So, here's chapter five. I'm really excited for everyone to read this.
I finished the last two chapters just today and they'll be posted within the next few days. This story has been so. Much. Fun.
It's becoming increasingly harder for me to express how much I want to thank my beta, Miranda, for all that she does.
Also, thank you everyone that has reviewed. They really make my day. *coughyoushouldreviewcough*
Finally, the song used in this chapter is called "This Song Is About You" and it's by Joseph Birdsong. I suggest you go live it a listen.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Even though he knew it wasn't the smartest idea to wheel himself around without any gloves on, he didn't stop until he was all the way outside and down the wheelchair ramp. His hands were already aching from the speed he was going. He struggled to get his gloves back on as his hands shook from the pure emotion spilling from him. His eyes were already burning with angry tears.
How could she lie to him? Not only had he been her boyfriend, but also her best friend. They never kept secrets from each other before. He could understand not telling him something simple but this was without a doubt the hugest thing to affect their relationship, ever. She took something that should have been discussed between both of them and kept it a secret. Made it all about her. He should have had a say in how things worked out.
Artie would admit that he didn't always tell the truth either, but he would never do anything like this to Tina. He would never knowingly hurt her this way. He thought of all the nights he hadn't been able to sleep, because his mind wouldn't thinking about what he could have possibly done wrong to make Tina stray from him.
All for nothing. All that pain was because of a lie.
And there was so many people he had hurt because of this. He can't count how many times he blew off his mother to wallow in his own pity. Or when he closed himself off from Kurt and Mercedes because he couldn't build up the strength to get out of bed. So many people tried to listen and continued to stand by him when he didn't deserve it. No one deserved to be treated the way he had treated his friends and family the past few months.
It was because of Tina. Her selfish act made him push everyone away.
He could see in her eyes when she told him that she was convinced he'd forgive her. That he would say: Oh, it's okay, Tina. I forgive you. I love you too. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. The words used to constantly be on his tongue, prepared for when she would say something to him along the lines of "I made a mistake." He had spent the past two and a half months thinking if she told him she loved him again, he would tell her he felt the same way. If she wanted to take him back, he would let her.
But when it actually happened, he couldn't find the desire anymore. It was just…gone. That adoration for her that had never really faded since the break-up vanished. Now, he wasn't hurt anymore. He was angry.
As he got back to the van, where his sister was waiting, he pounded his fist against the side, until the door opened and the ramp lowered. He rolled in and buckled his seatbelt. His sister looked up from her book. "Did you forget something?"
"Take me home. Now."
Ali raised an eyebrow at him, "What about the movie?"
"Take. Me. Home."
He really didn't want to lose it here. He wanted to go home so he could scream into his pillow and write more of his deaf poetry jams and calm down.
She sighed and marked her place in her book before putting the car in gear and pulling out of the parking space. She wanted until they were back on the main road to ask, "What happened, Artie?"
With that, he snapped. His voice was sharp as he said, "Why did you make me go in there?" He was gradually getting louder, "Why couldn't you have just stayed out of this?"
Artie used to hate arguing. He used to hate confronting other people and saying what he really thought. The fear that used to come with it was fading fast, after standing up for himself with Tina. It almost felt good, like a weight was being lifted from his shoulders. No longer did he have to smile and act like everything was okay. He could yell and hit things and be furious. He growled, "Did you even think about what I wanted? I didn't want to see her! I didn't want to talk to her! I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her! And you forced me in there!"
His sentences were short and choppy. The anger was coursing through his veins and he couldn't stop it now. The camel's back had been broken, the floodgates were open. "Why does everyone think they can push me around all the time! Because I'm a damn wheelchair? I'm still a person! And I thought my own sister would know that!"
Ali chewed on her lip, "Artie, I'm sorry."
"No, you're not! You don't mean it. No one ever means it!"
"What did Tina say to you?"
"Don't say her name!" he snapped.
She didn't say another word to him, even when Artie continued to shout at her. She knew her brother well—and this was the first time he'd yelled at her, at anyone, in a long time. He was so much more internal than people thought—he took so much out on himself and the fact that he was finally blaming someone else, even if it was her, was a step.
In the last eight years, he had been through so much, with fitting in and with adapting and with Tina and so many other things. He never didn't have a smile on his face, until now. The façade had finally come down.
