Chapter 1

Something Beyond Me*

The silver sedan, glimmering in the faint glow of the rising sun, honked twice in front of the two-storey house where it was parked. There were no responses from anyone inside the house; again the silver sedan honked, louder this time, but its sounds only seemed like desperate pleas for attention—pleas that Will Schuester did not want to give in to so he ignored them. He glanced at the front door for a moment before he ran up the wooden stairs, dragging his heavy backpack along with him.

Edward Schuester had been waiting outside the house for nearly twenty minutes now. His son had promised to be out in five minutes—but in every five minutes that Will did not show up he would honk his silver sedan twice, and in every five minutes that passed he too, would slowly lose his patience. Frustrated, he stepped out of his car and authoritatively marched towards the house, whose front porch was beginning to pile up with dust and dried leaves brought about by the autumn season. The house was eerily silent when he entered, although it still looked completely ordinary—the furniture were in place and some pictures of Will and his mother hung by the walls— with no traces of having been left unattended for a few weeks, except for the vase of wilting flowers in the living room. Ed strode past the living room and peeked into the kitchen where he last left Will, but just as he expected, he wasn't there. Sighing, he made his way to the second floor, his footsteps not making any sound as he climbed the wooden stairs.

Will was sitting on one side of his mother's bed, his arms wrapped tightly around one of her pillows, while he stared aimlessly at his shoes. He had never felt so comfortable the way he felt now; he hadn't felt this relieved in weeks since his mother had gone. He didn't want to leave this house—it was his home, and it was going to be the only place that would feel like home to him.

"You said you'd be out in five minutes." Ed stated indifferently, as he entered the first open bedroom door and found Will sitting on the bed. The older Schuester grabbed his son's backpack with one hand and placed his other hand on Will's shoulder, squeezing it firmly. "We need to leave. I told you, you can come back here this weekend to get the rest of your things. Now we have to go."

But Will was unresponsive, as though his father wasn't standing next to him; he didn't even feel his father's hand on his shoulder. Ed pulled Will up to his feet and taking the pillow from him, threw it carelessly back onto the bed. "We have to leave, now."

Will slammed shut the passenger door of the silver sedan as loudly as possible after settling into the seat beside his father. He wanted to make sure that in every available opportunity, his father knew that he didn't want to leave. Ed Schuester shot him an irritated look but said nothing, opting to focus on driving back to Lima and ignoring the fact that they were already running late on an important appointment. Will huffed and leaned back on his seat, plugging his earphones on and turning up the volume on his iPod to avoid any conversation with his father.

Almost three hours of driving and they both finally arrived in Lima, Ohio. It was already half past nine and they were late for an appointment with Mr. Preston, Ed Schuester's high school classmate and currently the principal of McKinley High School, where Will was to be transferred.

"You're lucky Mr. Preston is a friend of mine." Ed spoke deliberately loud as he smoothly swerved past slow-driving cars while driving at the maximum speed limit. "It's bad enough that I asked him a favor to get you in as one of his students in such a short notice, but now we're late in our meeting with him too, and—"

"Then you shouldn't have forced me to go with you." Will muttered, leaning closer to the window, glaring at the unfamiliar cars, people, and buildings that they passed; this was not his home.

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me," Will shot back. He had turned his iPod off, knowing what was about to come; he was not afraid of this man. He was going to answer back, even if it meant being a "bad son" to his "father"—because as far as he was concerned, he was nobody's son anymore, not after his mother had died.

Ed bit his lip and clenched his hands upon the steering wheel, before turning left at a corner with a sign stating that McKinley High was only a few blocks away. "You will not speak to me that way, William. I am your father," he said, as calmly as he possibly could.

"As far as I know, I lost my dad in a fire."

"Is that what she made you believe all these years?" Ed's voice, as well as his temper, rose.

"Don't bring her into this; she had nothing to do with it!" Will yelled, his hands balling into fists and his eyes burning with tears he wouldn't let fall. "I made myself believe that you were burning in hell! And if you ask me, I think you're still burning there—"

The silver sedan screeched to a stop all of a sudden, and if it weren't for the seatbelts they were wearing, both Ed and Will would have been thrown out of the vehicle.

Ed started the vehicle once again, this time driving more cautiously into McKinley High's parking lot. "My wife, my son, and I…," he said sternly, anger still evident in his voice, "have agreed to let you live with us so that social services won't have to take you away. It's the least I could do for your mother—"

"Yeah, after you got her pregnant and you ran off to marry another woman instead—"

"William—"

"You should've let social services take me," Will hissed, unbuckling his seatbelt as soon as his father had found a parking spot, right next to a dumpster vandalized with big letters that spelled LOSERS. He got out of the sedan and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Ed made sure the doors of his sedan were locked before he made his way, striding, to the school entrance, with Will reluctantly following behind. "We will talk about this later, at home—"

"This town isn't my home—"

"Do not interrupt me when I speak!" The older Schuester burst out exasperatedly, a vein in his neck sticking out as he stared down at his son. "We will talk about this later, at home," he repeated, emphasizing home with such boldness if only to display authority over his own son. "Now behave, I don't want you screwing things up in front of your new principal."

"Why, he seems like a good boy, Eddie," John Preston mused, as he scanned through a thick folder full of Will's transcripts and official documents from his previous school. Ed Schuester's jaw tightened for a moment, but he managed to fake a grin as he clapped Will on the shoulder.

