AN: Okay, well, here's the next chapter, which, in writing it, I feel got a bit confusing. So, I hope you can keep up! I really wish I could read my stories out loud to you because it would be so much better. :)
Anyway! This chapter's title is from the song "B**** of Living" from Spring Awakening. And, as always check out my Cherry oriented tumblr at .com and review with grammar corrections, ideas, complaints, and suggestions. :)
Mike wasn't the best singer, but he was an active one and a great contribution to the chorographical aspect of a performance. His admission to Dalton's glee club, the Warblers, was simply out of the fact that they needed that extra…something, and he had it. They were sure it was just the dancing, and he got teased about his singing all the time (though he was improving). Nobody had thought to stray from the traditional steps, but he was always pushing. Not to mention the fact if they lied and said they didn't like the new ideas, when they really did, he would catch them in the act. So, they tended no to do that often. At least, not anymore.
Rehearsal had just ended, the group of a few boys exiting the choir room, a chorus of laughter and Mike instinctively catching the fakes in his ears and with his eyes without even trying. A few boys filtered out leaving Sam and Puck with him, Blaine following behind having just caught the tail end of the conversation and not the actual topic. Sam nudged Mike's shoulder as he talked about his latest Friday night endeavor. He didn't tell them about the lie, that wasn't their business. Mike just rolled his eyes, glad neither of them were as good at reading people as he was.
Puck pushed him with a cheeky smile and they rounded a corner with laughter, now facing the front entrance of the building. Mike looked to the doors and his heart turned, protected by his ribcage to keep from spilling out on to the tile that reflected the fluorescent lights above them. They had turned tight at the corner and were hugging the wall closely when Mike stopped, causing all of his friends to look at him questioningly. Standing at the front was the petite topic of conversation, curls laying over her shoulders and her sinfully short skirt just grazing her thighs. His eyes hesitated and Sam, reader in training, did catch that much.
"Hey, what are you-?" Sam started and then stopped short as he saw the girl at the end of the hall. He looked between his frozen friend and her and his lips twitched up into a smirk. Blaine looked around Sam to Mike, trying to decipher the same thing.
"What, what is it?" He asked and Sam pushed Mike on the shoulder, encouraging him to go forward.
"Stop," he snapped back harshly. Sam held back a laugh and Puck did the same actions his blonde friend had moments earlier, his eyes widening in understanding.
"It's her," he stated with a smirk that mimicked Sam's. Sam nodded in confirmation and Blaine's brow furrowed in confusion as he recognized Rachel.
"Wait that's her? But-but I know her. How are you sure?" He piped up and Sam gestured to Mike's face.
"Well, he told us, of course." He said, coining one of Mike's phrases. "When he first saw her he smiled a bit, he stood up straighter to impress her. His hands aren't pushed into his pockets, which is a bad sign for our friend here. It means anxiety." He continued, proud that his friend hadn't stopped him for false observations yet. "Oh, and then there's his eyes. They are-" At that moment Mike reached over and smacked him square on the chest, causing him to stop short and let out a burst of air in surprise. Mike gave him a stern look.
"Don't you say it," he warned, knowing the evaluation his friend caught and it was one that frustrated Mike the most because it was a characteristic Mike could never learn to control.
"Then go talk to her," Sam said and pushed him forward once more. Mike, being the nervous wreck he now was, stumbled and bumped the table that was pressed tight against the wall, causing the vase on it to sway before crashing to the ground into a hundred pieces. All of the boys paused now, and Rachel turned to look down the hall simply to acquire the source of the noise and he could see the recognition cross her face. She turned to the administrator something or other that she was talking to and, from his view, fake thanked her and then turned on her heel to head in their direction. She looked down the hall past the girl who just walked away to the mess and Sam raised his hand.
"It was me. My parents got it covered," he assured her nonchalantly and she gave a scolding glare before retreating back to the office. Rachel was still continuing to walk with a determined stature and Mike noticed the way Puck's eyes dropped to that swish of her skirt before his lips pursed to make a cat call. Mike also noticed Rachel's reaction to that, though she still continued forward and flashed a smile in Blaine's direction, having recognized him as well. Her expression then dropped once more. Blaine started whispering hype to Sam about Rachel's rocky relationship with Finn (which he only had knowledge of because of Kurt), who, in turn whispered across Mike to Puck and their excitement seemed to rise more than Mike's as she was nearing the end of the long stretch of hallway. The only real sound being the small tap of her heels on the floor.
