Push to the Limit (the sixth book in the Glee series)

Chapter 77: Chadcedes

"Should we sit at the back or..?" Lyric said as she and John tried pushing past a crowd of parents at the entrance of the McKinley auditorium. Before John could answer, she spotted familiar faces in one of the middle rows and said, "Oh look. Rory and the others are over there."

John tried hard not to make it obvious that he had no interest in spending time with 'the others' despite how much Lyric had hyped up the group. He was fine with Rory, though in all honesty he hadn't hung out with the guy much since his senior year of high school. Given that that was a decade ago, he still would've rather sat beside him than anyone else Lyric was forcing him to hang out with, which led to his disappointment when it didn't happen. Instead, he ended up between Lyric and Sarah Linley's roommate Isaac, who seemed a lot more interested in searching the audience than preparing to watch the show.

The New Directions under Finn Hudson had changed a lot in just the last couple of years. Most of the kids who John had met when he was still going there to help out and mentor the group had already graduated or were about to. The only ones he knew now were the freshman from the first year he'd returned since joining the band and they were now seniors. Time really flew by.

As John tried to tune out the conversation that had broken out about performance outfits, Kayli, Riley and Jeremy took a seat three rows ahead, with Riley carrying a small bag of popcorn and pack of twizzlers despite school insistance that no food was brought into the auditorium.

"I can't believe this is our first time coming back as an actual alumni," said Kayli, looking around the room.

"You're not alumni," Jeremy told her and Riley. "Neither of you graduated from here."

"I took my GED here, though," Kayli told him.

"And I gave this school the best years of my life," Riley added, raising her chin. "I think it oughta pay me back for that."

"Oh my god, look," Kayli said, pointing them towards stage right. "I think that's Ade poking her head out through the curtains." She tried waving at her but went unnoticed as her old friend returned backstage. "She didn't see me..."

"You think it's weird for them to see you?" asked Riley. "Ade and Autumn, and Gunnar and Gigi... The last time you were with them you were an annoying cheerleader and then you dropped out, joined a girl group, released an album, and became an instant hit."

Kayli smiled and said, "I was not an annoying cheerleader, first of all. But yeah, I guess I could understand them getting a little starstruck. I should hang out with them after the show and let them know to just be cool and normal around me. After all, I was once their star performer and someone they could probably stand to learn from."

"Ugh," Riley said, having completely ignored her. "I just saw incest twins headed backstage together. You think they'll get married when they graduate? They're juniors now."

"Maybe," Kayli shrugged.

"There are two disgusting things in this world," Jeremy told them. "You girls shipping Ezra and Aria when we had that Pretty Little Liars marathon and calling Madison and Mason McCarthy incest twins."

"Really, Jeremy?" Riley asked him. "Of all the disgusting things in the world those are the two that bother you? What about pedophilia and bestiality, huh? What about genocide and human sacrifice?"

"Crystal Army," said Kayli, spotting Sam, Tyler and a few of the people they usually hung around with making it to one of the front rows.

"Yeah, Jeremy," Riley nodded. "What about Crystal Army?"

As the two argued semantics, Kayli watched Sam talk to his friends, smiling as a student and her mother came up to ask for an autograph. He and Tyler obliged, even taking a picture with the fan and Kayli could just tell that they had made the girl's year in those fifteen seconds.