I will never forget the day I discovered true beauty. It was the summer I turned nine and I was already beginning to forge a name for myself in the slums of Ohio. The run-down streets of Lima Heights Adjacent were my playground and my peers were my fearful subjects. I can't exactly say they were my loyal subjects since every one of them would turn on me if push ever came to shove. In fact, a lot of my peers had the same goal back then: To knock me down a peg so I was no longer top dog in our age group.
The days were few and far between that went by when I didn't come home with a black eye, grazed skin, or bruised knuckles from fighting to keep my position at the top of the social ladder. Most adults think children won't do any more than name calling when they're young. I learned early on, however, how brutal they can really be; especially when your skin is darker than theirs and you can't seem to fit your tongue around some of their words because your funny accent keeps getting in the way. Still, by the tender age of nine, I had already developed the reputation of a bad-ass.
I earned my title of 'bad-ass' three summers before at the park when a boy named Noah Puckerman targeted me while I jumped rope. He was twice my size and had brought a group of friends with him. They laughed at the dark coloring of my skin and mocked the way I spoke when I told them to leave me alone. Eventually, Noah started name calling but I was happy to ignore him until the moron went and spit in my face.
The simple, thoughtless action and the laughter afterward made something inside me burn, starting in my chest and flowing up to the tanned skin of my cheeks. It was in that moment I realized how it felt to have embarrassment flood through my entire being. It didn't take me much longer to realize I didn't like the feeling or the laughter so I did the only thing I could think of to make it go away.
Noah certainly didn't like my solution when my fist connected with his crotch and made him buckle over in pain. There had been a collective gasp from his posse but I didn't stop my vengeance there. I threw my jump-rope to the ground, grabbed his shoulders with my small hands and shoved him backwards onto the concrete so I could jump onto his torso and start landing blows to his face. That was the day I started my reign as Santana Lopez, the major bad-ass of LHA. It was also the day I made my first rival in Noah. Oddly enough, it was my rivalry with him that led to my first glimpse of true beauty when he issued a dare I couldn't pass up that fateful day.
The sun was finally beginning to sink beneath the horizon, painting the slums of Lima with long shadows. I was lounging on the steps that rose up to my apartment building with the gangly Finn Hudson, who was hanging on my every word as he sat on the step below me, and Noah, who had insisted on everyone calling him 'Puck' the year before to make him sound tougher. Even though Puck and I were rivals, we sought out the company from one another most afternoons; mainly because it was difficult to compete with each other if we weren't together. The idea for the dare was brought up while I was in the middle of regaling Finn with the story of how I beat up David Karofsky after the oaf tried to throw me in a dumpster.
"Hey, Finn, do you remember that old, abandoned warehouse down on Fifteenth Street?" Puck's question seemed to come out of nowhere and I glared at him for interrupting me with such a stupid question. He tried to pretend like he could ignore my gaze by leaning against the concrete pillar at the end of the steps with his hands shoved in his pockets but I saw the way his breathing hitched when I looked at him. Despite how tough he tried to appear by changing his nickname and shaving his hair into a Mohawk, I knew there was still a little boy inside of him afraid of getting his ass kicked again; and that tidbit of information made my chest swell with a pride that was almost too big to contain.
"That empty one with the collapsed roof?" Finn asked which made me roll my eyes. Weren't those the definitions of 'old' and 'abandoned'? Maybe it was because I was only nine but I honestly couldn't see why Puck voluntarily spent time with Finn. The kid was nice but he was too tall for his age, had a girly haircut, and he seemed to point out the obvious a lot. He wasn't even from Lima Heights Adjacent! Still, Puck thought he was cool so he brought the awkward boy with him whenever we would hang out.
"Well, I spent the night there last night," he bragged with a cocky smirk. This information pulled all of Finn's attention away from me as he gave a loud whoop and pounded fists with Puck. I, however, was still left in the dark about what was so cool about spending the night in an old building.
"My man! I can't believe you did that," Finn exclaimed, his own smile mirroring Puck's. "My mom would kill me if I ever tried to do something like that."
"Your mom would kill you if she knew you were hanging out with us, too," I pointed out as I sat up from my laying position on the steps. Almost all the traces of my Puerto Rican accent were gone when I spoke. I had grown tired of Puck taking easy shots at the way I talked so I had spent many nights before bed practicing my speech. If I had to sound like the idiot gringos in my neighborhood to keep my spot at the top, I would. "And who cares if you spent the night in some building? That sounds like a waste of time, not something to get all excited about."
