This is for Carrie. I love you, beautiful. Be strong.
-KristenGall1998
Slight trigger warning for cutting and suicide attempts.
Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters or song lyrics.
Lana's POV
I'm tired, more so than usual. I had another fight with my mom again last night. She says that I'm just doing all of this, cutting, complaining, to get attention. That is so far from true. It's the only thing that will make me feel better. People try to tell me to stay strong, keep fighting, that I'm beautiful. I've heard it so many times over the last few days. I'm getting sick of it. It's now September, school will be starting soon, in a few days actually. And on top of that, it's so freaking hot out there. I don't really do much, just sit around on Twitter. My long sleeve t-shirts are getting really warm for the summer. Hopefully when school rolls around the weather will improve so that people don't wonder why I'm wearing long sleeves. Most of them know. I'm going into senior year and I hope that I can get well enough to at least enjoy some of it with my friends. Maybe we'll win Nationals this year. That'd be cool, awesome, really. Maybe we wouldn't be at the bottom of the slushie food chain.
It doesn't really help me with the way I look. I'm kind of tiny; I have a very round face, and long, straight, brown hair. I have pimples all over my face, and my eyes are quite small. I'm short and a bit chubby, but some of my few friends think I'm cute. I guess I kind of am, I mean, I'm small with a round face. That's got to be adorable, right?
I survived. The first day of senior year. Now the only thing left to do today is get through Glee rehearsal. I know I won't be bothered about my scars or anything there. I'm starting to get really insanely hot, so I roll my sleeves up just a bit to cool off. Despite wearing shorts, I'm still sweating a bit. This school is so crammed between classes and no air conditioning means it's pretty humid, too. When I put my stuff in my locker and grab my Glee folder, Artie rolls up to me.
"Hey Lana. Have a good summer?" He asks, smiling at me. I like Artie. He's really sweet and genuinely nice. I think he might actually care about me; he might be the only one.
"Yeah, it was great," I lie. I can't tell him about how I fought with my mom or was ignored by my dad or how I cut myself almost every day. He'd be so ashamed to be friends with me. I guess I can call him that. He seems to treat me like a normal person. "How was yours?"
"It was good. Walk with me?" I nod and we head off to the choir room together in silence. When we get there Mike, Puck, and Tina are the only ones in the room. They say hello to me and I nod and give a smile in return. Mike and Puck return to the conversation that they must've been having before we walked in. Tina turns to Artie and I as we take our seats.
"Have a good summer, Lana?" Tina asks us, and I nod again, not feeling like elaborating. Then she turns to Artie, who is in his chair on the floor while we are on the first riser. "What about you, Artie?"
"Oh, yeah. It was good. My mom took me to my aunt's cabin and it was fun." He replies. I start to wonder how it was fun with Artie in a wheelchair and am about to ask but Artie continues talking.
"One of my distant cousins is also in a chair and we went to this big amusement park for handicapable people." He explains, nodding and smiling. At this point, Mercedes and Kurt waltz into the room, arms linked together, talking to each other. Santana and Brittany are right behind them and they all come over to the seats and sit, no one really saying anything. We sit in silence for about a minute before Mr. Shue comes in.
"Has anyone seen Rachel and Finn?" He asks, turning to us. Most of us nod our heads no, but Kurt speaks up.
"They were macking on each other at Rachel's locker when I grabbed my books. They should be here soon." Kurt answers with a roll of his eyes.
"Uh, okay then." Mr. Shue says uncertainly.
"It's okay everyone, I'm here!" Rachel suddenly says, sort of skipping from the doorway to her seat, Finn only a step behind her.
"Sorry we're late. We got a bit… Distracted." Finn directs to Mr. Shue, earning an eye roll from Santana. Rachel and Finn take their seats and Mr. Shue starts talking.
"All right, so, here's what twelfth place looks like, guys. It's not satisfying." He holds up the small trophy from Nationals. "So we're going to do better this year. But, today I think we need to unwind a bit, huh? Maybe just sing for a bit?" This earns a cheer from most of the New Directions, except for Rachel.
"Wait, Mr. Shue. Shouldn't we be figuring out what we are doing at Sectionals before we waste time?"
"Rachel, we can take one day. Sometimes you need to have fun to get to the really important stuff. So, favorite summer songs, anybody?" He turns his attention to the rest of the club, and Puck's hand immediately goes up. "Puck, go for it." Puck stands up and performs his own rendition of "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars, Mike and Finn joining in later in the song. When he finishes the club claps and Puck, Mike, and Finn sit down. Mr. Shue asks if anyone else has any favorite summer songs. Santana whispers something in Brittany's ear and Brittany nods, and then the two of them stand and take the floor. They then double up on Brittney Spears' "I Wanna Go."
When Santana and Brittany finish their song, everyone, including Rachel, is up and dancing. Mr. Shue then turns to me and asks if I have anything. I look to Rachel who is now standing next to me and ask her if she'll perform Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" with me. She nods and I tell Mr. Shue that Rachel would sing something with me. We start the song and before we even hit the chorus Rachel and I have managed to drag Mercedes and Santana onto the floor to sing with us. Everyone claps when we finish. Mr. Shue starts talking again and before we know it, Glee is over for the day and everyone goes his or her separate ways to head home.