Mike was hit on the back and he staggered a step forward once more (he assumed another from Sam this time as Blaine now refused to take a turn because of this new knowledge of the identity of the girl).This time he missed the table and pile of shards. He didn't know why she was here, he just…didn't know. A couple other catcalls were made teasingly and Blaine tried his hardest to stay out of it, because the last he knew Rachel Berry was a taken girl and he didn't want in that mix.
She finally stood feet away and her arms crossed over her chest. Puck pulled on Sam's sleeve, getting him to retreat down the hall with Blaine still following along. This left Mike and Rachel face to face, alone, and suddenly he felt nervous in a way he wasn't used to. The flurry of talk around him dissolved, the exchanges narrowed to just her and just him.
"That was Sam and Puck," he stated and pointed towards them, reminding her of the conversation from days ago, but her expression stayed flat, not really caring.
"You lied to me."
And if she didn't believe it was the truth than he had lost his ability to read people.
The thing about lying is that if you believe with all your heart something is true and nothing in your own knowledge refutes that truth (or in actuality the lie) then your body and your instincts won't show you as lying. Your pulse won't elevate, your hand will not twitch, your manipulators will not show and it's not because you're an expert liar. It's just that the truth you learned is a lie to everybody else.
Like Santa. Children believe that Santa is real and if you ask a child their answer would be as sure as if you were asking them their last name. It's not that they can easily lie, it's just that Santa being a living, breathing human is their truth.
And her truth was that Mike was a liar. Her entire body proved that and instead of defending himself, as he should, he spewed facts.
"The average person lies 3 times per ten minutes of conversation," he stated, it holding nothing of its own and not meaning anything significant, just hanging in the dense air.
"Silly me, for some reason I though you weren't the average person," she replied dryly and he couldn't help but smirk a bit confidently at, what he assumed was, a compliment.
"Really?" He asked and shrugged modestly, adjusting his tie. His confidence must have seeped into his voice as she looked up in frustration. Or, wait. Was that confusion? Or disgust? He couldn't tell as when her head lifted those warm brown eyes stared right into to his dark ones that seemed flat in comparison. It distracted him from her tells for just a moment before he broke the contact and his eyes met the hem of her skirt before dropping lower again, regretting having asked in such a way.
"Yeah, I mean, because of your…thing." He almost wanted to snicker, if not for himself then for Puck and Sam, (he was always more immature around them) but he let her continue. "Your reading people thing. I thought you, of all people, would know what lying does to people." Her hair fell past her shoulders as her head tipped down, eyes dropping as well and he sighed heavily, his hands fumbling with the lapel on his blazer. "You said I was happy and that…that I loved him." She didn't even have to identify him, her flat tone and the way it somehow still had a lilt of disgust helped him label easy enough. He shook his head.
"I never said that," he denied and walked past her, hands pushing into his pockets smoothly, not to hide something, just as that was one of his baseline habits. Her face screwed up in confusion and she turned, catching his arm with the palm of her hand, fingers curling tightly to his uniform and though he could have easily pulled out of her grip, he didn't.
Because she was touching him. Her hand didn't move and the air was still.
"What are you talking about?" She said almost angrily and he turned to her. At that her hand dropped. No, dropped isn't the correct word. It slid down his clothed arm, fingers trailing from shoulder to wrist before letting go, his arm shooting with a warmth and he wished his hand was no longer in his pocket so her fingers could have brushed his bare skin if only for a moment. It caused him to hesitate for a fraction of a second, recovering without a stutter.
"I didn't lie, I withheld the truth," he replied and she crossed her arms.
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Nope," he said almost before she finished the sentence. It was a question he got often and always explained. "Come on, I have to head to my dorm, it's this way." He nodded in the direction he was headed and this time she followed instead of stopping him. She was walking right next to him, her arm centimeters from brushing against his own and he wondered what was actually keeping him from reaching out and grabbing her hand. She looked over at him, eyebrows raised in questioning and he didn't even have to ask to know that she really wanted him to elaborate.