"You'll soon find that he tends to be… adamant," he said.

"Of course he is—he's your son, he's supposed to be like you!" laughed Mr. Preston, shifting his gaze from Ed to Will, amused. "And he's had excellent grades so far, especially in his science subjects, Eddie. I won't be surprised if he turns out to be just like you— Lima's finest orthopedic surgeon…."

Will, who had been staring at the McKinley High logo on Mr. Preston's desk, jerked his head up so quickly upon hearing about the work his father did. A surgeon? Will never knew that about him; his mother never told him, and when Ed had introduced himself at the funeral, all he ever said was that he was Will's father. He glanced sideward to where his father was seated, and he suddenly noticed everything about Ed Schuester: it was all too obvious that he was simply not like any working man, if only Will had been paying attention at all— the neatly-ironed long-sleeved shirt, slacks, and the royal blue necktie; the expensive watch on his wrist, the cell phone attached to his belt, and the tidy black shoes; and of course, the way he walked so proudly, building an aura of confidence around him. Will could now see that his father was indeed a well-educated man. A well-educated man who would leave a pregnant woman for another, only to take notice of his bastard son when the child's mother died—

Will hadn't noticed that he was gaping at his father until Mr. Preston's voice seeped through his thoughts. "Here are your class schedules, William, as well as some forms you'll need to submit to your teachers when you attend their classes for the first time." The principal had stood up and handed him a folder with all the said papers. Will accepted them silently, while his father signaled with his eyes for him to quit staring. Turning away from his father's piercing look, Will nodded once at Mr. Preston. "Oh, uh, thanks," he muttered, waving the folder in his hand.

Ed Schuester cleared his throat, grabbing Will's arm and hoisting him up. "John, if you don't mind, I think he needs to get to class. We were already late to begin with, and I don't want him to miss out on his first day." Will understood what he was being told to do, so he clutched his backpack and hurriedly went for the door, relieved that he wouldn't have to endure another moment with these two men he could barely trust. Being in class was better than being in the principal's office, right? But Will knew he didn't belong anywhere, either way; he didn't belong anywhere now. Where should he go?

"Have fun," Mr. Preston called out to him. Will only shrugged and avoided making further eye contact with the two men whom he knew were watching his every move. And just as Will had expected, the two men started talking about him once they thought he was out of earshot. "Well Eddie, you never told me you had a secret life!" John Preston chuckled. "And without warning me, you're showing up here with another son— a teenage son, Eddie! I thought Henry was your only kid…."

"I'm not proud of it, John. I made a stupid mistake seventeen years ago…." Ed Schuester scoffed, and it was the last that Will wanted to hear. He'd had enough for one day, and the day wasn't even halfway through. He rushed past the principal's secretary and slammed the door behind him, not bothering to turn back and see if his father and the principal had seen him do it.

Deafening silence in the empty hallways greeted him once he had walked far enough from the principal office's vicinity. Will fumbled through the papers in his folder and found that he was supposed to be in a chemistry class at this particular time, and lucky for him, the said class happened to be on the same floor where he was right now; all he had to do was find the classroom. He walked warily through the halls, making sure he didn't just walk past the classroom where he was supposed to be.

Will made sure his footsteps were silent, but he could swear he heard soft echoes of shoes tapping on the ground— sounds he was sure his sneakers didn't make. Slightly shifting his head sideward, he glanced behind, but found no one. Will rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw, a bit irritated at himself for how he must've hallucinated, how maybe his lack of sleep made him imagine the footsteps, but as soon as he made a right turn to the next empty hallway, he fell back against the lockers as a strong force grabbed his backpack from behind, pulling him along with it. Will barely had time to register who had pinned him against the cold, metal lockers when the stranger punched him, painfully, in the jaw, and he fell to the floor, his mouth beginning to fill up with warm blood. His class schedules, as well as the other official forms in the folder Mr. Preston gave him, flew all over the place as his body hit the ground.

"Give me your lunch money, idiot," a rough voice growled threateningly at him, while a few voices chuckled in the background. Will laid his head on the floor, panting, unable to speak because he didn't want to cough out the blood in his mouth. Starting to feel dizzy, he reached into his back pocket and grabbed a handful of dollars that his father had given him in the car earlier this morning. He knew he didn't have the energy to overpower a group of boys—there were three of them— and he'd rather starve through the day than to buy food with Ed Schuester's money. Besides, as far as he could remember, his mother had left him a good amount of money—he figured he'd live off of that until he was old enough to get a job and earn his own.

"This one's easy," jeered the boy as he clawed the money from Will's hand. "Thanks," he said, laughing as he pulled Will to his feet. "Don't you dare say a word about this, understand? Or the rest of us will turn you into a punching bag."

Will could only glare at them, before the bullies left in a huddle, congratulating themselves. It was as if Will didn't hate this town bad enough that now Lima, Ohio has given him another reason to resent being forced to live in it. He had forgotten the chemistry class he was supposed to be attending, his body in desperate need of sleep, or at the very least, a place he could rest his aching head upon. Careful not to lose his balance, he gathered his scattered papers from the floor, and slowly inched his way along the empty hallways to find the clinic.

Will's head was throbbing, his thoughts all set on what else could possibly go wrong for the remainder of the day; the poor boy still had a long way to go, only he didn't know how much longer he would last in it.

*I owe the Fleet Foxes one of the lines from their song, Helplessness Blues, as the title of this chapter.