A/N: It's here! I'm doing this! For better or for worse, I'm gonna try to make sense of (one of) Glee's wackiest storylines.
For those new to my stories, this one is technically second in the line-up. First is Lucy and the Incredible Journey, this one is next, then Going Public, then Dorm Daze and Daddy Daze. Tales of a Third Grade dropout is also in there as a prequel told by Artie to his children and his niece through flashbacks. So, to any new readers that find me here, that's one thing you should know.
The other thing you should know is that I just use what happened on Glee as a guide. I will mostly be re-writing an abridged version of what happened in season three, including how and when Quinn's accident takes place. Expect a lot of changes to how different characters were introduced, how the competitions went down, relationships, and more, because I can't be tied to work in all the specifics while focused on Quinn and Artie. This installment is told from Artie's point of view. Enjoy!
According to Facebook, Artie's last pool party of the summer – the one to kick off the start to the next school year – was going to be attended by exactly four people, plus himself. A pretty dismal turnout, compared to their lake trips and all his other pool parties that summer. Artie had quickly (and somewhat unexpectedly) turned into the social event coordinator of the Glee Club.
"You still sure you don't want to just call it off?" Amy asked, looking over his shoulder as she cut up a watermelon in their small but open kitchen. It was one of those things that Artie found a little awkward to do from the chair, so he asked Amy to handle the task of chopping up a melon. (While shopping alone, he'd somehow managed to put it on his lap and bring it home from the store, a feat in and of itself.)
"No," he told his older sister. "And besides, I've already got all these snacks."
"I'd be happy to help you eat those," Amy teased. "Fine. Just don't let the cool kids –" she made air quotes "– intimidate you. You know who I mean. You're the one hosting all the parties. So, that makes you cool."
"Or desperate." Artie didn't know how not to be self-deprecating, in response to a compliment, something Amy was all too aware of. She gave him an eye roll for that comment and returned to cutting the melon.
"Well, I figured out why you're on edge," Amy continued. "It's because of Santana, isn't it? This would be the first one she's made it to."
Sometimes Artie really wished Amy would get her own life and stop meddling in his so much. "Maybe," he said, noncommittally.
"I knew that Santana way back when she was a wee freshman Cheerio, pre-Brittany," Amy said, reminding him of how she'd been cheer captain. "And she wasn't nearly as sure of herself back then."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Well, back then she didn't have..." Amy reached over and produced a grapefruit, which she then cut in half and held it up to her own chest, making her point. "... a pair of these. Like none. Nothing. She looked like a ten-year-old."
"Trying to picture it." Artie hid a smirk. "Can't."
"Point is, she cares what everyone thinks, too," Amy continued. "She just acts like she doesn't."
"Maybe you knew a different version of Santana Lopez," Artie theorized, as he wheeled to retrieve a plastic bowl for the watermelon from a low cabinet. Setting the bowl in his lap, he did a quick pivot to face his sister. "The Santana I know really doesn't have to worry about what people think."
Amy rolled her eyes. "Everyone worries about what people think," she said. "And the ones who say they don't? They're more concerned about it than anyone else."
Four people wasn't the best turn-out, but that wasn't why Artie was nervous about the whole thing. It wasn't the fact that he only had four definite yeses. It was who those yeses were. The four people that could come were his two exes – Brittany and Tina – and their significant others.
Of course, Santana wouldn't come out and say she was with Brittany, but by now they all knew it. She was with Brittany. And the two had just returned from yet another beach vacation, tanned, relaxed, and probably closer than ever.
Artie tried to brush it off, but he'd been hurt last Christmas when the two went on a ski trip together. At the time, he'd still been officially Brittany's boyfriend, even though Santana never stopped trying to break them up. When she finally succeeded, Artie made sure he was the one to officially end things with Brittany. It was too bad his heart wouldn't listen.
Mike and Tina were fresh off their last week at the camp that Artie and just about everyone else referred to as "Asian Camp." (It was called something else but the name was too long to remember.) Perhaps Tina could at least be counted on to distract everyone from the awkwardness with long, rambling stories from camp.
Artie's history with Tina wasn't exactly painful to him anymore. But it was awkward. He still considered her a "best friend," just not his only best friend. She'd changed a lot. Not only did she have Mike now, but she had a lot of other people, too. It was a far cry from seventh grade, when she'd been new and when Artie had basically been her only friend. Their biggest mistake had been trying to date and thinking that wouldn't ruin things.
He wasn't really looking forward to a party with Brittany, Tina, and their significant others. That was why he was so delighted when Sam Evans let himself into the backyard through the gate. Artie lowered his sunglasses and raised himself up on the pool float that he'd already claimed for himself after he'd finished setting out all the snacks.
"Hey!" Artie called across the yard. "I didn't know you could make it."
"Yeah," Sam said, his enormous grin filling his face as he trudged through the grass, wearing swim trunks and no shirt, showing off that impressive physique. "Sorry about that. You probably sent a Facebook invite, but we don't have WiFi ever since our next door neighbor moved."
