Author's Note: Well, business first - I do not own Glee or any of its characters.
Second, I need to thank all of you that were kind enough to take the time to review my first story or who marked it as a favorite. You are all *beyond* wonderful! That all meant a lot for a first-time fanfiction author, and I cannot thank you enough, seriously. It inspired me to push myself and write this little piece you're (hopefully, ha!) about to read. You're just splendid! =)
This is sort of a companion piece to "The Little Things" (they're sort of both sides of the same coin), but you don't have to read one to enjoy the other, so I decided to publish this as an independent story. If you care to read both, by all means, but it's not really necessary. Once again, I appreciate any and all feedback/input/constructive criticism you feel generous enough to give! I'm very new to this game, and I'm looking for any response I can get! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!
Performing never made her nervous. In actuality, it's one place where Tina feels completely at ease, mainly because when she's in the music, she's no longer herself—well, at least not completely. When she's singing, she's something larger, something focused and powerful and certain. She molds herself into whatever the song needs her to be, removing the parts of "Tina" that don't fit the tone and using only the pieces that suit the mood. She doesn't so much think about these changes as she just feels them. She leaves her mind behind and follows her heart until she's completely immersed in the music. She caters to the song's needs, uses bits of her personality to become a component of the music and deliver its ultimate message of unapologetic emotion. Life in the music is simple: it's her and the song, and that's it. Within the cadence of New Directions' routines, she's begun to find the stage as one of the most freeing, natural places to be.
No, performing has never been the issue. It's the heavy, electric moment right before the music starts when she can feel the nerves spastically dancing around in her body as her mind races and reels its way through incoherent thoughts. This moment, she decides, is the exact place that her shyness has permanently set up camp.
As a child, Tina's shy nature was so extreme it bordered on crippling. In grammar school she'd been notorious for bursting into tears if too many sets of eyes focused on her at the same time, and she couldn't count the number of parent-teacher conferences her parents were forced to attend because their daughter wasn't "sufficiently bonding with her peers." She wanted to be a part of the crowd so badly that it ached, but the simple fact was none of the other kids had the foresight to understand that she needed an extra, albeit gentle and patient, push to gather the courage to share herself with others. And so she never got it.
In a small town like Lima, once your identity within the social circle is set, it's hard to dissolve it, and by the final years of grammar school, Tina was firmly branded a freak, a loser, a shoddy excuse for a teenage girl. So she resolved herself to the fact that she'd always be an outsider, and although her timid personality and attention-deflecting artificial stutter were firmly in place, coming to terms with that fact actually helped her hold her head a bit higher. If she couldn't swim against the flow, why waste energy trying to fight it? As Tina saw it, it was far better to accept the labels thrust upon her and not shake the system than to be cruelly struck down in any attempt to defy the ruling of the status quo. If she went along with it, she could fly under the radar, and at this point she couldn't ask for anything more.
However, within the past couple of years she felt the bulk of that innate insecurity that plagued her childhood dissipate after she'd moved onward and upward to William McKinley High School, and she'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit that her friendship with Artie was the primary reason behind that gradual growth of confidence. Of course glee club helped accelerate it—that was so obvious it almost went without saying—but before there was New Directions, there was Artie, who had literally been there from the very beginning of high school, which was when they'd forged the initial bonds of their friendship. They'd met when they found themselves in a few of the same classes that first day, when his bright smile during their class-wide introductions had elicited a genuine one from her own lips, even while she softly and deliberately stammered out her own name.
While this initial meeting was arguably a matter of coincidence, their friendship initiated and developed out of the fact that they both saw each other for who they were and accepted it, no questions asked. Artie was always so patient with Tina's broken speech; instead of cutting short the conversation to escape the inconvenience of waiting for her full answer, he was always ready with another question, eager to learn more about her. Tina found herself wanting to speak as fluidly and quickly as she could so they could cram as much as possible into their conversations, but the stutter still offered her protection from the inescapable verbal torment of the "popular" kids, so she strategically maintained the impediment to protect her own well-being.
The absolute acceptance Artie showed Tina was completely reciprocated: she wouldn't admit it because it was still a somewhat sensitive subject (and would probably always be as such with Artie, understandably so), but it took her almost two whole weeks to notice his chair. She saw it, of course, but it wasn't so much a part of him as it was a prop, an accessory, so it didn't really factor into the equation of elements that added up to Artie as a whole. While changing for gym class in the locker room one day, she overheard a sophomore mention "that freshman wheelchair kid," and it took some serious thinking for Tina to realize they were referencing Artie. To her, Artie's personality was so large and strong, his chair just never came into the picture. He had so much more to offer—intelligence, generosity, a dry wit that kept her constantly giggling—that the wheelchair faded into the background.
Tina and Artie bonded over everything, even the things they couldn't agree on (the Beatles versus Stones debate had been settled quickly, but the Tarantino versus Scorsese discussion could go on for hours). They eagerly shared tiny bits of themselves with each other, trying to cover as much territory as possible, finding joy and excitement in the simple act of honest disclosure. But most strongly they connected over their love of singing and how it offered solace from the pressures of everyday life, at least until the final note left their lips and echoed forever off into the atmosphere. In music there were no searing, condescending insults from jocks or pitying looks that were just as wounding in their own way. There was only strength and conviction and peace.
