CHAPTER 36
"Girls, you're up! Good luck." Mr. Schue announced from his seat in the auditorium. He was sitting alongside Coach Beiste and Ms. Pillsbury, who were co-judging with him. It was giving Finn flashbacks to the tournament the year before, in which he won. The girls cockily stode onto the stage. Finn smiled faintly as he watched Bella walk on stage. She was wearing a yellow sundress and was wearing minimal makeup. She had a natural look to her, and Finn found it very attractive. When the girls were in position, Rachel began her monologue…
"Thank you so much. We chose a selection of songs that speaks of the nation as a whole during these troubling times filled with economic uncertainty and unbridled social well being. Because if there's two things America needs right now, it's sunshine and optimism. Also angels."
Brad started playing the piano.
Oh, remember those walls I built
Well baby they're tumbling down
They didn't even put up a fight
They didn't even make a sound
It's like I've been awakened
Every rule I had you breaking
It's the risk that I'm taking
I ain't never gonna shut you out
Everywhere I'm looking now
I'm surrounded by your embrace
Baby I can see your halo
You know you're my saving grace (I'm walking on sunshine)
You're everything I need and more (Whoa oh)
It's written all over your face (I'm walking on sunshine)
Baby I can feel your halo (Whoa oh)
And don't it feel good! Halo, halo, halo
I can see your halo, halo, halo
I can feel your halo, halo, halo (I'm walking on sunshine)
I can see your halo, halo, halo (Whoa)
And don't it feel good!
I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I'm sure
And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door
Oh now now!
I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh oh!
And don't it feel good!
I can feel your halo, halo, halo
(Hey, alright now)
I can feel your halo, halo, I can see your
(Hey, oh yeah)
I can feel your halo, halo
(Hey, Halo)
I can feel your halo, halo
(Halo)
I can see your halo, halo
(Halo)
I can see your halo
Halo!
[For actual version, click watch?v=ydp4IzOHPRM]
The girls had chosen a mashup of 'Halo' and 'Walking on Sunshine' that, although energetic, didn't have the 'oomph' that was needed if they wanted to beat the boys. Their choreography was sub-par - they just danced around in their spots; and their singing wasn't perfect either. After the girls finished, the boys walked onto the stage. Finn nodded his head at Brad, who was in the lighting and sound booth, and at Finn's request, he suddenly cut the lights. As soon as he did so, the girls started murmuring, confused. The boys quickly got into position and a spotlight lit up the stage as the music began.
Hey, Hey
Bye, Bye, Bye
Bye, Bye
Bye, Bye
Oh, Oh
I'm doin' this tonight,
You're probably gonna start a fight.
I know this can't be right.
Hey baby come on
I loved you endlessly,
When you weren't there for me.
So now it's time to leave and make it alone
I know that I can't take no more
It ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
Baby, bye, bye, bye
You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way
Bye Bye
Don't wanna be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Baby, bye, bye, bye...
Don't really wanna make it tough,
I just wanna tell you that I had enough.
It might sound crazy
But it ain't no lie
Baby, bye, bye, bye
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain't nothin' but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
You are my fire
The one desire
You are
You are, you are, you are
Don't wanna hear you say
Ain't nothing but a heartache (Bye bye bye)
Ain't nothin' (Make it tough)
But it ain't no lie (Bye bye)
Bye bye
Don't wanna be a fool for you (You are my fire)
Just another player in your game for two (Tell me why)
You may hate me but it ain't no lie (I want it that way)
Baby, bye, bye, bye
Bye Bye
Don't really wanna make it tough (My one desire)
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Don't wanna be a fool for you (Tell me why)
Just another player in your game for two (Tell me why)
You may hate me but it ain't no lie (I want it that way)
Baby, bye, bye, bye
Bye, bye, bye, bye…
[For the actual song, click: watch?v=ReqZ4CF7eq4 ]
The boys poured everything they had into their performance. Their singing was spot-on, their choreography was out of this world, and their song choice was perfect. They picked two of the biggest boy bands of the 90s, and meshed their songs together perfectly. When Bella first met Finn the other day, she had immediately gotten a weird sense that they had met before, and when Finn sang, she realised where she had seen him before. But before she could say anything, Mr. Schue walked up to the front of the room.
"Wow. Well done everyone. That was incredible. So Ms. Pillbury, Coach Beiste and I are going to write our vote on our mini whiteboards. Then, we're going to flip them at the same time."
Everyone nodded and the judges wrote down their votes. The guys and the girls stood on opposite sides of the stage, waiting nervously for the result. The guys were 75% sure that they had won, but given that two of the judges were women, there was a chance that they voted for the girls for that reason. Finally, after what seemed like an excruciatingly long time, the judges flipped their boards.
