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MERCEDES

December

Mercedes felt like someone had grabbed her lungs and squeezed while at the same time stomping on her heart. She couldn't breathe properly, she was taking short quick breaths between crying. She just wanted to get out of this dress and away from Sam. She couldn't even look at him and couldn't believe he was completely breaking her heart.

"Sam, please leave," she said quietly looking down at her hands.

"Mercedes, I'm so sorry. I – "

She could feel him walking towards her and she backed up with one hand covering her mouth and one hand palm out towards him silently telling him to stop.

"You need to go now."

His voice broke as he said, "I'm sorry." And she heard his steps walking away and she chanced a look up at him and saw him walking slowly towards the door. His usually confident stance seemed to be beaten down and his shoulders were slightly slumped. He ran his hands through his hair and sniffed. Was he crying? He made it to the door and turned his head back over his right shoulder to look at her and their eyes locked. He had tears in his eyes. Mercedes' tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. Sam closed his eyes, causing the tears to spill out of his eyes and turned to open the door and leave.

When the door clicked closed, Mercedes lost control of her knees and she crumpled to the ground in her beautiful gown and sobbed. She stayed like that for a long time until she realized this was not comfortable and she needed to get up. She stood up and looked down at her gorgeous dress. This was not the way she had thought the evening would go. She thought she would tell Sam about moving here and he would have been so happy and they would have danced the night away and come back here to have happy and lovely sex. Then fall asleep knowing they had a future together. She had been so certain that he would want the same thing she did. But she had been wrong.

Mercedes stood up and made her way to her bedroom. She unzipped her dress from the back and just let it fall to the floor. She put on an oversized Berkeley tee shirt and sweats and fell into bed. She cried on and off all night and hardly got any sleep. Finally, at around 4 am, her eyes drifted closed and she knocked out for a good six hours.

When she woke up, her eyes were swollen, her throat was dry and her mouth felt like cotton. On top of it all, she was hung over.

She stared at the ceiling and rubbed her eyes. She wanted to call Kurt, but it was Saturday and only 7 am West Coast time. She felt the lump in her throat again. She needed to talk to a friend and she didn't want to be alone. She threw off the covers and went into the bathroom to wash her face. Then she put on some jeans, a tee and a large sweatshirt, her Nikes and grabbed her keys and purse and left her place.

She got a cab surprisingly fast and gave the driver Puck's address. On the way over there, they passed her favorite movie theater she and Sam went to quite a bit, the restaurant where they got into a huge debate about whether the Niners or the Giants were the better football team, the ice cream shop where Sam had taken the first lick of his cone and the ice cream scoop had rolled right off and onto the ground causing him to make a disappointed expression reminiscent of their childhood days.

Everywhere she looked, there were memories of Sam. She didn't realize she had started crying again until the cabbie asked her if she needed a tissue. She tried to laugh but just ended up making a garbled noise and nodded her head yes.

When they got to Puck's, the cabbie waved away her money and told her it was on the house. She gave him a grateful smile and thanked him and got out of the cab. His kindness made her start crying even more, so by the time she got to Puck's door, she was in full-fledged cry mode.

She knocked and he opened the door surprised to see her, then concern took over his whole face.

"Mercedes! What happened?"

She just walked towards him and he took her into a big hug. She just cried into his shirt for a while as they stood in his doorway. He rubbed her back and just let her cry.

Finally, she stepped back, "I'm sorry Puck, I didn't know where else to go."

"It's okay. Come in. Sit there on the couch and I will get you some water."

Mercedes walked in and did as he said. She was in a daze and was still trying to process the fact that Sam had told her to leave. Puck came back quickly with a glass of ice water and a Kleenex box and sat next to her.

"Tell me," was all he said to her.

Mercedes was trying to stop herself from crying more so she could actually talk. She took a deep breath and that seemed to help.

"Sam broke up with me," was all she could get out before the tears started again. Puck's concerned expression turned to shock and then he furrowed his brow and looked angry.

"What happened?"

