𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 | s. lopez + b. pierce

Five

Jayden hummed along to You Are In Love (Taylor's Version) as she packed her suitcase for Los Angeles. Nationals were this weekend, and the New Directions were taking the week off from school to go to the city early – not that she was complaining, of course.

Graduation was just two weeks away. It was the beginning of the end, and the last thing she wanted was to sit in class with the people she's been stuck with since kindergarten.

She frowned when her song was interrupted by the sound of her Wildest Dreams ringtone. Skye looked at Jayden's phone, which was sitting on her desk and smiled when she saw the caller I.D.

"It's Cassie!"

Jayden gasped and dropped the shirt she was packing. She rushed over to her desk and accepted the call. "I was just about to call you!" she exclaimed.

"Really?" Cassie asked from the other end.

"Yeah! I wanted to know if you wanted to come to my nationals competition for Glee Club this weekend?" Jayden asked, her voice hopeful. She sat down on the edge of her bed, her knee bouncing a little in anticipation. Skye sat down next to her, and she held the phone between them so that she could hear, too.

"Glee Club?" Cassie raised a brow. "The same Glee Club that plays favorites and shoves you into the back, completely ignoring your talent?"

"Oh, no." Worry washed across Skye's face, her optimism fading. "She sounds upset."

Jayden took a breath to push away her nerves. "Not this time." She paused for a moment before continuing. "I-I wrote a song...Iris went with me to talk to Mr. Schue, and...he agreed to let me sing it as a solo at the competition."

Cassie gasped on the other end of the line. She leaned back in her office chair, a smile spreading across her face. "Jade, that's incredible," she said.

"Yeah, it's almost too good to be true," Bernadette grumbled. She sat down on the other side of Jayden, who put the phone on speaker so that they could all hear.

"What's the song called?" Cassie asked.

"I can't tell you that." Jayden giggled softly. She looked over at where her notebook was sitting open on her desk, the page covered in messy scribbles, doodles, and annotations. "I know it's a lot to ask with such short notice, but it would mean a lot if at least one of my parents was there this weekend."

Cassie frowned. "Your dads aren't coming?"

Jayden sighed and laid back against the mattress. She put a gentle hand on Stitch's stomach, feeling the rise and fall from his steady breathing as he slept peacefully. "They've never come to any of my competitions." She sighed. "I think they wanted to come to this one, but they got busy with work, so they won't be able to."

"If it were Rachel, they would've dropped everything to be there for her." Skye sighed sadly with a small pout.

"I'm not gonna cry about it." Bernadette shrugged. "They've made their decision, and now I have made mine. They're not our dads. We want absolutely nothing to do with them."

"Don't listen to her, Jay," Skye whispered as she gently brushed Jayden's hair out of her face. "They're proud of you. I know they are."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world, Jade," Cassie said, smiling. She wrote down a note for her assistant and crossed out some dates on her calendar. "I'll see you soon."

Jayden breathed out a quiet sigh in relief and smiled. "See you soon."

****