Part 2 - Not Enough
Chapter 1
Almost a year had passed since Charlie had left to go to Portland. She called Kurt almost every day, and she was looking forward to having some time to go visit him. She had known he had a boyfriend, while she had spent months trying to fall in love with someone, hoping she would finally find her soulmate.
In the meantime, school had started, at the McKinley High, and the topic of the first Glee club meeting was: 'Will we manage to get to the National Championship and win, this year, instead of coming back home humiliated, like last year?' The previous year they didn't manage to qualify by a hair's breadth, but this time they were determined to win.
"I just hope that at this year's prom won't happen what happened last time!" Kurt said.
"Oh, what a pity!" said a voice coming from the classroom door, a voice which Kurt immediately recognized. "I would have loved to see you crowned Prom Queen!"
The girl who had spoken entered the classroom, and everyone recognized Charlie. They hadn't seen her for almost a year, but she almost hadn't changed at all. It still seemed she had stolen her elder brother's clothes, but this time, strangely, her clothes were her size. She was wearing a white T-shirt, a gray vest, dark jeans and a hat whose color matched the color of the vest. She didn't have to hide her hair anymore, so she was proudly wearing a ponytail. As everyone recognized her, they rose from their chairs and ran to hug her. Kurt was the first among them.
Among the Glee club members, Charlie recognized many of the ones she had met a year before, but there were also many new faces...
"Oh my God, Blaine Anderson!" she exclaimed, suddenly.
Among all the idiots she hoped not to meet in that city, he himself had to come to that school and force Charlie to bear all the memories that he brought to her mind?
As everyone heard the boy's name, they moved away from Charlie.
"A legend, for Dalton Academy!" the girl continued, with a little bow.
"Excuse me... Do we know each other?" Blaine asked her.
"I think so..." said Charlie. "I went to that school, even for a few months..."
"Sorry, but I don't remember you at all…" the boy continued.
"Of course..." said Charlie, trying to hide her hair so that Blaine could recognize her better. "I pretended I was a boy... It was easy, because I had short hair and I didn't have to hide them... Do you remember now? I was Joe's friend..."
Joe had been the first person Charlie spoke to, at Dalton Academy. They had immediately become friends. After discovering that Charlie was a girl, Joe fell in love with her, but Charlie had never known that, as she was too busy trying to get Blaine's attention.
"Ah, yes, now I remember you!" said Blaine. "You were that short kid with a strange voice..."
'Said the tall one…' Charlie thought.
A couple of years before, it took weeks for him to realize that Charlie was trying to get his attention. He treated her as an acquaintance, not even a friend, although they had sung many songs together. She was madly in love with him, and he never realized that, in spite of the messages that Charlie tried to send him: she sang songs to him, she hung round him almost every time, she always tried to get as close to him as possible... The girl thought he mustn't have been a very sharp guy, as Kurt had told her it had taken months before Blaine realized what he felt towards him...
"Did you manage to run away, finally?" asked Kurt.
"Yeah, my mother is in Greece with a man who should be her new boyfriend, so I left my brother in Jacksonville with a baby-sitter and I came here!" Charlie answered.
"Jacksonville?" Mercedes asked her. "Didn't you move to Portland?"
"Yes, I've been there for a while, then I spent a couple of months in Memphis, then I went to Dallas, a month in Baltimore and last week we moved to Jacksonville!" Charlie explained. "At first my mother wanted to go to Washington, but then she thought that there she would have got the worst customers in the whole universe, so she decided that Florida was a lot better..."
"And... have you found your 'Prince Charming' yet?" Kurt asked her.
"Better!" answered the girl. "I'm trying to detoxify myself! I'm sick of the idiots that just treat me as some form of amusement! It was fantastic when I 'ran away', the last time, so why should I keep letting people treat me like that?"
The year before she had learned that sometimes songs help to explain things better: the music started, and she began to sing.
"You know fairytales don't come true,
Not when it comes to you,
Open up for the first time,
And you can get that it's the last time.
And I'm cool with laying low,
Saturday night and I'm staying home.
I'm feeling good for the first time,
It's been a while since the last time!"
She had decided that would have been the last time she would have tried to look for someone she could fall in love with. She had felt the marvelous sensation of being free, without having to think about her 'Prince Charming', and she had liked it.
"I'll wave goodbye when you say hello, woah!
I'm sick of the sleepless, never ending nights,
I just don't care if it's wrong or right.
I'm sick of the rumors and the alibis,
You turn me up, I'll cut you down the side.
S-s-s-so sick of it,
So sick of it,
Sick of all of that little lies.