"Oh, no problem," Artie said, knowing that money was always an issue in the Evans' household. He abandoned his float and paddled over to the side of the pool.
The Evans' five-person family shared a two-bedroom duplex near the school. Sam nearly always accepted rides to and from school from friends, with his younger siblings needing a lift to and from the elementary school as well. When Sam was between girlfriends (first Quinn, then Mercedes), Artie was usually the person giving them rides.
"Oh! H-hi Sam," Amy stammered, as she appeared on the back porch, rolling out the canned drinks in a cooler for them.
She'd stopped abruptly in her tracks when she spotted Sam, and Artie couldn't suppress an eye roll that neither of them noticed. For awhile now, his twenty-one year-old sister had been weirdly interested in his sixteen-year-old friend. Not that Artie would ever approve of that strange pairing in the slightest. Amy was practically a grown woman now, a junior in college, and Sam was a junior in high school who didn't even drive or own a car yet.
Not that Artie held those things against him. But Sam Evans was five years younger than Artie's sister. Artie didn't know if Sam was actually flirting back with her or just being nice. The way Sam was, it seemed like he flirted with everyone. In reality, it may have just been politeness. But something rubbed Artie the wrong way, every time Sam and Amy interacted.
It had all started at Artie's first Glee Club pool party of the summer. That one happened on the last day of school. That one was well attended, by everyone in the Glee Club except for Santana and Brittany. Even Rachel and Finn graced everyone with their presence.
Amy hadn't planned on joining Artie's friends for the first party until Artie accidentally mentioned that Sam would be in attendance. The next thing Artie knew, Amy had thrown on her skimpiest bikini and joined them like it was the most natural thing ever for a college girl to join her dorky high school brother and all his Glee friends for a party.
It made sense, age difference or no age difference, when Artie remembered that Amy always did have a thing for Justin Bieber.
"Hey, Amy!" Sam was saying. "You swimming with us?"
Artie distinctly recalled Amy saying she had some packing to do – she was headed back to campus at Ohio State to get settled in soon, in preparation for her junior year – but this seemed to be the farthest thing from her mind now, as she nodded and said she was going to go change into her swimsuit.
As Amy ran back inside, Sam took a seat near where Artie hung onto the side and stuck his feet in the pool. "So, you ready to go back to school tomorrow?"
"You sound like my grandma," Artie reported, making Sam laugh. "That's the kind of question she asks me in August. And my answer is always no, no I'd much rather keep on swimming and doing whatever the heck I want. What about you?"
Sam scratched the back of his neck. "That's, ah, kind of a sore subject right now," he said. "There's something I actually need to–"
He was cut off by Tina and Mike's arrival.
"Last Artie Party of the summer, everyone!" she exclaimed, as she made a grand entrance with Mike through the gate and then looked disappointed to see that only Sam had arrived thus far. "Where is everyone?"
"We're just waiting on Santana and Brittany," Artie explained. "They're the only other people who said they could come today."
"Where's Quinn?" Tina asked. Seeing as Quinn had only come to one of their summer gatherings, it was strange that she even had to ask. Artie sensed it was really just Tina's usual way of starting gossip and not an actual question at all.
"M-I-A," Artie reported, glumly. "It's sad. I miss her."
"We know where she is," Santana's voice interrupted, as she entered through the gate, her right hand clasping Brittany's left, fingers intertwined. Gone were the days where they just locked pinkies, Artie supposed.
"Where?" Artie asked, feeling a familiar twinge of jealousy, and not because the girls were holding hands. He was reeling at the news that Santana and Brittany suddenly knew something he didn't that concerned Quinn. Artie hadn't seen Quinn since she'd arrived early, for his first party of the summer, to announce that she'd be spending the entire break miles and miles away.
"I don't know how to tell you guys this but... I've decided to spend the summer with my dad."
"With your dad?" Amy echoed. "Well... okay. Seems a bit random but if that's what you want. You know we'd love to have you spend the summer here, upstairs with me."
"I do know and thank you..." And Quinn had trailed off again, before delivering the final blow. "Um, Dad's not living in Lima though."
"Where's he living?" Artie had asked. "Columbus?"
"California."
Quinn kept in touch for the first month or so, responding to his calls and texts. Artie was notoriously bad at long-distance relationships, even when they were just friendships, but because Quinn's friendship was extra special to him, he put in the work.
Yet soon, it became apparent that his efforts were unappreciated. And not reciprocated. She was never the one initiating any calls or texts. And, after about six weeks, she stopped answering him altogether. The last text she'd sent him in late July had been suspiciously succinct: "No thanks."
The question had been: 'Want to go see 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two' together? I found showings at the same time in Lima and Santa Monica, accounting for our different time zones, of course. We could text back and forth the whole time!'
But then just a 'no thanks.' Not even an emoji, not an explanation, no promises to make it up to him. Nothing. Her rejection stung worse than Brittany's and Tina's combined.
