A/N: Forgot to add the disclaimer.
Don't own Glee, never will.
Also, I have little knowledge of dyslexia. So do not take notes from me.
…
"You smell like lime."
"I smell like artificially lime flavored corn syrup."
Sam snorts down at his paper and finishes his sentence before sticking the eraser of his pencil into his mouth. "There's a difference?"
Lucy shrugs, and stares down at her own (completed) paper, before looking back up at Sam who's mouthing around his pencil and furrowing his brow.
"Alright?" She asks.
He nods, but continues squinting and mouthing, and his forehead stays crinkled. Lucy sighs, because even though Sam's dyslexia is bad, his pride is even worse. It's gotten better over the years, of course, but the little times that he gets stuck, like now, she knows just kill him.
She wants to say that she "understands", but she doesn't, and she knows that Sam knows that she doesn't. So she keeps her mouth shut, and she helps him like she has since eighth grade because the only thing that's worse than an irritated Sam is an irritated Sam that's irritated at her.
Still, Sam looks like he's breaking a sweat, and she feels like she needs to ask, "What do you need help with?", so she does.
His face softens and his shoulders drop and he buries his face in the crook of his elbow and mumbles, "Eveything."
Lucy doesn't laugh at his slight immaturity. Instead, she just pulls his paper towards her and pokes him in the side with her pencil so he sits up while she asks him to tell her what he can't get.
"It's—everything." His face screws up and rubs his palm over his cheek in frustration. "I can't...just...all the words are just dancing all over the page and they won't stop."
"Do you need to use an aid or something?"
"No." Sam shakes his head. "No, I—no."
He thought it was childish, that only "little stupid children" (his words, not hers) needed to use those "stupid ugly things".
And he was not a little stupid child, even though he was acting like one.
"I know a lot of adults that still use them sometimes, you know—"
"I'm. Going. To. Do. This. By. Myself." He said, loudly, and she resisted the urge to shush him. They were in the library.
"Okay. Fine. You're not using—you're not using anything. Fine." She wrings her hands together. "Take a break or something; your eyes are probably killing you."
"You're killing me." He says, but he laughs and chuckles and rubs his eyes. "Damn. Just—screw English."
"English is fun." Lucy responds.
"When you're good at it." Sam says. "But when you can't do a book report for longer than an hour without the words jumping all over, English sucks."
She doesn't know what else to say besides, "I'm sorry."
"No, Lucy." He waves a hand, batting the words out of the air. "No."
"I—" She pauses, then shakes her head, and turns back to the paper on the desk, skimming through it.
The first three paragraphs are great—as great as hers, even. She can see the exact point in the paper when he gets frustrated and starts to give up, and it's around the fourth paragraph. The sentences are short and plain and lifeless.
Around the seventh is where things stop making sense. Words are misspelled and mixed up, there's an angry scribble here and there. A wet circle makes an 'and' smear into the 'the' next to it.
She slides it back. "The first part is fine. When you started kind of...getting...mad, it got bad." She turns the paper over and points to the bottom. "You spelled 'brings' with an 'e' instead of an 'I'."
Sam stares where his finger is pointing, and she prepares herself to pull it back in case he moves to rip it off or something.
Instead, he closes his eyes, laughs, and shakes his head before resting his forehead on his palm.
"What?"
He chuckles and says, "Brengs."
Her lips quirk up and she shakes her head, too, before laughing quietly under her breath.
He glances up at the clock and his laugh fades away before he starts gathering his things. "Five minutes." He says, and pulls his bag from it's hanging place on the back of his chair, stuffing his papers between the pages of his Physics notebook. "Then I get to go home and fix this."
"You mean—pretend to fix it." Lucy says, papers tucked safely into her bag. "While you play black-ops."
Sam shrugs. "My mom and dad don't know the difference, and that's good enough for me."
…
The controller hits the carpet heavily, and she watches—and tries not to laugh—while Sam crosses his arms over his chest and glares angrily at the TV screen.
"It's just a game, Sam." She couldn't help the amused tinge to her voice.
"You be quiet." He says. "Miss 276 kills."
She smirks a little bit, while he continues to pout at the screen, before she decides to lift his spirits with a, "That just means that you're a really good teacher, then."
"Right." He says, getting up. "Because your pupil beating you is such a fantastic display of great teacher-ness."
She shrugs and gets up with him, pulling her (his) sweater down and out and grabbing her controller. She sets it on his computer desk. "Only by twenty."
"Only by twenty." He repeats under his breath. "Whatever."
