The driver

chapter 19: Spotlight

Finn pried open his eyes with Herculean effort. His vision was blurry and his head felt like it had been split open with a tomahawk. He had never been more hung over in his life. It had taken a second to remember where he was. He rubbed his eyes vigorously and reopened them. As his vision began to clear up, the first thing he saw was a small girl sitting across the aisle from him, smiling enthusiastically.

"Umm, hey," Finn said nervously, trying to sit up in his seat.

"You're a movie star aren't you?" the little girl said.

"I guess you can say that," Finn said sheepishly

"I'm going to be a movie star too."

"Oh yeah?" Finn said, yawning.

"Yeah, I'm going to be in my school's play. I wanted to play Dorothy, but they made me a Munchkin instead," she said sadly. "They gave the part to this mean girl Liz just because she has long hair."

"Hey, that's alright," Finn said, "They gave my part to Anton Yelchin."

"Haylie, leave Mr. Hudson alone," said the girl's mother.

"It's okay," Finn said. The woman shrugged and went back to reading her book.

"So, why are you going to Ohio?" Haylie said.

"To see a girl," Finn said.

"That's nice, I'm going to see my grandma."

"Mr. Hudson, can I get you anything?" Said the flight attendant passing by.

"A water and Tylenol please," Finn said.

"Are you sick?" said Haylie as the flight attendant went to fetch his water.

"No, not sick I just have a really bad hang— I mean, yeah," Finn said.

"When I'm sick I like to eat tomato soup with goldfish crackers," she said.

"Hey me too," Finn said, perking up.

"Like when you were a kid?" she said

"Heck no, I still do," he said.

"You're funny," she said, giggling.

"Thanks," said Finn, both to Haylie and to the flight attendant who brought him his water. "So a Munchkin huh?"

"Yeah, it's lame I know." she said.

"Are you kidding? The munchkins were always my favorite," he said.

Haylie perked up a little at his reassurance. "So what's she like? The girl you're going to see? Is she pretty?"

"Yeah, she's very pretty. She's kind of mad at me though."

"Why, what did you do?"

"Well let's just say it can be kind of hard being Finn Hudson's girlfriend," Finn said.

"Why? You're super cute," She said.

"Well, thanks kid. I happen to think you're super cute too."

Haylie tried to contain her giant smile.

"I hope your girlfriend takes you back," she said.

Finn put his head back down and smiled hopefully, "Yeah, me too"

Rachel had been glee club director for only a week but she had already begun to feel attached to the kids. They all reminded her of her, she could tell that their dreams were too big for Lima, just like hers were way back when. She wondered where everything went wrong, why she decided to leave it all behind at the drop of a hat. Would the kids in glee turn out the same way, and what kind of role model could she really be having given up the way that she did. As she pondered all of these things the apprehension she felt over the decision she'd made early that morning began to fall away.