Finn wasn't a cheater.
He may not have ever been a straight-A student but he did pride himself on never having stolen any answer sheets, never having copied off of his neighbour's paper, and never having secretly written the answers to test questions on his hand.
But lying on a report wasn't the same as cheating, was it?
Because lying on a report was exactly what Finn was doing.
Finn was very aware that if anyone found out what he really did with his summer vacation he would very quickly go from being the most popular kid in school to sharing a lunch table with McKinley's resident nerd, Jacob Ben Israel. He couldn't afford that. After being a back-up starter all of last year, he had worked hard to finally secure his position at the top of the pyramid. He was no longer a freshman. He was a sophomore and the starting quarterback of the McKinley Titans; not to mention, he was dating the head cheerleader. Yeah, she was high maintenance and sometimes scary but she was also hot.
So Finn lied.
He was almost half way done with almost all of his report - at least that is what he had told Mr. Schuester. The truth was, he had a fair bit yet to write and that was before the painstaking task of translating it into Spanish for Mr. Schue's class. So Finn sat in his room – at the same desk that he had for most of his life and continued to fabricate a story about how awesome his summer had been:
Finn Hudson
Spanish 10
Sept. 17, 2009
What I Did Last Summer
There is nothing better than summer holidays. The sun shines. The birds sing. And sleeping in until noon is usually not frowned upon like it is during the school year. My first summer as a high school student was epic.
My mom told me that I was responsible for my own fun. She was working extra shifts and longer hours at the hospital so I was pretty much on my own, which suited me fine.
I took her words to heart. I, Finn Hudson, was responsible for my own fun: dates with my girlfriend (even though she made me pray), video game marathons with my best friend Puck, football games with the guys, hours of banging on the drums with no one home yelling at me to keep it down, and days of lazing around watching T.V. and eating grilled cheese…
Finn took his fingers off the keyboard and leaned away from his computer. He read his own words and sighed.
Lying on his report was cheating.
Finn wasn't a cheater.
There was no way he would be able to bring himself to hand in such a blatant lie.
Finn groaned and wished that Mr. Schue had chosen any other topic for the Spanish report. He was in high school now, why was he still writing about his summer vacation? Hadn't he done that all through elementary school - since the first grade?
He took a swig of grape juice, not noticing the purple moustache (which would rival a first grader's) it left on his lip. He looked down at his desk and at the picture his mom had recently framed for him. It was of him and his paternal grandmother. For a couple weeks now it had sat on his desk beside the picture of his dad.
He loved the captured image because his Grandma Betty looked happy as she sat beside him in the August sun. Even sitting, Finn towered over her. She was a petite woman with kind features and white hair that she kept off her face in a loose bun.
When Finn was a child he had spent almost every summer with her. It had given his mom a break and had allowed for him to remain as close as possible with the Hudson side of the family. His father was gone – and really he never knew him since he died when Finn was a few months old but his Granny and uncle made sure that he was never forgotten. Finn had learned about his dad through them – their stories, photographs, and home videos.
But as Finn grew he had visited less and less until this past summer when he spent the entire month of August with her. Finn had assembled and installed a beautiful oak bench at the east side of her enormous and very colourful flower garden, facing west so that she could watch the sunsets.
She had told him, "Finnegan, I need to sit and face the sun. The older I get the more cold and lonely my heart becomes. It's been hard. First, your father was taken from us, then your uncle moved away, then your grandfather died." She paused and looked up and into his eyes with her sad ones but after only a moment she smiled as her gaze became warm and kind again. She would never hold it against her grandson but she was not the type of woman to keep her feelings under wraps either. "Even you stopped visiting me, Finnegan," she said. "I need the sun, dear. I need it to warm these old tired bones."
So while Finn internally berated himself for not visiting more often, he finished the task at hand and after a couple of hours the bench was ready. His grandma was delighted and she insisted they sit upon it that very evening to watch the sun go down. They sat together every evening thereafter. Finn got to know his grandma again (which lightened his heart and released some of the guilt). He was reacquainted with the stories about his dad - the boy, the son, the man, the dad, and the hero.
On the days that weren't scorching hot his Granny would make Finn's favourite foods and set up a small table in front of the bench where they would sit and eat together. He helped her prune bushes, plant flowers, water the gardens, and when the summer storms hit they would sit inside together over a game of scrabble. It was entirely different from what Finn was used to but it was refreshing and new and something Finn could see himself doing every summer for the rest of his life – or at least for the rest of Granny's life.
He regretted not having visited as often as he had when he was younger. The older he got the more detached he had become from her. He was growing up, he had deeper interests and part of it was that his mom had found it more difficult to make the time to trek into Columbus where Granny lived. Or maybe it was that the older his mom got, the more her priorities were changing. Finn didn't know, but it actually hurt his head and his heart to think about it.
This past summer had been different though. His mom couldn't afford to send him to the expensive football camp, despite Finn finally being of eligible age to participate. It wasn't just any football camp. It was the football camp - the one which was attended by all the scouts from Ohio State University.
Finn had understood his mom's situation – they had never had an abundance of money so he was sort of used to having to give up some things. But this had been a disappointing blow. The way Finn saw it, his entire future depended on whether he was able to get a football scholarship, not that he was thinking about his future because that would not be cool at all.
Surprisingly and out of the blue one day (It seemed that way to Finn but what he didn't know was that his mom had swallowed her pride and asked her mother-in-law for help) his Granny had called him and offered to pay for the camp. Finn's pride was just as hefty as his mom's but despite his protests, his Granny had insisted.
And when Granny insists, you just don't argue.
After a successful two weeks of camp (if gaining the attention and advice from OSU's top two scouts was anything to go by) his mom suggested that he visit Granny for the rest of the summer. It would be a nice gesture and the right thing to do, she had said.
A normal sixteen year old may have been unhappy with having to spend their precious summer away from friends and girlfriends but Finn had never been a normal anything. Besides, his Granny was the last link he had to his dad and he really was grateful that she had given him the six-hundred dollars to attend camp.
So Finn had gone.
But now he desperately wanted to keep that a secret – if he wrote a report on it, surely word would get out. It was uncool at his age to spend the summer with his Granny – like he needed to be babysat. He couldn't let any of the guys find out because he was at the top looking down and for people like Finn – that was a good spot to be in.
But Finn wasn't a cheater.
So, he started again:
Finn Hudson
Spanish 10
Sept. 17, 2009
What I Did Last Summer
My Grandma is awesome…