walked away, and students started to move again.

“Fuck my life,” I mumbled before going toward the classroom, not even bothering to say bye to Puck. With the way my day was going, he would probably take that goodbye as me breaking up with him or something ridiculous like that, and then I’d be even more miserable.

* * *

At lunch, I had stolen Kurt’s iPod and had it under the table, scrolling through the songs. It’s sad to admit, but it took me almost a full five minutes to realize something. “Wait, Kurt, give me your other one. This is the one with only Wicked songs.”

Kurt chuckled. Something about that laugh made me think that he did that on purpose, but it was probably my nerves talking. I was totally stressed to the max.

Once I got the proper iPod, I went immediately to The Beatles and was surprised to find that it looked like Kurt had every song from them. Ever. I thought I was a hardcore Beatles fan, but there were songs on there that I’d never heard of.

“Wow,” was all I commented, and I was the only one that heard, since it was under my breath.

After a solid three minutes of looking, I groaned and smacked my forehead against the table. It took a couple seconds for the pain to set in, but instead of reacting out loud, I just made a grimace, where no one could see me.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” I muttered angrily. “And I hate my life.”

“Then why don’t you just ask Mr. Schue if you can perform a different day?” Kurt asked like I was completely insane.

“Because that would be too easy?” I replied hesitantly. “No. It’s just because it means failing, and I really can’t deal with that right now.”

Kurt took the iPod out of my hand and flicked through it. “There. I know you love that song. You know all the words.”

I thought about it for a second. “It’s not going to show off my voice much…”

He rolled his eyes. “Not all of them need to. It’s not like we’re competing or anything. You needed a song to sing. You’re welcome.”

The bell rang and Kurt hurried away. While getting shoved into doing what I needed to was completely necessary, I couldn’t help but be a smidge ticked at him. I mean, he didn’t even let me listen to it to make sure that I really did know all the words without a single place that I would have to mumble.

With the luck I was having, I would probably blank and not remember a single word. Or my own name.

Grumbling to myself, I stood up and started down the hallway for class, hurrying so that I wouldn’t be late and get yet another detention.

Right when I was leaving the cafeteria, Kurt came out of nowhere, walking next to me for a second. "By the way, you look awful."

Thank you, Kurt. Thanks so much.