"Okay, by definition the truth is something factual or the thing that corresponds to fact or reality ." He shrugged, having rambled off that definition many times before. "By definition," he said, keeping it strictly away from his own opinion. "To lie is to deliberately say something untrue or to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody."
Her words were spat out and rough, like it was hard for her to say.
"You said I loved him." He stopped and so did she, standing shoulder to shoulder with him in a still empty hall. He knew he would never say that and in his mind the night reeled through, him viewing her tell once more. He'd read it right, he knew he had. She didn't love him. At least not anymore.
"I didn't." He told her once more. I wouldn't. "I said that you appreciated him. Which you can't deny. And that you were grateful. That's all." He stated, not looking over at her and she did a small pivot, now standing in front of him. "I couldn't…"
"Tell me the truth?" She asked bitterly and he shook his head, looking at her again.
"I did. It's not my place to say something about who loves who. What I did was…not tell you everything." He eyed her carefully, watching her tuck her hair behind her ear almost nervously as their distance was closer than ever allowable at a table in a restaurant. "It's called omission. I kept out the parts…that weren't mine to know."
"I needed you to tell me the truth. I needed somebody to remind me that what I was saying was crap. I needed the confirmation to make sure that I wasn't crazy. To make sure that I really didn't….feel the way I'd told myself I should feel." He stayed silent and nodded.
"That makes sense. But I guess you didn't really, did you?" He asked and she smiled, the corners of her lips turning up. He noticed at this moment how the neckline of her shirt was lower than the others she'd worn. How she held herself a little taller and he almost grinned. "You broke up with that jerk, didn't you?" She broke into a smile, her shoulders feeling a little lighter.
"Yeah, I did." She confirmed.
"Say it again." He said simply and her expression changed to confused, then to recognition, relief and finally approval.
"I love him," she said with a smile and even if she'd been trying she wouldn't be able to stop all the signs that showed him she was lying. She had shifted her weight, her shoulders and hand shrugged and she was looking at him straight, waiting to see his reading. His smile didn't falter.
"And you're lying." He said and she laughed softly, him joining her before it dissipated and she suddenly reached forward to hug him. Immediately his arms lifted and her's went around his waist. Contact wasn't Mike's thing. His eyes widened and he looked down at her for a moment before realizing she wasn't going anywhere. His hands hesitantly dropped to her shoulders and he hugged her back for a short moment.
"Thank you." She murmured and he felt her shifting, her hands patting down the jacket of his uniform as she pulled back and she smiled, taking a step back and putting space between them.
"Anytime, really. If you…need anything you could give me a call," he suggested and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and unlocking it. "You could just…put your number in." He suggested and held it out. He might have seemed like a lady's man during the time before asking a girl out, or asking for her number, or hugging her, but when it actually came to it, he was a wreck. Especially when he'd seen multiple signs that she might actually want to spend time with him.
"No." She replied flatly. Just kidding.
"Well, you could write it down or something then? I'm sure I have a pen." He said pushing his phone back into his pocket and patting his person for a pen, planning to suggest his hand if she needed something to write on.
"No." She repeated and this time he caught a smile small on her lips and a mischievous glint in her eyes. He smiled a bit himself and looked at her curiously. She shook her head and then turned to walk back where they came from, planning on leaving now that she'd got what she came for. She walked down the hall a bit and he called after her.
"Please?" He said and she looked over her shoulder, a wide smirk on her face and then she faced forward, calling back to him as she continued her retreat.
"Check your pocket!" She called back and then rounded a corner, the small patter of her shoes the only thing he could hear that was left. His brow furrowed in confusion and he dug into his pants pocket, finding nothing, before doing the same with his jacket pocket and feeling a small scrap of paper in his left hand. It was light enough that he would have never felt it there unless he had been told to check.
He pulled it out and unfoldeded it and laughed, recalling the way that she'd hugged tight to him and how he hadn't felt her hands on his back. He played over how she pat down his jacket, ensuring that the paper was tucked into his pocket securely.
On the small paper a series of numbers was scrawled.
Followed by a gold star.
