Never Look Back
"One place you dream of going one day?"
"London. Perfect time of year?"
"Fall, right as the leaves are starting to change. Favorite flavor of ice cream?"
"Strawberry cheesecake. Favorite song when you're studying?"
"Cello music. What's the wolf for?" Santana asked, rubbing the tattoo on Dani's ankle.
The other girl smiled. "Ever read the Discworld series?"
"A few of them. I'm not usually into fantasy, but Terry Pratchett's pretty cool."
"I love Angua – she's my favorite character out of the whole series. There's a quote in one of the books when she's talking to Carrot. It's something like 'Wolves never look back'. I got this," she said, nodding to the tattoo. "When I first got here. Things were hard, and there were times when I thought about going back to my family. Telling them it was all a mistake and I would be their perfect straight angel from now on. And in my darker moments, it would have been easier for me to hate them. But I remember not to look back, and I don't."
They were both quiet for a long moment, and then Santana asked,
"Are you ever going to tell me what happened?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Well, yeah," Santana said, scooting closer so she could cuddle next to Dani. "You said all hell broke loose. What does that mean?"
"That means…two nights after they caught me making out with Tiffany the Dance Team Captain, I woke up at one a.m. to find two men looming over me…."
"It's okay, Danielle, they're here to help you," her mom said tearfully. "It's okay, sweetie."
Dani bit the man whose hand was covering her mouth as they dragged her out of her room. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? DADDY!"
"I'm right here, Dani," the man said, appearing in her doorway. "This is…this is for your own good. You need help, honey."
"Yeah, I need them to let go of me!"
"We mean you no harm, Danielle. Your parents are worried about you. You're perfectly safe, but you need to stop struggling."
"What's going on?"
A boy had just stepped out of one of the rooms.
Dani locked eyes with her twin brother, and that was all the communication that was needed.
"Let go of her," he said.
"Back off, tough guy," the other man said. "We've got a job to do."
"Dylan, honey, Danielle has to go away for a while," their mom whispered.
Dylan ducked under his mother's arm, dodged his father, and socked one of the men right in the jaw. "Dani, run!" he said, scuffling with the other.
She bolted, grabbing her truck keys off the coffee table. She ran out the door, and straight into the hands of another man.
"You think you're the first kid to try and run for it?" he asked. "Be still, or we'll have to sedate you."
"LET GO OF ME!" she screeched.
By now the man who'd spoken to her in her room had made it out, and they were pulling her toward a black van.
"Seriously?" she yelped, able to appreciate cliché even in the most stressful of times.
"We need a kit," one man said.
"Danielle," it was the first man again. "We need you to calm down and cooperate. Please relax. I don't want to have to sedate you."
Dani's self-preservation instinct kicked in then. God only knew what was happening, and the last thing she wanted was to be unable to fight if she needed to. Right now, she didn't. She was going either way, she could see that. She stopped struggling, and her fists unclenched though she was tense as a rod in every other way.
"Thank you. My name is Chris," the man said gently as one of the other two started the car. "Everything's going to be alright."
Dani could see Dylan struggling to get to her as the man closed the van's door.
Chris put his hand on her shoulder, but took it away when she flinched. "I meant what I said earlier, no one will hurt you. I used to be like you – lost and confused – but I got better. That's all your parents want is for you to get better."
"So this is a kidnap-slash-intervention?" Dani asked bitterly.
"We're simply removing you from the harmful influences in your life. You'll be with people who are like you, and around people who can help you through this phase."
Dani decided not to comment on the fact that they were locking a bunch of gay kids up together and telling them "Seriously, be less gay!" Instead, she curled up on the hard seat and stared at the ground as they drove.
Dani smiled at Santana and hugged her. "You're not allowed to start punching walls until I finish the story," she said. She kissed her when Santana's horrified expression didn't change. "I know your mind is going all worse-case scenario right now, but they didn't do anything to me."
"What happened?" Santana asked, voice sounding strangled.
"We drove for a while. I nodded off, but it must've been a few hours because when I woke up we were passing Gunnison and we'd come from Denver. Anyway, they brought me into this office area and checked me in. Then they put me in a solitary room for the rest of the night. Apparently they do that with everyone, because kids tend to try to kill themselves when they first get there."
"No fucking shit."
"Anyway, they left me alone for most of the day. I couldn't sleep – barely ate. When they finally came to get me around lunchtime, I was crying again. They got Chris to come talk to me."
"You're going to see you counselor," Chris said, taking her hand. "She'll be your primary female role model while you're here. If you need anything, you can talk to her."
"Is she gay too?" Dani bit out.
"She was formerly under the homosexual influence," Chris answered. "But she's recovered, and so can you, Danielle," he insisted. "You just have to work at it."
"At what?"
"Some of what you'll be doing here is therapy to reprogram your brain and direct your urges into a more productive direction. And some of it will be relearning proper gender roles. Can I show you around?"
Dani stood up, but refused to let him hold her hand. She ignored his pitying look and followed him out into the hall. It wound to the left and opened up into a lobby. There was a receptionist who looked only a bit older than Dani who averted her eyes and hit the security lock to the other wing of the building.
Chris ushered her through the grated door and began pointing out different room. It was quite like a school.
"There's your home economics classroom – you'll be taking cooking and homemaking classroom. Those are the therapy rooms, and over here is the dormitory. Elsa!"
An older woman who was built like a bull turned sharply and nodded to them. She smiled at Dani. "You must be our new recruit."
"This is Danielle," Chris said.
"I go by Dani."
"Not here, you don't," Elsa said. "You go by your god-given, female name. Come in, you'll be in the first bunk. I'll show you your things, and then we'll take you to Andrea."
"Please," Santana said, cutting in. "Tell me this isn't going the way I think it's going to go…."
"Actually no," Dani said. "It's only an hour-long Lifetime Movie, not a two-hour Christmas special. Andrea was actually decent. They all were, and that was what was so frustrating. If I'd met some of them as…college professors or whatever, I'm sure I would've liked them." She shrugged and snuggled closer to Santana. "Decent people can put their energy into some fucked up shit though."
"Preach. So…what happened then?"
"I was only there for a week. I think Dylan guilted Mom and Dad into getting me out. Therapy was just prolonged, one on one Bible lessons. And of course, home ec to teach us how to be real women."
Santana snorted. "I bet that part wasn't too bad for you."
Dani grinned. "Well…they were all laboring under the delusion that every lesbian is a man-hating, softball playing lumberjack who wouldn't know a skillet from their asshole, so I shocked the hell out of them my first lesson. I don't think they knew any sixteen year old who could cook like that."
"But you got out after a week, you said?"
Dani nodded. "Dylan had told our uncle Rob what happened, and I left to live with him and Aunt Kate that summer. My parents still don't talk to me, but I've got Dylan and my aunt and uncle."
Santana hugged her. "Thanks for telling me. I can't imagine what going through that was like for you."
"You're actually the first person I've told," she said, then amended, "Other than my brother."
"Seriously?"
"No one really wanted to know the details. And, like I said, I grabbed my guitar and never looked back. And then I met this super hot waitress who could really sing but had absolutely no game whatsoever –"
"Hey now," Santana said, tickling her. "I wasn't that bad."
"So," Dani continued, "I figured I made the right decision."
Santana nodded, kissed her and said, "I think so too."