Part Two:

After, when it's over, all you can think and all you can feel is how terribly wrong you were, what a horrible mistake you made. Of course Kurt is your soul mate. Of course you're meant to be together. It didn't feel wrong because you were out of practice, because Kurt was your first and only, because you just needed to relax a bit more. It felt wrong because it�was�wrong. And it was wrong because it wasn't with Kurt. Kurt is your fate and your soul mate and you are his and that's exactly how everything is supposed to be. And now you've screwed it all up.

The heat of the moment is gone; you’re no longer wrapped up in it, no longer able to push your thoughts of Kurt aside, no longer able to wish him away, no longer able to think of anything but his eyes and his smile and his heart; his open, loving, generous heart. All the things you were trying so hard to deny – how wrong and dirty and awful it felt, how much you were forcing yourself to continue, how only thoughts of Kurt could keep you going – flood into your mind and it’s as clear as day: you’ve made a terrible mistake.��

You hold back a sob as you get dressed, running a stray hand through your hair, feeling the tears pool in your eyes. What have you done? What have you thrown away?

He asks you if you're okay and you're not. You are so very far from okay. You will never be okay again.

When he asks you if it's because he doesn't look like his profile picture, you can't quite form the words to respond. It has nothing to do with him, you know. You would tell him but you can't bring yourself to speak.

It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with you and with Kurt and with the fact that you've just made the biggest mistake in your life. It has nothing to do with him or his stupid profile picture, which, you remember, wasn't even of him, but of a lighthouse. A lighthouse. Oh, god. Kurt. In perfect irony, Eli and his light house profile picture make you think of Kurt and the future you were supposed to have together and what you've thrown away and messed up and ruined. You can't maintain composure, can't bear to spend another moment in Eli's�presence. You leave because you have to; because you feel�suffocated�and you hope that the cool air outside will help you to breathe. It doesn't. It wasn't Eli or his room or his bed that was suffocating you; it was the weight of your mistake, of your foolish, idiotic, reckless actions. It feels like a fist is squeezing your heart; squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and it refuses to stop, refuses to give you rest. You don't deserve rest, though. You don't deserve respite or a break. You deserve to hurt and to regret. You deserve to feel suffocated, to feel miserable, to be crushed and to be destroyed and to die.

You make it to your car, but just barely. You stop and bend at the waist, gagging,�retching, spilling the contents of your stomach onto the cold, dead grass. You are scum. You are dirty and wrong and a cheater. You can't breathe and you can't think and you can't stop crying.

What have you done?

---

You need to see him. You know it's rash and foolish and irresponsible, but isn't that a theme for you these days? Haven't you done plenty of stupid, reckless things? Why not add one more to the list? Why not do something that brings you closer to the boy you love, not farther away?

You book the ticket without asking your parents - refusing to ask permission for something you need so desperately - leaving them a note as explanation instead. You go without telling anyone - because, really, who do you have to tell? - and you hope he'll be happy to see you. You know you'll be happy to see him. You need to see him. You need him.�

---

You know you should be enchanted by the sights and the sounds and the people. You know you should be wrapped up in New York, should be thrilled to walk the streets in the city of your dreams. But the taxis and skyscrapers and markets and brilliant diversity is all lost on you. You have eyes for nothing but Kurt. You see a woman selling flowers; flowers that remind you of Kurt. Flowers that remind you of the flowers he gave you months ago, to celebrate you. He celebrated you. He gave you flowers. He loves you.�

You stop to catch a breath, to compose yourself. You are barely holding yourself together. You need to see Kurt.

You buy the flowers that make you think of him and you continue on your way.�You get lost. Several times. But you make it to his apartment�and the door opens and there he is. The fist that's been squeezing your heart loosens a bit and you feel like you can breathe again. It's Kurt. There he is. Right in front of you. It'll all be okay. You kiss him and it's glorious. One kiss from Kurt is more romantic and meaningful than everything with anyone else. You kiss him and�you remember. This is how it's supposed to feel. This is how a kiss and how life and how love is supposed to feel.�It's Kurt. There he is.

---

You want to tell him. You can't tell him. You need to tell him. You don't want to tell him. You should tell him. How do you tell him?

Everyone convinces you that a karaoke bar is the perfect place to go and you can't tell them you just want Kurt to yourself. You go and Kurt is so excited, so happy you're there, together again. The fist squeezes tighter, again, reminding you of what you've done. If your heart wasn't broken already, it is now. Kurt has no idea why you're there, no clue that you bring terrible news, the worst news. That you are terrible. That you are the worst.

You don't know what comes over you but all of a sudden you know what you need to do. You need to sing to Kurt. Wasn't he the one who told you to sing what you couldn't say? To let music help you with the hard stuff, the messy bits? And didn't music bring you together in the first place? Didn't Blackbird help you see what was standing, so obvious and so beautiful, right in front of you? Didn't Candles give you the excuse to kiss him, to be with him, to "practice"?

He really is your better half, your missing puzzle piece, so your song choice is clear: the first song you ever sang to him. You know he remembers. You remember. You could never forget.

