Yesterday's Gone

Chapter 3: The Guitar

Sam had only opened the door a few inches before he wished he hadn't opened it at all. Finn and Rachel stood there, side by side, waiting to be welcomed in as if they were his dearest friends.

He had to think fast. "Um… I'm trying to get my sister to sleep," he lied. He tried to close the door, but Finn stopped it with his foot.

"Dude, please!" Finn said. "Please, just let us in."

Sam would have loved to slam the door in their faces, but before he could, Stacy joined him by the door, smiling eagerly. "Hi!" she said. "I'm Stacy." Sam looked down at her, nervous. He hadn't counted on her making an appearance.

"Hi, Stacy," Rachel greeted her sweetly. "I'm Rachel. This is Finn."

"Hi," said Finn.

Sam forced a smile. "Well, sh-she's up now," he said, although he knew seeing Stacy in day clothes had proven to his visitors that he'd been lying. He opened the door to let them in. "Beats a cardboard box underneath an underpass, right?" he quipped somberly as they looked around the cramped room. "We keep the rest of our stuff in my dad's car." Most of that 'stuff,' of course, was a few boxes full of warm clothes for the winter, some family photos, and other belongings that no one else would have valued highly enough to buy from them.

"This is everything you own?" Rachel asked. She sounded horrified, but cautious about showing it.

"We sold everything else," explained Sam.

The two of them glanced at each other wordlessly. After a while, Stevie asked, "Can we watch TV?"

"Yeah, sure," Sam told him, picking his little brother up and tossing him playfully onto the bed closest to the television, making him laugh. "Keep it low, though. Mr. Jensen next door is on the night shift again." He turned on the old set to the only kids' channel they could get at that motel. Then, he remembered that he still had a granola bar left in his backpack which Quinn had brought him during school. Still wanting to look as normal as possible to his visitors, he offered it to his little brother. "You want a snack?" he asked, trying to forget that he'd been saving it for dinner.

"Alright," replied Stevie.

Sam turned to Stacy and tossed her onto the bed, too. "You, too; get over there…" he mumbled, grinning at them. Stacy giggled and crawled across the bed to sit with Stevie. His grin vanished, however, when he turned back to his classmates.

"I… I don't understand," said Finn. "What happened?"

Sam sighed and instinctively brushed his hair out of his eyes. "We moved up here from Tennessee, you know, cause my dad got a really good job offer," he explained quietly, "and… the economy went to hell, and it was 'last ones in, first ones out.' We spent our life savings on the move and down payment on the house…" Frustration welled up in his heart just thinking of how quickly things had disintegrated from there. "You know, when the bank takes your house, they literally take it," he told them, almost glad to finally have someone new to talk about all this with. "They come by one morning and kick you out of your own house. Just… lock you out."

"Why didn't you tell us what was going on?" Finn breathed, although he looked like he'd already heard enough for one day.

Sam shook his head almost imperceptibly. He knew what story would most likely frequent the front page of the Muckraker now that he'd told the truth to the entire Glee Club. "You've seen how information flies around that school, right?" Realization began to dawn on Finn's face, the same way it had when he'd found out about Sam living in that motel in the first place. "Do you think people would've just treated me the same if they found out? I'd be even more of a freak. Kurt only found out cause I got a job delivering pizzas at night, and happened to bring one to Dalton." Sam cringed a little at the memory of how he'd felt when Kurt saw him at the door. Kurt, of course, had invited him in, but he had only stayed a few minutes; there had been more orders to deliver, more work to do.