It was hard for Kitty to force herself to go to school on Monday morning, after hiding from everyone for the entire weekend. Everyone, that is, except for Raven, who'd come by a few times to check on her, and Artie, who'd barely left her side long enough to go home and sleep.
Kitty was new to this whole humiliation thing, or at least new to being on the receiving end.
After the slushie bucket had hit her, she'd run until she reached the safest place in that school, the choir room. It didn't take Artie and the others long to figure out that she'd be there. After she'd spent all of five minutes of crying alone in one of the plastic chairs and shivering violently, due to the cold, sticky mess, they'd arrived. Raven ran in, with Mohamed, followed by Artie, with Ryder, Marley, Unique, and Jake in tow. Artie had a stack of red towels in his lap. Marley was carrying her own set of extra gym clothes that she'd apparently gotten for Kitty from the girl's locker room. Kitty had apologized profusely to Raven for the ruined dress, but Raven quickly brushed that off. Working together, they'd gotten Kitty cleaned up well enough to slip into the grey leggings and white t-shirt and return to the gym to finish the prom. She only did this for Artie. She didn't want to end his prom night prematurely. Needless to say, though, this pretty much killed the mood for any after-prom festivities.
On Monday morning, Artie and Mohamed were waiting with her coffee again. Kitty laughed and choked out a thanks, as this unexpectedly brought tears to her eyes. She wiped them away furiously, trying not to let it show. There were actually rules about crying in public, in the Cheerios uniform, believe it or not.
"If it's any consolation," Mohamed said, as he handed her the cup where someone had, yet again, scrawled a kitty-cat on it. "Your cousin asked me out on another date. So, thank you."
And with that, he left, as Kitty managed to smile a bit, in spite of herself. Artie reached for her free hand and she gave his a grateful squeeze, as she took a sip of the perfect latte.
"That was the most amazing thing that you did for Tina," he said. "And I know she feels the same way."
"I just did what anybody would have done," Kitty said. "If you had seen it about to happen, you would've rolled yourself right under the bucket, too."
"Well, it was you, not me," Artie said, and it was something of a consolation that he thought she'd done something nice. If she'd had a split second longer to think it through, though, she might've stayed put.
Rounding the corner just then came Tina, and she picked up speed as she approached. But rather than the warm smile Kitty expected, for saving her designer prom dress from a most horrible fate, Tina actually looked angry. She brandished her cell phone and held it out for them to see.
"Hero girl saves prom queen," Artie read aloud, looking up at Kitty in awe. Tina then hit play and a clip of Kitty's actions, shot from a cell phone nearby the stage, played out on the tiny screen.
"It's gone viral," Tina informed her. "I hope you're happy. Your plan worked, you got to be the hero girl who saved the pathetic prom queen!"
"My plan?!" Kitty shot back. "Are you insane? I didn't have anything to do with any of it. Not the posters and definitely not that bucket! My night was the one ruined, mine and Artie's! You wanna know who planned this? Why don't you ask her? She knows!"
Dottie Kazatori walked by just then, sporting her very own Cheerios uniform and her best expression of mock innocence as she was greeted by Kitty's accusations.
"I didn't—" Dottie started to say.
"She didn't do anything," Bree interrupted, coming up behind Dottie and putting a protective arm around her shoulder. "Please, Kitty, we all know how you work. You probably rigged that bucket to fall and arranged for the whole thing to be filmed, so that you could have your five minutes of fame when you saved the day. Well, guess what Kitty? It worked. Happy now?"
Kitty handed her coffee back to Artie. It was all she could do not to throw it on Bree, but she had just enough restraint not to do that. She hurried off in the opposite direction. As she left, she could hear Artie pleading with Tina.
"Kitty saved your prom," he was saying. "And this is how you repay her?"
Kitty hurried into her first period class, arriving ahead of everyone else, because she hadn't lingered to enjoy her morning coffee with Artie. Instead, she'd been ambushed by the person who should've been thanking her.
I'm gonna talk sense into Tina, Artie texted her, as other students were beginning to come in and find their seats.
That's the last time I do anything for her, Kitty texted back to him.
She didn't used to be like this, Artie replied.
I don't want to hear what she used to be like, Kitty typed, furiously. I have to go now. Class is starting.
She wasn't actually mad at Artie, though, even if his weird defense of Tina was a bit annoying. She went to find him for lunch. It wasn't Tuesday, afterall, so he was all hers. On Tuesday, he and Tina still usually ate together in the audiorium, a tradition Kitty tolerated. (The exception to this rule was last Tuesday, of course, when Artie'd skipped lunch to de-flyer McKinley.)
She found Artie, alright, but he was currently in the middle of a fight with Tina. It wasn't even a fight about what happened at prom. Kitty hid behind the lockers and listened.
"Artie, I need valedictorian in order to guarantee my acceptance to Brown," Tina was saying, as Artie tried to wheel away from her. "If I don't get in, I'm screwed. Please take the fall for me."
Kitty followed them, curiously.
"No," Artie replied, without stopping. "It's not my fault you didn't apply to enough schools."
"Maybe I was too busy making costumes and building sets," Tina complained, her voice getting higher and higher. "And swaying in the background while everybody else was front and center. You always get everything you want, and I get nothing!"
"Woman, are you insane?" Artie shot back, still not stopping. "You just won Prom Queen."
"Which counts against me," Tina lamented. "I read online that college admissions directors think that high school prom queens are self-centered, attention whores."
"Exactly," Artie drawled.
"Excuse me?"
At this, Artie did a sharp about-face and Kitty promptly ducked behind the crowd. It didn't matter, though, because Artie was intently glaring straight at Tina.