People would say to her when she still lived at home, your brother is an inspiration. She used to think so too, but…was he, really? He was just good at masking all the problems he faced. To be inspiring, you had to do something extraordinary. Artie just lived. Tried to live a normal life, despite everything. These past few months were a testament to the fact that being in a wheelchair didn't save him from all the heartbreak in life.
It wasn't really a matter of whether he was inspiring or not. It was whether or not Artie wanted to be inspiring.
When they pulled into the garage, Artie wheeled himself inside immediately. He slammed his bedroom door shut behind him.
He then went on a triad he had only seen before in movies. He ripped books off his shelf and whipped them across the room, the pages bending as they hit the floor, and ripped photos into a million pieces. He threw the clothing in his closet behind him haphazardly, not caring what his shoes hit and broke. Within ten minutes, it looked like a tornado had hit his room. He could barely wheel over the mess.
He transferred himself to his bed and fell back against his pillows, suddenly exhausted. Sleep came quickly, but every time he came back to the surface of consciousness, he remembered what had happened just hours before.
In some ways, he knew that he should be…happy. He hadn't been cheated on. Tina claimed to still love him. But everything else she had said and what had happened pre-confession overshadowed that.
He just couldn't forgive her. Not after he had felt that constant ache in his chest every day for months. He wanted her to feel some of the heartsickness he had.
Artie didn't come out of his room for the rest of the weekend.
Tina, on the other hand, couldn't stay in one place, or do one thing, for more than a few minutes for the duration of the weekend. She should have felt better with the truth out, but telling Artie really only made the situation worse. She was convinced that it would have been an enormous relief not to have to lie anymore, but seeing the anger in Artie's eyes and hearing his words proved that theory wrong. Two days after the fact and just thinking about the conversation in her head stung.
It was like a slap of reality to the face.
People aren't always going to forgive you. They're not always going to understand.
She went jogging a lot on Saturday and Sunday, just to keep herself moving. Even when her legs began to burn from the strain, she kept going. The pain in her lungs distracted her from the pain in her heart.
She went by his house a few times, just to see what was going on. The house was closed up, for the most part, and his window was always closed, the curtain pulled.
The problem was when she had to go back to school on Monday. She didn't have any distractions. She couldn't bolt when her mind started racing too fast. She was able to get through the first two classes of the day, but she skipped third period all together. She didn't want to see that anger on his face again. She wondered if he even showed up today. Usually, she was always seeing him in the hallways, but today…not once.
Tina chose the choir room as a hide-out, naturally. As usual, no one was there, and she sat down at the piano, playing a few basic scales. Her parents had made her take lessons for five years, but she hardly ever played anymore. She'd recently learned one song she liked, so she began to play that.
"Endless flights, sleepless nights, how many battles must I fight? The moon is setting, I can't see, the midnight sun is gone for me."
She hadn't cried about Artie in a long time—there were just no more tears to shed—until late Friday night. The numbness of her guilt faded and all she felt then was devastation. It was an awful feeling, knowing that it was out there. That she couldn't do it over. It used to just be all in her head, completely her problem. And now she really saw what her lies had done. How much they'd changed Artie.
He wasn't the same person. He probably wouldn't be ever again.
Because of her.
The worst part is she knew her parents could hear her. She wasn't exactly quiet about it and "Artie" was the only word laced into her sobs. She hoped they knew what they had caused and she hoped even more that they felt guilty.
"I can't get you off my mind, it's killing me, it's killing time. The voice on tape is whispering and I cannot stop listening."
She has album after album of photos of them that she's paged through every night since the break-up. She used to keep them on her bedside table but she's kept them under her bed for the past few months, so she no one else would see them. They're always smiling when she looks at them; they're always happy. She wishes she was still the girl in those pictures. She can see how much color has left her face since then, how little light there is behind his eyes now. You can see how happy he is by the cute way he wrinkles his nose just a bit when he smiles.
And even when they're not smiling, she can see the pure giddiness of love between them. Somehow, they're always touching. Whether their hands are intertwined or their heads are touching or she's sitting on his lap. The connection between them is almost picturesque. Something you can only dream of happening.
It was something she had right at her fingertips and she gave it up. For what?
She watches the tape from regionals when she misses him the most. Her mother had zoomed in close when they're striking a pose during the "Anyway You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin" mash-up and the only thing you can see is her and Artie, their heads close, smiling widely at each other. She wonders how her face didn't break in half with that smile.
