THURSDAY:

Sam was playing dumb—all of their friends were, too. Sam was her 'admirer'. Mercedes desperately wanted to believe this—repeating it almost like a mantra in her head over the last couple of days—but she couldn't quell the little doubts in her mind—especially after the way Shane had been looking at her on the quad. His eyes had followed her as she goofed around with her friends, and stayed with her until she disappeared back inside the building.

It could have ended then. She could have asked him about it, but she'd been too afraid of his answer to bring herself to do it. What if he'd admitted to being responsible for all of this? She didn't trust herself not to crumble in disappointment in front of him, and how rude would that have been?

She had broached the subject with Sam, however—subtly trying to probe him via text message the night before. That had proven a fruitless task. She hadn't been any more certain of his involvement at the end of the exercise than when she'd started.

M: So, flowers and a courtyard serenade. Pretty romantic, huh?

S: Uhm…sure. Yeah. It was nice. You seemed happy.

M: I was happy. This is all a nice surprise when I'd just about given up on the prom, you know? I wonder who'd do something like that for me.

S: It's not all that surprising. You deserve nice things. I'm glad you're happy, after everything…

M: I'd be a whole lot happier if I knew who this mystery person was, though…

He hadn't replied to her texts after that—only called her an hour later saying his phone had died. Before she could prod him about it any further, he'd moved on to asking if she'd seen the latest episode of Psych—more specifically, was he allowed to talk to her about it yet because he didn't want a repeat of the last time he'd spoiled her. He claimed he still had bruises to show for that.

That had started a debate, and before Mercedes knew it, she was going on about plot lines in the latest episode, and he was having a conversation as both Shawn and Gus and she'd been laughing entirely too much to remember what she really wanted to tell him.

Her friends weren't any better—either not answering her calls or giving her the tried and true, "I don't know anything." She'd side-eyed Tina hard, in particular, at that answer. Tina always knew something.

Needless to say, she was frustrated as hell.

Prom was a day away and she still wasn't even a hundred percent sure who she'd agreed to go with. Who even did that? She believed with all of her heart that it was Sam, but there was still that nagging fear that it wouldn't be—or that even if it was, he wouldn't want the same things to result from this as she did.

She wanted this night to be a new beginning, but what if he'd only done this to appease her hurt feelings—as her friend; one last hurrah before they went their separate ways. It would be her luck for her to finally sort out what she wanted, only to have Sam realize he wanted something else.

Or what if it wasn't him at all?

She knew it'd break her heart if this all didn't pan out the way she wanted.

Mercedes rolled her eyes as she strolled up to her locker. This entire situation was turning her into a walking ball of drama and she didn't love it. She sighed as she pulled open her locker door and stopped short at its contents. As consuming as the rumblings in her mind had been that entire day, she'd completely forgotten about the token that would 'await' at her locker. She smiled a bit sadly as she lifted the card placed in front of the small gift bag in her locker. As appreciative as she was of the gestures, she'd be happier with some answers—happier if she knew Sam felt the way she did.

I read somewhere that diamonds are the strongest, brightest, most beautiful gems in the entire world. I thought it was only fitting you should have them.

Mercedes' face was etched with her astonishment. She reached for the gift bag with shaking fingers and pulled out the little velvet box. Inside of it sat two beautiful diamond stud earrings. Her thoughts were running a mile a minute. He'd given her diamonds—expensive diamonds.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn't know whether to kiss him or kill him. She didn't even know if the 'him' she thought of in her head was the same him doing all of this. This was all getting more frustrating by the second.

Storing the earrings safely in her purse, she went off toward her first class, determined to finally corner Sam that day and get everything out in the open. At the start, she'd been happy to go along with the game—to enjoy it, but the not-knowing was literally killing her now. This needed to end right then.

Except…she hadn't seen Sam anywhere around the school—and she'd been looking all over.

Coach Roz sent her on with a colorful message to relay for not showing up to swim practice that morning—something about flaking being worse than peeing in her pool. Mercedes didn't know what that meant, but it seemed intense. She feared for Sam's safety a little bit. She all but ran away from the woman once her speech was over.

Everywhere else she tried was more of the same. Texting him yielded no answer. He was even absent from Glee and Mercedes took the moment to interrogate Kurt about it.

"He wasn't feeling well this morning," Kurt said simply while Mercedes eyed him. He looked at her confusedly as she stared him down, looking for a lie.

"Why don't you call him or something if you're so upset about it," Kurt suggested before slowly turning his attention to Blaine. Mercedes sighed.

It was simple. She'd been thwarted. All of the senior girls would be out of school tomorrow busy with their prom errands. Sorting all of this out would have to wait until the prom itself.

Dammit.

A/N: We're getting to the eeeeeeend. Please review?