Disclaimer: GLEE. IS. NOT. MINE.
Neither is the song that I've put in this chapter – yes, for the first time in New Perspective history, there is a song. With commentary. So you better not skip it ;) Just so you're not confused when it comes:
Ryder: normal
Marley: italics
Both: bold.
Happy Reading!
The brunette sashayed down the corridors of her school with her army of cheerleaders once more. There was nothing new about the girl - same brown hair sculpted into a high ponytail, glistening blue eyes, perfectly applied makeup, same perfect Cheerios uniform. Nothing had changed. She had fought through the first few hours of pain when the realisation of losing Ryder had hit her, and now she was well and truly back to her bossy, devilish self. A few days had passed, and she was glad to hear that her plan had worked effortlessly. The Glee Club were apparently taking a few weeks off for "recovery time", despite how the head cheerleader had recalled that they often fought through every problem as if it were just a piece of floating tissue paper passing by. She was glad to hear that this prank had hit them all hard.
People admired Marley even more now, if it was even possible to do so. The girl had become a role model for students everywhere in the school, and she was still soaking up all of the praise and glory and absorbing it like a sponge. She sipped on a green smoothie as she gave glances to everyone who walked past her, a smirk now taking its rightful place on her lips once again. She was now saved from Sue, as the coach was pleased with her meddling and fanned away any concerns she might have once had about the girl.
After lunch, Marley had slushied a few people, teased freshman... the usual. The warm, welcoming feeling of her old routine moulding her back into her snarky self again made her feel confident and powerful once again, and she had long since forgotten about what it had felt like to fall in love with Ryder Lynn; she even laughed at herself as she thought of how she had fallen for him. She was sipping on yet another kale-infused smoothie by her locker a few hours after her last one when-
"Marley! Marley, what the hell happened to you?!" she heard a familiar voice yell. It stung her ears as the boy began approaching her, but she sipped on her smoothie nonetheless and prepared a row of bitchy comments, now that she had returned to her old self again.
"Four Eyes, stop making a fool of yourself. People are staring. Besides, what happened to me? Woah, what happened to you? That new sweater vest smells kinda funky, like my grandpa. P.S: your "angriness" would be a lot more convincing if your voice wasn't shaking like a leaf." Marley smirked to herself, avoiding eye contact with the boy and instead focusing on her manicured nails.
"C-Cut the crap, Marley. What's up with you, huh? The flyers, what the hell were they supposed to be?" Ryder quivered, obviously anxious and feeling alone; he needed answers.
"Wow. Obviously you're not as smart as I thought you were because you can't even define that the flyers were a prank against your dorky little Glee Club-"
"Marley, I'm serious. Y-You know what I'm talking about." Ryder cut her face with a glare, and Marley looked into his eyes; they were begging for an answer. She stared around her to see that, as always, all attention was on her. She scoffed slightly and walked into the nearest classroom. Ryder followed.
The classroom was dark and little planets were hovering above the desks, attached by string to the ceiling. Ryder shut the door behind them and neither of them bothered to turn on the light - the darkness was a pathetic fallacy, emphasising their situation yet more.
"Marley, you can't pretend th-that nothing's going on with you. What happened?"
Marley rolled her eyes. "Um, what happened is that I used my brain and did what was best, Bieber. I did what would both save us, okay?"
"How was your using me and humiliating me and all of my friends the "best" thing to do?!" Ryder raised his voice slightly and there was a silence before the smaller girl continued.
"I had to."
"What?"
"I had to do it, for the sake of myself, okay, Ryder? I couldn't just carry on. Coach Sue was threatening my position as a Cheerio, and all of my friends were getting suspicious. If we went any further, someone would find out. I couldn't risk the whole plan just so we could-"
"Plan?" Ryder practically shouted. He began chuckling humourlessly, "I can't believe it, that's great. Everything you ever did towards me was a plan, and I fell for it. That's fantastic."
"It was a plan from the start! It wasn't even my plan, it was Coach Sylvester's! You just happened to be my new sphere of interest. You just happened to be the one I slushied the time before."
"But still, everything you did was a lie?"
Marley looked down and squeezed her eyes shut. "Not everything."
"What then, Marley?!" the boy demanded.