You introduce the song and you call him the love of your life because how could you possibly love anyone as much as you love Kurt? How could anyone love anyone else as much as you love Kurt?

You pour yourself into the song; your fingers struggle to keep up and your lips and tongue move to sing as your heart races and all the memories of Kurt flash through your head. Meeting Kurt and helping Kurt and "courage" and the Lima Bean and "don't they get together in the end" and Animal and�that song�and how he moved you and how you had been looking for him forever and that kiss - �that amazing, earth-shattering, unbelievable kiss - and all the kisses that followed. Holding hands and talking and sharing I love yous and sharing cookies. Transferring for him and surprising him and singing with him and loving him. Fighting with him and worrying about him.�The arguments and the squabbles and Sebastian and Chandler and making up and forgiving and forgetting.�You as Tony and him as Officer Krupke and kissing on that stage and "I'm so proud of you" and the first time, your very first time, together. The kissing and the touching and the love. Oh, the love. �Promise rings and scarves and duets and making plans and learning together and growing together. Missing him and needing him and wanting him. Telling him to go to New York, pushing him to leave you behind, convincing him it would be okay. Loving him. Loving him so much.

You feel the tears on your cheek and your voice cracks but you don't care. He is your teenage dream. He is your every dream. He is your Kurt and you don't care about anything else.

---

You know he's worried about you. You know he could see it, could hear it in your voice. He asks you what's wrong and you can't bear to tell him. But you have to.

It's more horrible and brutal and miserable than you thought anything could be. You hated yourself before but that was nothing. The look on his face, the pain in his eyes, the betrayal he feels and the way you can see it: his heart breaking. Before was nothing. This is everything. This is the end of everything. This is the worst.

You go to bed without speaking and it's unbearable. You don't sleep, not really. When you doze, it's fitful and confusing at best. It's early morning before you finally can let sleep overtake you; before you can't cry anymore, can't think anymore, can't feel anymore. When all of that falls away, the only thing left to do is sleep.

You wake up and you want to talk to him, to explain. It meant nothing, less than nothing. You missed him and he was ignoring you and moving on and you should have talked to him about it. You should have forced him to listen. If he was forgetting you, you should have forced him to remember. If he was hurting you, you should have told him. You should have screamed and shouted until he heard you. You should never have cheated. It was a mistake, the biggest mistake of your life. You're young and you're stupid and you're reckless and you're foolish and you don't deserve him but you love him. You love him so much. You love him more than words can say.

You want to tell him this, all this, and more. You want to tell him everything. You want to hold him. You want to kiss him. You want to make it all go away: his pain and yours, his heartbreak and yours. You want to take it back, to erase the past, to undo it. You want to apologize. You want to talk to him. But he won't listen.

He won't talk to you and won't listen to what you have to say and you give up. Silence consumes the apartment and it's more deafening than anything.

It's time to go and he helps you get to the airport. He doesn't say goodbye, but he doesn't say anything else, either. He doesn't touch you. He barely looks at you. He hates you. If only he knew how much you hate yourself.

---

You make it back to Lima in a haze, barely feeling, barely breathing, barely surviving. You send him text after text, you leave countless voice mails when he ignores your calls, you send him flowers. You do everything you can think to do. You hate yourself. You're disgusting and despicable and heinous and completely alone.�

Finn asks you why you did it and you feel even more despicable, even more awful, even more alone.

You are a terrible person.

You are horrible, practically criminal. You're a no good, very bad, miserable excuse for a person. You feel like absolute shit. You open your locker and hope that it contains a black hole that will suck you into nothingness. You step on every crack in the sidewalk, hoping one will give way to a bottomless pit so you can fall and fall and fall and never return, never feel this way again. You want to go to sleep and never wake up, not if it means waking up to a world where you hurt the one person you love the most. You want Kurt. You want to disappear. You want to die. You want Kurt. You want to take it all back, to undo it. You want to punch something or someone or yourself. You want Kurt. You hate yourself and these halls and these classrooms and the memories that haunt you. You hate that you can still feel�him�on your skin, feel�his�lips on yours,�his�tongue in your mouth, so wrong because it's not Kurt and�he's�not Kurt and you want Kurt. That's all you'll ever want.

Shower after shower can't get rid of the�layer of grime you feel in every pore, covering every inch of your body; the grime that marks a cheater, a betrayer, a coward, an asshole, a terrible person.

You are a terrible person.

---

Life goes on but you're barely living it. How can you live in a world where you've done what you've done, where you've lost Kurt completely, where you've hurt the one person who matters most, who you love the most, who is your past and your present and your future and your everything?

Things happen and people joke and life goes on, but it's all white noise to you.

Mr. Shuester leaves and Finn replaces him and they decide on Grease for a musical and you don't care. You imagine Kurt in a leather jacket before you can help yourself and all the rest falls away. None of it matters. Kurt's not here. Kurt doesn't love you. Kurt's not talking to you. He'll never talk to you again, will never kiss you or hold you or love you again. How does anything else matter? How does anyone else matter?

