Adam's abduction was our private hell - but it was not an isolated incident. On any given day, any number of children are absent from their homes for diverse and numerous reasons.
John Walsh
Pucks funeral was closed casket, which surprised no one. Mr. Shue had the Glee Club sing two songs. We started with Amazing Grace, then ended with a country song that Santana swore up and down had been Pucks favorite. Considering that the song was about a pair of exes getting together and screwing each others brains out, I believed her totally.
I hadn't wanted to attend at all, but some part of me felt like I owed it to Puck. Whether or not I actually like him, and most of the time I didn't, he was a member of the Glee Club and he really had backed off lately. Plus, everything that had happened between us seemed a little childish now.
In the end, I didn't back out, because Glee was down to 10 now, and we needed every voice. All I had to do was think of this as practice for all of the times in the future when I would need to put my personal feelings aside and get the job done. So I sang with everyone else, and I didn't cry, because I had cried myself out over the past few days. Finn was still MIA, and despite the Lima police putting out feelers to every station in the state, no one had seen him. I knew that the search for Finn Hudson was rapidly becoming the search for a body, even though no one wanted to admit it.
When we were finished, I didn't know whether I was supposed to stay with the group or go to Dad and Carole and that made my palms start sweating and everything seem too bright. I wasn't given to panic, and I prided myself in staying calm and collected through everything that had happened to me, but my nerves had been shot and I couldn't make any sort of decision.
Right before I could humiliate myself by doing something like getting sick or passing out, I felt a small hand in the middle of my back, steering me over to my family. It was too soft to be Mercedes, and too gentle to be Tina, so I was surprised when I turned my head and found myself face to face with one Quinn Fabray, cheater extraordinaire.
For the first time, I considered her and realized that she had lost as much as we had. That was Puck's child inside her, another baby that was going to grow up without a parent. She had been wavering about whether to give it up or try and raise it with him, and I wondered how this would sway her decision. I could see wanting to hang on to the last little piece of him, no matter how foolish that choice might be.
Beggers couldn't be choosers, though, and I was grateful when she delivered me to the right place before I could collapse on the pew. I was breathing hard and covered in cold sweat and under any other circumstances I would have sooner died then let anyone see me looking like this but right now I was just fighting to stay conscious. Dad squeezed my shoulder, rumpling my suit and Carole slipped and arm around me without ever taking her eyes off the coffin in the front of the temple. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was, if she was imagining Finn in that coffin with his face blown off.
There were Jewish hymns sang in Hebrew, and the Rabbi got up front and preached whatever the Jewish version of a sermon was and Carole was crying softly but I couldn't do anything to help her. I couldn't even help myself right now.
There was a wake afterwards, but I couldn't handle attending. Carole was going to support Mrs. Puckerman, leaving Dad torn between us yet again. She kept telling him to take me home, that she would be fine, but even I could read the lie in her voice. Mercedes stepped in before it could turn ugly, and told them both to go, that she would take me home and stay with me until they got home.
It would be pretty much the first time I had been away from them since Monday. Dad was insisting on taking me to school in the mornings, leaving Carole to pick me up after Glee. He had my car in the shop, claiming that there had been a recall for parts, but I'm not stupid and I knew there had been no such thing. He was just afraid to have me alone, afraid that I would disappear just like Finn had.
At least I could comfort myself with the fact that Jack the Ripper could show up to take me and Mercedes would be more then capable of backing him down. I was safe with her.
I'm sure Finn thought he was safe with Puck, too.
That hurt to hear, because I knew that it was true. There was no reason for a 16 year old boy, out with a friend, to think for even one second that he wasn't perfectly safe in the small town he had lived in for his entire life. The thought made me want to be sick.
Mercedes drug me home and insisted on making me some soup, despite my claims that I wasn't hungry and all of the soups in the kitchen had an extremely high sodium content. Her chocolate eyes narrowed as she pointed at the basement door. "White boy, go march yourself downstairs and take a shower. You stink like sweat and you look terrible. I'll bring you down some soup, which you will eat despite the sodium, because I went through all the trouble of making it for you, then you're going to take a nap. Have you gotten any sleep since this started?"
