CHAPTER 7

After Theo stormed out of the school building in a massive huff, he didn't leave the premises immediately. Instead, he found himself sitting high up off the ground, in the bleachers overlooking the football field. Being outside in the fresh air, it truly had a calming effect on him. Not only that, but as he stared out into the distance, up at the morning sky above him, he was able to once again have a channel to speak to the love of his life.

"Hey. It's me again." Theo murmured. "Sorry to bother you so often. I'm sure you're real busy up there."

He closed his eyes, a brief feeling of peace and relief washing over him as he thought about what it was probably like for Marley up there. She definitely wasn't feeling the same pain that he was right now. She was able to be carefree, do all she desired, not a trouble on her mind.

"Help me." Theo whispered. "I need you so much right now. I need your guidance. Your cool head. From the day we met, you always managed to keep me out of trouble and now, without you, I feel so lost. I'm missing that voice of wisdom that you always gave me. I can feel myself slowly reverting to the person I was before we met: aggressive, rough, violent. The man he made me become. It's like I'm rotting from the inside out. And I'm… I'm terrified of what happens next. I'm terrified to be around people. I'm terrified to be alone. I can't help but think everytime I meet someone, is this going to be the person I inevitably end up hurting?"

Theo's voice cracked slightly as he said this, and his voice swiftly trailed off as he heard footsteps beginning to approach him. The bleachers trembled every so slightly as someone else stepped on, and Theo's head slowly rose to see it was Santana. He sighed, not excited for whatever conversation or confrontation was coming, especially as Santana sat down beside him, and Theo could practically sense the annoyance emanating from the latina.

"Look, whatever you have to say, I'm not in the mood to hear it." Theo muttered. Santana raised an eyebrow, taken aback.

"Excuse me?" She said. Theo sighed again.

"Look, if you're here to tell me that it gets easier, or that it gets better, you can save your words. I'm not interested." Theo stated. Santana shrugged.

"Good, because that's not why I'm here." She shot back. "I'm here to tell you what's about to happen to you next."

"I already know what's going to happen to me: nothing." Theo remarked. "It's my first day here. And nothing even really happened. The school aren't going to punish me or anything."

"I don't give a shit what the school does to you." Santana snapped. "I'm talking about what's going to happen to you next with Karofsky. After you made the monumentally fucking stupid decision to try and stand up to him on your first day, trying to attack him like that… you just made yourself target number 1 for every single, bully in this place. I should honestly say thank you, as you've probably taken a bit of the heat off my friends. But for you… that just means that Karofsky and his dumbass friends are going to go out of their way to torment you every day for the next year."

"I'll manage." Theo responded, unfazed, not really caring about the prospect. He deserved all of this unwanted attention from the bullies. Theo began to get up from his seat, but he was roughly dragged back down by Santana.

"I'm not finished with you yet!" She spat. "You know what? You don't want my help? You want to make the next year a lonely, hellish experience for yourself? Fine! Screw you! It's no sweat off my back."

Santana began to get up herself, turning away to leave, but before she did, she turned back to face him.

"But… if you finally choose to get your head out of your ass at some point, you'll take my advice from last night."

It took Theo a few seconds to think back and remember, but once he did, he shook his head.

"What? Join the Glee club? Like I told you last night, Santana, I don't sing and I don't dance."

"And like I told you, that doesn't matter at all!" Santana shot back. Theo sighed.

"It's still a show choir, and I have little interest in music. What the hell am I going to do in a show choir?" Theo remarked.

"Make friends for starters." Santana replied. "You know, people who can actually stand beside you against Karofsky."

Theo didn't respond to this, but his face said it all. Making friends wasn't why he was here. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Any 'friend' he made was just another person he risked hurting in the near future, like he had done to everyone else he cared about in the world. For the greater good of everyone, it was best he stayed away. It was part of the reason why he was pushing Santana away too.

"Face it. You're alone here, theo. You don't know anyone in this city. In this state. It sucks, but it's the brutal truth. And from what you told me about yourself last night, it doesn't sound like you have too many people back home either." Santana continued, the comment feeling like a painful slap in the face to the boy. "It's in your best interests to listen to me. You can either continue what you're doing right now and spend the year bullied and alone. Or you can spend it with the Glee club, still bullied, but with 12 friends who will have your back no matter what. We have auditions tomorrow morning if you want to join. Be there. And don't be late."

