Let Me Suffer, Please
Hey, so I hope your all enjoying this break from Glee...Haha, yeah right. I can't wait for it to start! I'm so in love with Tina and Artie I can't wait to watch!!! Hope you all look forward to the upcoming episode and I hope I can at least inspire one of you to write a Tina and Artie fanfic!
Thank you for taking the time to read. I really do appreciate it.
Chapter Two
Tina awoke to someone knocking on her door. She pulled out of the fetal position and stretched. She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep. She turned to the source of her awakening and found her mother standing there. Piercing eyes and a red-face looked straight at her, and Tina still wished she was in dreamland.
"Your father wants to see you."
Tina knew what that meant. She followed her mother and shut the door. She went downstairs into the kitchen and sat in the white wooden chair that accompanied a plastic white table. Her mother's idea: chic. But all Tina saw was that it was easily scratched and was just waiting to break from its corners.
"You've disappointed me young lady," he began. His voice hard and cold with a distinctive edge of disgrace. "What do you have to say for yourself?" He held up a print-out of her updated grades from the online grading system. Tina looked down at her hands and visually traced her lifeline. Oh, how she wished it would fade.
And so it commenced. The usual routine that occurred when Tina fucked up. She would go blank, hoping to never have to actually mentally revisit it over and over in her mind. The scabs and bruises she received were enough to journalize what happened along the blank page of her body. She didn't need to read the picture it created.
This time, however, she was awakened by a ringing. She looked up and saw her father's face and immediately closed her eyes in fear. She pulled her body in tighter around her when she heard her mother's voice, "No, I'm sorry. She's busy right now. Can I take a message?"
Arty. There was no mistaking it. He's the only one who knew her number. And now, once again, Arty couldn't save her. She would dream sometimes about the stereotypical Prince-Charming dreams with Arty at the center of them. How he stole her away from the bars of her castle and traveled the world with her. She closed her eyes tighter and focused on the one thing that always kept her together: Arty.
"Charles, Dear. Can you put this on hold? Tina has someone coming over to give her a hand in French." Her mother put her hand upon the shoulder of her father. This movement alone was enough to signal the end.
"French?" Her father questioned. And then he rationalized, "Well, good. I'm glad your doing something productive now. We'll talk after your next test." And went to the fridge, pulled out a beer and went to the living room where he plopped into the man-sized armchair and turned on the television.
"Tina, I suggest you tidy yourself up," said her mother. "And wash your face."
Tina pulled herself up and ran to her bathroom. Arty! She brushed her hair quickly and tied it back. Then patted cool water onto her face to slow down the swelling. She put cover-up onto her left cheek where her father's ring must have scratched her deep. She looked at herself in the mirror and couldn't find any traces of what had happened, and so she felt safe.
She heard the doorbell and in a rush headed to the front door so she could grab it before her father could yell about it. But there was her mother, standing there. Blocking the path of her guest as she looked at him suspiciously and began to ask questions.
"So when did Tina hire you?"
"Only the other day," the voice replied. Tina glowed inside. "Today's our first meeting. I just wanted to call and confirm with her that today was okay for her schedule. I know she's busy with senior stuff."
Tina stepped out of the shadows and nodded towards Arty and smiled. She couldn't help herself when Arty turned to look at her and the creases of her lips went out further. Arty smiled slightly, but his eyes were filled with sadness. Tina became slightly overwhelmed but then realized his intentions.
That.
"If you don't mind Mrs. Cohen-Chang, I was going to tutor Tina someplace else, if you don't mind." And with that he signaled for Tina to follow him as he wheeled his way down the driveway and towards the mailbox. Tina nodded to her mother and followed him. Shutting the door gently so as to not disturb her father and followed Arty sadly.
She wasn't ready to talk about this.
"Let's go for a walk," he said lightly. And he began to wheel on the left side of the sidewalk next to Tina. Tina had no idea what to do so she looked at the ground and fidgeted with her hands, silently praying that maybe Arty would just be oblivious to everything. That he just wouldn't go there.
"Tina, we have to talk about this."
"I'm s-s-sorry, b-b-but I have n-no idea what y-y-you're t-t-talking about."
"Tina, please don't play dumb you know exactly what I'm getting to." Arty stopped and turned his chair around so that he could face Tina. Tina wrapped her arms around herself and turned her body to face Arty. But rather than look up at him, she looked down and saw his eyes. She couldn't bare to see them for more than a second and thus promptly looked at her shoes. Scuffy as all heck.
"This is a serious problem, Tina. You can't do this to yourself." Tina still looked at the ground. This just made Arty even more angry.
"Tina, listen. You could die someday and that can't happen." Tina never lifted her eyes off of the ground. And so with his last use of conviction, Arty said to her gently,
"If you ever need someone, Tina. I'm always here."
Tina looked up from the ground and towards his eyes. She bit her lip.
"Y-y-you mean it?"
"Undoubtedly." He took her left hand gently from her body and held it in his.
She bit her lip once more and then let it go. She opened her mouth slightly to prepare to speak. Her voice would come out shaky, she knew.