She was in kindergarten when she first realized she just might like red a little more than the other colors of the rainbow. The first time she walked into the classroom, the teacher had led her to an empty table (quite unwillingly, cause the the room was big and her Mami's hands were warm and safe), where a box of crayons and coloring page waited for her.
Santana eyed the coloring page and scowled. It was an apple. She hated apples. Mami had said apples were supposed to make you big and strong. But this one time when she was watching this really cool episode of this one show where turtles could talk to each other, Papi had come in her room with an apple and put it on her desk saying that she had to eat it or else she'll lose all her teeth like Uncle Charlie.
She'd whirled around, completely forgetting the awesome green reptiles on the tv, and gasped, her hand whipping up to her mouth as if she could already feel them dropping out. Papi had nodded solemnly and pointed at the fruit before walking out and shutting the door behind him. A hand still at her mouth, Santana slowly got up from her position in front of the television and padded over to her desk, reaching for the apple.
However, one of the turtles on tv had decided to yell out something about beating up bad guys and she just had to watch because one day she'll have to fight off the bad guys and it'd be no good if she didn't know the cool poses and phrases. She was back in front of the television just in time to see a bad guy fly across the screen.
The apple lay forgotten on the corner of her desk for the next six days because on the sixth day, Santana had a loose tooth.
Papi was the first to find out because Santana had walked into his office, sniffling. She started babbling about how she had forgotten to eat the fruit and how wobbly her tooth was and how scared she was that if she pushed hard enough with her tongue, it might fall out and would she look like Uncle Charlie when she's grown up? After her papi had gotten her to calm down, she'd gotten this bright glint in her eye and she ran out of the room and seconds later, ran back into his office with an extremely brown apple in her hand.
Before he could ask her what she was doing, Santana had bitten into the six day old apple.
Santana's face scrunched up as she thoughtfully chewed her apple. She paused mid-chew to ask him if the fruit was supposed to be like applesauce.
Her Papi had only stared at her, speechless, before he started laughing extremely loudly, slapping his knee as he doubled over in laughter. Santana only looked at him in confusion as he composed himself long enough to reach over to take the half eaten apple from her hand as well as wipe her juice-ridden cheeks with the back of his hand.
He had stood up from his chair and reached out a large calloused hand for her to take, smiling softly as he did. Once he felt her small hand slide comfortably into his own, he'd lead her to the kitchen where he proceeded to explain the wonders of the tooth fairy.
Now, Santana sat in this big room on a stool with a picture of an apple in front of her. Despite not liking apples, she couldn't pass up coloring because she liked coloring and she was good at it, only messing up when she couldn't decide on a color so she sometimes puts two colors instead of one.
She reached for the crayon box but was stopped by a hand that already gripped the box. Frowning, she looked up at the person, only to find a boy with short fuzzy hair. He grinned at her and said that he needed the red crayon. Without waiting for an answer from the girl in front of him, he swiped the red crayon from her box and ran back to his table where a blonde girl sat. Santana saw that the girl also had a red crayon.
Santana looked back at her own empty coloring page and bit her lip, wanting so badly to color her apple red. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder and when she looked up, she found herself staring at the girl who had been sitting by the boy.
The girl introduced herself as Brit-tany and boldly held out a red crayon. Brit-tany said that she saw No-ah take her only red crayon and cause he only took her crayon because she was using the one at their table, Brit-tany told Santana that she should use her red crayon.
'You're pretty. What's your name?' Brit-tany smiled and tilted her head.
Santana blushed and mumbled her reply. The other girl held out the crayon once again and Santana took it with a timid thank you.
Brit-tany then proceeded to sit down right next to Santana and talk about this new cartoon she saw about talking turtles, every once in a while stopping to tell Santana that she was a really good color-er.
Santana couldn't help feeling feeling sad when the teacher opened her classroom door and she saw her Mami.
As she watched Brit-tany skip to her mom across the room, Santana thought she could like apples a bit more than she used to. But just the red ones.