"Shows how much you know, Lopez."
"Yeah, Lopez," Finn added on. I grimaced at the way my last name sounded when he said it. As much as I despised the accent that made me so different from the other kids my age, hearing Finn's gringo accent wrapped around my name grated on my ears. At least Puck managed to make it sound decent when he said it; mainly because it was laced with a measure of respect. "The kids on Fifteenth say that a family of witches lives in the house across from the warehouse. They're always yelling curses in their witch words. Puck could have been turned into a… uh… toad or something if he had been caught!"
"I guess he should have gotten caught. At least as a toad he'd be a lot cuter than he is now," I said with an indifferent shrug. The remark made Puck's cocky smirk contort into a scowl. I almost laughed at how easy it was to get under his skin. "Besides," I started again as I stood up from the steps and stretched my arms above my head, "witches only exist in Harry Potter. They aren't real."
"But what about the witch curses?"
"I dunno. Maybe the kids down on Fifteenth Street are making it up or they're just too stupid to understand English."
"Don't listen to her, Finn. I heard them talking last night and it's totally a witch language," Puck insisted as he shot a glare in my direction. "She's just a big chicken and doesn't want to spend the night there herself."
"Shut it, Puckerman!" I snapped at the boy before I stormed down the steps and stood toe-to-toe with him. Even though I had grown in the last few years, he was still a head taller than me so I always had to look up any time I confronted him. I didn't let my lack of height stop me from being intimidating, though. I crossed my arms over my chest and stuck my chin out, as if daring him to say something else. "I'm not a chicken. I just think it's stupid to spend the night in some dump of a warehouse when you could be doing something a little more exciting."
"Oh yeah?" Puck asked. I could see him resisting the urge to take a step back. Luckily for him, he was still leaning against the concrete pillar which kept him from making any kind of movement away from me. "Then prove it. I dare you to spend the night there tonight."
"I'll spend tonight there and every night for the rest of this week!" The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I was thinking them. It was too late for me to take them back, too. I knew it, Puck knew it, and I think even Finn knew it on some level. Once you accepted a dare, there was no going back on it without some kind of blow to your reputation; and since I had opened my big mouth and expanded the terms of the dare, my rep would be totally ripped to shreds if I did end up chickening out.
"Come with us then, Lopez," Puck said with a chuckle before he pushed himself off the concrete pillar. When the cocky smirk reappeared on his face, I knew he had planned this all along and I scolded myself for playing right into his hands. Puck probably hadn't even spent the night in the warehouse the night before. I sighed but I followed after the two boys with my head held high.
The closer we got to Fifteenth Street, the more anxious I got. Fifteenth was even deeper in the slums of Lima than my apartment complex and I had never been there. My reign of terror outside of school covered the apartment buildings around my block and the park so I never had a reason to travel further into the slums. Eventually, the rundown apartment buildings I was so used to disappeared and were replaced with ugly factory buildings on one side and dilapidated houses on the other. The unfamiliar surroundings made a cold sweat form on the back of my neck and I could feel my heart hammering against my ribcage when I saw the glares coming from the teenagers standing on some of the street corners.
By the time we reached our destination, the sun had completed its descent, leaving the streets bathed in a faltering yellow light provided by the flickering street lamps that dotted every other corner. It was in that dim, yellow glow that I finally saw the warehouse Finn and Puck had been talking about and I immediately regretted my decision to accept the dare. The building was indeed old and abandoned with the roof practically falling in. The large door in the front was so rusted it was hard to believe it had been shiny, new metal at one time. I doubted that the large door would ever be able to be lifted open again.
"Welcome to your lovely living space for the next few nights, Lopez," Puck said with a wide grin as he led Finn and me to the side of the warehouse. There, we found a smaller, wooden door. The door was just barely clinging to its hinges, which were miraculously still connected to the metal warehouse building. It creaked in a loud protest when Puck carelessly swung it open, revealing the dusty interior cluttered with debris. I had to hold back several coughs as dirt and dust entered my lungs, practically suffocating me. Finn wasn't able to hold back his own hacking and had to wait outside.
"Sleep tight, princess. We'll be back in the morning to make sure you don't run back home to mommy in the middle of the night," he promised me with a wink before backing out of the warehouse and closing the door behind him.
