Matthew's POV
Today is my first day in New Directions and I can't wait. I've heard that many of the other new members have had siblings that have just graduated from the New Directions so I'm guessing they they've heard stories and won't feel completely freaked out by this whole process, me on the other hand, I didn't have any knowledge on what it was going to be like, I didn't have any inside knowledge on the others and I didn't have a clue about how to survive.
I wasn't normally this nervous about something new. I was a fourteen, almost fifteen year old freshman and from a young age, I'd always been a confident child. My parents told me that I'd always been the kind of child that would get stuck into something new and I was never usually afraid of meeting new people. Because of this trait that I possessed, I was a very popular person wherever I went. I think it helped that I was able to find common ground amongst many different types of people, from many different walks of life and from lots of different cliques.
I'm also not a bad looking guy so that probably helps my cause too. I seem to attract girls wherever I went and it's not always wanted attention. I wasn't an arrogant guy, far from it, even if I do sound like it. I was looking for the right kind of girl and when I did find her, I would never look at another girl, but for now, I was still searching and while I did my searching, I was going to have some fun with it.
I think I was so nervous now, mainly because this was something I'd never done before. Singing was something new for me and I still wasn't sure if I was good enough. More than that, I actually enjoyed it and I wanted to be good at it.
So yeah, like I said, I'm nervous.
Ryder's POV:
It's the first Glee rehearsal today and all I want to do is talk to Finn. He was the co-captain for the whole three years he was in Glee before he graduated so I knew he'd have some good pointers for me. The only problem…..? It's almost impossible to get a hold of him at the moment. When he graduated, not only did he send Rachel off to New York and break up with her, but he also made his first step for his own future and this meant joining the army. Finn's dad used to be in the army and he got a dishonourable discharge or something so Finn felt like it was his duty to change it and prove that his dad was a hero by proving that he can take his place and be a hero too. My mum was totally against the idea of course and in a way I can kind of understand but I know that if my dad was to ever go into the army – which would never happen, he's way too interested in fixing cars in the safety of his own shop, - and he got a dishonourable discharge, I would want to make a difference to that.
I'm just not sure why that meant Finn had to go into the army…
Anyway, I'm going off point, my point is that know I have no way of getting hold of Finn and I'm not sure Kurt would be as good at the advice as Finn would've been.
I could always talk to Blaine? But he's only just been appointed captain…..but then he did have quite a big role within the Warblers…although he wasn't captain…all this thinking is making my head hurt…..maybe I should just go in there and wing it. I'm sure a show choir can't be that hard. I don't need any pointers from Finn or anyone else for that matter. I'll be fine.
Yep, I'll be fine.
Kitty's POV
I spoke to Quinn this morning and told her the good news. She seemed happy for me and told me to give it a chance, however lame it got.
I knew what she meant because she used to tell me stories about it when she first started and to be honest, it did sound pretty lame. Mr Schue really didn't seem to have a good grasp on how to direct a show choir back then, and this was coming from a middle schooler. It's been three years since then however and they have won a National Championship. I'm that Schuster has got quite a bit more of a handle on it – at least I hope so.
She asked me if I knew any of the others on the team and rolled off from the memory the names of the others. When I mentioned Marley and Ryder, she seemed shocked by their surnames and when I asked why, she said that they have the same surnames as two of the biggest divas from her graduating class, of course I knew who she meant. When Quinn was part of the Cheerio's, part of reign of power, which is still in place today, meant that she had to slushie and tease the 'losers' and Rachel and Kurt used to fit this bill. Everyday Quinn would order her Cheerio's to slushie them every day and this only ended when she was kicked off due to her pregnancy. Only then did Quinn start to develop a friendship with both of them and she realised she was a lot more like them than she first thought so by the time she'd graduated, she wouldn't have been able to slushie them even if she'd been ordered too. Rachel and Quinn are still friends now and Quinn went to visit her in New York once in the summer before school started and when she left she promised she would visit more often, with Rachel promising the same.
"Rachel never mentioned that she had a sister."
"Maybe it's a coincidence." I answered back.
"Berry isn't exactly a common surname is it, Kit Kat?" she asked, using the nickname she'd had for me since I was a child. I thought I would grow to resent it the older I got, but I loved having a name that only she called me. It helped me realise that it didn't matter how far away we were from each other, we'd always be close.
"I'll ask her." I told Quinn.
