Reading Between The Lines
~o~
She felt him before she saw him.
It was still as strong as she remembered: that feeling like she had just missed a step, where solid ground seemed to disappear from beneath her feet for a single, skipped heartbeat; that same hot flutter that he had always stirred in the pit of her stomach, without even trying. It was a dizzying sensation that had always been unique to him. An unmistakable recognition that hit her body before it reached her mind.
That same dark, knowing gaze met her own as she glanced up across McKinley's parking lot; an acknowledgement that passed without words or movement; a connection to his own rising star that she'd never been able to break, despite all her efforts.
Still, she could lie and conceal with the best of them now. An invaluable gift he had left her with, even if it was never intended.
The evening was cooling down, the sky streaked in dreamy hues of blue and violet, but the air between them took on an atmosphere of its own as their eyes locked and held in a challenge of expectation.
She almost wished someone would come looking for her, interrupt her breath of fresh air and pull her back to rehearsal, but a whispering part of her didn't want anything stumbling upon this stolen scene. It would be far too easy to shatter: to tear it down from the abstract safety of their private stage, a world that lay only amongst the pages of a script that both longed to abandon; all too easy to drag it under to the painful grit of reality.
He pushed off from the typically expensive vehicle behind him and calmly crossed the tarmac, stepping out from the shadows of the wings and moving into her spotlight; the only one who could ever share it like an equal.
There was a familiar tilt to his mouth, almost too subtle to see, but also a new tightness in his gaze, one that kept his secrets safe from the only person who could possibly read them. She held her ground, refusing to back away, not sure she could if she tried. He was here for a reason; he never did anything without a reason, a selfish justification that made sense only to him.
Her eyes ask the question while her expression keeps him at bay, drawing up an invisible line he doesn't even try to cross.
"You can't imitate them."
She felt her brow crease but didn't interrupt, picking up the rhythm of his thoughts immediately. She should have known. His timing had never been a coincidence. He shrugged slightly, tone light and dismissive, as if merely continuing the flow of a conversation they were already in the middle of. Introductions had never been a necessity between them.
"They always give a perfect show; it's what they do. You'll never best them at that. You need to capture something deeper." A faint smirk shadowed his lips for a moment. "You know, there's an advantage to barely having enough members to qualify. Use it."
Blinking, she looked down at the piece of paper she hadn't noticed him pass into her fingers. A single line, written in an elegant, sloping script, stared back at her.
She frowned and raised her head, calling out to his retreating figure, a demanding accusation in her voice.
"Why are you doing this? Since when do you care about New Directions?"
He turned around and met her eyes with something almost like bitter amusement.
"I don't care about New Directions."
Then he was gone, leaving nothing but the faintly echoing growl of an engine and purr of tyres in his wake.
Her fingers clenched around the note in her hand, the only evidence that he had even been there at all, except for the lingering ache in her chest and familiar burn in her veins. Half of her longed to tear it up; to rip it apart like he had so casually done to her, all the way back then. It wasn't like they needed the help. Not really. She swallowed and tried to even out her breathing, struggling to understand how he could slip in and out of her life with the ease and devastation that he did.
Yet her hand only closed tighter around his words, digging into the paper with the same force that gripped her heart; crumpled and angry and resentful…but still holding on.
Their scripts may be written for now, but what lay between the lines was so much more dangerous.
~o~
AN: This was supposed to be a drabble, but I just can't seem to keep to a hundred words! I'm determined to crack that challenge one day.
Reviews are shiny things that make my day glow :) Thanks for reading.