Based on Vance Joy's "Wasted Time." I did cut out a few lines or change their placement and of course I just did this with open interpretation and, honestly, not a horribly in depth one. I just sort of got inspired by the general vibe of the song.

Wasted Time

"You know when I said I 'Come watch Netflix and chill' I actually meant to watch Netflix and just flop around lazily," I comment as I run my fingers through her thin blonde hair that was softer than any velvet.

"No you didn't," she teases back. "Sure you meant just watching Netflix but somewhere deep in that mind of yours you totally meant the euphemism." When she says euphemism it makes me want to jump her again. How did we end up here? How did I get such a beautiful, intelligent, brave girl to fall in love with me? "If you had just meant watch Netflix you would've been in boxer shorts and a t-shirt not that sexy, sexy dress you were wearing."

I blush going back to the moment she walked in the door. I had texted her earlier inviting her over. The latest season of America's Next Top Model had just come onto Netflix and we both love making fun of them so I figured she'd enjoy it. Mostly, I just wanted an excuse to hang out with her. I considered staying in my boxer shorts like she said, but decided against it. I wanted to look good for her.

I didn't expect the result.

The moment she saw me she practically jumped me. Her hands were pulling up my skirt and sneaking into my underwear before I could even say hello.

I roll my eyes. "You can't prove anything," I banter back. Sure, I hadn't meant it intentionally but I definitely knew in the back of my mind that this dress happens to rile her up on occasion.

"It's not like you were complaining either, babe," she says, cuddling deeper into me. It felt nice to have feel her breath against my neck. Her body, on its side, snuggled up to me as my left arm encircled her, playing with the strands of hair.

"That's very true," I respond.

The two of us sit in a comfortable silence, just appreciating every moment we get to spend together before college comes and tears us apart.

College.

Holy shit college. I was so not ready for college. I was never one to take my high school career too seriously. I had bigger and better things to worry about. I was a closeted lesbian in a homophobic county who was in love with her best friend and needed to keep everyone from finding out. So I worked harder on building up my reputation. If that reputation meant partying more than studying and sleeping with boys more than an extracurricular so be it. Grades fell by the wayside.

Now I'm regretting that decision. I know that paying attention to my reputation in the halls of William McKinley saved me a lot of physical rigmarole, but it didn't save me any emotional blows. If anything it made them worse. It made it so much harder to come to terms with loving Brittany and that much harder when she broke up with me. I couldn't tell anyone and my best friend had deserted me. It was Quinn who found me and picked me up off the floor.

I wonder how much more time I could've had mackin' on Quinn instead of smackin' her if I'd done the smart thing, the sensible thing. If I had been brave.

But I wasn't brave. Quinn was always the brave one. She had a child in high school, kept up her grades, doled out the pain, and held my hand as the two of us came out. She had been my bravery. I wonder how much more time we could have in the future if I'd been more brave. If I had been brave maybe I would've fallen in with a better crowd – not that I regret any of my friends now – but I could've focused on my grades and been accepted for who I am.

But now it's too late. I hadn't prepared at all for ACT's, my grades were shit, and the only thing I was good for was a word-lashing and cheerleading. So when I applied to colleges I applied not for grades, but for cheerleading scholarships. But Connecticut doesn't really seem to care too much for cheerleading and there were no colleges to apply to up there. Meanwhile my girl was accepted to Harvard, Yale, UConn, NYU, and Syracuse. All of them were up North. All of them were places I couldn't follow.

She was a rich, beautiful white girl with a 3.9 GPA with great connections and a promising future ahead of her as a journalist travelling the world. I was a Latina girl from Lima Heights Adjacent with no notable talents to speak of with big dreams she'd never achieve and I'd probably just end up being the next Sue Sylvester, ending in the same place I started. The only thing weighing her down was me.

"Quinn?"

"Mm?"

"Why are you with me? Why did you choose me?" She immediately shifts her body so she can look at me more easily from our position.

