Second official chapter! This will give you more of a back-story of my Glee-verse for this fic. I know several of you were complaining about an unresolved cliffhanger. Whoops.
Thanks to all the reviews, favorites, and alerts! I love and appreciate all of you!
Summary: McKinley High goes on lockdown with Marley and Kitty stuck in the choir room together. Karley.
Characters: Marley R. and Kitty
Rating: T
THE DAY BEFORE
Marley Rose slammed her locker shut, reveling slightly in the harsh, grating noise of metal against metal. Life hadn't exactly been easy since Glee club got cancelled, and now she had to live with the fact that she was a loser and nothing more. Not that she could ever forget that, of course, with Kitty and the other cheerleaders and jocks constantly reminding her of that fact.
Things had slowly returned to normal after the Sectionals loss. The New Directions had ceased to exist, and the social pecking order had gradually become normal again. Marley was still bullied every day, and she considered herself to be lucky if she wasn't doused in the unpleasant sticky syrup that only an optimist could call a slushy.
She shouldered her bookbag and walked to Math class, smiling slightly as she thought of the prospect of sitting in her favorite class. Her optimism was doused, however, in a giant dose of freezing, icy liquid, the food coloring dripping onto her clothes.
She felt a single tear start to trickle down her eye, accompanied by the jock's cruel taunting. "That's from Kitty, whale!" He shouted, and she shook her head firmly, willing herself not to sob. She ran into the nearest girls' bathroom.
Getting a slushy out was tedious and difficult work, and now she was going to be late to Math. Again. She didn't know why Kitty still hated her. After all, Jake and her were no longer an item. Marley grimaced slightly as she remembered the pictures of him making out with that freshman girl, plastered all over Facebook and Instagram. She had been the last person to find out, of course, and find out she did, with a cruel and matter-of-fact statement that left her eyes watering and her heart broken.
She missed being in the New Directions. She missed the New Directions so much, every single one of them. Even Kitty, even Tina, and even those kids that she had never really spoken to. They had been her single source of comfort in the hell that was high school, they had been her dream. And now the dream was over, and she was staring shell-shocked at her bedroom ceiling and wondering if there was a way to make the dream true again.
Sighing quietly, she washed the rest of the slushy out of her hair, the food coloring drifting down the pipe aided by water. Her hair looked washed-out and matted, and her clothes certainly weren't very helped by the slushy. She shook her head quietly, trying hard not to cry.
A random junior girl sashayed into the bathroom, her hair and makeup carefully done up. She shot Marley a single disapproving look and walked into the nearest stall, closing the lock with a click.
Marley left the bathroom, a slight shiver already beginning to creep into her veins. She was cold, slushies were cold—it was certainly one of the more unpleasant forms of abuse she had encountered, Marley mused silently.
She headed back towards her locker, thankful for the longer passing period. She wouldn't be horrifically late, at least. Just late enough to draw attention to herself. She slunk into Math class, her head bowed and her shoulders rounded slightly as if doing so would make her invisible.
Wallflower, indeed. Woman Fierce? Not so much.
"Miss Rose," the teacher's stern voice jerked her out of her thoughts. "Please sit down, this is the third time you've been late this month."
"Mr. Grey," she said, looking up at her favorite teacher with a pleading expression, "Please, I got a slushy-"
"Sit down," he repeated, and she obliged sullenly, sliding into the only seat left available in the class, next to Ryder.
She opened her notebook and carefully began to take notes on the binomial theorem, not really caring what it was about. She felt a small tap on her shoulder and turned around, smiling as she realized it was Ryder. He slid a folded square of paper across his desk to her, accompanied by a large, goofy grin. She couldn't help but smile back and unfolded it, taking in his lopsided, careless writing.
Did u get slushied? It said, and Marley turned the note over to write him a response.
Yes, she wrote, vaguely noting how perfect her handwriting seemed to Ryder's. However, Ryder's writing had improved greatly since he had begun seeing a dyslexia specialist. She was proud of him. Apparently Kitty's orders, she added.
She passed the note back to the boy without comment, concentrating instead on the figures Mr. Grey was writing on the board.
A few seconds later, a second square of paper was pressed into her palm, and she opened it again. Do u want me to kick her ass? Ryder had written, and although Marley couldn't help but smile, she didn't want him to. It wouldn't solve anything. In fact, it would only make it worse.
No, it's fine, Marley wrote and passed the note back. When he received it, he sent her a 'Are you sure?' look, to which she nodded and looked back down at her notebook.
They had remained friends. Or at least she thought so, but he seemed to be rather focused on getting her to date him. Marley was sick of boys though, at least for the moment, so she persistently turned down his requests.
Class ended with a shrill, incessant ring that seemed to rip through Marley's eardrums. She had always hated that bell, though it always came at precisely the correct moment. She sighed and gathered her things together, pushing them into her bag with little thought.
She hated how her life had been reduced to this, to this mere sequence of class to class, school to home, sleeping, eating, and studying, over and over and over again in an endless loop. She didn't have a purpose anymore. Performing had been her purpose. Glee had been her purpose.
She walked out of the class, waving goodbye to Mr. Grey, who dismissed her with an eye roll. None of the teachers at this school seemed to understand the situation, it was either 'you were asking for it' or 'we have no proof, it's useless.'
Marley strode to her locker, bracing herself for another cold slushy attack that never came. Looking to the side, she spotted Kitty. She thought for a moment, then swiftly walked over to her.
"Hi, Kitty," she said, smiling slightly breathlessly, hoping that Kitty would understand the figurative olive branch.
"What do you want?" The shorter girl said, rolling her eyes. Marley felt the smile slowly slipping off of her face.
"I-nothing," she said lamely, looking down at the ground, her feet fidgeting.
"Then why are you here?" Kitty said, her voice dry and unforgiving.
"I was wondering why you ordered a slushy for me," Marley said, her voice growing quieter.
"Oh, please," Kitty scoffed and slammed her locker shut, making Marley flinch and her heart start to race. "That's how it works, honey. You're at the bottom. I'm at the top." She smiled cruelly, and Marley seemed to recall a time when that smile had been genuine. "Better get used to it."
And as she strode away, another jock came up to Marley, dousing her in another slushy. Marley coughed and sputtered, wiping off the cold liquid from her face.
"Hey, Rose!" Someone shouted, and she turned around, the cold liquid burning in her eyes as well as the tears. "Your momma is so fat, that when she dies, she won't fit into a fucking coffin!" The jock laughed, a sharp, stinging laugh that left pain in Marley's heart. "Y'all gonna have to cremate her!" He taunted, and Marley pushed past him, sobbing.
Damn, how she hated this.