Lover Dearest 3/20
Chapter Two [Part One]: It hurts me to say that I want you to stay…
A month into senior year, there were about a million different things I had to do. It was like holding a thousand pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and rushing to piece them all together.
One large chunk of the puzzle was Brittany's campaign for class president, which was at its peak. It was difficult not to resort to grabbing students by their collar - particularly those wimpy freshmen - and threaten them into voting for her. But Brittany refused to do dirty politics, and she didn't need it, either. Running against Kurt and some math geek, she was topping all the polls. It seemed pretty clear that practically everyone was rooting for her. Her campaign was admittedly bizarre, with the rainbow-haired unicorn and all, but everyone loved her. It was difficult not to.
Cheerios was another portion of my massive puzzle. Both Brittany and I were back on the squad, and I'd made co-captain, with the surprisingly vicious Becky Jackson. Between the two of us, everyone had expected me to be the insanely pushy and unrelentingly mean leader, but Becky filled that position in just fine. She'd taken Coach Sylvester and channeled her perfectly everyday at practice. That left me to be the calm pacifier, a role I had absolutely no experience in - outside of Brittany - and it made me feel like I was walking outside my own skin. It would have been so much easier to be as brutal as Becky, but on that one week when I was, half the squad quit within the first ten minutes of practice. It took Brittany's careful coaxing for all of them to come back, almost two weeks later. I had to content myself with being passively aggressive, which honestly was no fun at all. But Brittany seemed to prefer it, so the attitude stayed.
Then there was Quinn. Cold, distant, untouchable. It seemed that over the summer, she'd stumbled across the phrase "drastic makeover" and taken it to heart. The Quinn Fabray Brittany and I comforted back in New York was transformed into this enigmatic pink-haired gothic persona. Everything about her reminded me of this character from the Steig Larsson Trilogy: the way she dressed, the way she walked, the blank look she'd give us when we tried to talk to her. But most of all, the way she was like a ghost, difficult to get a hold of and constantly absent. Especially from Glee Club.
Speaking of. There were so many tiny separate events happening in New Directions that I couldn't keep track of everything anymore. We had a new member, a freshman named Rory, an Irish lad Brittany's family had adopted from Europe during their two-week vacation there. Chang was being pressured by his parents to quit the club, ever since he went and landed himself an A- (so-called Asian F. Seriously, what is it with these Asians and their freaking intelligence) in a chemistry test. Rachel and Kurt were looking into colleges in New York, which piqued my interest, though I told no one about it.
Since Quinn wasn't around, Kurt's transferee boyfriend took it upon himself to attempt to fill the gaping hole she'd left behind. Not that anyone could take Q's place, in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if the first few weeks Blaine Anderson spent in Glee Club were the worst of his life: I kept finding ways to make him feel thoroughly unwelcome. It annoyed the hell out of everyone in the club, but only Brittany understood why I was doing it. She had whispered to me one time as we were walking from rehearsals to practice: "You really miss Q, don't you?"
I ignored her comment, but that only made her smile even more. She looked around to see if anyone was around, before swooping in and laying a chaste kiss on my cheek. That made me smile.
By far, the most important part of my puzzle was keeping my promise to Brittany. Every Wednesday and Friday, no matter how exhausted we were from practice, or campaigning, or Glee Club, I'd be at her house at 7PM sharp, armed with books and notes I'd made myself. I taught her everything I understood from Algebra to English to Physics. We would read and rephrase everything so that Brittany could understand it on her own terms. The test Mike Chang got an Asian F on? She'd earned a B+. That, as she called it, was "Brittany A."
On the day when we learned our results for that test, Brittany gave me this really wonderful smile that made my heart bubble with happiness. I really wanted to kiss her then, in front of the whole Glee Club, regardless of the consequences. I felt extremely brave for a split second, and Brittany could see it in my eyes. But just as I began to lean forward, Blaine walked in dripping from a slushie facial, muttering about homophobic football players. I drew back, barely catching the look of hurt that flashed in her eyes. When I got home that night, I buried my face in my pillow and cried my heart out.
Because I wanted to, so fucking badly. For her part, she was waiting patiently, not trying to force me into anything. But as the time kept ticking by, it became more and more difficult to look into her eyes, because I could see all the questions there, the broken expectations and the disappointed longing.
I was such a stupid coward, still so scared, so conscious of the external world. Every night I asked myself the same questions: "Why are you holding back? Why are you still afraid? Isn't she worth everything?"
And every night, I received the same answers. I knew she was worth everything. She was the only thing I needed - but I craved the approval of people like oxygen. She was the only person who could truly make me happy - but I still felt as though I didn't really deserve her. It all felt like a sick, cruel joke. I was beckoning her with one hand and pushing her away with the other.
Everything changed, though, in Sectionals. We performed a medley of two songs with the word "Someday" in the titles (Mr. Schue and his weird song choices), finishing everything off with an original song Mike, Blaine and Puck wrote, about chasing your dreams and following your heart. It was pretty impressive. And the judges were obviously pretty impressed, too.
When we were announced as the winners, everything was an indistinct blur of bright colors and vibrant sounds. I found myself hugging Rachel and high-fiving Blaine - but when I turned around and saw Brittany embracing Artie, my whole world seemed to freeze.
I felt myself moving. I stopped myself from thinking twice, from focusing on anything else. I had developed tunnel vision, and at the end of the tunnel was Brittany, no one else.
When she saw me approaching her, she leapt to her feet, beaming brightly. I didn't give her any choice.
I just kissed her.