I miss the feel of her skin against mine.

"Santana, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about," I let out a sigh. "I'm some no-named nobody. I may call people a Lima-Loser, but I'm just like them in every respect. I'm going nowhere, Q. You're going off to fucking Yale. Why are you with me? You could do so much better than me."

"Santana," she says in this low, serious voice. Her hazel eyes are boring into mine so hard I wonder if she'll bore straight through me one day. "Don't you ever say that again." A fire flashes in her eyes. "You're not some Lima-Loser. You have dreams, baby. You have gigantic, crazy, beautiful wonderful dreams." She punctuates each adjective with a kiss to my neck, gradually moving up. "And I believe that you'll achieve every single one. You're a sexy, gorgeous, intelligent, confident, passionate, bitchy, loud-mouthed badass. And I love that about you. We are equals, Santana."

I could spend the rest of my life with this woman.

"Do you understand, Santana?"

I vaguely nod my head. Still caught up in the words that knocked me away.

"Good."

And she seals with all with a searing kiss against my lips that makes me never want to breathe again if it means I have to separate my lips from hers.

Why? Why do you go wasting your time on me?

You're so beautiful now.

There's so much for you now.

"Good morning, babe," she says with a yawn and a hand run through her bedhead. I laugh at how ridiculous she looks. There's a bit of drool by her mouth, her make-up looks more like raccoon eyes than eye-liner, and her t-shirt is so disheveled I'm seeing more bra than not. Somehow, she stills looks beautiful.

"Hey, sleepyhead," I tease as I run the towel through my hair one last time, gathering the lasts of the water before simply letting it dry naturally, falling wetly down my back. "Did I wake you?"

"Yeah," she admits wearily, still half-asleep.

"I'm sorry. You can go back to bed if you want. We could always talk later."

"No, it's fine. I have a class in forty-five minutes anyways. This is a good way to get me up and functioning."

"Okay," I agree rather happily. I really need to talk to Q. We made a pact that we were gonna talk every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday no matter what. We haven't broken it yet. "So why are you so tired, Q?"

"I was up all night writing a stupid paper for psychology. Why do we have to take psychology anyways?" She groans as she gets up and walks over to her Keurig in the corner of the camera screen.

"I dunno. If you want some help I'm sort of killing my pysch class," I offer. I know that Yale's curriculum is probably a little different, probably a bit harder than Louisville, but the basics should still apply.

"Really? I'm glad to hear something is going your way," she says excitedly turning towards the camera. She knows I've been having some trouble in a couple of my classes lately. I'm just not happy here and it's affecting my grades.
"Yeah, it seems to be the only thing going my way."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she says, sitting down in front of her computer with a hot cup of coffee in front of her. I can see the steam rising on my screen. She takes a sip.

"Everybody here sucks. The other girls on the squad are either bitches or bores. All of the classes here suck ass. None of the professors could give a rat's ass about their students. All of the Glee-club equivalents are just weird ass hippies who do weed and sing Kumbaya songs. The only good thing around here are the parties."
"I'm so sorry, babe that sucks."

"I know. God, I wish I could just drop out!" I let out an exasperated breath.

Quinn pauses before saying something I never imagined her saying. "So why don't you?" She looks at me with bated breath.

"Why don't I what?"

"Drop out."

I raise an eyebrow. Mrs. Yale education is suggesting I drop out. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. San, you're not happy. You hate it there. You're not even getting an education. It's a waste of money, time, and effort.

"What is it I would do instead?" I can't tell if I'm surprised I'm even considering this or surprised I didn't consider this sooner. I mean, I guess I just figure everybody goes to college. I mean, where are you going to get in life without college? Everybody does it. You're looked down on if you don't. I mean, when I was eight years old I used to play that old board game 'Life' and all the good jobs would only come if you went to college. Otherwise you were stuck with stupid garbage man/woman and veterinarian jobs.