Lucy rolls her eyes.
"Oh! Oh, hey." He turns back around. "You staying for dinner? My dad's making lasagna."
She'd love to nod and say, "Yeah, 'course, I love your dad's lasagna!" like the good best friend that she thinks she is, but all she heard come out of Sam's mouth is "My dad's making carbs, carbs, carbs." so she shakes her head and pulls her backpack onto her shoulders.
Sam puffs his lower lip out.
"Next time." She promises, and he sighs and hangs his head.
"Okay." He drags it out, like it's such a chore to say, and when he opens his arms, she steps into them immediately. "But that's what you said last time."
"Next time." Lucy says, and Sam sighs against her hair.
"Fine."
When she steps back she turns toward the door. "I'll wash this and bring it to you tomorrow." She pulls at her sleeve.
Sam shrugs and plops back onto his bed. "Tomorrow, whenever. It doesn't matter."
She smiles. "Thanks."
"Mmhmm. Later, Luce."
She passes by Mr. Evans on the way out, and when he shoots her a smile she shoots him one right back.
"You staying for dinner tonight, kiddo?"
She thinks of her waistline, smiles, and shakes her head. "No thanks. Not tonight."
He tuts. "Shame. Another time, then?"
"Definitely."
…
She figures that her and her car are about a perfect match, because they're almost one in the same. She's the black Jeep in a family of sleek, silver 2012 Subarus.
The only difference is that, whereas her Jeep is a '04, she considers herself about a '79 (on a good day).
…
It's crazy how home doesn't really smell like home to her. It smells like fabreeze and fabric softner (and if she's being dramatic, like a sucky childhood and broken dreams).
Like a show-house. Not an actual, lived-in home.
"Lucy?" Someone rings from the kitchen. "Is that you, dear?"
She calls back, "Yeah," and leans her bag on the back of the couch before padding into the kitchen. Her mom's at the island in an apron, rolling chicken breasts into eggs and bread crumbs. Lucy leans her palms on the granite on the opposite side of Judy.
"Dinner?" She wonders.
Judy shrugs. "For your father. There's salads in the fridge," she jerks her neck in the general direction of the mentioned object, "for us girls."
It stings, just like it stings every time, right in the middle of her chest. "Awesome."
Her mom hums something noncomittal and then says, "Go get yourself cleaned up. Your father will be in in a few minutes."
"Okay." Lucy says. She pushes off the counter and turns on her heels, her sneakers dragging slightly on the tile, and her mom says to her back, "Shoes off in the house, Lucy."
Lucy snarks a sarcastic, "Yes ma'am," under her breath on her way up the stairs and when she pops the door open to her room, she slips her shoes off and tosses them into one corner.
She never really gave much thought to the fact that her mom rarely ever looks at her, so she doesn't know why she's doing it now, but the fact that Judy didn't look up once during that whole—albeit brief, but, come on, chicken breasts aren't that interesting—conversation bothers something in her.
…
"How was your first day of senior year, then?"
Her dad rarely ever asks about school unless he knows she had a quiz that day and wants to know what she got, otherwise he keeps quiet about McKinley.
"I—it was alright." She guesses that surprise was evident in her voice because he looks up from his chicken for a second before grabbing for his glass of wine.
He picks his fork back up, and Lucy thinks it's the end of the conversation, but then he says, "That's not your sweatshirt, is it?"
She blinks at him. "It's—no."
"What happened to yours?"
Lucy isn't quite sure about the proper way to explain to her parents the process of slushies and what happens afterwards. Like ruined clothes
Or, almost ruined.
"I had an—I tripped with my tray. At lunch. It was...messy."
"I see."
Russell nods.
Lucy nods.
Judy stares over her wine glass.
"I'm guessing that's Sam's, hmm?"
"Uh huh." She says.
Russell gives her a hard look. "Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir." Lucy repeats, and she puts down her fork. Pushing her plate away, she asks, "Can I be excused?"
Judy pipes, "You haven't eaten your carrots."
"I can't." She says, and stands up, removing her napkin from it's place on her lap and setting on top of the plate. "Braces." She runs her tongue over the brackets.
"Oh, that's right."
When she starts up the stairs, she stops when her dad calls, "Homework?"
"No." She adds the 'sir' after a few seconds.
…
She gets up at 6:45, so she usually always makes sure she's in bed and working on falling asleep at 10:30, but something else that she can't really place—and is making her stomach do nervous, jumpy loops—is swimming the back of her mind other than the usual disappointment.