A/N: Wheels: saddest episode of Glee EVER?! I think yes. This little angsty plot came to me today in Chemistry when my teacher said something similar to the teacher in this fic. It made me think of Artie/Tina. Which made me sad. Which made me want to write about it.

Enjoy. /sarcasm

Tina tapped her pencil against her knee. She chewed the inside of her cheek. She fiddled with the thick silver ring on her left thumb. But nothing could distract her enough to make her forget how royally she had screwed up with Artie yesterday afternoon.

Why. Why did she have to tell him she didn't have a stutter? She could have just… just not told him. She could have completely skimmed over the fact that she really was nothing like him; she didn't have an abnormality that restricted her, as he did. She could have avoided the subject altogether. But she didn't, and the look on his face as she said it absolutely shattered her heart into a billion pieces, and she nearly drowned in shame as it washed over her. She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve such an amazing guy. And now he just wasn't talking to her except for a 'hi' or two in the halls. She could not believe she had ruined her only chance to be with Artie Abrams.

Suddenly she was jerked out of her reverie as she remembered she was in a class. Her attention sluggishly turned to her chemistry teacher, Mr. Drake, as he said, "Remember this rule of decomposition: Everything that can be made can be broken down. Scientists can work years to create an element, only to have it destroyed in seconds."

Tina snorted humorlessly. Everything that can be made can be broken down. Didn't she know it.