S-s-s-so sick of it,
So sick of it,
Sick of feeling bad by your side.
What you don't know
Is how great it feels
To let you go!"
She was sick and tired of lying, of dressing up as a boy, of doing things wrong. She had decided to change her life, to turn the page.
While she was singing, some guys rose from their chairs and started to sing and dance with her.
"I'm happy you're alone!
Take down your pictures and now throw
Those memories out the door!
I'm sick of it,
So sick of it,
Sick of all of that little lies…"
She knew he was not alone. She was happy for her friend, of course, but who would ever be happy to see an ex-almost-boyfriend dating another ex-almost-boyfriend?
"I'm sick of the sleepless, never ending nights
I just don't care if it's wrong or right.
I'm sick of the rumors and the alibis
You turn me up, I'll cut you down the side!
S-s-s-so sick of it,
So sick of it,
Sick of all of that little lies.
S-s-s-so sick of it,
So sick of it,
Sick of feeling bad by your side!
What you don't know
Is how great it feels
To let you go!"
She had let him go, right, but a part of her was trying not to forget him. Not to forget that he could have loved her, somehow. But now it was too late.
In the meantime, next to the football field, Quinn was thinking about the same song, believing that quitting the Glee club had been the right choice for her, in that moment.
When the song was over, everyone cheered Charlie, who went to sit on one of the empty chairs.
"Well, guys, after this amazing performance by our friend Charlie, we must find an idea for the song we will sing during the Homecoming Assembly!" the professor said. "Remember: we must try to persuade other guys to join our club, so we should choose a cool song, known by everybody, something addictive!"
Kurt and Charlie looked at each other, knowing they had had the same idea.
"We could do a Justin Bieber song!" someone suggested.
"Why not a song by Lady Gaga?" another voice shouted. "Everyone likes her!"
"Sir, Charlie and I have found the perfect song!" said Kurt.
Everyone shut up to listen to the suggestion.
"Nyaga!" Charlie began. "She wrote a song about when she felt overshadowed by a nerd: everyone feels overshadowed by the most popular people, but in this club they will surely find out they have good qualities, like Nyaga!"
"Interesting idea..." the teacher said. "Who wants to do it?"
Everyone raised their hand in favor of the idea proposed by Charlie and Kurt. The preparations for the performance began immediately.
"How did you manage to attend a school dressing up as a boy, without anyone noticing that?" asked Blaine.
As Kurt and Blaine had a free period, they decided spend some time with Charlie, next to the football field.
"Easy thing!" answered Charlie. "My mother has never been very interested in my education, in fact, I think she would love to see me becoming like her! Anyway, I just had to say my name was Charlie, cut my hair, disguise my voice and everyone took me for a short kid! Obviously, it worked until they caught me..."
"Why do they always catch you?" asked Kurt, ironically.
"Luckily I had been unmasked by a friend..." Charlie answered. "If anyone else had caught me, maybe I wouldn't have survived..."
"It was Joe, wasn't he?" asked Blaine. "What happened to him, by the way?"
"I don't know..." Charlie answered. "I haven't heard from him for months..."
Charlie hadn't heard from Joe since the past year. During summer something must have happened, something she didn't know of, and suddenly she hadn't had any news from him.
"So, you are the 'famous' Charlie..." said Blaine, changing topic. "Kurt told me a lot about you..."
"Oh, really?" Charlie said. "I hope he told you good things about me..."
"Yeah, he told me you're a fantastic girl," the boy continued. "You've got some self-esteem issues, but you are a good friend anyway!"
"And you like Nyaga!" Kurt added.
"How long are you staying here?" asked Blaine.
"A week," Charlie answered. "Then, I'll have to run away again, since I paid the baby-sitter for this week only..."
"And where are you going to stay this week?" Kurt asked.
"I haven't thought about this yet..." the girl answered. "I took a bag, I put a couple of things in it and I got on the first flight heading here..."
"You can stay at my house, if you want," Kurt suggested. "Where have you put your bag?"
"Oh, it's in your locker," Charlie answered. "I don't know the combination, but I've been kicking the lockers open for years: I've been changing school and locker so many times that I never remember the right combination!"
Hi readers!
I hope you enjoyed the beginning to the second part of this story! The plot will develop in some interesting ways, since now we know something else about Charlie's past, and that Blaine was part of it!
The lyrics that appear in this chapter belong to "Sick Of You", by Selena Gomez, but some parts have been altered so that they would fit better whitin the plot.
If you like this story, please, let me know through a message, a comment, whatever you like! I would truly appreciate that! :)