Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

All night, I tossed and turned, trying to figure out what I should do. Deep down, I really wanted to forgive Puck. The kid thing was not something that I should be worrying about at sixteen. In fact, I should be happy that there was absolutely no way that I could get pregnant if I had sex with Puck again.

But I wasn’t. At all. I felt like it was more the fact that he had made such a major life choice without saying anything to me, not even mentioning it to me after he had it done, like it was an afterthought. He didn’t even realize how…dramatic doing something like that was. He wouldn’t be the same person again.

Closing my eyes and letting just a couple tears fall down my cheeks, I turned over and stared at my clock, which read 3:23. That meant that I had been trying to fall asleep for exactly five hours and twenty one minutes. Part of me just wanted to give up entirely, but I knew that I was going to be a total mess if I didn’t get any sleep.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind of any thoughts of Puck. Sometime later, I fell into a shallow sleep only to be awoken by my alarm at six thirty.

Getting ready was hard, since I was drowsy from sleeping for such a little amount of time, but once I had eaten breakfast, I was fine. It was like I’d had ten hours of sleep. Something told me that was because my body wanted to be ready for the difficult day that was definitely going to come, but I couldn’t be sure.

At school, I was walking down the hallway when Kurt came out from nowhere. “Why didn’t you answer my text last night?"

It took me a second to remember what he was talking about. “Oh, sorry. I’ve just…”

“Had a rough night. Yeah, I can tell.” He turned to me, wearing a little smirk and raising his eyebrow. “Details. Now.”

“It’s just this thing with Puck,” I replied offhandedly. The last thing I wanted was to have a heart to heart in the middle of the hallway, letting the entirety of the student body watch me sob. No, thank you.

Surprisingly, I got an eye roll. “Another argument with Puck? God, you guys are total trainwreck. What, is this your fiftieth fight so far this year? And it’s not even Thanksgiving break.”

Shit. He had a point. We did fight a lot. And we were uncomfortable around each other. What had happened? Had I changed? Had he?

Of course he’d changed. He made a complete one-eighty from how he was before the two of us were a couple. So what the hell was wrong with me?

“Whoa. Someone’s having a brain fart,” Kurt commented, looking at me with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, definitely.” I swallowed and shook my head. “I just didn’t have a lot of sleep last night, obviously.”

“Clearly. Would you mind if we went into the bathroom and I did your makeup before first period?” He reached into his bag and pulled out the supplies. “I started keeping it with me just in case you ever tried to skip a day.”

I laughed a little. “Sure. C’mon.”

Kurt started down the hallway, and I followed him, gnawing on my lip. I knew now what I should do about the whole thing, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

In fact, just thinking about it made me want to puke all over Kurt’s new pair of Marc Jacobs boots.

* * *

At Glee Club, I was totally checked out. I knew enough to know that Santana, Quinn, and…some other people performed, of course, but what songs they sang were totally lost on me. It was so bad, even Puck noticed.

“Hey,” he leaned over while Mr. Schue was talking to the rest of the group about what songs we should sing for Sectionals, “what’s up? You’re spacing.”

“I’m fine,” I responded in a robotic tone.

“Puck? You have an idea?”

Puck, a total pro at being called randomly in class and pretending like he had been listening the whole time, looked up and smirked. “Personally, I think we should do a Billy Idol melody.”

A murmur spread through the group as everyone contemplated. Mr. Schue turned around and wrote it on the board. “We’ll consider it. Thanks, Puck.”

“No problemo.” He nodded to the group, and they all rolled their eyes as they turned back to the front.

I stopped listening once I heard Rachel’s annoying voice start to say what she thought we should do, no doubt a set list including Don’t Cry for Me Argentina and Popular, both sung by her with us swaying in the background.

My head snapped back to reality when I felt Puck’s warm hand on my leg, just above my knee. “Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

“Not right now,” I answered through clenched teeth. “I’ll explain after.”

“If you’re still pissed about the vasectomy thing, can you just get over it?”

“Puck!” My voice was just a smidge louder than I wanted it to be, so everyone turned around and stared, some people irritated, others intrigued. “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling my face turn deep red.

“Maybe that’s enough talk about Sectionals for today. You guys are all dismissed.”

I stood up, pulling my bag off the floor, before looking up to see Rachel’s angry face staring at me. “I hope you realize that you just interrupted my grade-A idea for Sectionals. Because of you, we might lose now.”

“It’s not that dramatic,” I told her, narrowing my eyes. “Now why don’t you go out to the bleachers and watch Finn’s football practice like a nice girlfriend? After all, it’s one of the last ones, so you definitely don’t want to miss it.”

Rachel glared at me for another minute before spinning on her toes and storming out of the room.

I let out a loud sigh, forgetting that Puck was still standing with me. “So, what’s up?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

After checking around the room to make sure that no one had lagged behind to eavesdrop, I turned slowly toward Puck, clearing my throat.

“Oh, wait,” he interrupted, walking down the bleachers. “Before you say anything, I just wanted to tell you that you looked nice today. Girls like that kind of thing, don’t they?”

My heart broke as I let out a small laugh and joined him next to the piano. “Yeah. Thanks.” I started to tear up, so I sniffled.

“So you officially forgive me for not telling you? Really, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” I assured him. “I forgive you for everything.”

“Cool.” He smiled as he leaned down to kiss me.

When his face was an centimeter from mine, so close that I could feel his breath on me, I pulled back. It took a lot of willpower, but I knew what I needed to do. “There’s something else, though.”

“What?”

The fact that he had no idea what was coming made it so much worse. “Look, I know that you can see what’s going on right now.” His blank stare made me continue, my stomach clenching more the longer I talked. “We fight a lot.”

“Doesn’t every couple?”

“We fight more than most couples, especially lately. And even when we’re not fighting, there’s just something…awkward when the two of us are together, like the other day. We don’t really mesh anymore. I can’t explain it, but I feel like we’re drifting apart because we both have so much baggage, so much told hold against each other.”

He swallowed, finally started to catch on. “Am I being Punk’d?”

“That show’s been over for, like, ever,” I laughed before clenching my jaw. He wasn’t making this easy. “But it doesn’t matter because that’s not what we’re talking about. The two of us…just aren’t working. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s true.”

“Just say it.” He was officially angry. “Say what you want to.”

“I think it’s time that we go our separate ways.” I coughed and corrected myself once I got the urge to sing the Journey song. “I mean, we should break up.”