She remembers thinking then that that was the single greatest moment in her entire life.
Such a contrast to what she was thinking now.
"And now I'm left to ponder this alone. It's like an icy wind within my bones."
She couldn't call Finn after she told Artie. It just…didn't feel right. There was nothing he could have said to comfort her.
And she still went out with Mike on Saturday night, because she thought it would take her mind off things. But when he asked why her eyes were so red, she just claimed she had allergies. And she used a stuffed-up nose as an excuse for him to take her home earlier. Because it was just too hard to be in his presence.
Knowing that his face was the right one, the one her family approved of, but the wrong one for her, was just too much for her to handle.
"How does it feel to know this song is about you? Does it still hurt you like it hurts me too? Everywhere I look I see the ghosts all around you. It's haunting me, I don't know what to do."
Everything reminded her of Artie. Everything. They seemed to play "Dream A Little Dream" every time she turned on the radio or whenever she put her iPod on shuffle. She was always getting caught behind people in wheelchairs when she was in supermarket. Sometimes, when that happened, she had to resist the urge to come up behind them and grab onto their handlebars. It had almost become instinct: see a wheelchair, push it.
Whenever she saw Artie in front of her in the hallway, even if he was on the opposite end, she would let go of Mike's hand, almost as if she was preparing to start pushing him. When she saw Kurt pushing him at the end of the day, when she knew his arms were most tired, she fought herself not to say, "Excuse me, that's my job."
"Never did I doubt our love but sometimes that if not enough, I'm sinking like a ship at sea, the loneliness pours over me."
Tina always loved Artie. She had since the first time they spoke and had never stopped. She can't count how many times she told her family how much she did for him, and how much Artie did in return. But it didn't matter. It never would have mattered to them.
What if she had just stayed with him and taken the consequence as they came? Would being shunned or chastised been worth it in comparison to this? Would she be happier?
She didn't have the answer. She never seemed to have the answer. And the right one always alluded her.
She truly thought this would protect Artie from something that was bigger than the both of them. Keep him away from the world she lived in that was so close-minded. They never gave him a chance.
Maybe she never gave Artie a chance. She didn't give him a chance to react to what she mulled over for weeks. She made the decision for him. What if she had told him the situation from the get-go, without the lies? He could have had an opportunity to talk to her family, to prove himself. He was so smart and gentle and polite; maybe he could have convinced them that their was more important things than heritage.
He could have proved to them that love was the most important thing.
"Reaching upward to light, the end is barely out of sight. You never really let me in, so I know I will shine again."
When it first happened, she tried to convince himself that a break-up would have happened for them sooner or later. She tried to make herself think that his faults were too much for her to deal with. He didn't let her pick the movies they watched. So what? That had really been more of an excuse for her to curl up against his chest and fall asleep in his arms. Sometimes, he made things too much about him, but did that really matter to her? He pushed everything aside when she needed him most. He could be a little insensitive at times, but he almost always had her feelings in mind.
People expected Artie to be sensitive, because of his condition. He told her once, "I'm in a wheelchair, but I'm still a guy." And maybe she had forgotten that in trying to reason with herself that they weren't right.
She thought about when he told her to dance with Mike in her routine instead of with him. How he said, "You've worked too hard to have half a partner." Maybe she was reading too much into it, but he pushed his own dreams aside so she could have her moment to shine. And she constantly thanked him for that, even if he didn't know it.
"And it's time for me to say goodbye. It takes a wrong to make it right."
She thought righting her wrongs would make everything okay again. She thought getting the truth out would allow her and Artie to go back to…something. It didn't have to be boyfriend and girlfriend, not even best friends. She just wanted to be able to look at him and see no heartache.
She decided there that she would never bother Artie Abrams again. She would not put him through any more than she already had.
Tina finished the song on a somber note, getting her bag from the floor. She went through the rest of the day on auto-pilot, just doing the motions but not really feeling them. Artie didn't show up to glee club rehearsal, which made her wonder if he'd gone to class. Was their school life going to be like a child between divorced parents? You can go to glee club on Mondays, but I get to on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
She walked home after glee, wondering why there were so many cars parked on the street in front of her house. She unlocked the door to see her mother standing a few feet away. Tissues were stuffed in her hand and her eyes were wet with tears.
Tina furrowed her brow, setting her bag down. She asked in a confuse tone, "What's…going on?"
"Oh, Tina," she said, "I have some bad news."