There are very few people in this town capable of intimidating me, but Mercedes had no trouble at all. I numbly shook my head. Every little noise, and the basement had lots of them, made me jump awake, terror that someone was coming for me warring with the hope that the thumps I was hearing was Finn trying to sneak down the stairs. Of course it never was. Both Finn and his kidnappers had vanished into thin air.
The shower, once I forced myself into it, actually felt good on my tense muscles. Plus it had the added bonus of me being able to stand quietly and cry without Mercedes knowing it. I wasn't stupid and I knew how to use a computer. If a kidnapping victim wasn't found within the first 48 hours, their chances of being found alive, or really found at all, went down drastically. With every passing day, they went lower. Sure, some missing kids were found weeks or months or even years later, but those cases were in the tiny minority. It had been an entire week since Finn went missing. Soon it would be two weeks, then a month. Eventually, it would be a year and all hope would be gone.
The water started to run cold long before I ran out of tears. I rushed through a haphazard scrub job and stepped out, shivering in the cold bathroom. I had forgotten to turn on the heater, just like I had forgotten to do a lot of things lately. I redressed in a pair of pajamas and came out to find that Mercedes had already brought down a tray with not only soup but some crackers and two sandwiches. The sight of them turned my stomach. "I can't eat all of that."
"Half of it's for me. You need plenty of fuel to be this fabulous all the time. Plus, I knew you wouldn't want to eat alone." She pointed at the bed, and, as much as I hated the thought of getting crumbs in it and then having to sleep in the nasty bed, I wasn't foolish enough to tell Mercedes 'no'. I climbed under the comforter and gave her my most pitiful look. She set the tray down and climbed in next to me. "Fine, quit looking like I burned your wardrobe."
I turned on the television, which had been showing Rent nonstop for the past three days. Without Finn the basement was empty and quiet and I had too much pride to ask to sleep upstairs near Dad and Carole. I had begged my father for this basement two years ago, and I wasn't going to give him any excuse to put me back in my old bedroom, which was essentially a 7x7 square with no windows that he had turned into a home office. Finn would barely even fit in the room standing, much less be able to stretch out, which was why nobody had considered turning it back into a bedroom for him to use.
Mercedes set the tray in between us. "Eat or I'll shove it down your throat. You wouldn't want me to feel bad and fat because I'm eating and you aren't, right? It could be crushing for a girl's self-esteem."
She had more self-esteem then any ten girls I had ever met, but I started eating anyway. My stomach gave a warning lurch, but I forced it to settle back down an accept most of the bowl of soup and a few bites of the sandwich. I pushed the rest back. "I can't eat any more."
That earned me a look, but she backed off. "Alright, I'll let it go for now. Now why don't you lay down for a little bit, alright? You look like a raccoon with those circles."
I wanted to refute that, but I had seen myself in the mirror, and it was true. "Ok. Will you stay?"
"You know I will." She moved the trays and curled up next to me, so close that I could feel her heart beating. Her fingers stroked up and down my back, and she was humming softly, something I guessed was a lullaby. I wasn't sure, since I couldn't remember my mother ever singing to me, and my father certainly wasn't the type to sing at all, much less to a child.
Over the past few days, everyone had been so focused on Carole and everything she was going through. The police, the advocacy people who came to the house, Dad, even I was doing everything that I could to make life easier for her. Of course, my version of making it easier for her mostly involved keeping away from her so that I wouldn't remind her too much of Finn, but I was trying none the less. Still, hiding from Carole meant hiding from my father, so I was muddling through this on my own. It felt really nice to have someone take care of me right now, to know that someone else was willing to step up and take charge.
I slept for a long time, but not well. Finn appeared to me in my dreams, over and over and over. Sometimes we were at Glee practice, and he was laughing and bouncing around. Sometimes he was dead, still standing despite having half of his head blown off. Mostly, though, he just stood there, his jaw clenched and his body tense. It was the same way he had been looking at me the last days he had been home. It was a look that said he couldn't trust me. Somehow, that look was even worse then when he was dead. I forced myself to look at him each time, knowing even then that it was a dream and he couldn't possibly be happy and sad and dead and alive all at once. Every time our eyes met, I asked him over and over: Where are you Finn?
He didn't answer, of course. I didn't believe in an afterlife, nor did I believe in paranormal phenomena. Whether Finn was dead or alive, he wasn't about to appear in a halo of light, wings spouting from his back, or whisper exactly where he was being kept in my ear. If he was going to be found, it would be by the police due to hard work or blind luck. But still, it never hurt to have a little hope.