"Don't be horrible to her Kit Kat. If she is Rachel's sister, she'll probably come off as annoying and overbearing at first but if you looked under the surface, Rachel was one of the most loyal people I've ever met and you can bet that Marley will be the same."
"Ok Quinnie, I'll get to know but I can't promise you anything. You know what I'm like."
"I know. You're more like me than you realise. Just don't be like Frannie." Quinn advised, talking about our older sister. I shuddered.
"Not gonna happen." I promised.
"Alright Kit Kat, well I have to go to class but I'll talk to you later. I love you." She said affectionately. Just as she was about to put the phone down, I stopped her.
"Quinnie, wait." I said quickly. I heard hesitation but not the dialling tone so I assumed she hadn't put the phone down. "When are you coming home?" I asked, a hint of sadness in my voice most people wouldn't be able to notice, but I knew Quinn would.
"I'm not sure. Probably not until Thanksgiving at least. It's not that I don't want to but it takes a while to get back from New Haven. Sorry Kit Kat."
"It's ok, it's not your fault. I'm so proud of you." I could feel her smiling on the other end of the line. "Love you Quinnie." I told her and put the phone down. Time to try and find Marley.
Marley's POV:
The first thing I did when I got home after my audition was tell Rachel. I told her before I'd even told my dad's. Rachel was so proud of me and she said I had to make the most of my time while in the New Directions and I would find life-long friends while in the group. I knew what she meant, she was living with Kurt and she still regularly spoke to someone called Quinn – someone I'd never met – as well as many of the other members of New Directions, both graduated and non-graduated including Blaine, Sam and Mike. I'd never met any of these people either, but I was about to quickly make my acquaintance with Blaine and Sam.
Ever since I was born into our unique family, Rachel had been one of my biggest supporters. I was also born in the same way as Rachel, although I had a different mother to Rachel, both my father's gave a "contribution" to my mother's egg so even to this day, I don't know how my biological father is and, like Rachel, I don't care. Even though there is a very real possibility that Rachel and I are not physically related at all, it doesn't matter to either of us, she's looked out for me and loved me throughout my whole life and to me, that's family and that's all I need.
Even though Rachel was immediately interested in music and Broadway, I wasn't like that. I was more into sports, and when it came to school subjects, I loved science and I was always building scale models of different things, whether that be rockets or volcanos. Our dads supported both of our dreams, they would attend and pay for Rachel's dance and singing recitals and, in turn, they would pay for me to go to whatever sports team and club I wanted and Rachel was there at every single one to cheer me on and vice versa. It was only when I started my last year of middle school that everything changed for me. Up until this point, no one had ever heard me sing. I was happy just listening to Rachel sing, her voice was magnificent and her dreams of Broadway were definitely going to be achieved, I was sure of it.
I was in the shower one morning when I began to sing. I sang normally whenever I was in the shower but I was usually in the safety of my en suite but because maintenance was being done on it, I had no choice but the use the main bathroom I must have really got into it that one morning because when I came out, Rachel and both my dads were waiting outside the door of the bathroom.
"What?" I asked nervously. It didn't comprehend with me that they'd heard me sing.
"You're singing voice." Rachel said excitedly. I immediately clapped my hand over my mouth.
"Oh my God, it was horrible wasn't it? I bet I sounded like a drowning cat." I said, feeling completely embarrassed.
"No sweetheart, you couldn't be more wrong." My daddy told me.
"You have magic in your throat Marley." Dad said.
"You're as good as me." Rachel told me. This is when I took my hand away from my mouth, Rachel never admitted someone was as good as here.
"Seriously?" I asked in disbelief. "You're not playing a joke on me are you?" I asked.
"Marley, you know how serious I am about this! This is my future, I'll be graduating this year and going off to NYADA. I was NEVER joke about something like this!" Rachel told me, passion and determination in her voice and I knew she was telling the truth. My dads were standing behind her, nodding in agreement
"But am I really as good as you?" I asked.
"Go and get dressed and then come downstairs. We're going to record you and you can listen to yourself. You're good enough to be on Broadway too if that's what you want." My daddy told me.
I did what he told and I was feeling extremely nervous when I came down the stairs. Even though I enjoyed singing, I never would have thought I was good enough to do it as a future career, I always thought I'd leave that to Rachel and I could do something a lot more ordinary.
