Polarized | Finn Hudson

Salt Water

I held Finn's hand tightly walking back into school. Everyone surprisingly remembered me and showered me with hugs and explanations about how much they missed me. I wanted to burst out crying seeing everyone, but I kept myself in tact throughout the day. Getting to Glee Club felt so amazing, walking in and feeling the loving and calming atmosphere consume me. I rehugged everyone so many times before sitting down in my seat which was pretty ice cold from not sitting in it for a while. I took in my surroundings and felt surreal being back home.

"Welcome back!" Mr. Schuester walked through the door and we all cheered. "Especially to Camila, we missed you dearly and we're so happy to have you back." He smiled and I nodded to him. "Now, I was approached with an idea by Mr. Kurt Hummel." He walked over to the board with the usual black marker. He wrote '___-pop' on the board and I cocked my head. "Now, here in America, pop music is just coined as 'Pop'. But, I want to explore more pop groups outside the US. This week, you guys have the assignment of exploring either K-pop, C-pop, or J-pop. The K-pop group will be standing for BTS, so all the guys besides Kurt will be doing one of their songs. For C-Pop, six girls will be chosen to do T-ara, and for J-pop, three girls will be chosen for Perfume."

Mr. Schuester pulled a box of pieces of paper (with either T-ara or Perfume written on them) out from one of the cabinet doors. He shook it around and one at a time, us girls went up and pulled one out, then heading back to our seat. I waited until everyone had theirs and opened mine to see I had gotten Perfume. "Now, Kurt will be judging how you depict each song when you perform it. Do you really know what you're singing about? Are you bringing the true meaning out of the song? Are you perfectly representing the groups? That is key. For the rest of the day you all will work with your groups on the assignments." Mr. Schuester clapped his hands and we wondered around to find who was with who.

BTS was the boys besides Kurt, T-ara was Rachel, Amelia, Tina, Santana, Angie, and Mercedes, and Perfume was Brooklynn, Brittany, and I. We all sat in the far back corner of the classroom and got to work. "Before we start, how was leading glee club while I was gone with Finn?" I asked Brooklynn. I chose her to take over my position as lead for everything while I was gone, even Sectionals. "It was fun, but I think I wanna wait till next school year to lead. Nothing was wrong it's just I wasn't used to it." She smiled happily. "Oh I'm sorry about that." I frowned. "No it's fine, it's something I'll do in future! But also, Finn was so hard to work with, but not in a bad way of course." She whispered.

"What do you mean?" I asked lowering my voice too. "All the decisions we made he felt bad about because you didn't put your opinion in. One day he cried because he thought you were gonna hate the idea we had for Sectionals even though it gave us a win and you weren't even there for it." She chuckled and I pouted at him as he was confusingly looking at the sheet music he was given. "Poor guy. I'll talk to him later, but for now, let's focus on Perfume." I nodded. "Wait, we're not selling perfume? It's an actual group?" Brittany finally spoke. I sighed and shook my head and took the time to explain it to her. "Alright, Camila can you key in the first line of the song?" Brooklynn asked. I nodded, cleared my throat, and opened my mouth.

A horrible, throat clenching, and shrieking note came out of my mouth and I immediately slapped a hand over it. Everyone had stopped and looked at me. I totally forgot I haven't sang a note in five months, and hadn't practiced since coming home. "Oh god." I whispered letting my hand drop. "Camila are you okay that sounded pretty painful." Mr. Schuester dropped what he was doing and walked over. "Uh, yeah can I just gargle some salt water?" I asked. "Of course, I'll come with you." He followed me out. I waited for him before we stopped in front of each other. "Try singing again." He asked softly.

I tried singing the first line again and it sounded so weak and pitiful. It sounded as though I never had a singing voice in the first place. It was terrible. "Let's go get the salt water and try again." He nodded walking with me. The nurse politely gave me a glass of salt water to sooth my throat and I took it slowly before going back to the hallway and trying agaim. This time, it sounded worst. I sounded like a mixture of puberty hitting me and a child yelling a song. "Oh god did I lose my singing voice?" I began to shake. "You might have." He frowned. I suddenly felt guilty.

"Mr. Schuester please don't kick me from glee club. I'm sorry I, I should've been practicing while I was a gone and I can pay for classes-" "Camila." He put his hands on my shoulders. "It's okay! We all lose it, it's just like when you got sick before Regionals sophmore year. It'll come back, just make sure you're practicing. I'd never make you leave anyways, even if you began to sound like a donkey." He chuckled.

"It's sorry Mr. Schue, I'm just still trying to adjust to changes and I'm so stressed." I sighed wiping my eyes. "I understand. Just take it easy and use as much time as you can to ease yourself back into singing. I know you have it in you, you just gotta dig it back out." He hugged me tightly.

*********

I know I know, I'm a TERRIBLE author at the moment. I'm sincerely sorry, but I promise it was for good measures. I was able to finish writing up the rest of this book with so many better ideas, so I promise more will be out and I do apologize for just leaving you on a note like last chapter.

Next, ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary cuties, Opposites, Aligned, and Polarized are officially entered into the 2017 Watty's! I'm so excited and hopefully one of them can take a win home! But it's okay if we dont, because receiving love from you all is the best win I could ever have.

I love you all so much!

-lex