When I was sure I was completely alone and that Puck and Finn were out of earshot, I finally let myself cough out the grime that was taking residence in my lungs. My eyes watered when I was finished and I had to wipe them on the back of my arm. It didn't do much to help the stinging since my skin was already covered in a fine layer of dust but the habitual act did help calm my nerves. Not knowing what else to do, I began exploring my new surroundings. Not that I really cared about what was in some old warehouse but I figured looking around would keep my mind off the fact that I was alone in the dark in the worst part of town I could imagine.
Don't get me wrong; I was not afraid of the dark or being alone. My parents were gone so often for work and school that I was used to being alone; and sometimes they weren't able to pay the electric bill on time so we would be without power for months at a time. What I wasn't used to was the way the night sounded so hostile around me. Several times while I was exploring, I would cover my ears with my hands to block out the sound of gunshots coming from what I hoped was several streets over. At one point, my breath caught in my throat because I heard footsteps coming too close to the warehouse and I didn't release it until they passed by.
For all my exploring though, I didn't find much. My biggest find was the ladder that led up to a ledge that ran around the inside of the warehouse but I didn't trust it enough to try climbing it. Besides, given the condition of the roof, I doubted whatever was left of the ledge would hold my weight. Once I had examined every inch I could of my new surroundings on the ground level, I picked out the only spot in the warehouse that wasn't covered in debris and laid down on my side, using my hands as a pillow and curling my knees up to my chest for some sense of security.
I don't know how long I had been lying there when shouting made me shoot up from my uncomfortable space on the floor. I winced at the pins and needles that were running through my right arm as I pulled myself to my feet. The shouts were muffled but they were close. At first, my irrational thought was about the family of witches Finn and Puck had mentioned. Then I realized that the voices were speaking in English which made me remember witches were make-believe. Besides, it didn't sound like the yelling was coming from across the street. It sounded like it was coming from right outside the warehouse.
I tried telling myself I wasn't scared; I was Santana Lopez and Santana Lopez did not feel fear. No matter how many times I repeated that mantra, however, it didn't stop the slight shaking that had spread through my body nor could it slow down my heart, which was beating so hard I thought it was going to crack a rib. When the side door to the warehouse creaked open and two teenage guys came inside, my heart was beating so fast that it could keep up with a techno song.
The guys were still yelling when they came inside so I took my chance and scrambled to one of the larger shadows in the building. My eyes never left the two teenagers as I crept through the dark, trying to make it to the door so I could leave. I watched as one boy shoved the other onto the ground and had to stop my trek to the door when he started kicking the downed boy in the side. He kept yelling the same word every time he landed a kick. Even though I had no idea what the word 'fag' meant, I knew in that moment I would never forget it and the pain associated with it. The sound of crying finally snapped me out of my temporary paralysis and I hurried my way to the door and slipped through the door to the safety of outside.
The sound of crickets chirping in the warm night air greeted me after I stepped through the door. Unfortunately, I didn't have any idea of where to go and I was left standing outside the warehouse door in a place I didn't know. I could always go back home and return early in the morning before Puck and Finn came to check up on me. I scoffed at that thought. I was not a coward. I may not have been able to spend the night in the warehouse but I was determined to spend the night deep in the slums so I could prove to Puck I wasn't scared. The thought of Puck made me remember the witch house again.
Puck and Finn thought it was so cool to spend the night in an abandoned warehouse across the street from a supposed family of witches. Well, I could prove how bad-ass I was by sleeping in the witch family's yard. That thought brought a confident smirk to my face and I finally moved away from the warehouse and the ugly scene inside it.
The houses across the street from the warehouse were hardly any better off than the warehouse itself. Most of the paint on the houses had peeled away long ago, leaving each building as bland as the next. The peeled paint exposed grey slats of wood that showed evidence of termites and decay. There were remnants of wooden porches in front of some of them but the wood looked like it had rotted from the inside long ago so I doubted they were used for anything other than an eyesore. The only house that had any sort of color to it was the one directly across from the warehouse I had recently left and the fading green color of the paint drew me across the street to examine it more closely.
Yellow grass wilted beneath my feet as I walked across the small patch of vegetation that was considered a yard. The house that stood in front of me had a four-stepped porch but unlike its neighbors' porches, it was made out of concrete instead of wood and it was only just beginning to show signs of age. The house's paint job obviously wasn't new but the fact that I could see more paint than wood made it clear the occupants still cared about the upkeep of their home; and that they still had hope of having a chance at a good life despite their surroundings.
