You've only been here once before. In this choir room with the girl you've been in love with since the day you met her serenading you and you alone. The last time this happened, it was before everything else happened - all of the good and all of the bad - and it seems strangely fitting that you should bookend your relationship like this. It makes sense that she's begging you for another chance this way, saying it was the way she tried to tell you everything she couldn't say back when she was still hiding.
The thing is though, you'd rather be anywhere else right now than here. You can't take the look on her face or the crack in her voice or how close she is to you. After nights and nights of staring at a screen and being so alone that you didn't know what to do, you'd think that you'd crave her comfort. Now that she's here though, nothing's the same. It's too little too late and that's why only minutes ago you choked out that you can't do this anymore.
That's when she started begging and pleading and telling you that things would be different. She told you she can't lose you, that you're the best thing that's ever happened to her. That you're the best thing that's ever been hers. The best thing.
That's when she asked you to just give her five minutes, five more minutes to try and show you how in love with you she is, and you thought she deserved at least that. She looked so broken that you don't even know where you'd start trying to her. That's when the sound of an acoustic guitar came from her iPhone - like she's had these backing tracks on her phone for a long time, and you wondered how many times she's sang the words thinking about you - and she started singing words about college and leaving and you don't know why she'd choose a song that just reminds you of everything that you want to forget.
Then.
I was a flight risk with a fear of fallin'Wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts
You think back to before she admitted everything, before there was honesty and you think about how scared she was. About how fragile everything was.
You think about when you both joined Glee club and you met Rachel and Finn and all she did was talk them down and say they were stupid for thinking love was something that happened when you were in high school. (It broke your heart because all you heard was that your love for her wasn't real, and you know that it was, right from day one.)
You think about how hard she fought against love, as if ignoring it would make it go away. You remember what a rocky journey it had been up until that day, the one in front of the lockers that changed everything, and you think about how you had to say no to her. You remember how brokenly she'd choked out but I have to accept that I love you. You had to deny her the only that you knew her heart had ever wanted.
I say "Can you believe it?" as we're lying on the couch?
The moment I can see it. Yes, yes, I can see it now.
Suddenly, it's like time has moved forward six months and you're in her house on a Friday night. She's lying against you on the couch and you're playing softly with her hair as she watches the movie on the television. You don't remember what you watched that night other than the rise and fall of her chest and she breathed softly or the way the corner of her mouth would curve in a small smile when she tried not to laugh at something but was failing miserably.
Before you knew it though, whatever you were meant to be watching was over, and she's lying on her back staring up at you. You remember how bare and naked she looked, even though she was fully clothed, as she took your hand in her own and squeezed it gently.
"Can you believe it? That we're actually properly together now," she'd said quietly, looking at your joint hands by your side. "Sometimes it feels too good to be true."
You remember how choked up you'd gotten, how words failed you and you just leant down and kissed her softly instead.
Do you remember, we were sitting there by the water?
You put your arm around me for the first time.
The first date you took her on - one that you hadn't planned together, but one that you'd surprised her with - you'd ended up by the reservoir on the outskirts of Lima. You'd gone there a few times when you'd been upset, it was your place to think because it was so quiet and peaceful, and since you didn't have anything to be upset about anymore, you'd thought that it could be your place together.
You'd sat there for hours, trading stories from when you were younger, and you'd even heard some stories you'd never heard before. You love learning new things about her.
As the evening drew in and the air became colder, she shivered. Instinctively, you'd given her your jacket even though it meant that you were a little cold, and you'd put your arm around her shoulders and pulled her into you.
It was only after a few moments of sitting like that, so content and so happy that you felt like you could burst, that you realised it was the first time you'd held her like this. You'd hugged her and kissed her and slept in a bed next to her with your body wrapped around hers, but you'd never put your arm around her shoulder the way they do in movies.
You'd made a mental note to do it more often. It made you feel huge, like you could protect her from anything, like she needed you to take care of her as much as you wanted to take care of her.
(You didn't know how much you'd need to until a month later when Finn opened his mouth.)
You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter.
You are the best thing that's ever been mine.
Her parents had always been different to yours. Less open. Less accepting. They pushed harder. Piled on more pressure.
She'd always been so careful not to do anything to upset them, to cause them pain. Her biggest fear was always letting them down. That's why she'd worked so hard at school, at cheerleading, at trying to find a boy who she could fall in love with, at making her body perfect.
Her parents didn't understand.
They tried so hard to give her the best of everything that they kept missing the things that she really wanted and needed - love, acceptance, reassurance. When the ad aired, she knew she was going to have to let them see how far from their idea of perfect she is.
(You always thought she should stop trying to be everyone else's idea of perfect, because she was perfect enough already.)
It went against everything she'd ever been taught to tell them that she loved girls - loved you - yet she did it. She stood in front of them and told them how happy she was that she'd fallen in love with you.
To her surprise, they finally gave her what she needed.
Flash forward and we're taking on the world together,
And there's a drawer of my things at your place.
You'd slept over at each other's house almost every weekend since you were nine years old. Naturally, some of your things kept pemanent residence in her room, and some of her things in yours - a change of clothes, a change of underwear, pyjamas. As you grew older, you started to think about what it would be like to have all of her things in your place (or all of yours in hers, you could never quite decide).
You'd brought it up once, when you were both sixteen and both still young enough to think that happy endings existed.