Sam wants to know if you'll audition and you have to stop yourself from crying, from crying gut-wrenching sobs right there in the hallway. You try to explain it to him, to tell him about you and Kurt, about how you'll never be the same, about how you had all these plans for your future together and how you ruined them all. You try and you try and you try. He doesn't seem to hear you, though, or understand. No one does.�He thinks it's like when he and Mercedes broke up or when he and Santana broke up or when Rory and Sugar broke up or when anyone in the history of Glee broke up with their significant other and you bite your tongue.�It's nothing like that, you want to tell him.�You don't understand, you want to scream.�

Kurt wasn't just your boyfriend. He was so much more than that. What you had was so much more than what anyone else in the school has ever had, so much more than what any of them could possibly dream up or think to want for themselves. You two were eternity. You were forever. You were soul mates. Not in the young, immature, unrealistic way. No, you were soul mates, plain and simple. You had plans, so many plans. The only reason you weren't committed to each other for real, the only reason you hadn't moved to New York and made it official was your age. If you had met in five or ten years, you would have been engaged or married or adopting a puppy together by now. Kurt was your everything. Kurt�is�your everything. Kurt is gone forever. So, of course Sam doesn't understand or know what to say to make you feel better. No one can understand. Nothing can make you feel better. You're a terrible person. And as much as you're tired of feeling like a terrible person, you know it's so true, so very true that you can't help but continue to feel it.

You audition for Grease because you owe it to Artie - �who made you his Tony - �and to Finn, whose brother you betrayed. You sing and you think of Kurt; which is a given, because Kurt is all you think about.

You wake up and you think of Kurt. You get dressed and you think of Kurt. You go to class and you eat lunch and you go home and you think of Kurt. You go to bed and you think of Kurt. You cry and you think of Kurt. You remember and you think of Kurt. You breathe and you think of Kurt.

Artie and Finn tell you you'd be the Danny Zuko of your dreams but you can't be that for them or for anyone. You choke back a sob and tell them as much, tell them you can't really be anything, not anymore. They pretend to hear you, pretend to understand.

They cast you as Teen Angel, because you said if you had to be anything, that's what you'd be. They missed the point. You didn't want to be anything. You can't be anything. You are nothing. Kurt is gone and now you have nothing and now you are nothing.

---

You learn your lines and your steps and your lyrics. You get fitted for your costume. You rehearse and you try - �you really try - to forget and to breathe and to focus.�

You can't though, not really. Kurt is all you see, all you feel, all you want, all you need. Kurt is everywhere and yet he is nowhere to be found. Kurt is miles away, yet you feel him haunting you.

And then, all at once, Kurt is there. Kurt is right in front of you. Kurt.

---

It's weird. How could it not be? It's you next to Finn and it's Kurt next to Rachel and you utter a few words and it's weird. You can't tear your eyes from Kurt and you catch him staring and he looks away and you look away and it's heaven and it's hell and it's everything you need. It's Kurt.

He's gone before you know it and you're shaken up. You're shaken up because it's Kurt and he's back and he's in the same room as you, he's sitting in a chair in the audience, he's there, he'll be watching you. You get on that stage and you do it for Kurt. You do everything for Kurt. He's everything. He's Kurt.�

You feel like you're sleepwalking, like you're performing but it's not really you, you're not really there. You say your lines and you look into the audience and oh, there he is. You do a double take and almost stumble over a line. You hope he didn't notice. You hope he noticed. You hope.

You get a standing ovation when it's all over. The crowd loved it and loved you and your eyes are still locked on Kurt. Did he love it? Did he love you? Does he care? Does he miss you? Does he feel like you do: as if a part of you has literally been ripped from you, torn unceremoniously, and now you're left, incomplete and crashing and dying and no one can help you?

You find each other in the hallway and you just want to apologize. You just want to explain. If you can say you're sorry, maybe it will be better. If he knows it meant nothing, maybe it will go away. If he forgives you or looks at you or smiles at you or listens, maybe it will be like it never happened. Maybe you'll stop feeling so miserable, so meaningless, so hopeless. Maybe you'll stop feeling like a terrible person.

But he doesn't listen and he doesn't forgive you and he doesn't smile. He says all the things you feared he would and he doesn't trust you and he's gone.

Kurt doesn't trust you. The love of your life - your soul mate and better half and everything that matters - doesn't trust you. Because you're a miserable excuse for a boy. You're a bad, bad person.

You're self-hatred grows and, somehow, so does your love for him. As you feel more and more miserable, you feel more and more remorse for what you threw away. For the perfect boy you hurt, for the love you ruined.

You can't help it: you love him and you always will. You love him. So very much. Seeing him only reminds you of that all-consuming, eternal love, of that flame that won't flicker, of that knowledge that's becoming more and more of a burden with each passing day.

You miss him. You'll never stop missing him. You don't know if this is something from which you can ever recover. You don't know if he will ever talk to you again, ever look at you and smile, ever hug you or touch you. You don't know if he will ever love you again. You don't know if he will miss you when he leaves.�

You don't know if he will ever trust you again.�That might be the worst part of it; as if any of the worst things in the entire world could possibly be worse than the others. But if one is the worst, it's that: he doesn't trust you.

And you don’t blame him. After all, you don't trust yourself.