"You always talked about how much better you were than Berry." I smirk. "Why don't you just come to New York? College is a waste of your time. You're meant for the stage, babe. You're meant to perform in front of crowds and smile for the camera, bring smiles to little kids' faces."

"Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack," she responds.

"Drop out of college?"

"Drop out of college."
"And go where?"

She pauses for a moment to think. "You could always just move to New York. I'm sure Kurt and Rach would let you stay with them for a little while well you got on your feet. Plus, you'd only be a train ride away from me." She sends me a devious smile suggesting dirty things.

"Yeah… maybe. I'll think about it," I say. I know though, as soon as I say it, I'll do it. I'll do anything she tells me to do. There's no way to say no to her beautiful hazel eyes. I'd do anything to be one step closer to them.

"Of course, it's just a thought."

And why? Why do you go flashing those eyes at me?

You know that I'm eager to please.

I've always been eager to please.

She points out the Yale University Art Gallery with such excitement. "There it is! I absolutely love it in there! You have to see it." She immediately begins to pull me by my hand into the large looking building. I sort of hate art museums. They're pretty boring and all the contemporary stuff is bullshit, but I really love Quinn. So I'll suffer through it for her.

The moment we enter Quinn lets go of my hand. I can't help but frown. The cold air hitting my hand for the first time in an hour isn't pleasant. She fishes out a $20 bill and her student ID to give to the guy at the entrance. He nods us through and gives her back $2.

"It's $9 for me to enter?" I ask. "That's really not that bad."

"Actually it's $18. I get in free because I'm a student."

"$18! What! That's ridiculous. To see some shitty art by some artists that won't be remembered?" A couple of students standing by some painting of a black line, it's literally just a black line on a white canvas, glare at me and because I'm Santana Lopez I glare back. "I can't believe you paid $18 for this… white canvas with black line!"

"Santana, hush. It's art. You just have to look and appreciate it. Not every piece will strike you the same, but you'll find your one and it'll stay etched in your mind forever." The only piece of art I want etched in my mind is your body. Jesus, when did I become so cheesy?

"What's your 'life changing' piece then?"

"I'll show you when we get there. Come on. Let's find yours!"

I grumble an incoherent but clearly annoyed response but allow myself to be dragged along. The first painting we stumble upon is called 'Unstable Talisman Rendering' by some guy with an unpronounceable name. It just looks like some black hole or an alien… maybe a really moldy ham? The most unstable thing about it was the artist. And that's what I said. But Quinn didn't laugh like I expected she would.

The rest of the museum didn't make any sense. Apparently they were having this special one-month only showing of all of Andy Warhol's works. There was an entire room dedicated to it. I'd heard his name before so I expected his stuff to be good. Turns out his most prominent piece was just a ton of soup cans stacked against each other. Such bullshit.

Eventually we reached Quinn's favorite was this weird portrait by Lee something-or-other. It was just this housewife in a ridiculously flowery skirt with artwork in front of her and painting canvas in her lap. It looked very 1940's housewife to me. Quinn tried to explain why she loved it so much, something about the coloring and the look in her eyes and the 'meta' concept of the whole piece but I couldn't really get it. She was speaking some foreign tongue, a silent language conveyed in the world of art, I simply didn't speak. It didn't matter though; her eyes were glowing the whole time. I didn't need to speak art to speak her.

When we leave the museum she pulls me around the rest of campus. This is only the second time I've been here. The first time I came down was when I first moved here a month and a half ago and we were too busy… reconnecting to wander campus. This time she cleared her schedule and I called work to tell them I needed the day off for lady-reasons.

I just didn't tell him it was lady-lovin' reasons.

When we finally finish walking around the gigantic campus, well parts of the gigantic campus, she pulls me into this diner. It's cutesy. It brings me back to the 1950's. The kind of thing you'd see in Grease. It was a real honest to god diner with 24-hour food and milkshakes.

