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There were a lot of things people didn’t know about Brittany Pierce; like that one of her most prized possessions was a second-hand film SLR camera her dad had given her for her thirteenth birthday, or that her favourite book was ‘The Stranger,’ the end of which helped her through her failure to graduate-
(She very much liked the idea of the stars being indifferent to her shortcomings. What did the universe care if she couldn't name all 50 states at the drop of a hat?)
- Or even that she didn’t much believe in God, because she hadn’t been raised in a religious family; something that she didn’t think of as a weird thing until she started school and the teacher asked her what she was thankful to God for, to which she replied, “Nothing?” Followed by “What’s God?”
But if you were to ask Brittany Pierce what the most important fact about her that people didn’t seem to know was, she’d answer with her love of swimming.
She loved swimming in the same way she loved dancing. Because if there was one thing Brittany loved to feel, it was weightless.
She felt weightless when she was dancing, making her body do things other people’s couldn’t. She felt that way during sex, too, being able to make not only herself but also others feel incredible things. Sex was much like dancing, which she guessed was why she was so good at it. She especially loved the way she was able to make the other person feel the weightlessness that she craved.
But sex was often followed with the same weight she had been so desperate to escape from: mornings spent alone after Santana had sneaked out during the night without saying goodbye; days spent feeling sad that Artie was unable to lead their dance this time; nights spent wishing that Sam’s palms were softer, his touches lighter, more like the girl she had loved so much and yet still somehow managed to lose.
All of these things were reasons why she liked swimming the best. Swimming made her feel weightless without any repercussions, with no strings tying her down. Swimming was one of the few things that made her feel truly free.
Not just swimming, but being underwater, where weight and gravity meant literally nothing. Where she could hide from the world and pretend that she was in space. Not hostile space like in ‘Firefly’ (introduced to her by Artie), but space like in ‘WALL-E’, where WALL-E dances EVA.
Brittany wished she could dance like that with Santana, but Santana was gone. Sam was too clumsy to dance like that, though not that she minded too much because he made her laugh, but still, it wasn’t the same.
Underwater, she didn’t have to think about that. She didn’t have to think about anything. She didn’t have to listen, she didn’t have to talk, nobody asked her questions she couldn’t answer, and nobody made her feel like she wasn’t good enough.
But eventually the air in her lungs would run out and she would be forced to resurface, and to feel the weight of the world once more, crushing down upon her.