"The study session idea was a lie. I totally understand algebra, even though I do fail it on purpose anyway and I did actually fail that test, even though I wasn't even trying to fail it. Me having glasses, that's true, and you're the only one at this school who knows that! And me getting jealous because of that blonde who rubbed oil on you was true. The crying afterwards on my bed was all true..." She looked into his brown orbs as her eyes began threatening to spill out salty tears. "M-My breakdown about liking you, which was true; the Halloween party didn't bother me the most. It was the fact that I couldn't have you because this was all only a game." she paused slightly, and then threw her hands up in defeat. "So there. Are you happy now?! The secret affair, the liking-you-for-who-you-really-are crap was all me. It wasn't part of the plan. But I had to sacrifice it all because my reputation was too tough to handle with all of that on top, so I went ahead with that plan that was destined to get one of us hurt in the first place. I liked you back, Ryder. But I just had to do it!"
"No one said that you had to do it, Marley." Ryder pierced through her with a glare as they became closer.
"Are you actually stupid?! Because you still don't seem to get it. We are complete opposites, Ryder. W-we're like... like Romeo and Juliet… forbidden love and all that. We can't do this. It just can't happen or else we'll both be drowned in this hellhole of a school! Don't you understand that if I wasn't the Head Cheerio and you weren't a dorky, Glee club nerd we would be okay?! I was helping the both of us out, before we got even further into this hot mess!" Marley shrieked, surprised nevertheless thankful that fellow students had not heard her screams and rushed to the window to witness the event. "We can't... we can't fix this, Ry. This has to be it."
Tears now cascaded down her cheek, and Ryder's next movements surprised her. She saw tears glistening in his eyes slightly (thanks to the small seeps of light leaking through the windows), and he began approaching her. Soon he was caressing her cheek as she cried silently, and he kissed her forehead; then her nose, then the corner of her mouth, slowly and softly. Memories flooded back for both of the teenagers as times of laughter, goofiness and prohibited innocence invaded their brains. Their hearts were both pounding as they came to the realisation that such beautiful moments were all based on a bold foundation of lies. He kissed away a few of her flowing tears, and soon Ryder's lips grazed across Marley's lightly before Marley's mind jolted back into action as she abruptly stopped savouring the gestures; she began to pull away.
"Ryder... no. Y-you can't just kiss me and touch me and pretend that nothing happened, or that everything is suddenly going to be okay! It doesn't work like that!" Marley exclaimed at the boy, who sniffed and looked down at the floor.
"Well then... I better get to Spanish." Ryder murmured finally after a seemingly long silence.
"R-Ryder..."
She didn't know what good it would be to her if she said his name that last time, but for some reason it lingered on her now-swollen lips as he retreated from the unlit astronomy classroom and headed outside into the now-empty hallway.
After a few weeks, Glee club had finally returned from their much-needed break. The incident had humiliated each member immensely, and this lead to constant and persistent teasing, of course; teasing that they had not gotten over yet. But they needed to prepare for Nationals.
Ryder constantly thought about her, which was all it was to it. Ryder couldn't stop thinking about her whenever they pushed him into the lockers at school or slushied him. He couldn't stop thinking about her whenever he did his algebra homework. He couldn't stop thinking about her on the nights where they would usually have gotten together at her house - those nights were the hardest. Every aching morning rolled around and he would try to forget it - every aching night rolled around, and he couldn't. So, as he was pretending to pay attention to Mr Schue's rant about how they should "take all the negativity and hurt and turn it into positive energy", he couldn't help but let his mind wander to her again.
His brain began to slowly weave a scenario into his head: Ryder was all alone, in a space entirely white. There was no end to this space, and he seemed to be the only person to occupy this unidentified galaxy. Suddenly, he found himself in the midst of a song. He knew it perfectly, so he began to sing, as if to find comfort in the song amongst such an empty and lonely room.
"Let me hold you
For the last time,
It's the last chance to feel again.
But you broke me,
Now I can't feel anything."
Suddenly, as Ryder opened his mouth to sing the next line, he was interrupted as he heard a voice singing it back to him:
"When I loved you,
It's so untrue,
I can't even convince myself.
When I'm speaking,
It's the voice of someone else."
Ryder knew the voice. It echoed about the space, and it came from behind him. Even as he heard her sing, he couldn't bring himself to turn around - he was scared that his ears would be fooling him. He sang.
"Oh, it tears me up,
I try to hold on but it hurts too much,
I try to forgive but it's not enough to make it all okay."
He turned around, finally, and it was her. She was there. He squinted as the whiteness almost blinded him and could have fooled his eyes, but it was her. The Cheerios uniform and the high pony, and her bright blue eyes proved his hypothesis. He just looked at her intensely as he sang the chorus:
"You can't play on broken strings,
You can't feel anything,
That your heart don't want to feel,
I can tell you something that ain't real.
Oh, the truth hurts,
And lies worse,
How can I give anymore?