When I finally woke up completely, it was dark outside. Mercedes was still lying with me, but she had replaced Rent with Hairspray. I raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "Sorry, Babe, but I couldn't handle hearing Rent one more time. Plus, I just love a movie where the fat chick gets the hot guy."
"You're not fat, 'Cedes, you're sassy and beautiful." The words came out without me having to think about them, since I had said them so many times. It added a bit of normalcy that had been missing for the past few days. I blinked a few times and looked around. "What time is it?"
"Almost 8. You were pretty out of it for a while." She straightened up and kissed my forehead. "Your father and Carole got home a few hours ago, but I promised to stay with you so I hung around. My Mom wants me home, though. You might be the mayor of Gaytown, but she's still not down with the whole coed sleepover idea. I'll call you, ok?"
I missed her warmth already. But I could do this, I could suck it up. "Call me when you get home." She would be fine, but I couldn't stand the thought of not knowing where she was. Bad enough that I lost one friend and one kind of friend kind of enemy this week.
Fortunately, Mercedes had more grace then to draw attention to my paranoia. "I'll call as soon as I get there."
I wanted to just spend the rest of the night downstairs, but I remembered what Dad had said a few days ago about the three of us needing to stick together and be a family right now, so I went upstairs. Dad was nowhere to be found, but Carole was fussing with the TiVo. I tried to turn around, but either I made some noise, or she just had that mother's instinct, because she spun around and saw me. "Hi, Kurt."
"Hi." I had always sworn I would never look down to anyone, but Carole Hudson had the amazing ability to make me feel shy. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to set this thing up to TiVo Bones for Finn. He can watch the new episodes when he gets back. This thing is more complicated then the one at our house, though."
I wondered if she was in denial, or if she just truly believed that Finn would be home soon. "I can help you." I took the remote and carefully set it up so it would tape each new episode for him. "See, it will tell you if one of us forgets and tries to change the channel to something else."
"Thank you, Kurt; you're such a good boy." The gentle and heartfelt compliment made my eyes prick with tears, but I wouldn't let her see them. That was, until she slipped a hand beneath my chin and raised my face to hers. "How are you holding up? I know your father and I have kind of abandoned you to your own devices the past few days."
I wanted to look away, to say something rude and get away from her, but I was caught in her eyes the same way I was always caught in Finn's. "I…I'm alright. I know you two have more important things to worry about right now."
"I don't think that's true. We've done everything we can for Finn right now, it's up to the police to get him home, but I don't think we're doing everything for you. I'm sorry, Kurt, I really am."
Her gentle words were making the tears come closer to the surface, but I had lost the will to push her away. "It's alright. I've been trying to stay out of your way, anyway."
"Why would you do that? It's important for us to stick together right now, not break apart."
My chest heaved and the tears started leaking down my face. "I though that was what you wanted."
Her hand dropped away, and she wrapped me up in her arms. "Oh, Baby, no, why would you think that I wanted that? I love you, and I want you to be close to me."
"B-because I thought you were mad and me and you didn't want to see me because then you would think about F-Finn and be too s-sad." I was really starting to cry now, making my humiliation complete. I hadn't cried in front of anyone, not including my father, in years, and now this woman that I barely knew was breaking me down.
"That isn't true. I love Finn because he's Finn, and you because you're you and you should never feel like I want you gone. Alright?" She was rocking me gently now, and I reached around to hold her as tightly as I could. Dad seldom touched me at all, other then a quick pat on the shoulder, much less cuddled me, and I was determined to soak up the affection while I could.
She must have sensed the moment that I relaxed into her arms, because she guided me over to the couch and transferred me into her lap. I tried to protest, considering that I was too old and way too heavy for it, but she didn't let go and I quickly figured out that I didn't really want her to.
Neither one of us spoke for a long time; as I was crying too hard and she was too busy making soothing noises and rubbing my back. Mercedes had done the same thing earlier today, but somehow the feeling was all different. Mercedes touched me like someone who had lots of experience and knew all the right spots. Carole touched me like a mother who knew the right spots by instinct.