BOYS
BOYS
BOYS
A unanimous and inaugural win for the boys! They all celebrated together and Rachel stormed out of the room. God, she could be dramatic sometimes! Bella was itching for the competition to end: she wanted to see if Finn was who she thought he was.
As soon as they were dismissed from Glee rehearsal, Bella approached Finn.
"Hey Bella, what's up?" He said, smiling at her. She took a deep breath. Finn noticed her uneasy mood.
"You okay?" He asked, concerned.
"Why did you change your name?" Bella blurted out. Finn raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me?" He asked, laughing. "What do you mean?"
Finn had learnt to keep a poker face whenever there was any mention of his old life. He didn't know who knew what, and the last person he expected to know something was the new girl.
"I mean how your name used to be Antoine." She said, matter-of-factly. Finn's face paled, and his mouth was instantly parched.
"How do you know that name?" He murmured.
"Let's talk somewhere quieter." She suggested. He nodded.
"So what exactly happened to you?" She asked. They were sitting in George's living room. Both George and his mom were out, so Finn and Bella had a chance to talk without being disturbed. Finn took a deep breath and tried to B.S his way through it.
"I grew up in an unsafe neighbourhood. Where we lived, there was a gang who had their headquarters right down the road. One day, I was walking home from school when I heard that they were storming the neighbourhood. I ran home to get my family to safety, and in the craziness, I was separated from my mom. I ran back to find her, and I made it back to the house, just as a man fired his gun."
Bella rolled her eyes.
"What?" Finn asked, confused. Bella giggled.
"Come on, dude. You've basically just humanized Bambi!" She exclaimed. Finn laughed and nodded.
"OK, fine. That's a lie. You want the truth?"
She nodded.
"Um… I was an only child for my whole life, but I actually had quite a few older siblings. I actually had 2 older siblings. They were twins, and were two years older than me. One day, a week after I was born, a man broke into our house. He knocked my dad out, and killed my mom."
Finn took a shaky breath for dramatic effect, before continuing.
"My dad woke up to find my mom and my siblings dead on the floor. I was just screaming my lungs out from the crib. He had to raise me by himself. The worst part is… is… I can't even remember what my siblings were like."
Bella wasn't happy. She scowled at him.
"That's Finding Nemo, you moron! I mean come on! At least try to sell the story! Look, I wanted to get to know you, but you clearly aren't going to take this seriously, so I'm just going to leave." She snapped. Finn sighed.
"Look, I'm sorry. It's just hard to talk about this stuff."
Bella's face softened a little.
"I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about this stuff if you don't want to. We just met last week after all."
Finn shook his head.
"No, it's fine. I mean, most people in Glee know. And you seem like a genuinely kind person, and you've been honest with me thus far. I guess I owe you the same."
Finn took a sip of his water and began to speak. From his sudden change in tone and emotion, Bella knew that he wasn't lying this time.
"I was born in Toronto. My dad was my hero - he was an infantryman, serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. I lived with just my mom because he was on tour in Afghanistan. While he was there, he saw something and it seriously fucked him up. When he was discharged, he came home with serious PTSD. That would have been treatable and he would have been fine, but the problem was that he refused help. He got really abusive: hit me a bunch, whipped me with his belt, he even would burn me with cigarette butts because he was always smoking or drinking. It was hell, but it got a lot worse. After 5 months of this, my mom couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take watching the man she loved so much be turned into a monster. But rather than divorcing the monster and taking me with her like a good mom should do, she decided to hang herself. Every night, when I close my eyes, I see her hanging limply from that chandelier."
Finn closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. Bella put an arm around him.
"Hey, you don't have to continue if you don't want to." She said softly. Finn chuckled mirthlessly.
"Oh, Bella. We're not even halfway there yet! After my mom's death, my dad broke. The last strand of him that connected him to humanity, snapped. He got so much worse. Rather than hitting me with his hand, he clobbered me with a metal baseball bat. He would smash beer bottles on my body. He sometimes left me for days at a time, without leaving me food or water. And I was only 7! I couldn't live alone, let alone with a demented, deranged army veteran. One day, he took it way too far. He was drunk off his ass, and he had given me a 9 pm curfew. The house was a dump - beer bottles and cigarette butts everywhere - so I wanted to clean up the house a bit. He came home to see me not in bed and he snapped. He grabbed me and used his military strength to throw me across the room. I landed on the glass coffee table and it smashed. Shards of glass impaled me everywhere. My face, my torso, my arms, my legs. My dad called an ambulance and I was rushed to the hospital. After a hell of a lot of stitches, making me look like Frankenstein, I was discharged from the hospital. But I wasn't about to go home with that monster. I ran away and I never looked back. I don't know where my dad is now. He could be dead. He could be imprisoned."
