I always hate it when you pass people in the hall or even stop to talk to them and they ask you how you're feeling, because you can tell they don't really care. I mean, I don't even ask people how they're doing if I'm not going to care; that's how strongly I feel about it. It's just one of my perks, or quirks, or whatever those are called.
So, anyway, I was having a particularly bad day about a year ago; I'd totally flunked my history test; Rachel was being especially controlist; my mom had been mad at me this morning because I didn't clean up the night before or something. I don't even know. So I stormed out of history, clenching my test with my fist, into the choir room for glee club practice. I was early; no one else was there except for Mr. Schue. I walked in and just slammed my bag on the floor, crashed into a seat, and threw my crumpled test across the room, even though Mr. Schue was watching me. I stared at the ground, breathing hard.
"Finn, are you ok?" I didn't look up, but I could hear the concern in Mr. Schue's voice. I shrugged. "Finn, what's wrong?" Mr. Schue sat next to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Just having a bad day."
That's usually when people say 'ok, well, I'm sorry' and walk away. But not Mr. Schue.
"Well, do you want to tell me what happened, or…?"
"I screwed my math test and Rachel's been nagging me and my mom got mad at me this morning, and…yeah."
Mr. Schue patted me on the shoulder and looked up from under his raised eyebrows. "That sounds pretty tough; math was never my strong point, either…neither were women, for that matter….Here, I have a list of songs I'd like to do for our next performance and I wanted to ask your opinion about them; you're one of the better 'song-pickers' in glee club. Is that alright?" I nodded and got up to follow Mr. Schue.
I know that whole exchange doesn't sound like much, but as I stood there with Mr. Schue for a few more minutes, laughing with him at the weird, old songs he'd found, I was really glad for him. He'd asked why I was mad instead of getting mad at me for throwing my papers across the room, he'd actually cared about what I'd told him, and he was trying to help me forget what had happened.
Since this all happened before Burt and my mom got married, at that moment, leaning on the piano next to Mr. Schuester, I really felt like he was the closest to a father I could get then, and so, the all the next five minutes, I was beaming, because I knew Mr. Schue really, really cared about me. And I cared about him.