No matter how many times you chastise yourself, your eyes are drawn to her. They shouldn't be, but you can't help it. She catches your eye and you look away. You wish you had some semblance of your normal confidence, but she has a way of unwittingly breaking down every wall and defense you ever developed. Briefly you wonder when it came to this, but you can't pinpoint the moment you realized your jealousy over Finn was jealousy over her.
Your eyes shift over again just as she laughs at something Kurt says and you desperately wish you could make her light up that way. You wish you could offer her anything. You wish you could offer her everything, but she's straight and you're broken. God you feel so pathetic. She deserves the world and someday she'll have it. What you wouldn't do to be the one to give it to her. In that moment you decide to tell her.
Not right now, obviously, confessing your love to your supposed enemy in the middle of the cafeteria? You might as well go up to the hockey team and ask if they wouldn't mind adding you to their daily slushy facial rounds. No, not today, but after graduation, before everyone books it out of Lima, you'll tell her how you feel. That you can see thru the facade and think that she is one of the strongest, bravest people you know. That not a single person you can think of could have handled the past three years with as much grace as she has. That you've loved her since the first day she challenged you, albeit the realization came years later. No one challenges you the way she does, and every time it happens, you just fall helplessly deeper in love.
The minute you make the decision to tell her, it feels as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. For although you are still carrying this secret, having a plan makes you think you just might be able to make it through these last couple months at McKinley.
She catches your eye again and you think you detect the faintest hint of a smile before you hastily begin to gather your things and head out. As you amble towards your locker to get your books for your afternoon classes, you hear her voice calling your name and turn to see her jogging to catch up to you. Before you can even question her sudden appearance she blurts out "I know you watch me. When you think I'm not looking."
You try to stammer out a couple words (seriously when did you become so ineloquent?), but before you can form a coherent response, she leans in and whispers breathlessly in your ear "I know because I watch you too."
Oh god, is this what a stroke feels like?
"I've been waiting months for you to talk to me, but you haven't. Not a single word. Don't keep me waiting much longer."
And with a kiss on the cheek and a flirty wink, she's gone and you're left with your mouth open and your heart racing. Frantically you search your bag for your iPod, you have a song to find and a woman to woo, and somehow, caught off guard as you are by this turn of events, you know just the way to find the right thing to say.