"When we go to college, do you think we'll live together?" you'd asked.
"Britt, when we go to college we can do anything we want to," she'd replied.
"But, I mean, would you want to live together?"
She looked at you as if you should have already known the answer.
You learn my secrets and you figure out why I'm guarded,
You say we'll never make my parents' mistakes.
You remember just two months ago - was it really only two months ago? - lying on the grass in your back yard with her beside you, talking about everything you'd ever wanted to, without the fear stopping you both.
"When we have kids I want to make sure they're raised in a way so they can tell us anything," you told her, as you were lying up on your elbows, playing with the hem of her t-shirt.
"Me too," she agreed.
"No, but really though," you'd pushed, making sure she knew you were serious. "I want to make sure that they know we'll love them no matter what. I want them to know that they can't disappoint us just because they love someone or because they might have problems at school or because- because- I don't know," you'd struggled. "I just want them to never have to pretend around us. I don't want them to feel like you did, or like I did..." you'd said cautiously.
You'd watched as she'd swallowed the lump in her throat and reached up to put a few pieces of hair behind your ear.
"I want that too. All of it."
But we got bills to pay, we got nothing figured out,
When it was hard to take, yes, yes, this is what I thought about.
You knew that it was dumb to think about something that would probably never happen, but all of those nights you lay alone on your bed staring at your laptop waiting for a call that never came made your mind wander.
You only ever thought of her, and it seemed like the less she was in contact with you, the more you wanted it.
You could see two, three years from now, when you'd both graduated college and you were getting your first adult apartment and first adult jobs. In your mind it was always small - almost too small - and you'd both always struggled to make ends meet. Maybe you'd have to get a second job in the coffee shop two blocks from where you lived just to make sure you both had enough money to put food on the table. Maybe you'd have to cut back on luxuries, sell your car and start walking places. Maybe you'd have to have dates in the apartment instead of at fancy restaurants for the first year you live there.
Maybe things would be tough, but you'd be doing it all with her and that was always enough.
And I remember that fight, two-thirty AM
As everything was slipping right out of our hands
It was the first time she'd ever yelled at you, properly yelled.
"Britt, you just don't understand!" she screamed at you, and you felt the words cut you.
"Then make me understand," you'd begged. "I know it's hard for you..."
"No you don't! You don't know anything!"
Tears had pooled in your eyes even though you knew that she didn't mean the words literally.
"I know you. I know you better than I think you think I do..."
She deflated slightly, or at least didn't yell back.
"I'm sorry you still feel so scared, and you still don't feel like you can tell people about... us. But can you at least not lie to me?"
Her brow furrowed in confusion and you continued.
"I love you, and I know you love me, and all I've ever wanted is for you to let yourself feel that. I want you to feel it because it's so incredible and so amazing and you deserve to feel like that." She made a move to protest but you didn't let her. "You do. You do because you're incredible and you're amazing and I love you."
She wrapped her arms around your shoulders and let herself break. You held her together.
I ran out crying and you followed me out into the street
Braced myself for the "goodbye" 'cause that's all I've ever known
Then you took me by surprise, you said, "I'll never leave you alone."
The second time she broke in your arms was the day the ad aired. The day everyone found out. She slapped Finn and ran out of the auditorium and you didn't even realise you were running too until you caught up to her and shouted her name.
"Don't!" she'd said, and you stopped in your tracks. "Don't come near me, Britt, don't..."
"Santana, I just want to help..."
"There's nothing you can do, Britt! Everything's - everything's going to change now."
"I know," you'd said quietly.
"So go," she choked out. "Get out while you can, I don't want you to get hurt..."
You'd stepped closer to her then, the need to be near her overtaking everything else. "No," you said firmly, and she shook her head, not wanting you to feel this too. "No, I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'll never leave you alone."
"You don't have to do this... I'd understand if you- if you-"
"Stop," you told her. "You and me? We're forever, yeah? So what if things get hard for a little while, when we have forever for things to get better?"
"I love you," she said.
"I love you," you'd echoed.
You pulled her into a hug then and let her cry every insecurity and fear out until she felt strong enough to face the world again.
Do you believe it? Gonna make it now.
I can see it, I can see it now.
There are tears in your eyes and hers and she can barely sing the last words. She hasn't taken her eyes off you, every inch of her body silently begging you to reconsider, to not do this. To give this one more shot.
The track ends, and you sit in silence staring at her standing in front of you, so beautiful and so honest. The tears have spilled over now and they're running down her cheeks. Her face is covered in pain, and you know that if she could speak right now past the tears she'd be saying sorry and forgive me and I love you, don't leave me.
It overwhelms you how much you want to say the same things back to her.
You stand up and she looks like she might collapse, the idea of you walking out of this room and out of her life too much to take.
Instead, you walk directly toward her and you can see her smile ever so gently as you get closer and closer until your lips are against hers and you're both laughing and crying and you're saying i'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry over and over onto her lips.
"Please tell me I haven't ruined it," you say as soon as you can say anything else. "Please say we can work this out."
"Really?" she chokes out in disbelief.
"Please tell me I didn't ruin it," you say again.
"You could never," she tells you and you let out a half laugh, half sob.
As you kiss her again, as perfectly as you always have, you promise yourself you'll show her that she's the best thing that's ever been yours too.