Last Resort
Last Resort
“Remember, everyone, we’re meeting in the auditorium tomorrow at 6:30 sharp.” Mr. Schue reminded the members of New Directions as he dismissed their last rehearsal before their concert that Saturday night. The choir room cleared out pretty quick as everyone was excited about the weekend. The last two lingering behind were Noah Puckerman and Ciara Ath.
Ciara was taking her time gathering her things, singing to herself quietly. Puck loved listening to her smooth, sweet songbird voice- it was just one of the many things that drew him to her, although he wasn’t sure if she’d ever give him the time of day. While everyone else seemed to look past it, Puck could definitely tell that shy Ciara had a protective wall around her just waiting to be torn down.
Puck strolled over to where Ciara was standing, noticing that she smelled very sweet and flowery, like a red rose, the identical shade of her dark red hair. “Pretty exciting, huh?” He said conversationally. “A sold out concert for the glee club.”
She nodded. “Definitely. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“A lot different than your old school, I guess?”
Ciara’s body instantly stiffened at this. Her quiet singing halted. She never talked about her old school in Indiana with her friends at McKinley.
“Yeah, I guess...” she mumbled as she busied herself by packing her backpack. Puck touched her chin and she turned towards him.
“What happened there that made you so sad?” He asked.
“I... It’s nothing.”
“Ciara, I know what it’s like to keep a secret bottled up inside,” he said in a hushed voice. “You can trust me.”
“It... It was just some guy,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Roscoe Ronkers.”
“Roscoe Ronkers?”
“Yeah. And he’s about as stupid as he sounds.” Ciara responded. “But for some inexplicable reason I was dating him. And I was crazy about him.” She paused while Puck looked at her meaningfully, silently urging her to continue. In the quietest of voices, she said, “and I thought he was crazy about me.”
Her voice was steady as could be, but Puck could see the painful memories cloud her nearly-black eyes.
“He told the whole school we had sex when we didn’t.” She whispered. “Meanwhile, he was sleeping with my best friend Fiona-Jay.”
“He what?!”
“He didn’t even deny it when I confronted him about it. Like I was asking for it. He was mad that I wouldn’t have sex with him so he hooked up with my friend to ‘show me what I was missing’ or whatever. He only told everyone that we had slept together because he had made a bet with his football buddies.”
It just kept getting worse. Ciara’s delivery was so calm, so solemn, while Puck’s emotions were only rising. He had been a jackass to girls in the past, but he was a changed man these days. How any lowlife guy could treat a girl as pretty and sweet as Ciara this way was absolutely sick.
“So there I was- no boyfriend, no best friend, and a completely ruined reputation. I couldn’t have been more relieved when my mom said we’d be moving out here- Oh, Puck, don’t take it this way,” she pleaded sadly when she realized how tightly Puck was gripping the edge of the chair and how his nostrils flared with every short, impatient breath. “It’s Ok. It’s all in the past now.”
“I just can’t believe a guy would be enough of an asshole to do that to you.” He said through his clenched teeth. His fierce eyes found her soft, somber ones. “I hope you kicked him in the nuts as hard as you possibly could.”
Ciara shrugged, “at the time I was still too hurt to even think about him.” She explained. “Then I came out here and never looked back...”
They were quiet for some time, Puck silently fuming while Ciara searched for something to say to relax him.
“Please don’t think about it too much. Really, it’s Ok. I’m Ok.”
But Puck didn’t say anything. Now he knew why Ciara had that wall up, and who could blame her? Nobody deserved to be treated that way. Eventually, Ciara gave up on waiting on a response.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Puck,” she whispered, placing her hand on his cheek for a brief moment before walking off and letting it fall away, leaving Puck on his own.
He couldn’t shake this awful anger the whole night. The awful image of Ciara walking down the halls of her old school, people whispering all around her while she was all alone, fueled a fire in Puck’s heart.
He tossed and turned in his sleep, eventually giving up on rest altogether when he awoke with a start just as the Sun was coming up. This was absolutely ridiculous- a Saturday morning and Puck was up before noon. All he could think about was finally giving this guy what he deserved...
He sprang up so fast he almost knocked his mohawked head on his low ceiling. The clock on his phone read 8:22. He’d be cutting it close, but he could do it. He rushed to his computer.
Most days, Puck thought Facebook was pretty stupid and hardly ever checked his- but today he realized how handy the website could really be. There weren’t actually a ton of “Roscoe Ronkers” in cyberspace, and Puck managed to punch an address into Google Maps in a matter of seconds- soon enough he was out the front door into the cool, Ohio morning.
“Come on, baby, I’m trusting you today,” he whispered to his ancient Ford Ranger stick-shift which sputtered to life with an agonizing groan. He thrusted the rusty truck into gear and tore out of the driveway- making his way for the interstate.
