"Fuck," you said.

"It's okay."

"Fuck."

"It's okay."

"Fuck!"

"Alright, how much longer are we going to do this?"

You were pacing up and down the length of Brittany's room. Fleetingly, you thought that all of this pacing would eventually wear some sort of path in the fluffy, plush turquoise carpeting in Brittany's room. You turned on your heel and started down again, back and forth, reliving the moment of terror in your head. For a second it feels just as horrible as the first time: your heart tightens and your stomach turns, you feel the bile refill your insides, your lungs stop working and all you can think of is yourself. You hated yourself right then. You wrapped your arms around your head in frustration, and closed your eyes so tightly that a few hot tears sprang out and surprised you.

"Shit, you're really freaking out, aren't you?" she said.

"Are you kidding? He saw us, Britt. He saw you and me in the middle of..." You couldn't even say it out loud, your voice was breaking and cracking. You turned, and started up the same path again.

"I know. I was there," Brittany said quietly.

"Then why aren't you freaking out?"

Silence.

This was the first time you stopped and actually looked at her since you started pacing; since Puckerman walked in on the two of you and you froze. You couldn't move. You were stuck. The world started to fold in on itself. It didn't make any sense. You didn't understand what had just happened, the weight of Puck knowing, of seeing Brittany of hearing what you said to each other made you want to vomit. Finally, way too late, you ran after Puck. You screamed, punched and scratched and pushed and shoved, and you don't really remember doing it. All you can remember is being scared.

Brittany was sitting cross-legged on her bed, fidgeting with the hem of her pants, smoothing out against her hand and folding it into careful little creases and then smoothing it out again. Her cheeks were flushed red, so were the tops of her ears. She looked sad and embarrassed.

"Because..." she started, her fingers still moving nimbly around the fabric.

You waited.

"Because I'm not embarrassed to be with you," she said finally.

A normal person wouldn't have noticed that faint quiver in her voice, but you knew that she was holding back a wave of tears.

"Britt, we're not..." you started to say but stopped yourself quickly. She looked at you with those piercing blue eyes and you couldn't finish your sentence. Suddenly, you wanted to reassure her, to tell her that there was nothing to worry about, to say that nothing else mattered, but her eyes would know you were lying.

"Oh," she said quietly, looking down again, examining every single thread on that hem.

There was a pause, and then you saw it. You saw that single, silent tear drop onto the comforter and you couldn't bare it any longer. You ran. You ran so hard and so fast, you don't remember if you shut the door behind you. All you could feel was an emptiness opening up inside of you, and the further you ran away from Brittany, the larger it became. All you could think of was the disappointment in her eyes, her beautiful, crystal blue eyes, and then the image would get replaced with Puckerman's disgusting leer and the swelling of your heart and the overheating of your senses. It felt like everything that was right and pure and special had been sucked out of the universe; that universe that you had created for yourselves. All of it was gone. It was over.

Your breaths were shallow and ragged, and it wasn't until you got to Schoonover Park that you realized it was where you were heading the whole time.

You ran the whole way around the lake and then some more, past the paved path, past the overgrown grass, dodging a couple of beer cans and a few old tree stumps. Your paced had slowed and you didn't feel the same sense of urgency anymore. You sat on the grass and felt a cold damp feeling on the but of your jeans. You didn't even care. You brought your knees up to your chin and you hugged your legs. It was barely light enough to see across the lake, but a few minutes later, as it was nearing nighttime, the small streetlamps that lined the sidewalk turned on and their pale, dim, yellowish light reflected in little pools on the water. You watched as the wind made the water ripple through them. You held your knees tightly against your body, the wind was growing cooler and a layer of goosebumps covered your skin. You looked back at the reflection of the lights but noticed you couldn't see them clearly anymore, everything blurred and you realized, by feeling the hot dampness on your cheeks that you were crying.

Your eyes were closed for a long time and you could feel sleep starting to take over: your eyelids – puffy and sore from crying – weighed heavy and flickered and fluttered shut, your arms were growing weak from holding your knees in tight. And then you felt it. You thought it was a dream.

Britt had sat behind you, and wrapped herself around your body. Her arms reached around you and you fell into them naturally, sinking into the familiar warmth and the intoxicating scent. Her chest went up and down along with yours and you heard a long-winded sigh escape from her mouth; the warmth of her breath traveled all the way down your spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. You found her hands with yours and made her grip you tighter.

"I love you, Santana."

You froze.