He pulled her to him and put his arm around her while she told him the story of how she asked him what he thought of her moving here to New York permanently and he said he didn't want her to. That love wasn't enough for her to make the decision to leave her promotion in San Francisco and move here so they could be together.

She had tears silently falling down her face and was dabbing them with a tissue. Puck was breathing hard, but Mercedes didn't notice it.

He was rubbing her arm and said, "Mercedes, if you ever told me you would do that for me, I would never even question it. I would want you with me no matter what. I would make it happen, you are that special of a woman. Sam is an idiot. I just can't believe he had someone like you and let you go."

Mercedes sat up next to Puck and a small smile formed on her lips. "Thank you, Puck. That is really nice to say."

"It's the truth. Mercedes, you are the most amazing woman I have ever known. You can light up a room just by walking into it. I feel like a better person when I am around you, like you bring out the good in me." Puck was saying. Mercedes was looking down and listening to his kind words.

"I would never hurt you like this. It makes me sick to see you so sad. I would take care of you." Puck took her back in his arms and rocked her. She allowed herself to be comforted by him. He was such a good friend. She looked up at him and was about to tell him how much she appreciated his friendship, when he looked down at her and brought his face closer to hers and he kissed her.

Mercedes pulled away fast and put her hands on his chest pushing him back. Her eyes were wide with shock and she couldn't form any words, her mouth was just opening and closing like a fish.

"Shit!" Puck yelled at himself as he stood up and started to pace back and forth across the room.

"Puck, I – I don't know what just happened here. I – "

"Fuck. I'm sorry I kissed you. I hated seeing you so upset and I hate that Sam is the cause of it. I knew he was going to mess this up." He was saying, then more under his breath, "I can't believe I just did that."

Mercedes was still frozen in the same position on the couch and she couldn't look at Puck. She was so thrown by this turn of events that her brain felt like it couldn't process a single bit of it.

"I'm sorry. I need to get the fuck out of here." Puck was saying as he went to his liquor cabinet, opened the door and grabbed a bottle of Jameson, opened it and took a huge swig.

"Puck! It's not even 11 in the morning!" Mercedes was saying to him.

He couldn't look at her, just took another drink, grabbed his coat and left saying he was sorry one more time on the way out with bottle in hand. When the door closed, Mercedes still hadn't moved from her position. Two of the men who she cared about so much had both left her shocked and hurting in the span of 12 hours.

"What the fuck!" She yelled at no one.

She couldn't believe what had just happened with Puck. She came to talk to a friend and he had kissed her! This was too much. Mercedes finally got up from the couch and put her glass in Puck's sink and went out of the door.

Should she try to find him? No, maybe it was better that she just let him be. She went outside and decided to just wander the city for a while to try to sort out her thoughts. She turned off her phone and began to walk. She had been walking for a while when she saw a sign for a small bookstore called, Over The Street Books, that looked so inviting, she walked up the steps to the door and went in. The clerk said hi and Mercedes returned the greeting and started to browse the shelves. She found a limited edition graphic novel she knew Sam had been looking for and got excited, until she remembered they were no longer together. She was going to put it back on the shelf, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. So she just held onto it while she wandered to other sections.

She lost track of time and ended up staying at the bookstore for a couple of hours. She bought a couple of historical fiction novels for herself (her favorite genre) and the graphic novel for Sam. She didn't know when or if they would see each other before she left, but she couldn't leave it there on the shelf.

When she stepped back outside, a cold wind swept over her and chilled her to the bone. She was definitely not dressed for the cold so she decided it was time to head home. She pulled out her phone to turn it back on and it immediately beeped to tell her that she had voicemails, then another type of beep sounded telling her she had texts. She was about to touch the screen to read her texts when her phone rang and the caller was Puck. She debated back and forth with herself about whether she should answer it, and at the last second, she decided to.

"Hi Puck –" she said into the phone, but all she could hear was muffled yelling. It sounded like Puck had accidentally dialed her and from the sound of it, the phone was in his pocket.

"PUCK!" she yelled into the phone.

She pressed the phone against her ear while covering her other ear with her hand and she heard through the line: Puck's muffled yelling, a bottle breaking and then what sounded an awful lot like a punch.