After my quick inspection, I blew out a determined breath and started towards the back of the house. As welcoming as the front of the building appeared, I doubted the occupants would take kindly to a strange girl sleeping in their front yard so I was hoping to find a safe, hidden place to sleep in the backyard. I found one in the form of a flower bed growing close to the house. It was surrounded by fake ducks that had been carved out of wood and painted in colors varying from yellow to purple. It was almost like looking at a rainbow made entirely out of ducks. I wasn't sure how I felt about sleeping on something as frilly as flowers but I decided it was better than sleeping on the cold concrete of the warehouse.
I made myself comfortable on the flowerbed, taking up the same position I had in the warehouse. Only this time, my back was pressed against the cold concrete of the foundation the house was built on. The coolness of the cement countered the heat of the muggy summer air and I found myself easily drifting asleep to the sound of the crickets that inhabited the flowerbed I was using.
The next morning, I was forced awake by an obnoxious red color behind my eyes. I cracked them open, only to quickly shut them again due to the sun nearly blinding me. I groaned as I rolled over, trying to avoid the glaring ball of light that had woken me. Unfortunately, the sun changed tactics and, instead of trying to blind me, it started to bake me in its warmth. I let out a defeated sigh as I forced myself into a sitting position. Now that the sun was out and I was a little less anxious about my surroundings, I was able to make out more of the yard I was sleeping in.
The flowers I had been laying on weren't actually in a flowerbed. They were a soft blue cushion of wildflowers that had managed to sprout up despite the oppressive heat from the sun. They provided a refreshing dose of color in a yard otherwise void of life. Those, and the ducks, brought a rare smile to my face as I lay back down on my impromptu bed and stared up at the blue expanse of sky above me. As I lay there, I realized something that made me furrow my brows in confusion.
I hadn't heard any of the shouting Puck and Finn had mentioned coming from the house I was sleeping by. I had heard shouting, of course; not in some witch language but in English when the teenage boys had gotten into a fight. I had heard gun shots as well but there was nothing coming from inside the house I was laying next to. I rolled my eyes when I came to the conclusion that Finn and Puck had probably been lying about the witch language and got to my feet so I could go back to the warehouse. My thoughts of the two boys reminded me they'd be back soon to make sure I stayed the whole night.
Just as I had predicted, Finn and Puck showed up at the warehouse not too long after I had forced my way inside again. It had taken me a few minutes of mental preparation to go through the door again. The scene from the night before was still fresh in my mind when I slipped through the old, wooden door and took my place on the hard floor. I had a difficult time controlling my emotions when I remembered that a boy had been laying here the night before, curled up in a ball as another rained down kicks to any unexposed body parts. The small splatters of dried blood that dotted the floor next to me made my stomach roll at the memory it brought up. I was more than a little relieved when the two boys finally showed up.
"Looks like you're still here, Lopez," Puck said after he slid through the doorway. I stood up and took a moment to look over my rival. The arrogant smirk he had worn the night before had shrunk and looked like it had lost some of its confident glow. I assumed Finn was waiting for us outside. Judging by his reaction last night, I doubted he would be coming in the warehouse again anytime soon. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who liked coughing up a lung. "One night down, six more to go," he reminded me. I replied by crossing my arms over my chest and cocking my head to the side.
"And if all of them are as easy as last night, then the rest of this week is going to be like a mini vacation," I told him with a small laugh before I walked passed him, giving him a quick shove as I went by and walked out the door. Finn was waiting outside and his jaw practically dropped to the ground when he saw how unfazed I was by my experience from the night before. Puck followed behind me. I could practically feel him sulking so I didn't bother turning around.
"I'll see you around here the same time tomorrow, boys," I said with a wave behind me. "That is, if I don't die of boredom before you find me," I added on with a smile they couldn't see. I didn't have to turn around to know there was a pout on Puck's face and that Finn still had that awed expression on his own. Despite how rough the night had been, the fact that I was already beginning to prove I wasn't a chicken made it all worth it.
The next two nights passed by almost identically to the first night I spent in the green house's yard. It always took me a couple hours to block out the angry sounds of the night air but once I got over them, I was able to settle myself into a comfortable position to fall asleep. On the third night I stayed there, however, I heard movement from inside the house I was laying next to. When I listened closer, I heard a crash followed by the sound of screaming. My breath hitched at the sound and I closed my eyes, trying to block out the yelling like I did with all the other hostile sounds that I associated with the area. The metallic screech of a screen door opening right next to me ruined any chance of that happening.
