10. Sam
Sam Evans loved Mondays. Most usual thing about a teenager? Maybe not. But working every weekend in a strip club wasn't very usual either. He spent the whole summer working a double shift there, so his smile was the brightest one among the other kids at McKinley.
Things at home weren't as great as they were supposed to be. Everybody knows that crisis strike back when you think you're getting back on your feet. Sam didn't complain even once. What was the use? He and his family stood together and Sam danced his butt off (literally) from June to September.
Every time he was in Glee Club and watched his friends bitching about their "life-ruining dramas", he couldn't help but laugh. His girlfriend had flown to Los Angeles, his friends were out of Lima too… The only company he could count with was his family and that creepy lady that offered him ten thousand bucks to "take off his flower". There was no way that he would have accepted getting into bed with a woman whose boobs seemed to act like an emergency pair of legs.
But that didn't matter anymore. It was Monday again and he could keep holding on to his seventeen.
"Hey!" Sam sat on his usual front row chair in the choir room, which was surprisingly empty. "It looks like the recruiting numbers didn't work out as well as we thought." There were only Rory, Joe, Artie, Sugar, Sebastian, Brittany and Blaine. "Actually it looks like we've even lost members."
Then Rachel came. She stood on the doorstep for a moment staring at Blaine, who looked away quickly. They weren't mad at each other, it was just incredibly awkward.
"So… do you want to talk about it?" Blaine asked as he walked out of Rachel's basement.
She shook her head slowly while arching her eyebrows.
"Do you want me to stay so that we can cuddle up?"
Her answer kept being the same.
"Do you want me to go?"
Rachel nodded with her eyes wide open, fixed on the paused scene of Funny Girl.
Then Santana walked into the choir room. Word spread about the defined as "the most epic bitch-slapping ever happened between the walls of William McKinley High School", so Santana's visit wasn't a surprise.
"Hello, Santana!" Will hugged her hello. "It's so nice to see you again, but no violence, please," he chuckled.
Santana laughed as well. "Don't worry, Mr. Shue, Berry's safe." She smiled at her and sat down next to her girlfriend.
"And yeah, please, take a sit, be our guest," Will said ironically.
Brittany and Santana held hands, intertwining their fingers. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that, I'm not a guest." She handed the teacher a paper.
"What is this, Santana?"
"My class schedule. As you might see, Spanish and Glee Club."
Everybody turned their heads to look at Santana. Some of them frowned; others clapped as she walked to the middle of the room.
"Okay, brief explanation. You all smell like sexual unhingement. The minute I came back I saw you were in heat to half of the student body. Seriously? Burlesque? You are so lost you can't even choose Lady Marmalade. Truly disappointed."
All the girls looked at each other, kinda offended, except for Brittany, who was cheering her girlfriend as if she wasn't an implied part of that number.
"Whatever," Santana carried on. "My dear Brittany told me about your shortage of personnel, and she knows when to say these things. I love it when you bring up things like this at post-coitus," she said to Brittany.
"Hot," Artie and Sebastian said in unison. They both looked at each other. "You are gross," they both replied as well.
"As I was saying, Mr. Shue, you have your eleventh star, if we count everyone in this room. And yes, this taunt goes to you, Merkat Criminal." Santana sat back as she gave Sebastian one of her typical hate looks.
Will resumed his class, or tried to start it off. "With Santana we are only one member short, so let's hope that we have at least one audition today." He made a pause. "And now that we are all here…"
"Mr. Shue, Tina's not here yet," Artie pointed out.
And they totally forgot about her, again.
Tina called them all to the auditorium. All the lights were out. There was just a spotlight that illuminated the center of the stage, where she was standing.
"Hey, she-Chang, I didn't know you had a phone number." Sugar teased as they took a seat.
"I am not very used to forcing everyone to listen to me. You know, I'm not that kind of self-centered, tacky and annoying person, but it seems to be the only way for me to get some attention around here. Well, that and getting a world record on cheating and breaking relationships inexplicably. So, I've been working on a song with which I want to show you that I deserve our Sectionals solo. I hope you enjoy it and keep me in mind, no matter how many times Mrs. Berry makes us go through her unbearable solos, duets and other musical tortures."
The Tina-formation was complete. She spitted out her whole monologue in less than half a minute. Her lung capacity had increased during the summer along with her self-determination. Everybody was speechless, surely because all the speech had already been said.
"And I almost forgot to say that I couldn't have done this without my dear friend Kurt Hummel. We are survivors, honey."
They all turned their heads to the back of the auditorium, where Kurt was leaning against the wall. The reactions were pretty disparate. Brittany smiled to her unicorn, Sebastian burst into laughter, Rachel tried not to show any reaction and Blaine… Blaine didn't look back. No, he didn't want to look at him.
Then the music started.
