Cheerio

The second I heard my name, I ran like a bat out of hell away from there. The last thing I needed was for the whole group of them to gang up on me and murder me. Sure, I was a bitch, but that didn’t mean that I needed to be publicly beaten.

Satisfaction ran through my veins instead of blood as I walked through the hallways, still hearing people gush over the newly-spread gossip. “God, I thought Quinn and Finn were the perfect couple now,” some geeky girl wearing pigtails sighed. “Him cheating on her kind of takes away my hope for relationships.”

Seriously? There were plenty of other successful relationships in the world. Finn and Quinn already crashed and burned before, so why did people just assume that they were flawless now? God, high schools kids were pathetic.

“EVIE!” someone yelled down the hallway.

Feeling my stomach clench, I turned to find Kurt storming down the hallway. Although I was supposed to feel like shit because I knew why he was pissed at me, I was just holding back laughter. I mean, he was stomping down the hallway in designer boots, wearing skinny jeans and a knee-length sweater. Not exactly the most intimidating thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“How could you do that?!” he screamed in my face. Very un-Kurt like. Maybe I wasn’t quite as good at judging people as I thought. “You promised me, Evie! You said that you’d keep it a secret, that we were friends! But you betrayed my trust and told the entire school about Finn!”

“Yeah. So?” I let out a spiteful laugh, taking a step back so we weren’t in each other’s faces. “I don’t know why you thought it would be so easy for me to turn over a new leaf. Isn’t there some kind of saying that says someone can only change if they want it? Who said I ever wanted to stop being a bitch?”

“I figured you would,” Kurt hissed. I never thought he would get so angry, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he took out a knife and stabbed me in the stomach then and there. “You know, you might have been able to get away with that when you were a Cheerio, when people had to love you and look up to you no matter what. I hate to tell you, but you’re on the bottom of the food chain now, if you haven’t noticed. You have no friends, and you’re only in Glee Club.”

I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat, refusing to show any sort of emotion in front of the crowd of whispering teenagers that was gathering. Of course, I already knew all this stuff, but hearing it spelled out for me by another person hurt more than I could have ever imagined.

“And I tried to be your friend,” Kurt continued, his voice catching for a second as he gave into his emotions. A tear spilled down his cheek. “I really tried. But you just stabbed me in the back. How can you ever hope to fit in if you step all over the people who try to reach out to you?”

“I don’t know why you got so attached to me,” I snapped back, but I didn’t have nearly as much venom as him. After all, I was the one who had no heart, supposedly, while he was like Julius Caesar, being taken down by someone he trusted. “We barely even know each other.”

Kurt took a deep breath before turning to the crowd. “Get lost!” he told all of them, and they listened, scattering like chickens with their heads cut off.

I turned to leave, figuring that the whole conversation was over, but Kurt grabbed my arm, swinging me back around to face him. “Listen, Evie.” His voice was low but stern. “I know you better than you think I do. I can see that you’re more broken than you let anyone else see. No one can put as much emotion into a song as you did with that Demi Lovato song if they’re just faking it. And I don’t give a damn if you admit it to me or not because I know I’m right. You can pretend with anyone else, but just remember: I can see right through your act.”

“Congratulations,” I responded bitingly. “If you’re so smart, what’s my problem?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s not my business anyway. I’m just telling you right now that you need to get yourself fixed. Because until you do, you’re just going to keep pushing everybody away and attacking anybody who comes too close. And I think the last thing you need is to be completely alone with a ton of enemies cheering for you to fall on your face.”

I swallowed again, feeling the tears start to pool in my eyes. God, whoever said that the truth hurt was right on the fucking money. I felt like complete shit. Traitor shit.

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand quickly, I turned and started down the street. I didn’t even want to take the time to call Garrett for a ride; I just needed to get the hell away from that school before I self-destructed.

Of course, walking as far as I did meant that I had nothing to do but think. Dive back into my past. Relive every bad decision I’d ever made, every person I’d ever stabbed in the back, anyone who I’d targeted with cruel words.

I was such a disgusting person. Since I was far away from the school, I finally allowed myself to break. Tears poured down my face with gusto as I stumbled down the street.

How had I even made it this long? I could have sworn that I would have been killed by some vengeful kid or adult by sixteen years. How many people had I made cry? How many people had I driven to depression? Maybe I was giving myself too much credit in my ability to hurt people, but from the look on Kurt’s face, maybe I wasn’t.

There was a beep from behind me, so I whipped my head around to see who it was. “Evelyn!” Garrett yelled at me out of his car window. “What the hell are you doing?”

I crossed the street without looking and climbed into his car, clutching my book bag to my chest.

“I was just going to the school to get you…” He surveyed my face and his tone softened dramatically. “Oh my God. What happened?”

Instead of answering, I just shook my head and turned toward the window, closing my eyes to let the tears fall again. This time, I made sure they were silent so Garrett didn’t feel uncomfortable.

To my dismay, he took my keeping quiet as an answer. He pulled the car over and pulled me against him. “It’s okay,” he muttered, rubbing circles on my back as I cried.

“I’m such a bad person,” I sobbed against his shoulder, not even paying any mind to the fact that I was getting my tears all over his t-shirt.

“No, you’re not,” he whispered. “It doesn’t matter what you do, Evie, because you’re a good person at heart. Everyone makes mistakes.”

No, it was Garrett who was the good person at heart, the one who made occasional mistakes. I was evil, the kind of person who went out of my way to cause other people harm. If Garrett had been in my shoes, he would have accepted Kurt as a friend, even if it was because Kurt was all he had.

But I had to rip Kurt to shreds because he tried to get close to me. And what did that get me? I was alone. Completely alone. None of the Glee kids would give me even a second to explain myself. I had embarrassed and betrayed some of them, which meant that I embarrassed and betrayed every single one of them.

And who knows? For skipping the meeting and doing what I did, Mr. Schue might kick me to the curb, giving me a big, fat F on my report card in Spanish.

What the fuck had I done to my life? I was going to be lucky if I could figure out how to pick up those pieces.

“Come on,” Garrett said suddenly, patting me on the back as a signal to sit up. “Let’s get some ice cream.”

“Perfect,” I replied, wiping my tears and working to steady my breath. Ice cream was exactly what I needed right now, if not for the reasons Garrett was thinking.