Disclaimer: I own nothing. All Glee characters; whoever wrote them up owns them.
To the McKinley High Glee club, to Rachel, to everyone who see him perform at show choir, he is Jesse St James, male lead of Vocal Adrenaline and the spotlight-owner, the one who rules the school and demands people's attentions.
To the rest of Carmel High School, Jesse St James is Jesse Saint Geek.
He has been constantly fighting to get his group to the top of the pecking order. He owes them everything that he is. He owes them his sanity. They are the reason he is still alive and well and singing. If they hadn't stood up for him, with him, in the hallways, against the 'popular' ones, he'd have long ditched his dream of performing. His friends are his family, his life.
It is because of his friends that he finds himself there.
He sighs, but he doesn't question them. He doesn't ask them why he's doing this. He doesn't even ask himself anymore. He's given up; there's no backing out.
He calls the only number he has on speed dial. He is not a praying man, but he suddenly finds himself hoping and pleading to any greater being beyond him that she is in class and cannot answer her phone.
He inwardly curses when she picks up, but his friends don't notice anything amiss, and she is too happy to wonder why he's calling her after everything he's done to her. He's a good actor; he has to be.
As he waits for her in the car park—he knows she'll come—his mind flies back.
His friends had been furious to find that he'd been at McKinley High, in a rival glee club. He'd nearly been kicked out the moment he'd stepped foot into the choir room. He'd hurriedly explained that it was as a "spy mission" for Ms Corcoran.
They hadn't been completely convinced, especially when he'd told them that he'd posed as Rachel's boyfriend. They'd forced him to prove it.
Even the glee club has a pecking order, and Jesse St James was kicked off the top when he left. He had to fight tooth and nail to get back on to his pedestal. And that was what he did.
He closes his eyes as the memories of girls under him flood through his mind. He doesn't love them. Heck, he doesn't even like them. He only loves one girl; a girl he was about to humiliate and hurt beyond his capabilities.
But he can't back out. Even now, his friends are looking at him, frowning. They're wondering if he can do it. He eases them, saying, "Got your eggs ready?"
The tension lifts, and they laugh. He laughs too, but only because he has to.
He sees her across the car park, and he can't stop the smile on his face when she starts to run towards him. His friends don't worry; they think it's part of the act.
When the eggs start to hit her hair and face, he clenches his jaw in anger and frustration. He didn't want this, doesn't want this. But he can't do anything now.
The anger and frustration grow stronger within him, until he can feel his eyes prickling. He had thought she would have really been worth it, worth leaving Carmel High for, worth leaving Jesse St James, male lead of Vocal Adrenaline.
Worth being just Jesse for.
And in one video assignment with two other guys who weren't her boyfriends, she ruined everything. Maybe she thought he was a fool, but he wasn't. He had seen her eyes linger on Puck, and whenever she was nervous and started babbling, she'd look at Finn.
There was no space for Jesse in her life.
He uses that anger and frustration to take those two steps forward. When she tells him to do it, he knows that maybe she understands a little bit that this is her fault. But he knows her. He knows she'll point the blame at every other person besides her.
When he cracks the egg on her forehead, a million things run through his mind—things that he wants to say to her.
You deserve this.
You humiliated me.
You hurt me.
You broke my heart.
Then he settles for the lie, because it's all he can afford her. "I loved you."
He puts careful emphasis on the past tense, even though his head is screaming at him to correct the grammatical error. But he can't. McKinley High and everything that happened in it is just the past now; she's the past.
He can't even smirk at her. It's over, he won, but where's the happiness? The glory? The pride he always felt when Vocal Adrenaline won a contest?
There is nothing.
Jesse St James has become a black hole.
.
.
.
AN:
I prefer Puck with Quinn and Jesse with Rachel. I think Finn deserves better than either Quinn or Rachel.
Review your thoughts and opinions.