"It's time you heard this," he said. "The whole school's been talking about it." He began rolling himself backwards. "Everyone's convinced that sometime between junior and senior year, an alien invaded your body and made you shallow and desperate!"
He pivoted and continued his plight to get away from her, but she wasn't done. "Says the nerd who's dating a Cheerio!" she raged on behind him.
"Says the hag who vapo-raped Blaine!"
"That was blown totally out of proportion," Tina argued. "And yeah, I had a little crush on a guy who could never love me, but how is that any different from you having a crush on a girl who can't possibly love you?"
That got Artie to turn around again, even though he'd almost reached the door, where he surely could've outpaced her going down the steep ramp.
"Kitty does love me."
"Please!" Tina said. "She's obviously using you for some kind of sick charity project." Artie's face said she'd totally crossed the line, now, but she wasn't finished. "And you're using her, too. That's what your speech can be about. How you're making a sad, last-ditch effort to be popular by dating McKinley's biggest bitch."
"Actually, Tina," Artie rolled forward a pace at this, his jaw clenched. "You're McKinley's biggest bitch. And I'm going to win this."
Artie got the last word, or so it would seem, as he turned and wheeled out the door. Tina crossed her arms and pouted as she stood in the middle of the hallway. Kitty debated about going over there for just a minute, but she'd never been one to shy away from a confrontation.
"That's funny," Kitty said, enjoying the way Tina jumped when she came up behind her. "Because just this morning, I was the hero girl who saved the prom queen. Which is it?" Kitty pretended to weigh the options in her hands. "Hero girl? Or biggest bitch? Maybe a little of both?"
Tina fumed. "This isn't even about you, Kitty."
"Seeing as you just told the guy I'm crazy about that I couldn't possibly love him?" Kitty replied, hands going to her hips. "I'd say that it is."
"You are using him," Tina shot back. "You are, it's obvious. You like the shocked expressions on people's faces when they find out you're the Cheerio dating the guy in the wheelchair. It's all about the extra attention it gets you, Kitty, and I can't stand by and watch it any longer."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" Kitty said, and this was all getting a little embarrassing, as they were drawing a crowd of onlookers who were eager for a cat-fight, no pun intended.
"What, like you can deny it?" Tina scoffed. "And it's convenient for you, too, because soon he'll be graduating and you can just make it look like he dumped you to meet new people at film school, earning you even more sympathy than you had when he was here!"
"You act like you have his best interests at heart," Kitty countered. "But in reality, you left him in the friend zone for so long that he forgot what he ever saw in you in the first place! Which is fine by me, because I haven't been able to figure it out either."
They might have had an actual fight, complete with hair pulls and weak punches, if Mr. Schuester hadn't walked up at that exact moment.
"Ladies, don't do this," he said, coming between them. "I haven't seen hallway fights from my glee club ladies since... well, since Santana graduated. Now, please. Think of Nationals, at least, won't you?"
That did it. The mention of Nationals actually calmed them down. At least, for now. Kitty couldn't promise she wouldn't gladly kick Tina's ass if she saw her off school grounds. Since that was unlikely to happen, however, Kitty stomped off in the opposite direction, as Tina did the same thing.
We need to talk, Kitty texted Artie. Monday lunch is just us today. Meet me under the stars?
Kitty tried to figure out how to play this. She didn't want Artie to know she'd overheard the fight he'd been having with Tina. And she didn't exactly understand what had started it either, other than evidently Artie and Tina were both up for valedictorian, and Tina expected him to drop out.
"Hey," she said, coming in to find he'd beaten her there. They both brought themselves sack lunches on Mondays, since the Monday Meatloaf was nearly as bad as the Tuesday Tacos in the cafeteria.
"Hey," he said, smiling and looking deceptively upbeat for a guy who just finished yelling at his old flame in the hall. "I brought you your sandwich."
Ever since Kitty mentioned that she liked the way he made his tuna sandwiches with grapes and almonds mixed in, on rye bread, he'd been making her one. She'd stopped bringing her usual PBJ on Mondays in favor of his creations.
"What will I do without your sandwiches next year?" Kitty asked, taking a seat by him and accepting her sandwich with a smile. He couldn't smile back and didn't meet her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I didn't get a chance to talk to Tina about what happened at prom," he confessed. "At the end of fourth period today, we both got called into the office. Apparently, we're currently tied for Valedictorian. Whatever happens between now and the end of the year will determine who wins."
"And you want to win, right?"
"I do," Artie said. "I mean, I know I already got into film school, and yeah, she could use something to give her an edge and help her get into Brown. But honestly, I've worked really hard for this, too, and I'm not willing to do what she's asking of me."
"Which is... what?" Kitty prompted.
Artie sighed. "We both have a physics final coming up next week that counts for nearly half our grade," he said. "Which is a completely evil thing to do to seniors, but I digress. Tina wants me to intentionally do poorly on the test, to ensure she beats me. And I told her hells to the no."
"I'm proud of you for standing your ground, Artie," she said. "And please, I know what I just said, no wheelchair puns, okay? Just know that you did the right thing, and nobody could fault you for wanting what you've worked so hard for. If she wants it, she has to earn it."
Artie grinned. "Your righteous indignation is a real turn on," he said. "I was just thinking how much I miss our original plans for when we'd meet each other under the stars."
Kitty raised her eyebrows and tried not to look too eager, as she jumped up to flip the switch, leaving them in darkness lit by plastic glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. Kitty closed her eyes as she leaned across the table for a kiss.
"What even is this?" she teased, leaning back after a moment and hooking her pinky on the little circular zipper hanging from his collar. The stripes were good, but the zipper was a little strange. "This looks like a keychain I had on my backpack once."
"Haha," Artie said, dryly. "I thought you might find it easier than a button."