A/N: Sorry for the wacky formatting in the last chapter. :S Still no real spoilers in this. Whatever I write before Tuesday is pure coincidence... This one goes out to everyone at gleeforum for being awesome, you know who you are.
"Hold on there buddy." Mr. Schue said as I tried to leave the choir room that day after practice. He'd actually taken hold of one of the handles of my chair.
I almost yelled at him about how offensive and dangerous doing something like that was, but all I could manage was a pathetic, "what?"
"When I heard you wanted to sing, I was thrilled, but that's honestly not what I was expecting. Is there something you want to talk about?" He hitched up his khakis and took a seat next to me.
I just shook my head and prepared to lie. I always prided myself on being honest, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell anyone the truth. Not Tina, not that stupid shrink, not Puck and certainly not Rachel. "There's been a lot on my mind lately."
Mr. Schue nodded, like he might just understand. "Is this about our routines? Tina told me you might not be so happy with the dancing lately."
"Tina doesn't know half of it," I looked down into my lap and picked at the corner of my glove. "I told you, I don't care about the dancing. I don't think I'd be very good, even if I could dance. You guys go on looking good without me. I want to win just as much as anybody else."
"All of you have to look good. We have to be happy if we're gonna win. I hate to say it, but if any of you guys go out there looking depressed, it's really gonna hurt our chances of winning. Especially if that depressed team member just happens to be in a wheelchair."
My teacher's big honest eyes met mine. I shook my head and said, "Maybe that's the problem. Everybody thinks it's true, so why not just come out and admit it? We're never gonna win and it's all because of me. That's why I'm never involved anymore."
"What? How can you say you're not involved? Who got the jazz band to come play for us? Who rallies the team together every single time we need encouragement? Who always helps their team mates with their projects, no matter what their personal opinions are?"
I smiled softly. "OK, fine. You're not telling me anything I don't know. So what if I get involved? The truth is I feel like it doesn't even matter what I do behind the scenes. All people have to do is look at me and they'll forget that. The only vote we'll ever get because of me is a sympathy vote."
"Artie, no offense to any of you guys, but I could get a sympathy vote for any of you. Each one of you has a story and that's what makes you special. You all have a voice and the judges want to hear that, but at the end of the day, they want to hear positivity."
"Well than, maybe you'd better forget all about me. That song I just sang is how I really feel. I don't care that it's not all sunshine and rainbows."
"What are you so scared of? Whatever you're feeling is completely normal. I promise."
He looked at me like he really cared about whatever was bothering me. I knew there was no way he could ever understand what it was like to be me, but maybe it would be OK to tell him the truth... "You see, the accident that me and my mom were in... the one that put me in this chair... it was all my fault."
As I rolled myself out of school half an hour later, I was still reeling from what I'd told Mr. Schue. Why had I spilled my guts like that? I'd never told anyone that before. Not even my mom knew the whole story...
I made my way down the wheelchair ramp at the back entrance and I looked out onto the empty football field with a sigh. I never cared about sports or my body image or anything superficial like that. No, I lived with the guilt of deeper secrets, of things nobody should have to live with.
I remembered the guilt every day when I got up and faced that wheelchair. Every day when I watched my teammates just having fun dancing and being normal, it cut the scars a little bit deeper. And there was nothing I could do to make it better.
I rounded the corner carefully and rammed right into the back of Karofsky, the big hockey player who hated pretty much all of glee club. He turned around, his anger written clear on his face. "Hey, watch where you're going, retard! Do I look all access to you?"
I almost chocked on the cuss word. My fist got ready to punch him in the balls, but looking up past him, I counted at least three other laughing jocks that were even bigger than him. They could beat me to a bloody pulp without a second thought. I really had no desire to end up in the hospital because of them... again.
I didn't move. Maybe if I sat there like a stone, it would hurt less. Karofsky pulled back his fist and I winced my eyes closed, steadying myself. The hit never came.
After a long moment, I dared open my eyes. Finn and Puck were pushing off Karofsky and the other jocks had taken off, laughing at some stupid joke about a freshman girl. I knew none of them wanted to take on Puck and definitely not my two jock friends together.
You think I'd be thankful, right?
Puck finally turned back to me, "You alright, dude?"
I just shrugged and muttered. "I can take care of myself, you know."
Honestly, Puck's disbelieving stare just made me feel worse.
'Hey Tee,' I texted my girlfriend later that evening. I'd spent the whole night avoiding my mom's anxious looks and my big brother's bullying. They obviously knew something was going on, but I would never tell them.
I needed a familiar voice to talk to. Someone who might understand what I'm going through. I knew there were times when Tina felt just as misunderstood as I did. Maybe that's why we'd reconnected so easily. My phone stayed silent for a long moment until it finally lit up with a new text. 'Hey.'
'What's up? Can you talk?'
Again, it took her an awfully long time to respond. 'Sorry can't talk. Busy. Will see you tomorrow.'
I just shrugged, figuring she was studying for a math test or something.
"Hey, Artie," Somebody approached from behind me the next morning. I could almost hear the smile in her voice.
I turned around and smiled at the blond girl before me, "Oh, hey, Brittany."
"I really liked your song yesterday. You seemed so sad. I was thinking, I've made out with like, all the guys in school but I never really noticed you before. You wanna make out?"
I looked around, making sure she was really talking to me. "Um, I sort of have a girlfriend..." At least I thought Tina was my girlfriend. We had never made out... and I'd never even kissed anyone besides her before. Should I really let this excellent opportunity pass me by?
"Oh really? I heard from Santana that she was making out with Jesse yesterday."
I shook my head. Maybe I'd heard her wrong. "What? That doesn't even make sense."
"I know," she nodded, for once actually understanding what was going on. "I don't know how she saw them making out in Jesse's car. I mean, it was locked, right?" She shook her head, walking off.
I pushed off hard in the opposite direction, ready to beat the shit out of that Vocal Adrenaline punk.
