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Mercedes was single. She was sure that plenty of people in her high school were, but most of her friends in Glee Club were not, and she was getting tired of it. She had tried dating that guy Shane for a while, and he had been nice...but kissing him felt like kissing her brother (she assumed, since she didn’t actually have a brother). It was boring. She’d listened to Rachel and Kurt talk on and on (and on) about how exciting it was to be with their respective boyfriends, and she definitely wasn’t feeling any of the magic or fireworks that they kept talking about. So one day she sat Shane down for a talk and explained to him that she wasn’t in love with him, and that she thought they shouldn’t try to force something to exist between them. He had hugged her tightly and wished her well, and six weeks later he was dating someone else.
High school sucked.
Until the day that the notes started.
The first one came in that weird time between Thanksgiving and Christmas where everyone’s brain is already on vacation even though they have end-of-semester exams to take. Mercedes was at her locker putting away her history textbook and getting the one for calculous when a little paper fell out and fluttered down to her feet.
“You dropped something,” Kurt informed her helpfully, bending to grab it and then handing it to her. “There you go!” He loudly air-kissed next to her ear and was off to his next class before she even had a chance to unfold the paper and read what it said.
I just want you to know that I think
you’re beautiful, and people should
tell you so more often.
xo
Mercedes glanced around herself in a vain attempt to discover who had left the note in her locker, but of course the person was long gone.
Even without knowing who it was though, Mercedes felt a little extra lilt in her step for the rest of the day. It does a girl good to hear that she’s beautiful, even if she doesn’t know who said it. She kept the note and took it home, putting it in her jewelry box for safekeeping so that she could look at it when she was having a bad day.
-----
The next note showed up about a week later. Mercedes had assumed that the first note was a one-time ‘random act of kindness’ or something, so she was surprised when another appeared in her locker as mysteriously as the first.
They say heaven is full of angels singing,
but I don’t need to go to heaven to
hear an angel sing, because you are
right here on earth.
xo
Mercedes blushed and glanced around herself as she had the first time, but no one in the hallway took any notice of her. So she gathered her books, carefully tucking the note into her purse, and continued with her day.
That night she took the note home and put it in her jewlery box next to the first one.
-----
There was a note on the day before Christmas break.
I will miss seeing your gorgeous
smile these next two weeks. I hope
you have a great Christmas.
xo
It went into the jewelry box with the others.
-----
On the first day back to school Mercedes tried not to get her hopes up, but she couldn’t help it. When she opened her locker after lunch and saw the little folded paper she squealed out loud, causing Kurt to look at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Mercedes?” he questioned.
“I got a, um,” she reached for the note. “I mean, I have…” she trailed off, not sure how to explain. “I’ve been getting notes in my locker for a little while,” she explained.
“Notes?” his eyebrow was still high and she knew a Kurt Hummel ‘judging’ face when she saw it.
“They’re just…” she snapped her mouth shut and looked pointedly at the note.
Grace and confidence are not often
found together in the same woman.
You are rare and precious.
xo
Having read it for herself, she thrust it at Kurt. “Read it,” she instructed.
He did so quickly, his eyes getting wider until he pressed it back into her hands. “Mercedes Jones, I do declare, you have a secret admirer!”
“I--”
“This is fabulous! Do you know who it is?”
“No.”
“Well then, we shall have to try to figure it out!”
With her own curiosity piqued already, she quickly agreed.
-----
Kurt determined that he and Blaine would both take detours between classes so that they could watch her locker for as much of the day as possible. Obviously the note writer would notice if Mercedes were staking out her locker, but Kurt figured that he and Blaine could do it discreetly.
As it turns out, he was right. It took a few more weeks, and they missed two note deliveries in that time, but in early February Blaine saw Sam Evans--the shy transfer student from Kentucky--slip a note into Mercedes’ locker between second and third periods.
“We found him,” Kurt announced covertly after he and Blaine had pulled Mercedes to their table in the lunch room.
“You found him?” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yep!” Kurt bit his lip and practically bounced in his chair. “I knew this would work!”
“So?” she looked back and forth between them.
Blaine placed a careful hand on her shoulder, leaned until his chin was right next to hers, and carefully pointed across the room. “Do you know him?”
“Do I know who, you’re kind of pointing at half the room, Blaine.”
“Sam Evans, the tall blond one, there.”
“Oh!” Yes, Mercedes knew who he was. He was a year younger than she was, so they didn’t share any classes, but she’d seen him in the halls a few times. He was cute! And if the notes he wrote were anything to go by, he was really sweet too.
“Are you sure?”
Blaine nodded seriously. “Yep, I watched him put in the note this morning.”
“Sooo,” Kurt rested his elbows on the table, laced his fingers together, and rested his chin on them. “How do you want to tell him?”
“I have no idea,” Mercedes admitted. These last few weeks she had been so focused on finding out who it was that she hadn’t thought about what she would do once she had the information. She fingered the note in her purse.
Your kindness and gentleness warm
my heart every time I see you.
xo
“You could just walk over there and say hello,” Blaine suggested.
“Are you insane?” Kurt turned to glare at his boyfriend. “He’s obviously leaving secret notes because he’s nervous of being found out. If she walks over to him right now he will probably scream and run. She needs a more discreet way to talk to him.”
