A/N: Okay… this is the time I admit things to everyone. If you are not already aware, I'm female… quite happily female. And so, while I can wax poetic about the female body and relationships from that view, this chapter has been quite a challenge from two fronts…

Fleetwood Mac's Never Going Back Again played softly through his iHome, but he doesn't hear it.

"God, Brittany, why are you so stupid?"

"You were the only person who never called me that!"

The desperate, painful exchange echoes in his ears. His stomach tries to churn, but there is a ball of steel chain pulled tightly into a knot that cannot be unraveled. He isn't sure he will ever be able to sit up against that weight, let alone eat.

He knows he has done an unforgivable thing, and that she will never love him again. She will never love him. She will never love him. She never loved him?

God, she was his first. It wasn't just his body, and that despite his stupid lie to Tina, he had not been sure he would have full use of his penis. He had been so young when the injury had happened, and the cold medical terms, like complete injury, anorgansimic, asexual, had frightened and confused him. The discussions he had with his doctors, the neurologist, psychologist, urologist, Mr. Chang, his physical therapist, his family doctor, and his parents, had never been easy. There were more words, like assisted fertility, sperm donor, Viagra, and vacuum pump had come up.

But, with Brittany, he had proven to himself that he could do IT. And, it felt so good, pleasing her and pleasing himself. The soft curve of her body with his, the softness of her lips on his, the confusing mixture of sweet innocence, childlike wonder, and profound sexual wisdom made him feel like one of the most attractive, luckiest men alive.

His anger at her feelings for Santana are not anger at Santana, or at Brittany, but at himself. His doubts, which once flickered like little matches in the back of his mind, have burned down the house.

Now he's alone. And, although he doesn't want to accept it, he can never go back again.