With that, Santana stood up and walked away, leaving Theo buried deep in his thoughts.

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"Class. We have a new student!"

Santana, who had been threatening to doze off in the middle of her afternoon Spanish class, looked up with a start at the sound of a very familiar voice. Her eyes widened slightly as she watched Theo walked into the room, an apologetic look on his face as he greeted Mr. Schuester, their Spanish teacher.

"Class, this is Theo Martin. Some of you might have met him. He's new to the school, and so he's going to be joining us for the year. Please, all of you, make him feel welcome."

An audible chuckle rang around the room. Plenty of them knew who Theo was by now, not necessarily by name, but because what had occurred between him and Karofsky had spread like wildfire. He had certainly been 'welcomed' into McKinley, with one of their very oldest traditions: the slushie.

"Sorry I'm late." Theo murmured to Mr. Schuester.

"No, no, no. En español! This is a Spanish class!" Mr. Schue encouraged him cheerfully. Theo sighed.

"Lamento llegar tarde." Theo muttered, before turning his back to Mr. Schue and walking over to the only free seat, unfortunately close to the front of the classroom. Several confused eyes followed him as he took his seat.

"You speak Spanish?" Santana, who was sitting on the other side of the room, mouthed surprised silently to him. Theo shrugged back. He had spent more than 8 years living a short distance from Miami, where almost everyone spoke Spanish, so he had picked up a few phrases. He was also fluent in French from all of his years living in Lebanon, and some of the words had similarities between both languages.

The class resumed and Theo sat back in his seat, beginning to doodle aimlessly on his notepad, not really paying attention to what Mr. Schue was saying. Due to everything else that had happened and everything that was actively happening in Theo's life, he had completely forgotten that this was his first day of school in almost an entire year. Since January, he had been behind bars, so it had been 8 months, before his previous year's Christmas break, since he had been in a classroom. And it was showing. Theo struggled to concentrate, his thoughts pulling him in every direction but the ongoing lesson.

Without saying another word, Theo put his head down and tuned out for the rest of the class. He didn't want to be here one bit. He remained laying his head on his desk for what seemed like an interminably long time, until all of a sudden, the unmistakable sound of a cell phone ringing broke the relative silence of the room.

It was coming from the boy next to him, there was no doubt about that. The mohawked teenager wearing a letterman jacket had his phone in his hands so when it rang, the sound echoed through the entire classroom. Hearing it, Mr. Schuester stopped talking and walked over to their direction, standing over the perpetrator.

"Puck. The phone." He said, holding out his hand expectantly. The other boy, Puck, looked at him indignantly.

"Mr. Schue, it wasn't me though!" He exclaimed. Mr. Schuester laughed.

"What are you talking about, Puck? We all heard it." Mr. Schue responded. Puck shrugged.

"Well I guess you all have gone deaf, because it wasn't me!" He snapped.

"It was me." The voice of the quiet teenager sitting beside Puck spoke up. Every head in the room turned to Theo, who was holding his phone in his hand. Mr. Schue raised an eyebrow.

"Really?" He said, not believing him at all. Theo nodded.

"Yeah. I forgot to turn it off before I came into class. I'm really sorry." Theo lied. Mr. Schue stared him in the eye for several moments, almost trying to stare into his soul to gauge whether or not he was telling the truth. Eventually, he sighed and nodded.

"Consider this a warning, Theo. Phone off while in class. Next time it gets confiscated until the end of the day." Mr. Schue said, before turning back around and walking back to the front of the room, resuming his teaching. As he did, Puck turned to Theo, looking at him confused.

"Thanks, man." Puck said.

"Don't sweat it." Theo murmured in reply, before resting his head back on his desk. However, Puck wasn't done with the conversation, and was still looking at Theo, perplexed.

"Why'd you do it?" He asked. Theo shrugged.

"Dunno." Theo grunted in reply. Puck was even more confused now.

"Ooookay." He remarked. "So where'd you come from?"

"Florida." Theo replied, and Puck whistled quietly in amazement.

"That's far away." He remarked. Theo chuckled. It was certainly far from Lima, but far away? Not really. Not compared to Lebanon, Theo's real home.

