Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

The next day at lunch, Sam seemed to notice that my mood was significantly better, even from earlier yesterday, when I was in a fairly good mood. “Anything you wanna share?”

Letting out a snort of laughter in remembrance, I shook my head. “Nah. It wouldn’t really mean much to you anyway, not having been here last year.” I put a hand on his shoulder and shook my head. “Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”

He pouted at me with his oversized lips for a second before breaking into a grin. “So…I have a football tryout after school. It took a while to convince Beiste, but she finally came around.”

“That’s great!” I congratulated, nudging him with my shoulder. “Good luck! You say good luck, right? It’s not like performing where you have to say ‘break a leg’, right?”

My stomach tightened at the mention, remembering our Invitational. “Good luck,” he whispered in my ear, kissing me on the cheek.

Stop it! I screamed at myself, biting my lip so hard that it almost broke the skin. He has an STD, remember? He’s a total asshole scumbag.

Sam seemed to miss my falling face completely, a smirk still pulling at the side of his mouth. “No, good luck’s fine. Thanks. I’m gonna need it. I watched practice yesterday…and Finn seems to be a pretty good player…and I’m kind of lobbying for his position.”

“You’ll do great,” I assured him, realizing that I still had my hand on his shoulder. Blushing fiercely, I put my hand back at my side before pulling out my iPod.

After a couple of minutes, Sam leaned over, his face close to mine, as he examined the screen. “Watcha listening to?”

“The song I’m going to perform for Glee Club today,” I smiled, tilting the iPod so that he could read it more clearly.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with Puck, does it?”

My eyes narrowed as I stared at him for a second. “What are you talking about? How do you know about Puck?”

He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “News travels fast at this school, even to the new kid.”

“How much do you know?”

Sam went into this relatively short story about how I had gone out with Puck the year before, and how we had been really close, changing his personality in the process. And then he backstabbed me by sleeping with Santana anyway.

For a second, I stared at the boy in front of my with my jaw dropped. “And you didn’t think of correcting me when I said that it didn’t matter because you weren’t here last year?”

“Nah. So what was the karma part?” His eyes sparkled with curiosity as he leaned a little closer, somehow sensing that it was a secret that couldn’t get out to the whole school.

“I’m not sure I should tell you…” I trailed off, looking around at the people surrounding us. Suddenly, I was paranoid that they were all lending an ear to our conversation, trying to snatch up bits that they could inflate to ridiculous proportions and spread around the school like a devastating wildfire.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Not a big prodder, are you?”

“Nope. If someone doesn’t want to tell me something, that’s their business, you know? Why be a jackass and try to make them say what they don’t want to?”

I knew I liked that kid.

* * *

“MR. SCHUE!” I yelled the second I ran into Glee Club, my bag whacking against my side as I ran. “I-”

It took me a second to realize that Mr. Schue wasn’t even in the room. Why he would be so early, I didn’t know, but part of me hoped.

“Let me guess…little Ellie overachiever has already prepared a song to sing?” Santana sneered, her arms crossed in front of her chest, which had definitely grown over the summer. I was pretty sure that some plastic surgery was involved.

“Yup!” I smiled widely to show her that she didn’t faze me. “But you seem kinda grumpy…you still on the STD meds?”

Her face flushed bright red, which I’d never seen before. “You fucking bitch! Where did you hear that, huh?!”

The couple of group members that were already there (just Tina, Artie, Kurt, and Mercedes) burst into hysterical laughter at the confirmation that, yes, Santana had an STD.

“How do you think I heard it?” I snapped back snarkily.

The door opened, and everyone turned to it. Puck walked in, looking as cool as ever, pausing when he realized that every pair of eyes were on him.

“What?” he finally asked, looking completely lost. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”

Santana stormed over, pushing him into the hallway. “Just go. GO!”

He was arguing, their voices overlapping angrily, as Santana continued to shove him forward so he couldn’t get more than a few words out before having his voice choked off.

“Alright…that was kinda mean,” Mercedes pointed out, her eyes still locked on the door where the two whores had disappeared.

Shrugging, I snickered, “They deserved it. And now it’s going to be all over the school. No one’s going to want to sleep with either of them, even after they’ve been treated.”

It was quiet for the next few minutes until the rest of the club, including stormy-eyed Santana and Puck, arrived, followed lastly by Mr. Schue.

“Mr. Schue,” Rachel exclaimed with that huge grin of hers, putting her hand in the air before standing. “I’d like to-”

“Sit down,” I demanded her, giving her a warning glare with a cocked eyebrow. “Mr. Schue, can I go first? Please?”

Rachel let out a huff, crossing her arms and legs angrily, before looking to the side. Oh, poor defeated soul, not being able to get the spotlight for once. I just wanted to get my performance out of the way. Singing what I was feeling helped lift weights off my shoulders, ones that I definitely didn’t need.

“I guess so,” Mr. Schue allowed, stepping off to the side.

Grinning, I made my way to Brad and explained what I wanted to do. For this song, I figured that leaving it as close to the original as possible was best, considering our assignment was to do songs from the 70’s. It wouldn’t be so 70’s if I decided to make it all modern-ish.

My eyes were fixed right on Puck as the music started playing, and a couple of people laughed.

Instant karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right in the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon, you’re gonna be dead

What in the world are you thinking of?
Laughing in the face of love?
What on Earth are you trying to do?
It’s up to you
Yeah, you.

When I had to say that Puck was a ‘superstar’, I made my voice as sarcastic as I could on the Well, right you are. After all, he was the furthest thing from a superstar in my life. More like someone who should be shoved into the street. In front of a moving truck. One of those big, eighteen-wheeler ones.

But for some reason, when the song finished, I saw that Puck was crunched down low in his seat, keeping up his tough exterior.

Deep down, even from where I was, I could see the hurt buried, suppressed, in his eyes.

I hated how that made me feel guilty.