My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to get out of the flowerbed without getting caught. There wasn't anything in the yard for me to hide behind nor was there any way I could move without drawing attention to myself. With my options limited, I did the only thing I could think of and tried to make myself smaller by curling myself into a ball. Seconds ticked by and I prayed my breathing wasn't as loud as I thought it was. My prayers went unanswered and soon I felt someone watching me and I let out a defeated sigh. There was no use in pretending like I didn't know someone was there.
When I cracked open my eyes, the first thing I saw was a pair of big and bright blue orbs staring right back at me. I could see confusion in those blue depths along with a hint of amusement. The blue eyes belonged to a young girl who appeared to be about my age. She had a round face dotted with tiny freckles. It was framed by long, blonde hair, which twisted into small curls at the ends. There was a radiant smile plastered on her face despite the confusion in her eyes and I easily found myself returning it.
I was more than a little relieved that someone my age had found me instead of some psychotic adult. If the girl's parents had walked out the door, they probably would have freaked out over finding a strange girl in their backyard in the middle of the night. I was pulled out of my thoughts when the girl started talking to me. Even then, I knew I would never forget the first words she said to me.
"Are you a unicorn?" At first, I thought she was joking. If I had discovered someone sleeping in my yard, it certainly wouldn't have been my first question; especially if that someone was obviously a human being and not some mystical horse with a horn. When I looked at her though, I didn't see any sign of her playing some kind of joke on me. Those big blue eyes were focused on me with as much seriousness as a nine year old could convey and I realized that this girl was looking at me with honest curiosity.
"What?" I couldn't think of any other response to the question. I was so surprised by the question that I didn't have the mental capacity to form the word 'no'. Unfortunately, the mysterious girl must have thought I couldn't hear what she had asked me the first time so she took it upon herself to repeat the question in a much louder voice.
"I said, 'Are you a unicorn?'" I had to cover my ears since she was practically shouting into them. My eyes traveled to the screen door she had come through and I waited to see if her yell was going to bring her parents outside. She must have noticed where my eyes had landed because the smile fell from her face and she averted her gaze so she was staring down at the ground.
"You don't have to worry about someone coming outside and spotting you," the girl mumbled as she traced a pattern only she could see in the grass. I followed the long, delicate finger with my eyes, trying to figure what she saw in her mind that was interesting enough for her to trace in the grass. "They're too busy yelling at each other to care about unicorns in our backyard," she explained with a soft sigh before she looked up and locked eyes with me again. The sadness I saw there made me wish I was a unicorn just so I could make her smile again.
"I'm sorry," I started, the apology feeling foreign on my tongue, "but I'm not a unicorn."
"Oh," she replied. Her voice was heavy with disappointment and again I felt that nagging guilt clawing at my insides for putting it there. That feeling made me angry and, not wanting to be mad at myself, I directed my anger towards the strange girl in front of me. How dare some silly gringa make me feel like I had wronged her when she would probably grow up to be the all American girl who got everything she wanted with a look or a well-placed smile?
She reminded me of that Quinn Fabray girl I had shared a class with the previous school year. She had her innocent looks, flawless skin and silky blonde hair. I knew for a fact Quinn wasn't as perfect as everyone made her out to be. I had caught her cheating on more than one test and the way she spoke to people made it clear she thought she was better than everyone else. I doubted this girl would be any better than Quinn and yet she had the audacity to make me feel bad for disappointing her.
"What in the world made you think I could be a… unicorn?" I snapped at her as I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Well, I know unicorns like pretty flowers and ducks; so I painted some wooden ducks and put them around these pretty flowers I found so I could catch a unicorn," she explained. She didn't seem to be affected by the bitch stare I was giving her. Instead, she leaned forward and whispered in my ear. "My plan worked. I woke up one morning and it looked like something had been sleeping in my flowers. Plus, one of my purple ducks had been pulled out of the ground."
I blushed when she mentioned the duck. The second night I stayed in the flower bed, the night air had been filled with sirens and more gunshots than usual so I had pulled one of the silly ducks out of the ground and clutched it to my chest. It had been a childish impulse and I had hoped that no one would find out about it.
"I happen to know that unicorns love the color purple," she added on in the same conspiring whisper she had been using earlier.