The morning traffic had mostly cleared by the time Puck passed the Lima Heights city limits, a mixtape of Papa Roach and Breaking Benjamin humming through his speakers.
This is crazy, you know. The logical side of Puck kept reminding him. However, the angry side of him had a pretty easy job of telling his logical side to cram it. His left hand on the steering wheel, his right on the shifter, Puck’s grip didn’t slacken at all on the entire five hour drive.
He revved through the winding, twisting side-streets of the modest Indiana town. Emotions at an all-time high, Puck couldn’t even remember parking at the right address and stomping up to the front porch
Knock knock knock knock knock. Puck pounded on the door. A tall Karofsky-esque kinda guy came to answer- only this guy looked like even more of a pinhead than Karofsky, if that was possible. He had small, piggy eyes and was slightly slacked jaw. His speaking was slow and deep, “what do you want?”
“Are you Roscoe?”
“Yeah, who’s askin’?”
Crack! Puck’s fist collided with Roscoe’s jaw. The ugly brute hit the ground hard, grunting curses and covering his bloody mouth.
Puck, breathing quickly, ignored the throbbing pain in his hand and looked down to the stranger with anger and disgust. “That was for Ciara.” He spat.
He stormed away from the doorstep, slammed the door of his truck, and kicked the old clunker into gear with all the force he could muster. He peeled out down the street with a satisfied feeling, watching the guy on the ground until he disappeared from the rearview mirror.
The satisfaction was short-lived. Puck looked at the clock and realized he’d have to really book it if he was going to make it back in time for the concert. None of this would be worth it if he ended up letting the whole team, and more importantly, Ciara, down. 1:52, 2:52, 3:52, Puck pushed the truck faster and faster while keeping an eye out for cops. At 5:15 Puck crossed the state line. Traffic began to slow him down.
Finally! He sped past the familiar sign reading “Lima” at 6:36. He was late, but he was almost there...
Adrenaline still rushing through his veins, Puck had hardly put his truck into park in the McKinley parking lot when he jumped out and began sprinting towards the front steps. Almost the instant he stepped foot in the abandoned hallway, Ciara was storming up to him. He couldn’t help but think she looked cute- with her burgundy hair up in a messy ponytail and a blue bandana tied around her forehead, her black t-shirt and jeans, and her make-up all glittery and sweet- even though she seemed angry enough to breathe fire.
“There you are, everyone is freaking out! Where’ve you been?” Ciara’s eyes fell on the bloody, bruised mess that was Puck’s hand. “And what happened to your hand?!”
“It’s nothing,” he panted, still exhausted from running.
“Nothing! Puck, you’ve got blood all over your shirt!” She grabbed his other hand and pulled him into the nearest girls room. Luckily, with it being after hours, it was empty, but the pale pink tiles and stall doors still made Puck slightly uncomfortable. As Ciara turned on the sink and took off the blue bandana to use as a rag, Puck watched her with a mixture of guilt for making her worry and adoration for her taking care of him this way.
She took Puck’s injured hand and began dabbing it gently with the warm, wet bandana.
“Are you going to tell me what happened or not? Where were you that made you so late?”
“Indiana.”
“Indiana! What the Hell were you doing there?”
“You have to promise you’re not going to get mad.”
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going...”
Puck shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just, what you told me about your ex pissed me off so bad. I’ve seen people act like jerks, Hell, I act like a jerk a lot myself, but what he did to you... It made me more mad than I’ve ever been.”
Ciara stared hard at where she was cleaning Puck’s hand. He wouldn’t have known she had heard a word he said if it weren’t for the way her lips pressed together so tightly.
“I needed to get that anger out of me,” he explained when he realized he wasn’t going to draw a response from Ciara. “The only productive thing I could think of to do was to drive out there and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Looks like he got more than your mind,” Ciara mumbled as she now wrapped the hand tightly in the bandana to let it sit.
Puck smiled ruefully. “Yeah, well, trust me... He came out of it a lot worse than I did.”
Ciara sighed. “Puck, what on earth were you thinking?”
“I don’t know... I just thought you deserved a guy better than that, like-... oh, well, you know...”
Ciara didn’t speak for some time, as if she was letting this strange information sink in. Eventually, with a great measure of weird finality, she said, “you drove five hours to Indiana... to punch my ex-boyfriend in the face.”
A flash of understanding went over Puck’s face. “Well, when you put it like that...”
Ciara smiled and put her hand on Puck’s, whose face softened at her touch.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. If not the craziest,” she whispered before giving him a kiss on his rough cheek. “Thank you.”
Puck, smiling his crooked smile and feeling slightly embarrassed by the kiss, answered, “don’t mention it.”