By the time I was done, I was dripping tears and my face was all splotched up and I was absolutely horrified that I didn't even care that she could see me like this. But a part of me did feel better, like I had expelled some of the tension and fear that I had been carrying around. I decided not to worry about it all for a minute, and pressed my face into her shoulder. It was beyond disgusting, bit I was afraid that if I got up right now, I would never get the chance to be close to her again.
Carole was kind enough not to mention that I was smearing snot all over her shirt. She just kept her arms around me and sighed softly. "Why do you think I would be mad at you?"
I hung my head. "Because Finn wanted me to go with him on Friday, and I said no. If I had gone with them, maybe things would have been different. Maybe he wouldn't be gone now." Even though I knew she had every right to be angry with me, I could help but want her to tell me that it wasn't my fault.
She understood that too. "Of course I'm not mad about that. You being there probably wouldn't have changed anything, except that we would be burying two kids today instead of one. And if I lost both you and Finn…" Her voice trailed off as she looked upwards for strength. "It would destroy me not to have either one of you."
She might not love me as much as she loved Finn, or maybe she didn't love me at all, but she at least liked me. She had to; she had just told me so. "I won't leave, I promise."
One hand ran gently through my hair. "I know you won't."
I let her hold me for a few minutes longer; until I was starting to fall asleep and I knew that I needed to get up. I slid forward and Carole released me without a word. I was almost out of the room when she spoke. "Kurt?"
I looked over, barely able to see her face in the dark room. "What?" I was wary and it was obvious in my voice.
"I know that I'm not your mother, and I'm not trying to replace her, but I do love you very much. If you need someone, you can come to me and I won't tell anyone. Or, if you want your father, you should never feel embarrassed to take him from me."
Did I love Carole? It was strange, but I was pretty sure that I did. I couldn't tell her that, though, it was too much, too soon. So I smiled in the dark, even though I knew she couldn't see it. "Thank you, Carole."
"You're welcome. You slept through dinner, but there are some leftovers in the fridge if you want them." She stood and rearranged the blankets on the couch.
I felt like I should be doing or saying something else, but there wasn't anything left to say. So I nodded weakly and went back downstairs to sit on my half of the room, staring over at what used to be mine, and now belonged to a boy who wasn't here any more.
A part of me felt like I should unpack some of Finn's stuff, just so I would have an excuse to do something, but I wasn't sure if it was ok for me to do that. Considering the speed that Finn had unpacked the first few boxes, it would take until he was 40 to get them all taken care of, even if he were to come home tomorrow. Not to mention I was a little afraid that there might be things in some of those boxes that would rot and start to stink in a few days. Maybe he would be happy to come home and find his half of the room already set up for him, comfortable and familiar after wherever he had been.
Or maybe he'll freak out at the thought of you handling all of his stuff. Instead of presuming, and, remember, that's how you got into this situation with him in the first place, why don't you ask his mother what she thinks? Then the two of you will have something to do together, and Finn will have no excuse to freak out.
That was a good idea. It would be nice to have both sides of the room look lived in, so I could pretend, even for a few minutes, that Finn was there with me, even though I would know that he wasn't.
It was just a tiny thing, but at least I had a plan for tomorrow. It was the weekend for our once-a-month Saturday Glee Club rehearsal, but Mr. Shue had cancelled it for now. He didn't bring up the fact that, unless we could attract more members, it wasn't going to matter how many practices we had, since we would be too small to attend competitions otherwise, but we all knew it.
I would have been less disturbed about that if that didn't mean that the club would be cancelled. We didn't really stand a chance against Vocal Adrenalin anyway, especially now that Rachel was dating Jesse St. James, the new love of her life and the man who was probably going to end up destroying us.
Yeah, because it's not like you know all about crushing on someone totally inappropriate. You're just jealous because it worked out for her but not for you.
The only time that stupid voice was quiet was when I was asleep, so I got back into bed, even though I had only been awake for a few hours. The day had been emotionally exhausting, and getting plenty of sleep was not only good for the spirit, but would lead to fewer breakouts and few wrinkles down the line. Plus, it would have the added bonus of making this day end faster. That would be the best possible outcome right now.
Carole and I unpacked Finn's boxes the next day. Well, except the two that I had hidden in the back of my closet, the two that were clearly marked 'Keep Out!' and 'Private!' I was guessing that those boxes contained his stash of porn and other things that he didn't want Carole to see, and one brother protected the other from snooping parents. It was just what brothers did. See, I could treat Finn like a brother.