[Without you – Mariah Carey]
Tina:
No I can't forget this evening
or your face as you were leaving.
But I guess that's just the way the story goes.
You always smile, but in your eyes
your sorrow shows.
Yes, it shows.
No, I can't forget tomorrow
when I think of all my sorrow.
When I had you there but then I let you go.
And now it's only fair that I should let you know
what you should know.
I can't live
if living is without you.
I can't live.
I can't give anymore.
I can't live
if living is without you.
I can't give.
I can't give anymore.
Tina moved out of the spotlight, and everybody waited for Kurt to start singing, but no, he didn't sing at all. Mercedes was standing on the doorstep on one side of the auditorium. She made her way to the stage as she sang.
Mercedes with Tina:
Well, I can't forget this evening
or your face as you were leaving.
But I guess that's just the way the story goes.
Mercedes:
You always smile, but in your eyes
your sorrow shows.
Yes, it shows.
Mercedes and Tina:
I can't live
if living is without you.
I can't live.
I can't give anymore.
I can't live
Tina:
if living is without you.
I can't live.
I can't give anymore.
(Mercedes:
No, can't live.
No, I can't live.)
Tina:
No, no, no, no, I!
I can't live!
(Mercedes:
No, can't live.
No, I can't live.)
Tina:
If living is without you.
I can't live.
I can't give anymore.
"Mrs. Mercedes Jones!" Tina shouted, letting her receive every single applause.
Back in the choir room, Mr. Shue was standing between Kurt and Mercedes. William sat on the piano. "Tell us everything about your brand new lives."
"Well… I am recording my first album. With my dear Mariah," Mercedes began. "And Christina, and… Oh! My duet with Adele is epic."
"But Adele is on maternity leave…" Artie interrupted.
"Not for me, honey. Not for me."
Mercedes was and looked outstanding. She had lost a lot of weight, with her hair and her nails just done… LA was really doing her some good. And Sam definitely could tell.
"And I here I am, back to my hometown because I don't want to turn my back on my old life even though the flashes of the paparazzi might blind me."
Santana and Rachel looked at each other. "So now you are the new it-girl in Los Angeles?" the first one asked. "Oh my God, are you telling us that Trouty uploads a video of yours on YouTube and five months later you're hobnobbing with the jet-set? C'mon, Wheezy, please."
Will could smell fight up to sixty feet away, so he decided that changing the subject was a better option than letting Mercedes rub her life of early success in her friend's faces. "And what about you, Kurt?"
Kurt spent the last five minutes staring at Blaine, though he didn't look at him even once. "What about me? I'm in love with New York. The best boyfriend I could ever have had. NYADA is just… amazing".
He might have wanted Blaine back, but all the pain in his heart had to get out somehow.
"Yes?" Blaine stood up, full of rage. He looked at Kurt for the first time. His eyes were piercing his ex boyfriend's. "Then I don't know why you left him and came back to Lima."
Thermometers froze, the Sun hid and they heard a clap of thunder.
"Rory, don't play the drums now, please." Will decided to intervene. "Boys, maybe you want to wash your dirty laundry at…"
"No, thank you, Mr. Shue," Blaine interrupted him. "There is no dirty laundry to wash since what you've done."
"What I've done?" Kurt quoted outraged. "I didn't do anything since the day you left me!"
Santana whispered in Brittany's ear, "You don't know how many days I've been waiting for this moment. And trust me, it will be worth it. He has even rehearsed it."
"Don't you dare play the victim card on me, Kurt."
"Of course, I have no right to do that, because you are the one who has suffered the most! She must be such a bad company then."
"I'd better go." Rachel stood up and tried to walk out of the choir room.
"You called Finn!" Blaine sentenced. And then Rachel stopped and turned around.
"You what?!" she exclaimed.
Will insisted, "Seriously, boys, you should take it…"
"No!" the three of them shouted.
Rachel walked towards Kurt. "Did you call Finn?" She didn't get an answer, so she asked again. "Did you call Finn, Kurt?"
"I'm loving this," Sebastian said.
The moment Kurt nodded he got harshly slapped in the face. Silence. One long minute of cold and dark silence.
"You called me "the same selfish wannabe-diva that you met four years ago" and then five minutes later you phoned your brother to ask him to come back and distract me like a dog with a bone so you could get Blaine back. You are unbelievable." Rachel stormed out of the class.
"I could have expected it from anyone but you." Blaine looked down. It even hurt to see him. There was betrayal in the air. So much betrayal that he couldn't even stand it. "I'm not a thing you can own. Come back to your place in the world, because there's nothing else left for you here." And he followed Rachel.
Santana stood up and took her roommate to the bathroom. "You couldn't let an expert handle this, right?"
Everybody started looking at each other. "It's so nice to see you, Mercedes," Sam said with a heartwarming smile on his face.
