Dave sat on his bed, staring at his laptop, biting his nails. He was a wreck. It had shocked him to realise how much he cared about this.
He was gay. There was no going back now. He was waiting to see if he was going to be allowed get married.
But it didn't feel real yet. Like he was an outsider looking in.
And then it happened. The bill was passed. It had happened.
Love won. We won.
Dave sat as if paralysed on his bed, the tears falling freely down his face. His eyes flashed to his cell phone, but his mind was one step ahead of him, thinking of the one peron who meant anything to him anymore: Kurt Hummel.
Dave imagined Kurt celebrating happily with his boyfriend. They were probably jumping up and down, hugging, kissing.
Dave tried to clear his suddenly sore head. He thought about Santana, and tried to picture how she would be celebrating. She was probably the same as him. Alone, hiding, closeted. Happy, but internally dying.
To think of Santana gave Dave some perspective on his own situation. He felt pity for her, which scared him. He tried to reason through it in his mind, but there was no escaping it. If she should be pitied, so should he.
And he knew he could be happy about this if he only let himself. He knew how he could feel like part of the celebration, part of the community.
He wiped the tears from his face and squared his shoulders, standing up quickly. A single word flashed through his mind: Courage.
He walked straight down the stairs, into the kitchen where his mom was cleaning the sink.
"Mom," he said, his voice choking with the tears that he couldn't hold back anymore. "I have to tell you something."