I was watching this week's Glee (which also happened to be the !spoiler alert! ultra-lame season finale) and I kept thinking 'My, how terribly subdued Puck seems to be' which led to 'My, I wonder if he's ever thought about suicide' so (le gasp !spoiler alert! Mr. Schuester!) was shocking to say the least. But it also made me sad that it would not be so to see such angst from those marvellous brooding shoulder's of Salling's. Which is where this came in:
Summary: Puck is sad in the show and I "explain" why in a short, cheesy one-shot.
Disclaimer: certainly not mine, certainly not profitable.
Warning: some bad language, mentions various types of suicide methods, some OOC/AU behaviour, un-beta'd.
Oh, god.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
I knew today sucked. This just proved it.
Mr. Schuester called an emergency glee meeting in the auditorium and then walked in like a freaking zombie, I should know. And then he softly told us about Karofsky and, I mean, shit, I knew the guy was an idiot but seriously? I never knew he had it that bad. I guess I had been caught up in my own stuff.
"I want you to promise me that no matter how depressed you get, no matter how hopeless or alone you feel, you try your best to imagine all the amazing experiences you have ahead of you,"
And how can I listen to that? I can't; it hurts so bad. Mr. Schue, for all his crazy and excessive Journey-lovin', is like a real dad to me and I failed him. I failed him again. I broke his promise before he had even asked for it. I can't even look at him without feeling a bullet of guilt and shame pierce through my skin. I don't deserve to.
"Mr. Schue, look, I know we're a little dramatic sometimes," Aretha starts and I lean on my palms, shifting my weight there instead of towards the centre of my body with my arms clasped around my legs, and gently look up to hear her out. She can't possibly know what it feels like. "But I don't think anyone would ever consider taking their own life,"
I called it.
Silence. Mr. Schue makes a grim face as he looks at us; I dart my gaze away before he can reach mine, trying desperately to hide the tell-tale truth my body tells. And then he speaks.
"I did." And fuck, if that isn't a blow to my gut. I don't think I can breath. "Junior year. That was a tough year," he laughs at it. Short, yeah, but he freaking laughs at it. I've never felt less like laughing in my entire life, and that's saying something.
"I, uh, I cheated on my math midterm," God, he even sounds like me. Of course, replace 'math midterm' with about anything else and it would be more true. I haven't even sat in on a math class in over two years. Still, I was curious. I watched him again.
"I peeked at the answers of the guy next to me and teacher saw me do it," he sounds sad as he says it, resigned, remorseful, even. I can't help myself.
"Just 'cause you got caught cheating?" My voice sounds unnatural to me, quiet and weak like when I was in juvie. I add on to it, making it seem more like me. "I get caught cheating all the time,"
"They called my dad in his office and he was coming to pick me up-" he sighed with a little shake of his head. "How was I supposed to look him in the eye?" This has become almost like a conversation between the two of us. I feel uncomfortable. There a swishing fear in my stomach and I can feel my throat closing in on bile-like substances. My mouth feels dry. Why are we so similar? Why, god, why?
"I just kept picturing my dad," he licked his lips. "So disappointed in me." He goes quiet too. The hard part then.
"So, I walked up to the roof. I went right to the edge," I close my eyes and walk through with him. I visited the roof many times before myself. I can almost find the ghost of his steps in the memory of mine; we are connected. "One step and all the pain and humiliation would be over."
My words. My thoughts. I wince in the break of speech again, squeezing my hand around arm so I can feel my blood rushing through me. My heart is speeding with my thoughts and I don't dare look back up. It would be the end of me.
"Is it true?" Hummel asks. He should know better. He knows what it's like.
"That day I promise you it felt like it was the end of the world...but you know what, it wasn't. You know, for some of you, getting caught cheating isn't a big deal," I can feel him toss a stare at me with his little jibe. Luckily, I'm staring at the ground and no one else glances at me. "But there's something, everyone has something, that might take them up to that edge,"
I never thought of it like that. How true.
I can look at him now. I choose to look at the faces in our circle and think. How many of us in this room thought about taking that jump? How many of us had the will to climb to the edge and look down like Mr. Schue?
Like me.
"Look at all the little things I would have missed out on. I would have never met you guys, or Emma, I would have missed out on everything. So right now," he rocks to the criss-cross position, sitting a little closer in to us. I muse silently to the floor. "I want you all to think of something that you're looking forward to. Big things," his hands open it up for everyone to speak.
Trout-mouth goes first. "Someday I want to earn enough money to buy my folks a new place so they don't ever have to go through losing their home again,"
Aretha picks it up. "I'm most looking forward to meeting Rachel Berry's children," The group laughs at that, and even I can't help a quick smirk as I rock myself gently on the floor with most of my face hidden.
"I want to be there to see my kids' first steps," says Wheels, obviously.
"I wanna be there to see Sex and the City part 3," says Sugar.
