Happiness [Book 2]

Chapter 1 - Tonight Tonight

Deep breath, in and out. It's your junior year, Marley Rose, and you've done this all before. You've conquered the daunting hallways of William McKinley High School, you've stood on the Regionals stage and sung your heart out, and you've found yourself an amazing, kind, and talented group of friends. You will have no problems this year.  You won't miss Ryder. You will be happy. 

As I left for the very first day back at school, I repeated the mantra over and over again: you will be happy, you will be happy, you will be happy. 

I knew, at a logical level, that I had nothing to worry about this year. I hadn't been coping all that well, at first. I could hardly speak to Ryder as he got settled in at his new home in Florida. I said goodbye to a lot of my friends from Glee, like Brittany Pierce who left for Michigan, Sam Evans, Blaine Anderson, and Artie Abrams who followed the others to New York, and Tina who (surprisingly) ended up at college in Texas. It was hard, to be so distant from people I cared so much about. But I spent my summer with my friends here, in Ohio, like Jake Puckerman, Kitty Wilde, Unique Adams, Joe Hart, and Sugar Motta. The group felt slightly lacking without Ryder, but we still had the best time. We spent mornings get breakfast, we spent afternoons in Sugar's pool, and we spent evenings watching Joe and Kitty perform at many youth group events. Jake and I had spent the most time together; he was a real shoulder to lean on while I coped with learning to live without my boyfriend. I was finally coming to terms with the fact that Ryder was, simply, in another state. And I was fine. 

I pushed open the double doors to William McKinley High School and stared at the bustling students in front of me. I remembered feeling so frantic, so lost on my first day at school exactly one year ago today. I remembered feeling so out of place, until Ryder showed up and made me feel whole once more. The sadness hit me sharply and suddenly, like a tsunami - I missed Ryder Lynn. 

I walked straight down the middle of the hallway. Freshman bumped me every which way, but I felt numb to it all. I had to be doing this all over again, but without my... my safety net. 

"Marley Rose! Marley Rose!" The curly haired boy I knew as Jacob Ben Israel ran at me, pushing a microphone and a camera into my face. "How are you coping with your retarded boyfriend being in Florida?"

His use of the slur hit me like a ton of bricks. I stopped walking and stared him up and down. "Shouldn't you have graduated?"

"N-no." He stuttered. "I repeated my freshman year, and now I'm a sophomore, because I repeated again." 

I looked him up and down again, gave as much of a smile as I could muster, and kept on walking. He chased after me, still calling my name. I was about to make the sharp turn to my locker when I saw Phil coming toward me with a slushie cup in his hand.

And as you'd expect, it came flying right at my face.

I felt the all too familiar stinging sensation in my eyes, as the coldness dripping down my dress, into my bra, and onto my stomach. It was simultaneously the worst and the best thing to happen. The worst, because it hurt. The best, because it had been the hottest summer on record. 

I spun around, to where I knew Jacob was standing with his camera. "Is it possible to cut that part out?" I asked in a whisper.

"No," Jacob stated, emotionless, reaching his hand out to scrape some slushie off of my shoulder. I grabbed his hand and flung it away from me. 

Out of what seemed like nowhere, my good friend Jake Puckerman appeared. "What a way to start the new year!" He laughed ever so slightly, pushed the camera out of my face, and let me to the girl's bathroom by the elbow. 

I stared at my reflection in the already filthy mirror. I was soaked in green, from the top of my head to the top of my thighs. My hair, freshly washed, was now stringy and... green. Jake handed me a wet paper towel and I dragged it across my face to get rid of the bright coloured stain. While I did that, Jake carefully pulled chunks of ice out of my hair.