When I love you a little less than before."
She looked saddened and moved by the truth of the lyrics, and how it slotted together so effortlessly in their situation. Marley opened her mouth to sing back the verse into the dense air separating the two teenagers, who were meters apart.
"Oh, what are we doing?
We are turning into dust,
Playing house in the ruins of us."
Ryder grasped the opportunity with shaking hands and moved closer to her with small steps; the brunette soon took the hint as she began to step closer too and they harmonised together.
"Running back through the fire,
When there's nothing left to save.
It's like chasing the very last train when it's too late.
Oh, it tears me up,
I try to hold on but it hurts too much,
I try to forgive but it's not enough to make it all okay."
They were now standing only a meter or so apart as they began pouring all the emotion they had been bottling up inside of them into the duet. Marley circled the boy once as she belted the chorus with the boy, anger captivating her eyes.
"You can't play on broken strings,
You can't feel anything,
That your heart don't want to feel,
I can't tell you something that ain't real.
Oh, the truth hurts,
And lies worse,
How can I give anymore?
When I love you a little less than before."
They were now standing face to face, so close to each other. Ryder could see the faint tears in Marley's eyes because of the pure intensity of the moment. Marley reached out and softly held one of Ryder's hands, gazing intently into his brown-eyed gaze as she powered through the lyrics with him.
"Oh, we're running to the fire,
When there's nothing left to save.
It's like chasing the very last train,
And we both know it's too late."
Marley's eyes drifted from the floor of the white space to her hand, interlaced with Ryder's as the words finally dawned on her:
"Too late..."
Ryder stepped even closer to the girl as he focused his attention on their hands as well.
"You can't play on broken strings,
You can't feel anything,
That your heart don't want to feel,
I can't tell you something that ain't real."
They sung louder, breaking the pure moment as they looked into each other's eyes with a mix of anger and regret.
"Oh, the truth hurts,
And lies worse, oh
How can I give anymore?
When I love you a little less than before.
Oh, you know that I love you a little less (little less) than before."
Their expressions softened all at once, and they captivated each other. Ryder ghosted his hands over Marley's cheek softly as he lowered his face slightly closer to hers; Marley lifted her chin up slightly so their faces were mere centimetres apart before singing the final lines of the song together:
"Let me hold you
For the last time
It's the last chance to feel again."
The chestnut-haired boy's stomach did somersaults at the feeling of being so close to her again. Her heavenly scent wafted up his nose - the scent that he had missed so much. One simple movement was all it took to hold her; to kiss her again. Marley's soft cerulean eyes closed as she began to relax slightly in the bliss of the moment, and the two moved slowly so that their lips were softly grazing against each other-
"Ryder?"
The boy in question quickly snapped out of his perfect thoughts as he focused his eyes on the man before him.
"Dude, you really need to stay focused. You're the one who's soloing for Nationals! You're a main part of this big family, man!" Mr Schue's voice rung in his ears as a look of disappointment raced over Ryder's face. He just wanted to have that last kiss, even if only a mere illusion created by his brain. He wanted to wrap his arms around her small waist and just kiss her. He wanted everything to be the way it was, and he wanted everything to be so simple, like the image his mind had concocted. He couldn't even focus on the fact that he hadn't decided which song he wanted to solo with. Ryder slowly moved to be more comfortable in the unsettling plastic chair. "S-Sorry, Mr Schue. I'm just a little... out of focus."
Mr Schue gave the boy a sad smile as he clapped Ryder's back, "We all are, Ryder. But if we just get past this, everything will be okay."
"But you don't know what happened like I do, do you?" he almost retorted, tired of Mr Schue's team-building antics. But instead, he replaced his statement by a simple huff and leaned back on his chair, adjusting his glasses slightly.
Wow, I'm sorry this was so angsty. Also, this is waaaaaay longer than any chapter I've written, due to the fact that you guys were saying you wanted longer chapters. So this was originally two chapters, but I merged it into one :-)
P.S: I'm pretty proud of the song I picked for them to sing… I think it fits pretty well with their situation. For the full Ryley-angst effect, you guys should listen to Broken Strings by James Morrison and Nelly Furtado. Can't you just picture this happening though? Ughh. And now with all of that 'permanent NYC move' stuff it will never happen. Damn you RIB.
Sorry for any grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes! I'm pretty tired and I can't be bothered to read through this a third time – I apologise.
Aaaanyways, I would love it if you guys left a review – I'm pretty proud of this chapter! And give me suggestions of what might happen next ;)
Until next time,
-Beth :P