Collin inserted the key in the lock and tuned it. As all of this was happening, time started moving really slow for Brittany.
He walked in, his eyes on his phone, darting from side to side, clearly reading a text message of some sort. He threw his jacket on the couch.

"Britt, food." Not once does he look up.
Quinn was sitting at the kitchen island as he approached them. Riley, Quinn's eldest, stepped out right in front of him. "Hello." she said and stretched out her hand, expecting Collin to shake it, but he didn't. "Maybe you don't remember me, I'm Riley. My mom is Quinn Fabray." he looked the young girl up and down. "I know who you are. Where are the other two?"

Quinn held Zoey and Riley back. When he saw her, his eyes immediately filled with rage. "Quinn. Nice to see you. To what do we owe the pleasure?" Collin went over to his wife and squeezed her shoulders. Quinn scoffed. Not wanting anything to escalate, she bit her tongue. "Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood."

Which was a lie. Quinn actually lived two hours away.

"Well, it was nice to see you girls, but I think it's time for you to leave." Taylor tugged at his shirt. "Uh uh, I don't think so mister. I did not set this table just to not enjoy the food auntie B prepared. I'm staying!" Collin looked at Quinn, who shrugged, and back at her youngest daughter. "I really did make a lot of food, there's plenty enough for everyone. Shall we?" Brittany pulled out a chair for her husband and then went to sit at the opposite end of the table.

"I get to sit next to auntie Brittany!" Taylor shouted and hurried to take the seat on the right of her. "I want to sit next to auntie Brittany too." Riley took the seat on her left. "Ew! I don't want to sit next to a boy!" Zoey pushed Quinn in front of her and forced her to sit next to Collin.

Collin didn't care, he rarely cared about anything that didn't involve him.
He didn't care about Brittany or their marriage. He didn't care when she was in that car accident, he didn't care when she lost their baby. He practically made her choose between him and her family and friends. And in the end Brittany had chosen him. She had chosen Collin because he was so full of promises. He had promised her everything she had always dreamt of.

When Brittany was younger she had loved to dance, she was very athletic and outgoing, so her parents put her in ballet classes and then gymnastics and then cheer. When Brittany had joined the glee club, she had done so to be with Quinn and Santana at first. Not even Brittany had known that she would find such pleasure and diversion in singing and that being a part of something special, would make her special. It made them all special.

Brittany always wanted a relationship with feelings, because with feelings it's better. Even though Santana had been able to eventually provide her with just that, they had still drifted apart.
Collin had reminded her of how special she was. He was always able to hold a conversation and talk about how he felt, whatever the situation was. She liked that about him. He always managed to say the right things, it was easy with him.
But all of that had gone away. He wasn't that person anymore and maybe he never had been.

Sometimes you see a person not for who they are, but for who you want them to be. Thinking that Collin was all that she had wished for in life, she had chosen him, she had picked him, she had loved him.
The relationship had at one point been good. He had made sure it was good. As long as he was able to keep Santana at an arm's length, he had Brittany exactly where he wanted her. It was ultimately what had pushed Santana away. To be so close, yet so far away from her best friend, crushed her. Brittany didn't seem to need her anymore, so she left the situation alone. "I'll always be here for you." she had said, then she left. That was when Brittany realized that people would always leave, even when they'd promised they would stay.

"This is really good Brittany, you're a great cook!" Quinn exclaimed. "Did you know that Collin?" Collin just glared at her. While taking a huge bite, he looked her dead in the eye and asked; Don't these things take naps? And pointed to her children. "Excuse you? These things? If their father was here, he would knock some sense into you, because you sure could use it." Collin chuckled. "Isn't that why Puck is in jail in the first place? Domestic violence?" Quinn pushed out her chair and got up, she wasn't going to take this, especially not from him.

"He failed to pay a speeding ticket, that's it. He'll be out soon. He didn't hit anyone, unlike someone else I know. Come on girls, we're leaving." Brittany had watched all of this unfold and was now standing by her side. With pleading eyes, she begged Quinn not to go. "Finally, it's about time. Get the hell out of my house!"