“Come on. We have a show to put on.”
“So you’re really not mad?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “As long as you never do it again!”
“I promise,” he beamed, completely smitten by the sound of her laughter. “Only as a last resort.”
Ciara was taking her time gathering her things, singing to herself quietly. Puck loved listening to her smooth, sweet songbird voice- it was just one of the many things that drew him to her, although he wasn’t sure if she’d ever give him the time of day. While everyone else seemed to look past it, Puck could definitely tell that shy Ciara had a protective wall around her just waiting to be torn down.
Puck strolled over to where Ciara was standing, noticing that she smelled very sweet and flowery, like a red rose, the identical shade of her dark red hair. “Pretty exciting, huh?” He said conversationally. “A sold out concert for the glee club.”
She nodded. “Definitely. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“A lot different than your old school, I guess?”
Ciara’s body instantly stiffened at this. Her quiet singing halted. She never talked about her old school in Indiana with her friends at McKinley.
“Yeah, I guess...” she mumbled as she busied herself by packing her backpack. Puck touched her chin and she turned towards him.
“What happened there that made you so sad?” He asked.
“I... It’s nothing.”
“Ciara, I know what it’s like to keep a secret bottled up inside,” he said in a hushed voice. “You can trust me.”
“It... It was just some guy,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Roscoe Ronkers.”
“Roscoe Ronkers?”
“Yeah. And he’s about as stupid as he sounds.” Ciara responded. “But for some inexplicable reason I was dating him. And I was crazy about him.” She paused while Puck looked at her meaningfully, silently urging her to continue. In the quietest of voices, she said, “and I thought he was crazy about me.”
Her voice was steady as could be, but Puck could see the painful memories cloud her nearly-black eyes.
“He told the whole school we had sex when we didn’t.” She whispered. “Meanwhile, he was sleeping with my best friend Fiona-Jay.”
“He what?!”
“He didn’t even deny it when I confronted him about it. Like I was asking for it. He was mad that I wouldn’t have sex with him so he hooked up with my friend to ‘show me what I was missing’ or whatever. He only told everyone that we had slept together because he had made a bet with his football buddies.”
It just kept getting worse. Ciara’s delivery was so calm, so solemn, while Puck’s emotions were only rising. He had been a jackass to girls in the past, but he was a changed man these days. How any lowlife guy could treat a girl as pretty and sweet as Ciara this way was absolutely sick.
“So there I was- no boyfriend, no best friend, and a completely ruined reputation. I couldn’t have been more relieved when my mom said we’d be moving out here- Oh, Puck, don’t take it this way,” she pleaded sadly when she realized how tightly Puck was gripping the edge of the chair and how his nostrils flared with every short, impatient breath. “It’s Ok. It’s all in the past now.”
“I just can’t believe a guy would be enough of an asshole to do that to you.” He said through his clenched teeth. His fierce eyes found her soft, somber ones. “I hope you kicked him in the nuts as hard as you possibly could.”
Ciara shrugged, “at the time I was still too hurt to even think about him.” She explained. “Then I came out here and never looked back...”
They were quiet for some time, Puck silently fuming while Ciara searched for something to say to relax him.
“Please don’t think about it too much. Really, it’s Ok. I’m Ok.”
But Puck didn’t say anything. Now he knew why Ciara had that wall up, and who could blame her? Nobody deserved to be treated that way. Eventually, Ciara gave up on waiting on a response.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Puck,” she whispered, placing her hand on his cheek for a brief moment before walking off and letting it fall away, leaving Puck on his own.
He couldn’t shake this awful anger the whole night. The awful image of Ciara walking down the halls of her old school, people whispering all around her while she was all alone, fueled a fire in Puck’s heart.
He tossed and turned in his sleep, eventually giving up on rest altogether when he awoke with a start just as the Sun was coming up. This was absolutely ridiculous- a Saturday morning and Puck was up before noon. All he could think about was finally giving this guy what he deserved...
He sprang up so fast he almost knocked his mohawked head on his low ceiling. The clock on his phone read 8:22. He’d be cutting it close, but he could do it. He rushed to his computer.
Most days, Puck thought Facebook was pretty stupid and hardly ever checked his- but today he realized how handy the website could really be. There weren’t actually a ton of “Roscoe Ronkers” in cyberspace, and Puck managed to punch an address into Google Maps in a matter of seconds- soon enough he was out the front door into the cool, Ohio morning.
“Come on, baby, I’m trusting you today,” he whispered to his ancient Ford Ranger stick-shift which sputtered to life with an agonizing groan. He thrusted the rusty truck into gear and tore out of the driveway- making his way for the interstate.
The morning traffic had mostly cleared by the time Puck passed the Lima Heights city limits, a mixtape of Papa Roach and Breaking Benjamin humming through his speakers.