“What if--” Mercedes had only half-formed the thought as she began to speak it. “What if I put a note in his locker?”
Both of the boys’ heads snapped in her direction.
“Or that,” Blaine said. “That could work.”
-----
Mercedes spent most of the evening composing her note instead of doing homework. She had to get this right. If Sam was too shy to talk to her directly, then she had to be careful to not scare him off. After several catastrophic attempts she decided to go with simple:
You have made my day a dozen times
over. Can I take you out for coffee?
Mercedes
The next day (after Blaine tailed Sam for long enough to find out which locker was his), Mercedes took a deep breath, and slipped the note into Sam’s locker.
Kurt squeezed her hand and pecked her cheek. “I’m so excited for you ‘Cedes, this is going to be great!”
“I hope so,” she replied nervously. “I don’t really know him, I don’t know how he’s going to take this.”
“He likes you enough to be leaving notes for you. Of course he’s going to take it well!”
-----
Sam didn’t take it well.
At least, he didn’t seem to.
It might be more accurate to say that he didn’t react at all. Mercedes got another note two days later, but it didn’t mention her note, or coffee, or anything to indicate that she had reached out to him at all.
Mercedes sat next to Kurt and Blaine at lunch a few days later and tried to make sense of it all. “I get it if he’s too shy to talk to me, but why wouldn’t he even mention anything in the note?”
Kurt shrugged and Blaine’s eyebrows furrowed deeply.
“It’s Valentine’s Day on Friday and I don’t even know if I should plan a girl’s night or a date night!” Mercedes moaned, chasing a tater tot around her plate with her fork and stabbing it unnecessarily hard.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Kurt said. “I wish I did.”
“That’s it,” Mercedes decided. “I just have to talk to him, face to face.”
“Or sing to hi--” Blaine was cut off by Kurt’s elbow in his ribs.
“Do you need moral support?” Kurt offered. “We could go with you.”
“No,” Mercedes felt calmer now. “I think I know just how to do this.”
-----
Mercedes had been noticing Sam more these last few days, and one thing she had noticed was that he went to the God Squad club. She decided that today she was going too, and that she’d find a chance to talk to him.
The meeting was simple and brief, but Mercedes couldn’t keep herself from looking over at Sam every few minutes. She tried to be discreet, but he was so earnest when he spoke, and seemed so considerate. Between that and the notes he seemed like a great guy, and she was excited to get to know him better. At the end of the meeting she hurriedly grabbed her book bag and stepped up next to him.
“Hi Sam,” she said softly.
He startled, looking at her with wide eyes and stammering, “uh, hi.”
“I came here today because I wanted to talk with you,” she explained.
“I noticed you looking at me.”
She dipped her head and blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
He grinned. “It’s ok, it’s flattering actually.”
She smiled back, gathered her courage, and blurted, “willyougogetcoffeewithme?”
“What?” he blinked a few times.
“Will you go get coffee with me?”
Sam looked around the room awkwardly, like he would rather be anywhere but there. “Um, I can’t, I have to hurry home so I can babysit my little brother and sister…”
“Oh…”
“But maybe tomorrow? If that’s ok?”
“Yes, absolutely, yes!”
-----
The next day she met Sam by his locker after school and they walked to The Lima Bean together. She bought two coffees and they sat down to talk. Mercedes talked about singing at her church and wishing she could get more solos in Glee Club. Sam talked about his family and how they had always moved a lot, but that he liked Lima and hoped he could at least finish high school there.
After an hour and a half, Mercedes finally brought up the elephant in the room. “Sam, why didn’t you respond to me when I left that note in your locker?”
His eyes bulged and his mouth fell open. “That was you?”
She squinted at him. “Uh, how many Mercedes do you think there are at McKinley?!”
Sam shrugged and turned his chin into his shoulder bashfully. “Well I know who you are now, but I didn’t then.”
Mercedes was stunned. “But you’ve been leaving notes in my locker for two months!”
Sam scrunched his face. “Notes in your locker?”
“Yes!” Mercedes may have been getting a little theatrical now but who could blame her?
“I never left a note in your locker,” Sam said softly. “I didn’t even know your name until you introduced yourself yesterday at God Squad. When you asked me out I was flattered, because you’re a senior and I am just--”
“You never left a note in my locker,” Mercedes repeated, staring at the lid of her coffee cup. “But Blaine saw you put a note in my locker, how could it have not been you?”
“I’m sorry if I’m not who you thought I was,” Sam said, shifting awkwardly in his chair. “Does that mean you didn’t want to be here with me then?” he looked up at her nervously.
“Last week, didn’t you leave a note in a locker in the hallway next to the astronomy room?” Mercedes asked, still focused on that detail.
“Yes, one of my friends had to miss history class to go to the dentist. I was giving him a copy of the notes.”
“Locker 464?”
“Locker 468,” Sam corrected. “I remember because it was even numbers in increasing order.”
Mercedes rolled her eyes. “Good lord, what are the chances.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam looked sad now. “Maybe I can help you find the person who was leaving you notes?”
Mercedes looked straight at Sam for several long seconds before responding.
“No, I don’t think you can,” she finally breathed.
“Don’t you want to find them?”
She smiled, sliding her arm across the table to clasp his hand in her own. “Not anymore.”