Be Free, Be You

The farther away from Wheels I walked the angrier I became as the words Coach Sylvester circled around and around in my head. I couldn’t help but blame Steph for my getting in trouble and possibly losing my spot as captain. I rounded the corner leading out to the parking lots where I figured she’d be before I ran into none other than Noah Puckerman himself. He smiled smugly and leaned on the wall putting himself purposefully in my path.

“Hey there Val,” he cooed and reached out to pull on a strand of hair that I missed when I pulled it up into a pony.

My anger just boiled as I pulled the holder out and redid my hair. “What do you want Puckerman?” I had the familiar venom in my words, I was not in the mood for his games.

“Just bug you,” he chuckled as my shoulders became tense.

“Go away; I don’t need to deal with you right now.” I hissed and walked quickly away from him. I found Steph waiting patiently against my car and I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I’m not singing for you anymore. I got in trouble by Coach Sylvester today because of you and your stupid Glee Club!”

Steph visibly flinched, “We can work it out can’t we? I mean, sometimes Glee Club runs later then Cheerios practice—”

She was begging me but I cut her off, “Yeah I’m aware of that fact Steph! I’m sorry, but I’m not risking my position as captain next year for you! Get a voice coach, learn to read music! I don’t care, I’m not doing this for you anymore! I can’t!”

Tears formed in her eyes, “But Val everything’s going so well…”

I softened at the sight of her almost in tears, I was just so angry at everything. “Steph, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore…. my cheerleading career is at stake.”

She silently nodded and got in the car, holding in tears. I groaned and walked to my side, Great, that probably cost me my relationship with my only sibling. We drove home in silence and Steph immediately went up to her room. Mom was standing in the kitchen pulling out a sheet full of chocolate chip cookies, “Hey, it’s Friday so I thought I’d make cookies… Would you like some?”

I bit my lip, “Can I have all of them?”

Not even two hours later, when everyone was in their bedrooms getting ready to sleep and I stood in the bathroom glaring at myself in the mirror. I turned on the water in the shower and opened up the toilet lid with my extra toothbrush in my hand. I slowly got on my knees and felt the tears get ready to come spilling out, this was my routine but because I had eaten all of the cookies I had to give up even more tonight.

I stuck the end of the toothbrush in and the hell started. The acids from my stomach burned my throat and mouth and I couldn’t help but gag softly. Thankfully when I was thirteen I thought to turn the shower on to cover up to noises and did that every time ever since. By the time I was done and everything was up and out I undressed myself and stood naked in the shower and let the water wash away my feelings of total depression.

It was times like this that I really hated where my life was. I had no boyfriend to love me, I had a shitty relationship with my mom and a minimal sports based one with my dad, my sister probably hated me now, I knew most of the school hated me, and now I was standing naked in my shower with some of my bones sticking out because I was twenty pounds underweight, because I threw up everything I ate in order to stay skinny for the Cheerios.

The tears now came like a waterfall. My body shook and snot was coming out of my nose I was crying so hard. When the water turned cold I stepped out, wrapped a towel around myself, grabbed my clothes and headed silently to my room. I didn’t even bother to blow dry my hair, I just threw on a pair of ratty old pajamas and lay down in my bed.

I looked at my phone for any missed messages or called and saw that I had one text from an unknown number.



My heart dropped to my stomach. I clicked the call button and he answered after two rings. “Hey, is everything okay?”

I could feel the tears threatening to spill, “What’s your address?”

“24 Willow Drive.” He said simply before I hung up. I looked at the clock, it was only nine thirty. I got up off of my bed and walked to my parents’ room and knocked.

“Yes?” My dad cracked open the door and rubbed his eye sleepily.

“I’m going to my friend’s house, last minute sleep over.”

“That’s fine honey, drive safe.” With that he shut the door and I immediately ran downstairs and grabbed the keys.

Turned out that Wheels only lived a couple of minutes away from where I lived; I suddenly lost all of the courage that I had before and became awfully self-conscious. I hadn’t even gotten changed out of my old duck pajama pants and tank top. I heard the front door of the house open and Wheels was there in his chair waiting, smiling sadly at me.

I turned off the car and got out, the sadness coming back and hitting me harder than the insecurity had. I slowly walked up to him and tried my best not to show that I really wanted to cry. He led me down a hallway and into his bedroom; it had pale green walls and a big oak bookshelf with a matching desk. I sat down on the corner of the bed and looked at his eyes, “How much did you hear?”

“All of it.” I opened my mouth to speak but he cut me off. “How could you do that? Talk to her like that? Didn’t you see how much Glee means to her?”

I looked at him like he’d slapped me. “Of course I did. But don’t you know how much cheerleading means to me?”

“If you really cared about Steph you wouldn’t take that away from her.”

It was like each time he spoke he slapped me again. My shoulders slumped and the tears came up and threatened to spill again, shaking my head I stood up. “I don’t even know why I came here… I should go.”

“You came here because you needed to hear that, as much as you need to hear this,” He took my hand and sat me down again. I looked at his blue eyes and bit my lip to try and hold the tears in. “Cheerleading isn’t worth losing your sister over.”

That was it. I knew he was right. I had been beating myself up over it since the moment I said the words he’d overheard, but I just couldn’t admit it to myself. “But I love it, I’d be noting if I didn’t have it…” I whispered.

“You know that’s a lie.” He put a hand under my chin and made me look at him. “I could see that there was something wrong after you yelled at Steph so I texted her earlier. She told me everything, how she threatened to tell about your problem if you didn’t do it? How she got you into trouble with Sylvester?”

I let my eyes fall and I moved my chin away, I didn’t even have it in me to get angry for her telling him. “Why are you even being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

“I’m being nice to you, because right now? No one else is.”