I stop at my locker to get my books and homework before I head out to my bus. On the way out, people keep yelling at me and calling me a freak. I forgot to roll my sleeves down after Glee. Shit. I hastily pull them down but it's too late. Now they all have another reason to make fun of me. I pull my phone out of my backpack and stick my headphones in my ears as I speed-walk to the bus. I take my normal seat on the right side of the bus and we start moving. Unfortunately for me, my headphones suck and I can hear all of the insults thrown my way from all the cheerleaders and jocks. Quinn is the only other Glee club member on my bus route and she has her own car so she drives to and from school. Thankfully, I am one of the first few off the bus but by the time we make it to my house I'm nearly in tears. To make matters worse, my mom is waiting for me when I get home. She tells me how worthless and horrible I am, and yells to me how ugly and undeserving I am. I brush it off, being used to taking her crap. When she finishes, I run up to my room with all of my stuff and start on my homework. I work for about two hours before it's finished.
Before I go to bed, I open my laptop to type up my essay for Mr. Weston's English class. I stupidly open my emails, though, and see more than fifty emails notifying me of people cyber-bullying me on Facebook and a few from Twitter. That sends me over the edge. From the bullying, Mom yelling at me, and then being told that I'm fat and that no one will ever love me or my scars on Facebook, I can't stand it anymore. My life already sucked and now I feel even worse about myself. I dig one of my blades out of the drawer in the stand next to my bed, already sobbing from the emails. They're right. I am worthless. No one will ever love me. I'm fat and ugly. I should do the world a favor. I run into the bathroom and grab a pill bottle from the cabinet. I swallow a handful of them, then I sit against the door and start dragging the blade across my arms and stomach. Relief.
Artie's POV (Next Day)
It's almost time for Glee club. The day went by pretty slowly without Lana here. I'm really worried about her. I've texted her and tried calling her but there was no answer. Hopefully Mr. Shue will know something. I know Lana struggles with depression and I know she cuts but it's not as bad as it looks. It can't. I mean, this is Lana that we're thinking about here, she's funny, bubbly, smiles all the time. She probably just has the flu. I sit through the rest of calculus wondering why Lana hasn't texted me back yet and before I know it, the bell is ringing and I'm packing up my stuff into my backpack. I roll into the hallway and about halfway to my locker, Finn comes up behind me and starts pushing me.
"Locker?" He asks.
"Yup. Thanks." I reply, lifting my arms from the sides of my chair.
"Have you heard from Lana? I'm kinda worried about her."
"No I haven't. I'm kinda worried too. She usually texts me if she's gonna be staying home or not at school." We take the rest of the journey to my locker and then to the choir room in silence. Finn parks me in my usual spot and goes to his chair by Rachel. We must've been the last ones to arrive because Mr. Shue comes out of his office and starts talking. He only says a brief greeting before Brittany speaks up.
"Mr. Shue? Where's Lana?" She asks, concern written on her face.
"I was just getting to that. She's not here today, as you've all noticed. She, uh, won't be back for a few days."
"Why not?" This was Finn.
"She's in the hospital. She-," Mr. Shue was trying to explain, but again he was interrupted.
"Hospital?!" Mercedes exclaimed.
"Why? What happened?" Tina asked, impatiently.
"She tried to kill herself last night." That pretty much stunned everyone into silence. I blinked my eyes shut tight. Everyone else just gave Mr. Shue blank stares. I should've known. She was really quiet yesterday, and I'm sure I saw scars on her arms. I should've asked her about them. And now she's in the hospital, and it was all my fault. When I had finally gathered my emotions, I could only think one thing: I need to see her.
"Which hospital?" I asked, fully intent on calling Mom to get her to take me there, now. Then I remembered Lima only has one hospital. "Never mind." I wheeled out of the room, Finn hot on my wheels, the majority of the Glee club right behind him. Mr. Shue didn't even try to stop us. I'm surprised he didn't follow us. He probably would've been yelled at by Figgins if he had. Puck stopped to grab his guitar on the way out, I noticed. Good. I've got an idea. Wordlessly, we all clambered into Finn's truck, Quinn and Mercedes' cars. The guys all in Finn's truck my wheelchair in the back. Quinn, Santana, and Brittany were all in Quinn's car, and Rachel, Tina, Kurt and Mercedes were all in the other car. The drive to the hospital was relatively short, ten minutes or so. We got there and Puck and Finn helped me back into my chair. The mob of us all somewhat marched the door and up to the desk. I asked for Lana's room and the nurse behind the desk directed us to it, not bothering to ask if we were family.
"She needs visitors. Go right on up." She explained. When we got there, I knocked on the door, not bothering to wait for an answer to go in. Lana was laying on the bed on her side, faced the other way.
"Lana?" I spoke out. "It's Artie. The whole Glee club is here. The nurse said you needed some visitors."
"Go away, please." She asked politely. I could hear the tears in her voice.
Part Two will be up very shorty. Please don't do anything brash or harsh.
Be Strong.