Bella was horrified. It was almost like Finn was telling a scary Halloween story, but Bella knew that every word was true. Although it was difficult, Finn forced himself to continue.
"After I ran away, I was forced to live homeless on the streets. I changed my name from Ronan Farrow to Antoine Gobert so that I couldn't be tracked. I didn't bring anything with me when I fled: just my guitar and the clothes on my back. I had to learn to sing and play guitar well really quickly to earn me money, but even with that talent, I barely earnt enough for food, and I lived by the street corner of the Yonge-Eglinton intersection."
Bella nodded.
"Yeah, that's where I remembered you from. You obviously look pretty different as it was a long time ago, but your voice is almost the same. I donated you some money once."
Finn raised an eyebrow.
"Actually? Because 90% of people I came across ignored me, 5% kicked me or spat on me, and only 5% actually gave me money."
"Yeah, I lived around a ten minute walk away. Whenever I would walk past when I was going to the Yonge-Eglinton Center with my parents, I would donate 5-10 dollars."
Finn smiled at her and gave her a big hug.
"Thank you. You don't know how much that means to me."
Bella beamed back at him. Finn hugging her just felt… right. Finn then continued his story.
"I stayed on the streets for 7 years, until I was like 14. Then, I was found by the police. They couldn't I.D me so couldn't send me back to my father, but they put me in foster-care. That was a hundred times worse than anything that happened on the streets. Sure I was mugged quite a bit on the streets, but that was mainly to steal something. In foster care, gangs of 18 year olds beat me up for the sake of beating me up and inflicting pain and damage. I had to learn how to fight to defend myself against knives, daggers, and twice, guns. When I was 14, I was somehow adopted by a woman called Carole. She was the best person I ever knew, and she paid for me to go through all of the emotional therapy that I needed after the trauma. Finally, I was relatively happy, and was like the man you see before you today. Last year, we moved to Lima from Canada because her job transferred us there."
Bella raised a hand in confusion.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but you said that she 'was' the best person you ever knew. What happened?"
Finn sighed and closed his eyes once more.
"During March of earlier this year, while I was in Toledo for Glee Regionals, Carole was walking home when someone mugged her. She was stabbed in the process and she bled out before she made it to the hospital. I wasn't there to save her, or even say goodbye."
Bella clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Oh my god." She murmured. Stray tears leaked out of her eyes as she listened to the story.
"Yup, she passed away, and we had a beautiful funeral service for her. But then after the funeral, things got even worse. Because I had no living family members, the next step for my future would have been back to foster care. But I couldn't go back, knowing all of the horrors in store for me there. So, once again, I ran.
But this time, I was running away from my friends and they all, especially Santana, got really pissed as I didn't have time to say goodbye. I literally climbed out of the window when the Will Executor was there and I travelled across the whole country by bus. I made it to L.A a couple of days later, and from there, I took a plane to Hawaii. While I was travelling one leg of the journey, Santana called me and started insulting the crap out of me for not saying goodbye, not realising how little time I had. It was then that I realised that I couldn't start a new life if I held onto past friendships. I dumped my phone in a dumpster in Hawaii Airport. I was homeless in Hawaii for a month, playing street gigs on my guitar for money, when for the first time, luck was on my side. I got picked up by a hotel to be their performer. I earnt good money and played that gig for 4 months. Then, George from the New Directions - he was a close friend of mine from Canada - told me that he was moving to Lima and offered me to stay with him and his mom. I accepted the offer and I moved back here, and here I am today. Oh, and a couple of weeks ago, I got shot when a shooter came to McKinley, saving the life of Santana who, at that point, still hated my guts." Finn added the last bit as an afterthought.
Bella was speechless. She didn't know what to say. She squeezed his hand gently and suddenly, someone called Finn. It was George.
"Sorry, can I take this, please?" He asked. She nodded and Finn stood up.
"Hey, man. What's up?" Finn asked.
"HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT'S GOING ON?" George practically shouted into the phone.
"Um… no. What's going on?"
"Turn on your TV. NOW! My mom and I are on our way home" He exclaimed, and hung up the phone. Finn, confused, walked back into the living room and turned on the TV. The News channel was displaying some Breaking News.
9 Murder-convicted Prisoners Escape from High Secuity Prison in Lima Ohio. Whole state is in lockdown
"Oh my god!" Finn and Bella shouted at the same time.
Rest in Peace Naya Rivera. And of course, Cory Monteith
Please Review. Next chapter should be out today or tomorrow. I love you guys. Your reviews make my day! I know it's sad, but it's true. During Corona times, there really isn't that much to do.