Over time, it became apparent just how well they understood each other, down to the little ticks and nuances of their personalities. For Tina, their closeness was cemented the day Artie commented on the reasoning behind her fashion choices. She had made an offhand comment about being teased for her so-called "goth" look. Artie immediately replied that her affinity for dark clothing wasn't because she harbored an attraction to all things gloomy and morbid—it was because the colors she splashed her wardrobe with appeared at their brightest when situated next to the black. It wasn't about the darkness; it was about making the other hues stand out the strongest. Then he smiled at her, and she knew he had permanently carved himself a special place in her heart.
Maybe, she mused, that was why they worked so well together: she looked at him and saw his grand stature; he looked at her and saw her vivid colors.
Unfortunately, in the present situation, this closeness they established was in the process of being seriously compromised, and she had no one but herself to blame. She'd recently revealed to Artie that her stutter was just a wall she'd built to protect herself from the cruelness of her peers. She had been so high off the delight of their first kiss, the one that she's initiated after innumerable daydreams of how it would actually pan out, that she felt her deepest secret spilling out of her lips before she could stop herself. She'd known for a long time that she wanted to come clean to Artie, not just because he was her best friend, but because she had always been told relationships were based on honestly and deep in her heart that's what she hoped they were moving toward—and it actually seemed like they were heading in that direction, especially as of late. The nagging little voice in the back of her head (the one that, she hated to admit, was pretty much always on-target) said that Artie wouldn't take it well, considering she would be dropping such a massive secret in his lap all at once. Her blindly optimistic hopes that he would welcome the "real" Tina with open arms outshined those concerns.
As always, the voice was right.
In retrospect of Artie's scathing dismissal, Tina realized that her stutter had, in a way, leveled the playing field. Yes, there was far more to their relationship than the bond they'd established over being victims of disabilities. But since the age of 8 when life cruelly confined him to a metal chair, he had been all too aware of how physically different he was from everyone else. Although they connected much deeper throughout the past two years, in such a way that their friendship was a fraction of an inch away from that incredible "something more" territory, her speech impediment had forged her into a kindred spirit Artie didn't even realize he was searching for. Artie spent most of his life looking up at people; Tina's stutter, in his mind, let him look straight ahead to meet her eyes. Her revelation was nothing short of brutally offensive.
Due to all this, Tina recognized his current rigid demeanor with her was justified. Oh sure, they were civil to each other, but he didn't actively seek her out during the course of the school day, and she was too scared right now to challenge the issue, no matter how much she hurt to go through her day without him by her side. Like a phantom limb, there was a dull ache when he wasn't next to her while walking to class or biding their free time during study hall. On the frequent occasion that she would catch him looking at her (before he abashedly tore away his gaze as quickly as possible), she noticed a certain sadness in his eyes, but whether it was from the injury she inflicted or because he missed her just as much, she couldn't say for sure.
This was karma. Plain and simple, no doubt about it, this was the universe taking retribution. The purpose of the feigned stutter was the freedom of silence. Now, she had no choice but to endure the tense quiet that settled thickly between them.
She accepted her sentence, but anytime she wasn't actively forcing herself to not think about it, Tina wondered with a heavy heart when she'd get Artie—her Artie—back in her life. Tina knew better than anyone else just how understanding he could be, but she didn't know when he would calm down enough to realize she never wanted to hurt him. She bared the weight of her façade for all these years, even after she'd wanted to stop, in an attempt to escape the teasing and torment she'd endured throughout her life. If she'd known it would've driven a wedge between herself and such a great friend like him, she would have dropped it in a heartbeat and endured any and all mockery with pleasure. But she didn't know. So she kept it up to dodge as much bullying from the McKinley jocks as she could, and now she found herself more unsure and lost than she ever remembered feeling, all because her attempt to draw him closer had shoved him further away than she could tolerate.
So now, she sings.
She sings more often than ever before – ballads, love songs, anything that makes its way to her vocal chords. She pours herself into the melody, treating each and every note as if it was the most precious, important thing in the world. Those notes offer her a solace that her conscious mind can't, because they don't force her to think. They let her just feel. She feels the frustration, shame, sorrow, hope, and longing course through every bit of her body, so much so that she swears her fingertips tingle.
It is in the music that she feels the things she can't mold into coherent thoughts: her deep embarrassment for faking the stutter for so long, her anger towards herself for not being brave enough for all those years, her anxious sadness over being estranged from her best friend, and, most importantly (and most surprisingly), the solid certainty in the pit of her soul that this separation wouldn't last forever. When she is lost in the music, she absentmindedly drifts through her memories of all the times she shared with him. She sees the lunches when every minute was filled with excited conversation, the glee club practices when they celebrated each other's personal victories with wide smiles and shouts of congratulations, the moments where a touch was all they needed to understand what the other wanted to say. But most importantly, she sees the way he looked at her. That's where the future of their relationship was hidden. When she remembers the way he looked at her—a gaze she was sure he found reflected in her eyes—she can practically feel the terrible fissure in their friendship begin to slowly mend itself.
She sings to put herself back to those moments, because until he is ready to forgive her, they will be her saving grace.
There are days when she's lucky and while she is performing during practice, shoving her heart into each note with a reckless force, she manages to turn her focus just the right way and find the bright blue eyes of her best friend matched up with hers. She understands that he, too, is busy finding his own solace, and instead bearing witness to his grief, when she looks in his eyes she finds them as soft and warm as they used to be.
Just like always, lost in the music, Tina finds home.