"Yeah." Theo merely nodded. He didn't indulge the conversation any longer, a long silence falling upon them as Theo thought, he hoped, the conversation was over. No such longer though.

"I heard shit went down between you and Karofsky earlier." Puck remarked. Theo didn't respond to this, remaining silent, the mystery and curiosity surrounding him increasing by the second. Despite Theo not speaking, Puck did not take the message and instead, continued. "I heard Karofsky was insulting my homegirl Berry and you flipped out on him."

Theo sighed, raising his head to look at Puck once more.

"His asshat friend poured a drink on my head. I was going to retaliate but got stopped before anything could happen. That's it. That's all it was." Theo murmured. Puck shrugged.

"Still. Standing up to him alone. And on your first day…"

"I don't like bullies." Theo muttered. Puck chuckled.

"You definitely have balls, that's for sure." He commented. Theo didn't even grace this comment with a response. "You know, we could really use someone like that, someone like you, in…"

"I swear to God if you try to convince me to join the Glee club…" Theo muttered quietly. He had already gotten the sales pitch from both Rachel and Santana, and really didn't feel like hearing a third one.

"What? Glee club? No! I'm talking about Football!" Puck exclaimed. "You said you're from Florida. You must know how to play then."

"Used to. I was only okay." Theo murmured. That was the understatement and downplaying of the century. He had been good enough to lead his high school to a State Championship, and earn himself a full scholarship to Florida. So he wasn't bad. He was just saying that to deter Puck's interest. And if only that was enough to get Puck away from him. It wasn't.

"You should try out for the team." Puck stated. Theo sighed.

"I'm good thanks." He murmured back.

"Come on! You look built like a football player. And if you played in Florida, surely you can't be that bad." Puck stated. "A lot of the guys on the team last year graduated, so we're looking for a lot of new people. We're the reigning State Champs, and we kinda run this school, so it could also be a huge boost to your popularity if you played."

Theo didn't really care about that aspect of high school and he told Puck that much. At that moment, the bell rang, allowing him an exit from the conversation. He stood up and sighed. One lesson down, only a couple hundred left to go.

He walked out of the classroom, but almost as soon as he did, he heard loud footsteps coming after him. Slowly turning around, he found himself face to face once more with Puck, but this time the boy looked a lot less pleased. He pushed Theo against the locker beside them.

"Hey, new kid!" He snapped. "Look, I don't know how things went in your old school in Mexico…"

"Florida." Theo mumbled.

"But here in McKinley…" Puck continued, ignoring him. "We have something called respect. When the Pucksaurus is talking to you, you listen."

Theo had to hold back a snicker at that comment.

"I'm sorry, the Pucksaurus? What are you, 8?" Theo remarked. "Sorry, man. I'll pass."

With that, Theo turned on his heel and walked away.

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The rest of the day was hard for Theo. Hard didn't even begin to describe it. The unwavering attention of Karofsky and his bully bang who, as Santana had predicted, went out of their way to make his day even tougher, paled in comparison to the overwhelming reason why he felt so shitty by the end of it. He was here, back in high school, without Marley. The dull normalcy of a school day caused him unspeakable pain, as it was an agonizing reminder that here he was, returning to a regular life, while Marley didn't get that opportunity and he was the reason why.

By the end of the day, Theo had had enough. There was no chance in hell that he was going to join the Glee club. He just wanted to get out of McKinley as soon as possible, so when the final bell rang, he shot out of the school like a slingshot. After a long walk to try and clear his head, which was ultimately unsuccessful in doing so, Theo realized that the pain was just too much.

He couldn't handle it for another minute. Not another second. It was a searing, excruciating feeling, ripping through his entire body, sparing him no ounce of sympathy or reprieve. He needed a way to relieve himself of this pain, or at least temporarily numb it. But how?

Theo immediately had one thought, but he roughly pushed it out of his head. He couldn't. After the day Marley had died, and the events leading up to it, Theo had sworn to never touch alcohol of any kind ever again. Foolish decisions he had made under the influence was the reason Marley wasn't around anymore, so he had made himself promise not to drink ever again. But right now… he couldn't bring himself to care about that. The overwhelming need to quell the intense, stabbing pain he was feeling.

So, just as the sun was starting to dip downwards for the evening, Theo made the decision to walk the streets of Lima, looking for the sketchiest, cheapest bar he could find…