There Are One Hundred Suns

There is a boy and a girl. And they are in love.

Or so she thinks.

And when they are together, the sun shines brighter and brighter and good things happen.

Here's what she wants from life: a kiss in the rain, a twirl in a pretty dress, and a boy who will love her.

Not necessarily in that order.

They are in love. Love, love, love, love.

Why is it that she can never get what she wants? Why is it that she is always falling, always running to catch up, always, always, just one or two steps too far behind?

"You said you would love me forever."

"That was before."

"Before what?"

"Before this."

She wonders if there was something wrong with her. Because sometimes she just sits on top of the wall, and teeters and hopes and prays she doesn't fall.

Oh, but she always does.

And though some falls hurt worse than others, she picks herself up and forces herself to climb that damnable wall again and again and again.

There is nothing else left to do.

Because he won't climb the wall and jump the fence, and he certainly won't sing her poems beneath the blanket of the stars and he won't wish her goodnight with the moon shining in his eyes.

Because she's not the sun and he won't give her the world.

After all, she's just a girl, and he's just a boy, and things never go according-to-plan.

And the Earth is silent under her fingertips. Her heart her voice her lungs her head—

—everything is silent.
When did she become the girl crying over a lost love?

When did she become the victim?

I am the queen of promise,
The victim of myself.

I believe in nothing
There are one hundred suns until we part.

She cries.

She stands in the shower, letting the water bite into her back and she lets the cool water mingle with her salty tears. That way, no one will know she has cried.

And when she is done, when the tears stop coming, she leaves the (cold, cold, why is it so cold?) room and buries herself. Under mountains of heavy sheets, she crawls and burrows and tries to hide herself from the rest of the world.

She cries again.

Cries for herself, for Quinn and Tina and Mercedes, and yes, even that bitch Santana. She cries for any girl who let herself be broken.

And there is a jar of hearts sitting on his desk, mockingmockingmocking.

Is it strange that she feels like (pretends to be) a fairy princess even while she slowly dies?

And—

when did her fairytale, so carefully made, become a nightmare?

There is, at the end, just two people:

A boy, and a girl.

They think they love each other.

(But she knows better.)

And they think their love can reach across that great black abyss which is the space between childhood and adulthood, they think that this, right here, can work, even when others greater than they have failed.

And they love with a love that is more than love…

Even when many before try and reach and write and sing of their trying, and their tears and the regret and the wish and the please, God.

And this boy, this girl—they just join the army of lost lovers and forgotten loves, and the promises fall away into the empty space, the words fading.

Rachel Berry is not a fool.

But maybe her heart is. And while it mourns what-could-have-been she picks herself up off the cobble stones and climbs that (damn) wall again and again and again.

She's not a princess. And he's not a hero.

So she will not sorrow for what will not happen.

And they clasp hands, because their fairytale is repeating and repeating and repeating—

There was a girl. And she used to love a boy.

But not anymore.