I was so excited because absolutely nowhere in Lima does anyone serve milkshakes and it's a fucking shame. I've been drinking them like crazy ever since I arrived in New York because more places have them or at least will make them on request. Quinn loves them too. She raved about them when she first got here. Her first month here we couldn't go a Skype call without her mentioning milkshakes, so I figured it was pretty safe ordering one for her as well.

She changed the order to an iced tea and told me that no college students actually milkshakes. Those are for the little kids that come and visit their siblings.

It was so great seeing her otherwise. I had missed seeing her, laughing with her, talking to her, and just plain old being around her. Something about being around her always kept me relaxed. She made me feel safe in a world that's full of lurking demons and darkness.

"How are you liking New York?"

"It's pretty fucking amazing here. Everything moves so fast you barely have a minute to catch your breath, but that's what's so great about it. Down every city block there's some place that's just up and coming and another that's already cornered millions on the market! I absolutely love it there."

"Aren't you glad you moved?"

"Definitely. It's been a little hard making ends meet, but I'm doing okay. Kurt and Rachel are a fucking nightmare though."

"I'm sure they are," she says knowingly. "I love them so much, but I can't imagine sharing a bathroom with the two of them. They each have hour long night specials!"

"I know! I have to wait until like 1am just to get into the bathroom!" The two of us laugh as I tell crazy stories about their antics. That time Kurt got a boyfriend pillow and he bought them for Rachel and I. I told Quinn I'd show her my Pillow-Quinn sometime.

"Does it ever feel like your back in high school?" she asks.

"Yeah. A lot of times actually. It's kind of nice though. It's familiar," I admit.

She nods noncommittally. "I get it, but I don't know. High school seems so far away now. Like, I've grown up so much since then and it's only been a few months. I can't ever imagine going back."

I shrug, not really being able to relate. "Yeah, I'm just still going through that process."

She looks away, a bit distracted and lost in thought before turning back towards me and continuing our conversation. She tells me more about Yale and then about her life at Yale specifically and how she's met these really nice sorority girls. It figures Quinn would fit right in with them.

"So, when we get home I think you're going to have to show me what you do at work. Serve me ice cream and sing me songs on roller blades," she teases.

"Only if you tip well," I tease.

"Oh I tip very well," she says with darkened eyes. I don't know if she did it consciously or not, but she licks her lips in the most seductive way possible.

Just as I was about to suggest we get out of there really fast an impossibly obnoxious voice, like worse than Berry's in the morning, calls out a name all too familiar to me. "Quinn!"

I turn backwards, seeing a buff, college aged boy and his friend appear. "Hey! It's been a long time since I've seen you."

"Oh my gosh Brad!" She immediately jumps up to give the redheaded boy and his friend a hug. Before long the two of them are engaged in a conversation I can barely follow. Apparently something big is happening in the Middle East or maybe Middle Asia? What even is Middle Asia? Whatever it is, they're talking too fast and using phrases like 'anti-clericalism' and 'gauche caviar.'

It's only as those two get into a heated argument I begin to ponder what Quinn meant when she talked about high school. She's grown so much since then? I was a part of her high school experience? Am I growing with her or is she growing out of me?

But I, I've got a lot to say

And I'm scared that you're goanna slip away

And you, you've got this wide-eyed gaze

And a smile that you'll carry through your days

The moment I open my door a flood of relief floods my system. I wasn't sure she'd actually show up. Our schedules have been conflicting a lot recently. She needs to work on a project and the only time her entire group could meet was at the time we had scheduled or work had called me in to pick up an extra shift. It's been hard, but we've been making it work.

I immediately pull her in for a hug. I need to hold her in my arms, feel her against me. There are still days I'm not sure that she's real and I just need to be reassured that I didn't make her up. Today is one of those days. Shockingly, I really did find myself a true angel, and somehow managed to date her. "Hey Q," I say with a smile and a peck on her lips that turns into something much deeper, longer, and more passionate than a peck.