"Wow," Mr. Schue chooses delicately, not having to say more. We get it. We understand what he meant, if the bout of short laughter means anything.
I feel like it's my turn. And I almost say the words on the tip of my tongue: "I'm sorta embarrassed to admit it, but I really do want to graduate high school", but the breath I take for them goes right back in. I rest my mouth against the skin of my arms and wait for the rest of them to cycle through.
And they do. Quicker than I expected with the Leprechaun earning applause for his winning at Regionals comment. And they all look at me.
It burns.
"I-I-" I stutter with a thin, airy voice and I hate myself for it.
"It's okay, Noah," Mr. Schue whispers to me, his hand at my back burning me too instead of comforting me. "Take your time,"
Oh, god. He used my name.
I squeeze my eyes tight and dig my nails into my warm flesh. I feel sick. I feel like I'm going to burst into flames. My forehead slides to where my mouth was and I gulp in cool air. But it judges me too.
I can't win.
My arms itch. But I know the scabs are gone because I haven't cut in years. I swipe my sweaty palms over them anyways, just to check.
I know what I have to do.
I pick my head up and stare resolutely at the ground. I think I may be shaking. "I didn't go to juvie because I tried to steal an ATM, I went to juvie because I lied and said I tried to steal an ATM." Another breath in and out. "I tried to kill myself but I was too drunk to drive properly," I ended a little weepy from hysterics. It's kinda funny now. Driving drunk probably saved my life.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Schue," I whisper to him, quickly glancing at the expression on his face. He doesn't look mad, or angry. Just sad. "I was just so depressed about Be-" I choke up on her name and furiously stab myself with my fingers in the crook of my elbow for it.
"It wasn't even the first time. My noose broke under me," I laugh at that one. "I almost had a heart attack when it gave out and I remember thinking 'at least that would have killed me too'. Before that, I wrote my mom a little note and sat in the tub. She came home from work early that night and caught me with the pills in my hand and yelled at me for trying to scare her with 'some silly prank'.
"Today..." my voice broke again, raspy, and I shook my head. "Today, I was going to try again after school like the way I did my first time in eighth grade, except correctly. I was inexperienced with razors then,"
"Oh, god," Finn mutters. "That's what that was? The day you came to school with band-aids all over your arms?"
"I didn't go deep enough. It just really hurt," I answer in a mumble, to the floor.
"I never knew..." the big lug says next, breathlessly. The fellow glee-clubbers stare between the both of us.
"Of course you didn't know, I never told you and you-no one bothered to look!" I shout suddenly, my hands quaking with anger. "I was always Puck. Puck, the badass, Puck, the womanizer, Puck, the jock, the neanderthal, the Lima loser. I wasn't good enough for any of you, not enough for you to care!" I saw a few of them wince as I called out their respective insult that they called me in the past out of the corner of my eyes.
I flexed my hands. The sudden energy drifted away and I felt boneless. I sighed heavy. "Didn't any of you wonder why? Why I smoked pot, why I was so violent and angry all the time, why I was a bully, why I was grabbing attention in all the wrong ways, why I was acting out?"
I looked each of them in the eye. They didn't look back.
"I was so tired struggling with being unwanted and ignored, left behind, afraid and abandoned..." I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees. Images of my dad leaving out the door, never to come back, made my eyes tear up.
"I was lost. I wanted help, but I didn't know how. I was too proud to ask," I sniffed. "Ma says I get it from my dad and that's why I'm going to end up like him...dead or in prison or both,"
I paused. They stayed silent. I lifted my head and felt something starting to dry on my cheek. "Please...I-I want your help,"
It was like the wave had finally broke to reach land. One by one they all circled me into a group hug and murmured soft, sweet things to me. None of which I could hear, but that didn't matter. I cried anyways.
And when the bell rang to separate us, I stayed behind for a moment in the quiet. "I'm sorry, Noah. I should have been my job to see this," Mr. Schue said from behind me.
I rubbed my arm subconsciously, my eyes flickering to the floor with a flash of guilt. "'S not your fault," I mumbled.
"But I should have done something, I can't believe how blind I've been and how much that blindness has hurt you guys," he continued earnestly. I turned around.
"Aren't you doing something now?" I asked softly.
He shakes his head sadly. "It's not the same,"
"Mr. Schue," I corrected. "Just knowing you've got my back makes life a whole lot easier now,"
His smiled came back and he clamped a hand on my shoulder fatherly. I stared at it like it was alien. Which it was. "You may be right, but you know what?" I slowly looked back at him, confused. "I know you will never have to worry about ending up like your father because you are so different from him. You're a better man than he ever will be,"
He pulled me into a hug and it felt like forever.
I rested my head on his shoulder after a moment and gave in. His warmth felt like a healing touch to my soul and I smiled.
And forever was beginning to feel a lot like hope and happy endings.
Maybe, even a new beginning.