"Everybody rise and shine!" Mr. Shuester called out to the room. "It's 7.30am. Breakfast is in thirty minutes, and then we're getting straight to work."
He left the room to go and wake up the girls. Rory was not a morning person, he groaned and rolled over to face the wall and covered his face with his sleeping bag. He heard the other boys get up and start moving around the room, packing up their bedding.
"Come on Rory, get up!" Finn called from across the room.
Rory's reply consisted of a moan and a mumbled, "Five more minutes."
"Dude, if you don't get up, we'll be required to use force." Puck said jokingly.
"Whatever, I'll be up in a minute…"
The room went quiet and then suddenly Rory was being crushed by the weight of Finn, Mike, Sam and Puck who had piled on top of him.
Rory was instantly gasping for air because the weight of the four large boys was crushing his lungs. Pain also shot through his wrist as one of the boys was currently squashing it.
"Okay…*gasp*…okay….*gasp*…I'm awake! *gasp* Get off me…*gasp*…you're crushing me...*gasp*..."
The boys laughed and got off him. Rory sat up and surveyed the room. Finn, Puck, Sam and Mike had returned to packing up their belongings, Artie and Kurt were absent (he assumed they had already headed over to the Home Ec. Room for breakfast) and Blaine was sitting at the piano staring back at Rory.
"Glad to see your finally up." Blaine said with a cheeky grin on his face.
"Not a morning person…"
"I noticed."
Fifteen minutes later the group had assembled in the Home Ec. Room and were eating pancakes.
Rory was struggling to use his knife as his right wrist was so sore and swollen. He tried to hide this from everybody else, and he succeeded for the most part because everybody was too busy eating to notice or care. But Blaine had been paying extra attention to him and had picked up on his condition. As they were cleaning up he pulled Rory aside.
"Hey, what is wrong with your wrist? You said last night that it would be fine, but it looks really swollen." he asked concerned.
Rory looked down at his wrist ashamed.
"It's fine, really. I know it looks swollen, but it doesn't really hurt. It will heal itself in no time."
Blaine took Rory's wrist in his hand and examined it.
"Rory, I think you should get this looked at. I think it's worse than you're letting on."
Rory pulled his hand out of Blaine's and said, "No, it's fine. If I leave now then I'll miss practice and then we'll lose Sectionals."
"Rory…don't be silly, you need to get this checked out. Everybody else will understand. I don't think…"
"Gosh, I'm fine! Would you just drop it! I didn't ask for your help, okay. I don't need it!" Rory exclaimed, cutting Blaine off mid-sentence.
Blaine was taken aback by Rory's outburst. Rory too was a little surprised by his actions, he immediately felt embarrassed and turned around and walked off in a hurry.
By 8.30am they were back in the auditorium rehearsing their big dance number again. The constant throb in Rory's wrist reminded him of the reason it was there. It was his punishment for messing up the routine yesterday. The thought of that pushed him to perfect the dance today, and it seemed to be working. On the first run through he was able to keep up with the others and only made one significant mistake. The second run went even better with zero major faults. He was feeling much better about himself by the time they began their third run. Unfortunately disaster struck mid-way through the number when Rory tripped over his own feet and was sent tumbling to the ground. He cried out in pain when his wrist, which he instinctively had stuck out to break his fall, jarred into the ground, exploding in pain.
The rest of the group stopped. Blaine rushed over to Rory who was still on the ground holding his wrist, holding back tears.
"Are you okay? Did you hurt your wrist?" Blaine asked, extending a hand out to Rory to help pull him up off the floor.
"I'm fine guys." he said accepting the hand.
"Are you sure Rory? That sounded like it really hurt." Mr. Shue asked.
"Yeah, no, I'm fine. It's okay."
The group looked at him skeptically, Blaine especially. He felt like he was going to crack at any moment and let his true emotions show. He needed to get out of there.
"I need a break." he said as he left the stage and headed up the stairs to the hallway, hearing Mr. Shue announce a ten minute break behind him.
He reached the hallway and tried to get his breathing under control. His face was flushed and hot as he had been practicing in his hoodie to hide his arms. Spying a drinking fountain across the hall he went and quenched his thirst. He unzipped his jacket to allow some air in attempting to cool himself down. He sat down, leaning against a wall, and started fanning his face with his left hand while he inspected the damage of his still paining right wrist. It was still just as swollen and tender as it had been last night.
His silent contemplation was interrupted by Blaine's entry to the corridor.
"Rory, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. It sounded worse than it was." he replied, trying to sound as positive as he could as he stood up.
Blaine moved closer to him, noticing his face was flushed and sweaty.
"Dude, why do you still have your jumper on? Aren't you hot?"
Rory panicked, suddenly remembering that his jacket was undone and tried to think of a way to inconspicuously do it back up so Blaine wouldn't see his arms.
"No, I'm fine. I was feeling a little cold actually." Rory lied.
"Come on Rory, I think we've established by now that you're a terrible liar." Blaine said giving him a knowing look.
He reached out and grabbed part of Rory's jacket and went to help pull it off.
"No!" Rory yelled trying to pull it back on, but Blaine had already slipped half of the jacket off his right arm.
Blaine gasped in shock when he saw what was hidden beneath and Rory looked away ashamed.
"Wha...what are all of these from?" he eventually managed to stutter out.
Rory continued to look at the ground, unable to look up into Blaine's face.
"They are mostly from the hockey team shoving me into lockers."
"They did this to you?"
"Yeah…"
"Why didn't you tell anybody?"
Rory paused for a moment, pulling his jacket back on, before answering, "Because they would ask too many questions…"
"That's ridiculous. Why would you be worried about…wait. What do you mean most of them were from bullying? Where did the others come from?"
Blaine saw the look of panic that crossed Rory's face. He stepped closer to Rory and embraced him in a hug.
"You can tell me, I promise I won't tell anybody else. I want to help." He soothed into Rory's ear.
There it was again. That feeling of security Rory had when Blaine held him in his arms. That feeling that made him want to stay in those arms forever. That feeling that made him okay with telling his secrets.
"I did them…" he whispered.
Silence.
Blaine pulled back and looked at Rory, seeing the shame in his eyes.
"Why?" he asked, trying to understand what would possess him to hurt himself.
"I…do it as…punishment…for when I screw up." Rory said, struggling to say the words out loud.
"That's crazy! Why do you need to punish yourself?" Blaine said picking up Rory's sore wrist carefully. "Is this….?"
Rory avoided Blaine's eyes.
"Yes. I was messing up the dance routine yesterday, I didn't want to let the team down. And it worked, I was almost perfect this morning!" he said, trying to justify his actions.
Blaine was about to say something but was interrupted by Finn walking into the scene.
"Hey guys. Mr. Shue wants everybody back on stage. Are you feeling better Rory?"
"Peachy." Rory replied.
"Great." Finn said turning around and reentering the auditorium.
Rory went to follow him but was stopped by Blaine.
"This conversation isn't over. We'll talk later."
