She's never been so ashamed.
He's talking and yeah, the words are registering; he thinks she's threatened by him and Blaine, she's using food in place of love, she's using him in place of a boyfriend, she needs to take better care of herself...the picture he's painting is looking more and more pathetic with each brush stroke, and she's standing there frozen, nodding and looking at the ground as if she's his fucking child or something.
The words aren't even as humiliating in themselves (she's heard worse before from so-called friends) but it's his tone, the look on his face. It's faint, but it's there. Superior. Patronizing. Worst of all, pitying. And utterly convinced she's made an ass of herself.
Shame prickles hot on her face and forehead and under her arms. Unbidden, images of herself play back in her head, magnified as if on a plasma-screen high-def, in some kind of low-budget horror flick where she's Godzilla, just gone wild. All at once she's fatter, clumsier, more ridiculous; her voice is louder, harsher, more grating; she looks and sounds like a crazy woman. She remembers nudging people aside none-to-gently with ample hips to ensure her place in the tots line. Then demanding more, non-too-subtly. Then, she's standing on a fucking chair of all things, leading a tots chant- not two minutes after catching the eye of a relatively cute football player. Then she's stuffung the greasy potatoes up the tailpipe of Sue's car. Then she's pulling a container of tots out of her locker, grinning like an idiot, saying she's willing to go to jail for the damn things...
She never can just fucking STOP, can she?
It's not enough that she's black and heavy and different and dresses like NO one in Lima and had never been in a real relationship and sings like Aretha fucking Franklin on speed. She's got to make herself look like an absolute goat over something as fucking stupid as TATER TOTS.
No wonder she...no wonder no one has ever- she bites her lip, hard.
And then...there's Kurt's face. Once again the look is faint, but unmistakable. He's horrified and yes...disgusted. More with the situation than with her, but still.
If he called her a friendless, pitiful attention-seeking whale, it would have hurt less than this little pep talk. She blinks, swallows hard. She has to say something-anything-!-to get out before she begins to cry. She always declares loudly to anyone who will listen that she loves herself and her opinion is the only one that counts, but it's something like this that always shakes her foundations.
There's no point in thinking she's fabulous if no one agrees with her.
Kurt asks where she's going and she manages to reply with some normalcy, blabbering on about Anthony and Kurt being right or some other shit. Right. Whatever. She's out of there.
She ducks into the music rehersal room, sits down on the piano bench, begins popping tots in her mouth, robotically. Each little ice-cold greasy ball of fried potato goes down quicker than the last; they have to get there, to fill that aching emptiness, blunt the hunger that has everything to do with lonliness and nothing to do with an empty stomach. If she doesn't eat them she'll cry, break down...
...and she's already made enough of a fool of herself.