"Riiight… Well, if you know so much about unicorns, then you should know they have a horn on their heads," I told her as I leaned back on my hands and stared at her. "You can't tell me you didn't notice I don't have a horn."
"You could have been hiding it. Unicorns are shy," she retorted as if it were the most obvious explanation in the world. "Besides," she added before she leaned towards me again, "you have a tail," she said as she reached behind my head and played with the dark locks of hair I kept tied back in a hair-tie.
"It's a ponytail and anyone can have one. That doesn't make them a unicorn," I explained although I didn't make any move to pull away from her. Instead, I let her play with my hair as she took in what I just said.
"So you're not a unicorn?"
"Nope. Never have been and never will be."
"Well Not-A-Unicorn, I'm Brittany," she introduced herself just before pulling away from me and allowing my hair to drop back down onto the back of my neck. "I would tell you the rest of my name but I always forget it."
"I'm Santana," I replied, unable to stop the chuckle that escaped when I saw Brittany's eyebrows pull together in confusion.
"What are you doing here so early? And where are all your elves?"
"Santana, Brittany," I corrected her as a smile spread across my face. The irrational anger I had felt earlier had disappeared. For some reason, I couldn't find it in myself to be angry at the strange girl. She looked at me with an open honesty that Quinn Fabray was not capable of, dispelling my thoughts of her being anything like the arrogant girl from my old class. "Not Santa."
"You have pretty eyes, Santana," she remarked and I felt my cheeks flood with color. It wasn't the embarrassment I felt when Puck spit on me three years before. Instead, it was a pleasant warmth that made me feel like butterflies were trying to fly away with my stomach.
"Thanks," I mumbled. It was my turn to look down at the ground as I tried to figure out why looking into those big, blue eyes made my stomach do back flips. When I looked back up, she was still looking at me with curious eyes and the smile had returned to her face. I cursed the butterflies that smile brought to life and decided to change the subject from myself. "What are you doing out here so late?"
"I don't really like when they yell so sometimes I come out here to look for unicorns," she answered with a shrug. "They usually don't notice that I'm gone anyway. Once, they even locked me out because they didn't know I was out here. It was raining and I forgot my umbrella."
"That sucks," was the only reply I could come up with. It was true that my own parents were busy with school and work so I was left alone a lot but when they were home they always made sure I knew I was their world. I didn't know how it felt to be completely forgotten about. "I'm sorry I wasn't the unicorn you were looking for," I added on, surprising myself with another apology. I didn't even know 'sorry' was in my vocabulary.
"That's okay," she replied before suddenly wrapping her thin arms around me, successfully enveloping me in a hug I could not escape. Somewhere deep down, I acknowledged the possibility that maybe I didn't want to escape. "I think finding a new friend is better than finding a unicorn anyway," she whispered into my ear as she gave me a quick squeeze.
"Friend?" I asked, completely dumbfounded. Brittany barely knew me and she wanted to be my friend? That wasn't how things worked in my mind. In fact, the last few years had led me to believe that in order to be at the top, I would have to be alone. There was no way I could entrust all of my secrets to one person. After all, it would be a major risk to my popularity if I ever got into a fight with the one person I had foolishly trusted with my secrets.
"You do want to be my friend, right?" she asked. Her eyebrows had knitted together into a look I was beginning to recognize as confusion. When I looked closer at her, I could see loneliness in those sparkling blue eyes. It was something I recognized in my own eyes every time I looked in the mirror.
"I think I would really like to be your friend," I said quietly as if I was afraid to admit it to myself. "And I could teach you how to put your hair into a ponytail like mine, if you want," I added on with a half-hopeful smile.
"Promise?" she asked as she held out her pinky. I looked at her for a moment and then I looked at the pinky she was offering. Then a giddy smile broke out on my face and I linked my own pinky with hers.
"I promise," I said with more confidence than I knew I was capable of. Brittany burst into a fit of giggles and threw herself at me again, wrapping me in a one-armed bear hug while managing to keep her pinky locked with mine. I let my own laughter join hers as I returned the hug. It was while we were in our embrace that it hit me. I, Santana Lopez, had made my very first friend. It had taken me nine years to do it but it had finally happened. As I buried my smile in the long, blonde tresses on Brittany's shoulder, I knew that even being at the top of the social ladder couldn't make me happier. I also could not think of anything more beautiful than the friendship promised in the simple linking of our two pinkies.