A/N: I really needed to update this story and in my haste, the little read through I do in about the five paragraphs was forgotten and really, I just wanted to get this out there. I know this chapter is shorter and isn't as quality as the others but I apologize. I'm writing this at three in the morning, I'm sleepy and that is never a good combination for writing with me but what can I do.

All errors and mistakes are my own, as usual.

Leaving her the way he did, fast and wordlessly, should not have been as hard to get over as it was. It wasn't supposed to make everything worse, but it did. And the internal conflict didn't seem to get better either. He had a sinking feeling he had done the wrong thing, that he had gone about things incorrectly. He really couldn't convince himself otherwise, unfortunately.

"How can you be so utterly, completely, intolerably stupid?"

He asks himself this question for a good few hours as he lies beneath Tina, their lips locked in a desperate but distant frenzy of emotions. His hands are clinging onto her waist and his fingers are tracing little circles on her skin, the occasional uneven and far too rounded star making its way onto her soft skin and that only causes his grip to grow tighter for a moment or two before he finds a way to relax his hands.

Their tongues dance and on occasion, she moans out his name and he finds his mind wandering to thoughts of Rachel, thinking up ideas and scenarios concerning what she would moan in such a situation. His hips tend to thrust up involuntarily as he imagines her calling out a melodious and continuous chant of "Michael". This eventually causes Tina's dress to be disposed of and his pants to be pulled down hastily and tossed blindly at the floor of his bedroom.

His girlfriend doesn't feel the way she should around him and with every thrust and whimper and groan that leaves her lips, his body responds with experience and an extremely lustful need. His mind tells him he's cheating. He isn't quite sure what and who he's cheating on but it leaves a sickening taste on his tongue so he tries his best to keep his lips away from hers and she doesn't seem to mind that much, taking it as his way of asking her for something a little less intimate and a little more rushed.

He knows she thinks it's because his parents are coming home early and he knows she'll realize once she has her clothes back on that his parent's won't be back until eleven and they have the entire night together. She won't say anything because he's a guy, she's a girl and surprisingly, she's usually the bigger fan of 'quickies' so she'll understand that this is one of those rare occasions where he simply needs to get off.

He holds her close and wraps his arms around her securely once their finished and done. Her breathing is a little off with its timing but she had a tired and satisfied smile on her lips so he knows she's perfectly fine. He wishes he was the same. He idly twirls a strand of her hair around his finger and rests his chin on her shoulder, murmuring sweet nothings into her ear until she finally fell asleep. He didn't separate from her, just tangled their legs together and took in the scent of her hair. His eyes darted to the clock on his bedside table and he sighed quietly when he noticed it was only six and that the girl in his arms was going to be awake by eight and he'd have to keep lying about everything unintentionally and unwillingly for another three hours before she headed for home.

He doesn't know when he became that guy. The guy that started stringing girls along with his crazy emotional truck ride down a dusty road because he couldn't decided where exactly he wanted to go. He guesses the difference between him and all the other guys like that is that he thought she was what he wanted. Every bone in his body told him that continuing down the path he was going down with Rachel was a bad one.

His parents would never approve of her like they approved of Tina.

He'd loved Tina for so much longer, for all he knew this whole thing as a passing phase of their newly found friendship and would fade eventually.

The chaos it would cause in Glee Club would destroy any chances they had at getting to Nationals.

He just couldn't feel that way.

So he lied.

The girl in his arms makes him feel like he's dancing on the sun and even though it sounds extremely painful, it's simply wonderful. He can dive down with the intention of crashing and she'd save him. She'd fall and sprain her ankle and he's fix her. She'd make him laugh when he felt down in the dumps and he'd kiss away all her pain should she need his shoulder to cry on and his shirt to cling onto.

He doesn't want to think about how Rachel's fits that same description almost a little too well. He doesn't want to think about how in his mind, he's been wishing it was Rachel here instead.

He looks down at Tina's peaceful expression and his brows furrow in thought. He realizes he did it because he thought it was right for basically everyone but him. He did it to avoid hurting anyone else. He did it because he wanted to feel safe, because jumping a little too far out of his comfort zone always put him on edge. He did it for her, to allow her to clear her head without having a boy interfere with her healing process (admittedly, it was a little too late to save her from that, he decided). He did it for Tina, because she doesn't deserve the heartbreak. He did it for love, that's got to count for something.

It doesn't make him feel any better and as he slips his arms free and rolls onto his back, clasping his hands over his chest and staring at the ceiling, he knows that love isn't good enough anymore. Not in this situation.

He gets off the bed and finds himself a piece of paper and a pencil, scribbling down that he headed out for a breath of air and he'll be back as soon as possible. He doesn't want Tina to worry about his whereabouts, and he doesn't want to tell her where he's going either because in all honesty, he has absolutely no idea. He grabs his shirts and jeans off the floor and throws them on before quietly tip-toeing toward the bedroom door, halting in his movements as he hears a sleeping whine leaving the girl he left on his bed. He glances over his shoulder and sighs in relief, noting that she was only rolling over, and suppressing an amused chuckle at the fact that she's cuddling one of his pillows as if it were him.

He makes his way downstairs and as he's grabbing his jacket from the hanger behind the door and pulling his keys out of the jacket's front pocket, he pauses for a moment to reconsider doing this. He shakes his head free of the thoughts and simply explains to himself that he needs this. And when he takes that first step out of his house and onto the cold ground of the outside world, the cool night breeze caressing his cheek, he knows he's made the right choice.

He allows his legs to take him wherever they want to and all he does is stare up at the sky, his shoulders tensing immediately as he finally lowers his gaze and notices where he's landed himself, the sight in front of him causing his shoulders to tense.