From that moment on, my love of singing and being on Broadway grew and grew and I stopped playing sports so much until eventually it fizzled out altogether – apart from gymnastics. My dad's had got me interested in this from a young age and it was the one thing I couldn't shake off from my "old life". If I missed a gymnastics lesson, I'd miss it a lot more than if I missed a football game or something like that and I realised that I still needed gymnastics in my life.
Even though Rachel had been supportive at first, I thought that the prospect of having two Broadway stars in the family, where I could possibly, eventually, steal her spotlight, and would lose its novelty and Rachel would begin to resent me sharing her dreams but that never happened and I hoped it never would. As soon as I realised my talent, Rachel spent the remainder of the year getting me used to the gruelling time table of dance and vocal lessons so that when she moved to New York, I would be fully used to doing it on my own. It was a lot to get used to but I knew that if she could do it while being a straight "A" student and having a boyfriend that she saw regularly, I could do it too. She also warmed me that if I wanted to make it in NYADA, I was definitely going to have to get used to it. She also spent the remainder of the year encouraging me to the join the New Directions when I finally started High School, something I was definitely planning on doing. She became very excited about the prospect of both of us being on Broadway one day in the future – saying that we'd always be cast together because we were the "Berry Sisters".
When she left for New York at the beginning of the summer, it left a giant void in my life. Despite the large age gap, Rachel had been my best friend. I didn't have many female friends - being a tom boy for most of your life will do this to you – and Ryder was my only constant companion throughout my schooling years but Rachel was always there for me for whatever I needed, whether that was to cry on her shoulder or to take me out shopping. Rachel promised to call whenever she could and so far she had kept this promise. None of us had seen her since she'd left but hopefully it wouldn't be much longer.
I was pulled out of my daydream of my sister when Ryder came running up to me.
"Come on Marley, it's time for Glee." He said excitedly. I nodded and followed him to the choir room.
Unique's POV:
Finally, it's the day of our first Glee rehearsal and I could finally start making my sister proud of me. Mercedes and I hadn't always gotten on when where growing up, a mix of being four years apart and the fact that I always felt jealous of her.
I knew that I was in the wrong body from as far back as I can remember. When other boys my age would be playing with cars, I preferred to play with dolls and the older I got, I was a lot more interested in doing what the other girls did. While being a young child, it was easy to make friends with just girls in elementary school, but as we got older, the girls I hung out with started to see me as someone who wanted to date them instead of being their friend and as a result I was shunned. When other boys my age started to ask out girls, I couldn't because I fancied boys and not girls. At first, I just thought that I was gay and this was something I could handle, but as the years went by I started to resent the body I had and I started to feel envious of my older sister Mercedes. She'd been going out with boys for years before I finally came to my "revelation" and with each boy she brought home, I grew more and more envious and I think on some level she realised that and resented me for it.
Our relationship deteriorated quickly and our days were spent barely talking to each other so when our parents divorced, I felt glad for it and I went to live with my mum, while Mercedes stayed with our dad and I changed my surname to my mother's maiden name.
Everything changed for me in the summer before high school started. I knew that I couldn't go for another four years feeling miserable over who I was so I decided that for my own good, I had to make a change – I wasn't going to survive otherwise.
I made the trip to see Mercedes to get some advice. I knew she wasn't leaving for college and to try and make it big in L.A. for another couple of weeks, I'd heard both my parents talk about it continuously for weeks so I knew I still had some time. When I knocked on her door, to say she was shocked to see would have been an understatement.
After her initial shock wore off and I'd explained my problem, she was very sympathetic and she finally understood why I had felt jealous all those years. She gave me quite a few pointers over how to change my look and style. When I mentioned that a lot of the kids I went to middle school with would also be in the same high school, she gave me some more pointers about how to change my look just enough so that people couldn't recognise me. She told me to give myself a new persona too and that, along with my new look, it would throw off everyone's scent enough that I would be able to tell everyone about who I was, when I was ready.
We spent the next two weeks putting her methods into practice and by the time it was time for her to leave for L.A, I was a new person. I introduced myself again to both my parents and even though neither of them were happy with the transformation, they both agreed that if I was happy, that's all that mattered.
Our relationship had got much better since then but it was still strained at some points. Hopefully one day I could have my sister back and we could have the kind of relationship most other siblings have.
Some no singing in this chapter but I wanted my readers to see my characters family lives. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter and the next one will be the start of their Glee adventure.