The fingerprints on the old photograph showed through the cracked frame. She stared at it for a second, then snatched it up.
He rolled off of her with a quick kiss and grabbed his jeans, struggled into them and rushed around the room, hunting out his things.
"Will you just stop a second?" she said, throwing back the covers and pulling on her underwear.
He didn't glance up. "Lana's waiting. I'm supposed to pick her up for dinner."
"When are you going to tell her?"
Rubbing her thumb over the fragile, fractured glass, she studied the picture like her life depended on it.
He stilled. "Tell her?"
She glared at him, jaw clenched and waiting. His eyes narrowed.
"Are you crazy? Babe, you know I can't. If I dump her now, there goes my whole internship with her old man. And I can't afford to lose that."
"You always have an excuse," she whispered.
Her thumb stopped to rest on the fingerprint that shimmered, in the evening light flickering in through the window, below the glass.
He rolled his eyes and ignored her. "Listen, Santana, I have something for you," he said, locating his backpack and fishing out a thin, rectangular, brown-wrapped package. He held it out like a peace offering.
She looked at it for a moment, not wanting to take it, but her arm reluctantly moved to bridge the gap. She held the package, forming a physical connection with him. Yet they weren't touching. The package was in between.
"Take it," he said, letting go.
The light outside was fading, but she didn't notice. Her thumb pressed hard against the cracked surface and a silent tear slipped from the corner of her eye, down her cheek.
She unwrapped the gift to find a clear, beautiful glass frame, blood-red rubies adorning the edges.
"For this," he smiled, picking up the unframed picture lying on her bedside table; the one of the two of them, that day on the seashore, just before they first kissed. A few years back.
She smiled now. How could she not? The gesture was sweet.
"You like it? Here, let me put it in," he said, taking the frame, "It's a little difficult… And you can't really take it out once it's in…"
With a grunt, he slid the old, slightly tattered photo in, and held it up to her, grinning
.
Darkness was settling now. And the broken pieces of the frame caught the new moon's light, twinkling eerily. Her back slipped off the bed, onto the freezing, wooden floor.
She reached to take the frame but stopped at the touch of its cold surface, so unlike the warmth of the old, worn picture.
She looked up at him, into those beautiful blue eyes. His smile was still broad. It looked so happy and calm and friendly. But…
"What?" he asked, his grin faltering a little.
"I don't…want it." She wanted – more than anything.
He frowned, "Why not?"
She searched him. Waiting. Hoping.
Her eyes were brimming. But she couldn't let them spill. She couldn't. She couldn't. She couldn't. Not even as her thumb pressed harder against the fragile pieces barely holding together.
"I love you," she murmured.
"And I love you too baby," he said.
But she could hear it even as he said it – the lie in his voice. She could see it – the quick glance at his watch, impatient to get away. She could feel it – the emptiness of those words.
"No," she said so quietly. He sighed, then moved forward to kiss her, make it better, so she'd just stop. But he touched her and she was stiff – and he knew she knew.
"Goddamned bitch!" he snarled, snatching the frame away, Santana flinched, "What the hell do you want from me? Huh?" His glare was intense and frightening.
She'd reared back from the force of his outburst. The tears lodged thick in her throat and her voice escaped her when she tried to say…
No, they weren't going to fall, those tears. Because what would they be?
"You."
"What? Just spit the fucking word out!"
She cleared her throat, willing herself not to cry, and hardened her expression. She was, after all, a bitch by all definitions of the word, "Nothing. I don't want anything."
His sneer mocked her. "Fine!" And he sent the frame flying. It just missed the hard wall and hit a softer canvas painting. The crack was still audible.
Wasted. Wasted tears. Wasted everything.
He threw his few things in his backpack and pulled on his jacket over the red t-shirt, leaving nothing behind, as always.
She just stood, shivering in her skimpy, crimson, laced underwear, watching.
He shouldered the bag and strode out of the room. Pausing, he turned, and walked back. Right up to her. He liked the feeling that he got, towering over her smaller self.
Bending close to whisper: "Where are my manners, leaving without thanking you?" he breathed against her ear, "Thank you. For your services. A great fuck, really. Over a year? Be proud of yourself you kept me this long."
He touched his cold lips to her cheek and stood back. The smile was malicious, the wink spiteful.
Wasted blood. The prick was sharp and she watched as her thumb sliced open, blood as red as the rubies gilding the frame oozing out. The redness spread, staining the clear glass, darker between the cracks. Her attention so focused on the beauty, the power of the colour, she did not notice as the frame slipped from her hands to the floor.
The door banged shut behind him with the most devastating finality. She heard the muffled slam of the car door outside, the whirr of the engine jerked into life, and the skid of the tires as the car drove off, kicking up dust in its wake.
The shattering of the frame broke the deafening silence with its own shrill music. Glittering fragments scattered everywhere, cutting her bare arms and legs. And in the midst of the debris, she saw the frayed picture, stained red. She picked it up gingerly, gazing – but it was gone, the fingerprint. Like it had never existed. She could have even hallucinated it.
Her throat was still tight. Goosebumps erupted on her skin. She sat down weakly on the bed, the frame a foot away. She hated it, the way it taunted her like he had. Her anger and pain was focused so powerfully on it that she thought it might explode at the sheer strength of her emotion. But then something caught her eye. A dull sparkle.
She couldn't hold it anymore. The dams were weakening under the force of her pain and the tears were about to burst. They were coming. They were coming. And her wounds were throbbing.
The fingerprints on the old photograph showed through the cracked frame. She stared at it for a second, then snatched it up.
She scrambled up to get away. To get away from this evil thing he'd left to goad her in his absence. To show her how worthless she was to him. To show her it was her fault she couldn't have him, just like her own blood had erased the last intimate mark of his ever being there.
The tears were streaming and the cuts stinging as she scrabbled to hoist herself up. It was a mess, the floor, and just as she gained her footing, she slipped. Slipped on the photograph she had cherished with all her heart.
She came crashing down, right onto the jagged shards, her frozen hands failing to break her fall. And she knew just then that she should have never picked up that frame.
The cold slivers of glass punctured and sliced through her skin, the first huge burst of pain exploding at her throat.
Rubbing her thumb over the fragile, fractured glass, she studied the picture like her life depended on it.
Thick blood, darker than the rubies, poured from her neck, where the largest shard had embedded itself. Her eyes widened for a moment, her vision darkening, and she felt the beat of each of the fragments of her heart slow.
She should never have let this happen. Never have fallen in love with him. As her eyes glazed over, she heard the wind sighing: "Everything falls apart."
And her last silent tear slipped from the corner of her eye, down her cheek.
The first thing she sees, after what could've been minutes, hours, or even days later, is a blue pair of eyes looking at her intently.
"She's awake!" The girl instantly calls out.
"Who are you?" Santana wants to ask, but her throat is dry and her lips refuse to move.
"I'm Brittany." She says, and Santana is still fixated on that specific shade of blue. "Do you remember me?"