Disclaimer: These characters are neither my possession, nor, sadly, a possession of one of the other brilliant fic writers out there.

I didn't know what I was doing for a long time, or maybe all of the time. Nothing felt right anymore because you weren't there with your arm around my waist—to hold me—or your hand clasping mine—to guide me.

I was lost without you.

I looked for something else—someone else—at the beginning. And I tried to feel—anything.

Sam. He was all right, and he was there at the beginning when I needed someone to hold me when the nightmares got bad.

I kept dreaming about you leaving me, you know. And it hurt. I thought it would stop hurting the more I saw it happening because I knew things didn't affect a person as much when they got used to them. Like drugs. (Maybe I kept dreaming about you because I was addicted to you.) But it didn't. Each time hurt as much as the last, maybe more. I don't know.

All I do know is that without you, nobody believed in me. Not even Sam.

He was all right.

But he wasn't you.

So every night after those first few, an empty me would go home to an empty room and fall asleep in an empty bed.

And the nightmares still came.

But then I got into MIT and these two men were telling me I was a genius, and it reminded me of a time before.

You knew. You knew back then and you believed in me, and maybe that's all I ever needed.

Maybe you were all I needed. But I knew that already.

Because when you came back for Regionals, you told me you were worried about me, that I was making you sad, and that killed me. I couldn't help but cave. So I told you about MIT's early admission offer first, before anybody else. I wanted to show you that you were right about me, you know, that I was the unicorn. I wanted to make you proud of me.

And you were. I could feel it in the glow of your smile—the one you reserve for me alone—and I simply knew, without you even saying anything.

But then, there we were in the choir room with everybody in Glee Club. I spilled.

I know they were all surprised, and that hurt probably more than it should have after all this time, but when you get that first taste of self-worth after so long and then you find yourself surrounded by those who never believed in you in the first place and they still don't believe in you, it just sucks. I know you know what I mean.

Still, I ran through their names and told them they meant something to me. They did, but just not as much as—

And then it was Sam. Sam, who looked like a little boy in that moment when I called everyone's name but his (and yours) and he wasn't sure if I had forgotten him or something. Because even then, he didn't believe in me. (He was all right. But he wasn't you.)

So I called his name. And I hugged him and told him that I would miss him. He got me through those first nights when every part of me hurt, I would miss him. I told him that I loved him, which I did, of course, but not as much as I loved you. (Never as much as I love you.)

But then, it was your turn and I forgot everything before. I turned to you, called your name, the taste of it so familiar and so wonderfully smooth rolling off my tongue. And then I was in your arms or you were in mine and I breathed you in and we needed no words because yes.

And still after, when everyone had left and I sat alone on the stage where once we had danced together, you appeared.

And you held out your hand and took mine—to guide me—and your other arm wrapped around my waist—to hold me—and I was home.