Quinn shook her head, she had had to deal with a lot of ignorant and closed-minded people in her life, but Collin took the prize. "Brittany, come with me. Please? You can't stay here, I'm not leaving you here with him, let's just go. Pack a bag and let's leave." Brittany looked at Collin, his entire face was red and beety. "I swear to god, if you leave me, I'll..." Quinn walked up to Collin, she wasn't tall nor was she intimidating what so ever, and the fact that she had to look up at him made her a little bit uncomfortable. "You'll what? Riley, go grab mommy's phone, Britt, go pack a bag."

Collin watched the girls scatter over the livingroom looking for Quinn's phone, in the corner of his eye he could see Brittany making a run for the stairs. "Don't you dare." He grabbed her arm roughly and stopped her from going anywhere. "Let go of me Collin." Brittany said in a calm voice. She wasn't scared, or angry, or anything for that matter of fact. She felt numb. There was nothing he could do to her, that would stop her from walking out of that house.

Reluctantly he lets go of her arm and watches her head up the stairs.
"Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable." Collin turns to Quinn, who's standing with her phone in her hand and her three daughters behind her. "You come into my house, uninvited I might add, and you disrespect me and my wife? I could have you arrested for trespassing, you know." Quinn raised an eyebrow at his denseness. "Are you dumb or just plain stupid? I ought to call the police and have you arrested, you pathetic excuse for a man, that's what you are, a waste of oxygen."

Collin closed the space between him and Quinn. "Don't you get it bitch? Brittany isn't going to leave me, she loves me."

Brittany couldn't believe she was doing this. Was she doing this? Was she really leaving her husband? Where would she go? Sure, Quinn had offered her a place to stay, but then what? After that trial period ran out, where would she go? She sat down on her bed and looked at all the clothes she had spread out on the floor. Am I running away? She asked herself. What if I can't escape this? He will always know where to find me, because he knows me.

"Brittany, are you okay? We need to go, come on sweetie." she threw some stuff into the bag, she had no idea what, but figured that it didn't matter at this time. "I'm okay. I'm coming down now." She grabbed her bag and walked downstairs. "So this is it, you're telling me that this is the end of us?" Brittany nodded. "It is. Look at us, this is us and we are not good together." he tried to give her a hug and Brittany allowed herself to be touched by him, but she didn't hug him back. Her arms were clenched to her sides and she was trying hard not to cry. "I love you, you know that right? I love you so much. And I don't want you to leave. We can make this work." Quinn gave Riley the keys to the car. "Go start it. Zoey, take auntie Brittany's bag and put it in the trunk. Britt, we'll be waiting outside. Whenever you're ready honey."

Quinn had had her issues with Collin. He never did get along with her, Puck or their kids for that matter of fact. But it never was about what she thought, as long as he treated her friend with nothing but respect and love. He had failed, he had failed them all.

"You can leave for a few days, but you have to promise me that you'll come back." Usually Brittany would feel lost without Quinn there, but knowing she was just on the other side of the door, made her stronger.

"I think you made me hate you. Maybe it wasn't your intention, but you did. You made me a victim, Collin. You made me feel ashamed and small and insignificant. When I was a little girl, my father used to call me his little princess, he would always compliment me by saying that I was cute and adorable and beautiful. My mother on the other hand, she would compliment my character. She would say that I was kind. She complimented me on my effort, even when the result may not have been the best. To praise the effort and not the ability, it kind of stays with you longer, rather than being called beautiful a hundred times. My mother taught me that as long as I tried my best in all that I did, whether it was washing the dishes, walking the dog, or doing my homework, my effort and ability would lead me to opportunities. And they did. You took every single opportunity away from me. I was so ready to live this life. The life you had shaped for me, the person you had shaped me into. A person I did not recognize, because that person wasn't me. I haven't danced in years, you took that from me, you kept pushing me down, saying that I was no good and that I would never become anything. You were wrong, Collin. I am good. And I'm walking away from this, so that I can become something again."

Taken aback by her words, Collin moved away from Brittany."Yeah? And what's that?" Brittany opened the door. "Myself." she said, and closed it as she walked away.