Sad was quite the understatement. Devastating was more like it.
"We saw her at our first Cheerios practice," Brittany was explaining, shrugging nonchalantly. "Coach Sylvester makes us come to practices before school starts."
"Oh? Well, that's good to hear she's–" Artie started to say, but Santana cut him off.
"No, she wasn't at practice to practice with us," Santana hurried to explain. "She quit. She was actually just there to smoke under the bleachers with her newfound friends, the Skanks. Apparently, she's been back for a month already. She's their new leader."
"She looks like a jolly rancher that fell in an ashtray," Brittany added.
Santana translated that for the rest of them. "She cut off all her hair and dyed it this harsh pink with black roots," she explained. "She wears these weird clothes, weirder than Tina's, and she smokes. I guess she's a Skank now."
"I gave up my goth phase," Tina added, inconsequentially, looking to Mike for support.
Artie felt like he'd been punched in the gut. For a moment, he considered the source, but why would Santana bother to make up a story like this? He was struggling to picture it. Artie was familiar with a gaggle of girls who called themselves the Skanks. They were usually found smoking under the bleachers. They looked scary and intimidating, which he supposed was their ultimate goal, but they weren't that bad. They were definitely nicer than the Cheerios.
Like once, a bunch of them were blocking his way one of the main ramps he used to get into the school. It was the back one, the steep one he'd finally decided to just deal with rather than taking the long way around. Not only were they standing at the bottom, completely obstructing his path, but they were smoking, which meant he had to inhale it secondhand before pushing himself up the steepest of steep inclines. He'd expected them to scoff at him or roll their eyes about having to get out of his way. They didn't. One had even asked if he needed a push. He said he didn't and kept going. No one forced him to endure a push from a stranger either, and they were cool about him interrupting their private smoking session. And Artie managed not to cough uncontrollably until after he'd gone in the building and shut the door behind him. All around, he considered it a tolerable encounter. If Quinn really was one of them now, well, she could do a whole lot worse.
He really hated hearing about all this from Santana, though. He was pretty sure if he called Quinn personally, it would go ignored. She'd probably ignore a text, too. It was just as well. How would he ever bring it up? So, I hear you're a Skank now. How was that conversation even gonna go?
"Earth to Artie?" Santana had crossed over to the cooler to scope out the beverage situation. "Do you have any diet sodas? I can't drink the sugary ones you have in here."
"I think my mom has some in the fridge inside," Artie said, as Santana crossed her arms in front of her body and shot him an expectant look.
It looked like she was going to stand there until he came back with one for her. And since Amy still hadn't come back from shaving her legs or putting on waterproof mascara for Sam or whatever it was girls did... Artie sighed and realized it was up to him.
He hoisted himself up on the side of the pool, reached for his chair, checked the break, and hauled his body up with a few of his well-practiced maneuvers. He wore spandex pants layered under his trunks when he swam, which served the purpose of keeping Artie from skinning his knees on the concrete as well as covering his thin legs. He also wore water shoes to protect his toes from scraping along the bottom of the pool. He knew his swimming attire was a little ridiculous, but he suspected that wasn't why Santana stared at him in that moment. No, it was probably because this was one of the few times she'd personally witnessed Artie getting in and out of his chair. It must have weirded her out. She'd seen him out of it briefly when they'd filmed the commercial in the mattress store. But she hadn't seen him get knocked out of his chair in his basketball games and hadn't come to any of the pool parties or lake trips until now, so this was pretty new to her. He could be forgiving this time.
"Be right back," he said, expertly ignoring her reactions as he dried off with the towel he'd left draped on the back of his chair.
"What are you doing?" Amy met him in the kitchen, showing way more cleavage that he was comfortable seeing from his sister, especially in the presence of Sam.
"Getting Santana a diet soda," he said, with an eye roll as he pushed himself a little closer to the fridge, trying to decide if he'd knock it off the shelf that was just out of his reach, should he lunge and make a grab for it. But Amy was here now. All he had to do was point and she grabbed it easily, plus two more.
"Her stick figure doesn't need Diet Coke," Amy sneered under her breath, as she followed Artie back outside.
"Uh, there's something I need to tell everybody..."
Sam appeared to have waited for Amy to return before addressing them. As soon as she and Artie returned, he stood by the edge of the pool and directed his opening line to all of them.
"I knew he'd come out eventually," Santana snarked. "Who's the lucky fella? How'd you guys meet? Give us all the details."
"No." Sam shot Santana a dirty look, as Artie hid a smile behind his hand and endured a thump on the arm from Amy. "No, it's... aw, man, I don't know how to do this, I'm just gonna say it. I'm moving. My family is moving."
"Moving where?" Amy asked, looking like she hoped the answer was going to be Columbus.
And Sam hung his head. "Kentucky," he said. "You won't see me at school tomorrow. We have to move. It's a really, really good opportunity for Dad. I've know for awhile. I just... didn't want to ruin the summer. We leave tomorrow."