Sure, you're doing great. The sarcasm seared through my brain.
At least I was trying. It had taken a little less then three hours to unpack and get everything in its proper place. It would have taken far less time if I had just done it myself, but Carole had insisted on telling me stories as we went, and I was gaining a new and rather different picture of one Finn Hudson as she spoke.
Once she was gone, I paced Finn's side of the room, lightly touching things and wondering about the boy that had done the same just a week ago. There were pictures of people I had never met, and probably never would. If I squinted at a few, I could see how the little girl in the Easter dress, holding the baby bunny might grow up to be Britney, or that the kid in the cast would eventually cut his hair into a Mohawk and start going by his last name only, but some of them were strangers to me. Who was that dark haired boy in the football uniform, the one with one arm around Finn in a brotherly gesture? Was that Whose wedding had Finn been photographed at, barefoot and grumpy looking, but forcing a smile for the camera? Had he just been tired, or had he hated the bride or groom? Those were all things that I should have known, but didn't.
Because you didn't ask. I seem to recall the exact words coming out of your mouth: 'I'm going to put together a palette that expresses who you are, and who I want you to be.'
That was true, I guessed. There hadn't been that many times that Finn and I actually hung out, just the pair of us. There had been the week and a half that he was practicing my kicking skills, and the time that I had helped him with the Fabrays (which by the way, had been done with the best of intentions. Had I known what an asshole her father was, I would have suggested not telling them until the baby was crowning, possibly later) and…I guessed that was it. Ever since our parents started dating, he spent most of our time together glaring balefully at first my father then me. No one had told him that I was the one who set them up, but Finn isn't as stupid as he can act, and he knew that something was up.
I should have been asking who Finn wanted to be, since I was starting to figure out that I had no idea. I sat on the edge of his freshly made bed, made with dark blue sheets that didn't match anything else in the room, but they were his so I let it go, and picked up the old stuffed dog that was next to the pillow. Funny, I had never seen it before. Carole claimed that its name was 'Kitty', but really, it just looked like an old brown dog that been held too much and washed to often. Still it gave me something to do with my hands, while I thought about things.
How much did I really know about Finn Hudson? I knew that he liked football better then basketball, he had told Dad that. He liked soft rock, especially anything by REO Speedwagon. He had an amazing talent for attracting women who treated him like crap, that much was obvious to anyone. He could be talked into doing things that were incredibly stupid. He cheated of Britney in math because he still got his numbers all mixed up. He talked in his sleep and he always got up at least once at night. He thought I looked good in red.
That was it. 2 years of crushing on him, 8 months of being in Glee with him, 3 months of being drug along on our parents dates, and 5 days of sharing a room, and the sum total of what I knew about Finn Hudson was…not much. This could have been a stranger's room.
It was past time for me to be doing my face routines, but they just didn't seem important right now. Instead I went back upstairs and put some milk in the microwave. There were posters on the table with Finn's picture, the same one that Carole had in her wallet. I read over one of them. Name: Finnegan 'Finn' Jacob Hudson. Birthdate: 5/5/94. Height: 6'3 Race: White. Then the small note on the bottom: Finn was kidnapped from Lima Ohio March 19, 2009. He was last seen wearing jeans and a red and white striped shirt. Finn is to be considered endangered and any sightings should be reported immediately.
None of that was surprising, but it still hurt to see my brothers face on one of those missing posters. I passed them every time I went to the mall, every time I went grocery shopping, every time I went to any sort of public place and I never looked twice. Was that what would happen to Finn? Someone who might be able to help him would just walk on by the poster without giving it a second glance? All of those kids in the posters, they were someone's kids, too, and someone was missing them as much as we missed Finn.
I hugged myself in the otherwise dark kitchen, the milk long since cooked and burned, but someone unable to care. The next time Mercedes and I went to the mall, we were looking at all of those posters until we knew every name. It would probably mean nothing, but there was always the possibility that I would see someone and know them. Then karma might come around and let someone find Finn from his poster.
Do you really believe that?
No, not really. But I couldn't really do anything else and who knew? It couldn't hurt. And sometimes, not hurting and not making things worse was the very best you could do.