"Hey San," she says, separating our lips but attaching our foreheads. "God," she mutters. "It feels like for-fucking-ever since I've seen you."

"I know babe," I reply, just reveling in this moment.

Eventually, the two of us separate and begin to head into my apartment. "So, what do you want to do for the next," I glance down at my watch, "two hours?"

"I want to take you to the bedroom and make love to you for three hours," she says in that irresistible husk and darkened pupils that twinkle with thoughts of lechery. I can't believe she can still make my legs wobble like this.

"As delightful as that sounds we have plenty of time later. How about… I show you around the city instead?" I counter.

"I'd really rather take a tour or your body rather than a tour of the Empire State," she says, walking her fingers along my leg.

The amount of nervousness in my laugh is downright embarrassing. "Come on, Quinn. I haven't seen you in two weeks' babe."

"Exactly," she whispers in my ear, her fingers getting dangerously close to me giving in.

I moan as her hand slip into my panties, running through the wetness that has already appeared.

Just as I'm about to give in and let her take me then and there her fingers pull out of my black panties, which yes I did purposely match to my black lace bra. "But y'know what, a tour of the city does sound great. Let's do it!" With a kiss on my lips and a discreet lick of her fingers as she turns around, she flounces away from me and towards the door.

God I have never loved and hated a human being as much as I do her. "You're absolutely evil," I say as I make my way towards her and the door.

"To what are you referring? I simply agreed with you," she teases innocently.

"You're goddamn lucky I love you," I growl.

"I am," she replies sincerely as we make our way out the door.

The two of us decide that the best place to visit while still making it to our reservation was Time Square. It was classic, had a history of romance, and was pretty close to the restaurant we'd be eating at later. Sometimes I couldn't believe Quinn had been living only a couple hours away from this magnificent city and still hadn't seen so much of it.

"San?"

"Yeah Q?" I already know what she's going to ask. She's been vibrating against me for the last couple of minutes, staring excitedly at her target.

"Do you think we have enough time to… rent some ice skates?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Why do you ask?" I respond nonchalantly.

"Because there's a giant ice skating ring over there and I really, really want to go ice skating!" She's practically squealing with that puppy dog pout and begging hazel green eyes. It's absolutely adorable.

"I mean… I guess it'd be okay," I reply, knowing it'll make her day.

I thank god for those awful skating lessons I took as a kid because they're the reason I'm gliding on the ice and not stumbling like all these other chumps on the ice. Quinn is absolutely elated. I don't blame her. There's something sort of magical about being on the ice.

I'm barely listening to her right now, hands flying spastically around the place either out of pure, uncontainable happiness or perhaps because she's not particularly balanced on the ice. All I can think of is how different my life would be without her. I would probably still be in Louisville without her, struggling through some half assed on-and-off relationship with Britt and completely unhappy with my life. Now I'm in New York. Sure, I'm a shitty waitress now but I'm so happy. I have a girlfriend I love. I'm in one of the most amazing cities in the world. And I'm following my dreams.

I have Quinn Fabray to thank for everything.

It's the easiest way

To know you're alive

And the beauty you heard

I see you talking with your hands

Well I don't think she knows

How she changed all my plans

I don't come to her dorm room too often. The apartment I share with Kurt and Rachel is bigger and we have walls that hide what we do between our roommates, although I'm sure they can imagine anyways. But MGMT was coming to perform at Harvard and both of us absolutely love them. Plus, they wrote our song: Classic.

It's the first time I've actually seen her dorm room in person and beyond the door. It's nice. It's exactly how I'd picture anywhere Quinn was living to be. It was completely organized. Her bed was generally made, covers pulled up but not truly tucked in, and her books were piled neatly on her desk, but there were still a couple of papers still being used and studied lying out on the desk. Not a single loose piece of clothing was hanging out from the dresser and all her shoes were neatly ordered in straight rows. The only thing I hadn't anticipated were the pictures she had up on the walls, above her bed and a couple around her desk. It's not that I didn't anticipate pictures, Quinn had always been a sentimental fool, it's just that I didn't anticipate the faces in the pictures.

