AN: This is my first Glee story. I always wanted to add an OC to it, but I have a morbid fear of writing a Mary Sue and having the hate of the fandom rain down on my self-esteem. Well, now I'm taking a risk. My OC Luanne is the only thing I own of this story, Ryan Murphy has the rest, even if he does mess up occasionally.
Finn Hudson loved country music. It was not a well-known fact about his personality, really only his mom knew. And not the current stuff that sounded more like rock. No, Finn liked his music to have a twang. Most thought he liked hard rock and vintage metal bands, and they were ok, but vintage country made his heart sing. Before William McKinley High, Finn attended a small school in a small town, on the very tip of Ohio, almost in West Virginia. At Fairview, one liked country, or rap. After the first two months of sixth grade choosing country to avoid emulating the boys whose pants fell down and had to be duck taped up in front of the class by a teacher, Finn began to genuinely liking the honesty and TWANG of the country stars. Garth Brooks was in his top list, as was Dolly Parton. And country led him to his first best friend. He had had other friends, people he talked to at school and exchanged hellos with when encountering them on the street, but Luanne was the first person Finn ever wanted to invite to his crappy apartment to meet his mom, or just sit quietly with and play rummy with his Pokémon themed deck of cards. Sometimes Finn still considers those three years the best part of his life so far, especially when he has a fight with Rachel, or when Kurt calls him stupid, using more intelligent sounding words, of course. Sometimes Finn wants to tell him that he has 1st place trophies from three years of making it to state science fairs. Sometimes he wants to talk about his life before Kurt, Rachel, and even Quinn. But those are his secrets and he deserved to have something that was only his and not his and the Glee club's, or even his and Rachel's. And Finn thought it would stay that way forever. They weren't dark secrets, and they didn't hurt anybody. Most days he didn't say anything just because he could hardly get a word in edgewise, another side effect of being in a club exclusively for Divas. He wishes sometimes that he would've had time to say goodbye to Luanne, and try to keep in touch, but Finn left the summer before ninth grade, in the space of a weekend. They were following his mom's boyfriend, who left her a month later. Finn never really thought he'd see bright red cowboy boots again anytime soon. Luanne always said they kept her warm cause she hated the cold.
Finn did indeed see those boots again. He was heartbroken, Rachel ripped out his insides, just because of what he did before they even started dating. He wasn't surprised that she hated him for lying, but he thought that they could've worked through that. But Rachel cheated. Finn had cheated and had been cheated on, but he thought it would be different with Rachel. Everything else had been. But whatever. As he walked down the hallway, he kept his head down. No one had said anything to him, but Finn got the feeling that Glee was on Rachel's side for this one. Sometimes Finn kinda got the feeling that the club just didn't like being on his side, but never said anything. Finn is currently thinking such depressing thoughts when he encounters crimson cowboy boots invading his eye sight. As his gaze travels upwards, Finn barely dares to hope as he takes in the knee high boots to the denim cutoff skirt, with a huge bleach stain on the right thigh that Finn could actually remember making when he tried to help her with laundry, and finally to the red shirt proclaiming the wearer's dedication to Dr. Pepper. But the beautiful freckled face of Luanne, who smiled widely, showing off her slightly overlapping two front teeth. Although shorter then middle school, her hair was the same dark blonde, but if asked she would tell people it just looked the color of dirty water.
Finn didn't ask her why she was there or if she even remembered all their adventures, even though she was smiling like she did. He just hugged her like he had always wanted to hug her when he got lonely or sad. Luanne didn't protest, and Finn felt OK for the first time in a while.
