I don't own Glee or any of it's awesomeness*
This story is AU*
"Wait..." I could hear it in his voice, that plea, that desire for the softly spoken word to be a yell. So much said in that one syllable. Wait. Stay. Don't leave me. My fingers tightened on the frame of the door as my steps faltered. In the space of a breath, the past teased the crying recesses of my mind.
His smile. It was his smile that first time that got me. Across the crowded room, I'd seen him, that slightly cocky smile in place as he eyed the room with mild disinterest. Like magnets, our eyes met and there was that moment, that moment that all these months later I still recall in my dreams, when his lip tilted up and he gave that wink that brought a blush to my cheeks. Oh how I tried to play it cool, turning to my friend as my fingers raked through my hair trying to act like my heart wasn't a mile a minute and my knee's weren't weak. I think some part of me fell in love with him right then.
For all I was determined not to search him out, it was like he lived in the corner of my sight. By the end of the first hour, I think I memorized the low rumble of his laugh and tenor of speech. But nothing prepared me for sound of it near my ear, the hum in the space between us as he asked over my shoulder for a dance. Breathless, I turned, taking the space that felt custom made for me. In his arms, I got lost in his hazel eyes.
One dance turned to days. Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months of passion and play. First kisses beneath dim street lights, I love you's whispered as we curled together on the couch. There were dinners over candle light as we laughed about our favorite shows, dates in the theaters where the plot of the movie was forgotten in the texture of his kiss. We loved with a love that was consuming, the way new love always is, taking each moment you spend in it and somehow making it more. We were Noah and Rachel and we were magic.
Its a shame, the way life wedges itself into such perfection. But it does, popping the bubble of bliss with the winds of change. At first, you don't really notice when the feel of his hand in yours stops being enough. When the romance gets replaced by the routine or the passion fades from a flame to a spark no one bothers to breath back to life. The warning signs get missed in the mess of daily existence and before you catch on, everything's falling apart.
Slowly, I shook my head, letting the past fall away with the tears tracing paths along my cheek, "I can't" I breathed through the ever growing ache in my chest. "I can't"
Raising my head, my fingers slid slowly down the wooden frame of the house that had become my home, but before my feet joined the process of moving on, his whispered "I love you" shattered the broken pieces of my heart.
My eyes fell closed, the pain from those words physical as I inhaled again, wanting to turn to him, to see him, to hold him, to comfort him, but knowing I couldn't. Knowing all it would take was one look into those bottomless eyes and every bit of my resolve would break. Instead, I exhaled slowly, breathing brokenly, "I love you too" before finally taking the steps that took me out of that house, out of his life, and out of our world.