I figured that the pictures would be filled with the two of us together, our memories and adventures. There would be a picture of Britt or Rachel somewhere because they were some of her best friends. There'd probably be a picture of her and Puck somewhere because, after everything they went through together, it did actually make them closer. I figured that on one of these printed out sheets of paper would be a picture of the Glee Club winning nationals or a young Quinn and her dog or a picture of her family – the parts that she likes anyways like Frannie and her mother.

Instead I see 2 pictures of her and I together, one generic selfie of the Glee club we took for kicks one day, and a picture of her and Frannie. The rest of the photos are all friends she's made here at Yale. Faces I don't recognize. I notice that all these people in these photographs, people that are apparently important to her life, are people I don't know. And they're already outnumbering the pictures of us.

We look at the faces on your bedroom wall

Nobody's perfect at all

Well sometimes it makes me feel small

"I love you," I say, my right arm wrapped around her shoulders.

She looks up from her phone for a split second to send me a smile. It's that smile that made me fall in love with her in the first place. The smile that could make me forget everything in the world except her. The smile that could break my heart if she wanted. "I love you too, babe." She tilts her head up and gives me a quick peck on the lips before looking back down at her phone, reading the stupid gray bubbles coming in on her group chat full of people in her psychology class.

I just want to sit here with my tea and my own cell phone playing Candy Crush and be content. But I'm not content. I know that not every second of the day can we be talking or having some intense meaningful conversation or unique moment. We need to be there for each other in the quiet moments too, but right now it doesn't feel like she's here. Her mind isn't with me. Her mind is off in another life that I'm not a part of.

"Hey Q?"

"Yeah?" she responds distractedly.

I pause my game. "Do you ever… regret staying together?"

Upon hearing my words, she quickly turns off her cellphone and turns to face me, getting out from under my arm. It feels cold, not warming against her skin. "What? No. Not unless you do," she rushes out, panicked. "Do you? Are you breaking up with me?"

"No," I reassure quickly. "I'm not. I just… I just want to know if you ever regret it? I mean, you could be off with some Yale hottie instead of cooped up in here with me. Carrying high school with you to college can be hard… disastrous even." I feel like I'm going to throw up saying these words.

"Babe, stop. You know exactly how I feel about you and about this," she says, brushing a hand to my face as she brings me into a kiss that no longer feels right against my lips.

Thinking she's reassured me she leans back into me and picks up her phone to continue texting. I pick up my phone as well as not to appear odd or insecure, but that's all I feel inside. I can't help but notice that she said, 'You know exactly how I feel about you and this' but she never did say.

I wonder if she didn't say it because she couldn't say her real opinions anymore.

Why do you go wasting your youth on me?

You're so beautiful now

There's so much time left for you now.

It hurt, but I knew I was making the right decision. We weren't in love anymore. We still liked each other, we still enjoyed each other's company, but we didn't love each other anymore. There was no spark or desire or that feeling of coming home and peace knowing that you were in each other's arms. We were just a security blanket for each other now. We had to break it off before we couldn't anymore and neither of us had any chance of being happy.

It's weird, thinking about it, how I thought that we'd grow up and get married and have kids and eventually grandkids together. I was so sure she was my one. But things changed. Things I never thought would change did. We both grew and we grew in different ways, away from each other.

I don't regret a second of it – the growing apart of the being together. We both grew for the better and I know that. Quinn didn't need me to love her anymore because she finally loved herself and I didn't need Quinn to pick me up off the floor anymore because I could do it on my own. But without her, I never would've gotten there. I never would've gotten here, independent and following my dreams.

We were ships in the night. We could feel each other's waves, making dents in the hull we couldn't quite get out. But no matter the dents or the waves, we still never met.

The things that I thought would last

Well they're fading, they're fading

The feelings I used to have

Well, they're changing. They're changing.