This is crazy, you know. The logical side of Puck kept reminding him. However, the angry side of him had a pretty easy job of telling his logical side to cram it. His left hand on the steering wheel, his right on the shifter, Puck’s grip didn’t slacken at all on the entire five hour drive.
He revved through the winding, twisting side-streets of the modest Indiana town. Emotions at an all-time high, Puck couldn’t even remember parking at the right address and stomping up to the front porch
Knock knock knock knock knock. Puck pounded on the door. A tall Karofsky-esque kinda guy came to answer- only this guy looked like even more of a pinhead than Karofsky, if that was possible. He had small, piggy eyes and was slightly slacked jaw. His speaking was slow and deep, “what do you want?”
“Are you Roscoe?”
“Yeah, who’s askin’?”
Crack! Puck’s fist collided with Roscoe’s jaw. The ugly brute hit the ground hard, grunting curses and covering his bloody mouth.
Puck, breathing quickly, ignored the throbbing pain in his hand and looked down to the stranger with anger and disgust. “That was for Ciara.” He spat.
He stormed away from the doorstep, slammed the door of his truck, and kicked the old clunker into gear with all the force he could muster. He peeled out down the street with a satisfied feeling, watching the guy on the ground until he disappeared from the rearview mirror.
The satisfaction was short-lived. Puck looked at the clock and realized he’d have to really book it if he was going to make it back in time for the concert. None of this would be worth it if he ended up letting the whole team, and more importantly, Ciara, down. 1:52, 2:52, 3:52, Puck pushed the truck faster and faster while keeping an eye out for cops. At 5:15 Puck crossed the state line. Traffic began to slow him down.
Finally! He sped past the familiar sign reading “Lima” at 6:36. He was late, but he was almost there...
Adrenaline still rushing through his veins, Puck had hardly put his truck into park in the McKinley parking lot when he jumped out and began sprinting towards the front steps. Almost the instant he stepped foot in the abandoned hallway, Ciara was storming up to him. He couldn’t help but think she looked cute- with her burgundy hair up in a messy ponytail and a blue bandana tied around her forehead, her black t-shirt and jeans, and her make-up all glittery and sweet- even though she seemed angry enough to breathe fire.
“There you are, everyone is freaking out! Where’ve you been?” Ciara’s eyes fell on the bloody, bruised mess that was Puck’s hand. “And what happened to your hand?!”
“It’s nothing,” he panted, still exhausted from running.
“Nothing! Puck, you’ve got blood all over your shirt!” She grabbed his other hand and pulled him into the nearest girls room. Luckily, with it being after hours, it was empty, but the pale pink tiles and stall doors still made Puck slightly uncomfortable. As Ciara turned on the sink and took off the blue bandana to use as a rag, Puck watched her with a mixture of guilt for making her worry and adoration for her taking care of him this way.
She took Puck’s injured hand and began dabbing it gently with the warm, wet bandana.
“Are you going to tell me what happened or not? Where were you that made you so late?”
“Indiana.”
“Indiana! What the Hell were you doing there?”
“You have to promise you’re not going to get mad.”
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going...”
Puck shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just, what you told me about your ex pissed me off so bad. I’ve seen people act like jerks, Hell, I act like a jerk a lot myself, but what he did to you... It made me more mad than I’ve ever been.”
Ciara stared hard at where she was cleaning Puck’s hand. He wouldn’t have known she had heard a word he said if it weren’t for the way her lips pressed together so tightly.
“I needed to get that anger out of me,” he explained when he realized he wasn’t going to draw a response from Ciara. “The only productive thing I could think of to do was to drive out there and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Looks like he got more than your mind,” Ciara mumbled as she now wrapped the hand tightly in the bandana to let it sit.
Puck smiled ruefully. “Yeah, well, trust me... He came out of it a lot worse than I did.”
Ciara sighed. “Puck, what on earth were you thinking?”
“I don’t know... I just thought you deserved a guy better than that, like-... oh, well, you know...”
Ciara didn’t speak for some time, as if she was letting this strange information sink in. Eventually, with a great measure of weird finality, she said, “you drove five hours to Indiana... to punch my ex-boyfriend in the face.”
A flash of understanding went over Puck’s face. “Well, when you put it like that...”
Ciara smiled and put her hand on Puck’s, whose face softened at her touch.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. If not the craziest,” she whispered before giving him a kiss on his rough cheek. “Thank you.”
Puck, smiling his crooked smile and feeling slightly embarrassed by the kiss, answered, “don’t mention it.”
“Come on. We have a show to put on.”
“So you’re really not mad?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “As long as you never do it again!”
“I promise,” he beamed, completely smitten by the sound of her laughter. “Only as a last resort.”