Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Something Old
Santana will never admit that sometimes she wishes she were Quinn. Sometimes she wishes that she weren't just another girl Puck messed around with. Sometimes she looks back and thinks to herself that she might give it all up—her place on the top of the pyramid, her reign as Cheerios captain, her scholarship to UCLA—so she could be the one gazing in front of the mirror in the white dress.
"How's that?" asks Santana, finally adjusting the satin buttons on the back of Quinn's gown.
Quinn smiles at her reflection in the dressing room. "Great. Thanks."
Santana watches as Quinn glides over to the couch with lithe, graceful steps, the dress flouncing behind her as though she's walking on air. She's radiant and beautiful and has a cliché rosy glow in her cheeks.
"I'm getting married today," says Quinn, marveling at the idea of it, staring at the blue ribbon in her hands.
Santana feels her fists clench. "It's unreal," she says.
Quinn laughs and says again, "I'm marrying Noah."
"Who's that?" Britney asks from the other side of the room.
"Puck," Santana explains, rolling her eyes.
It's the three of them in the room, the bride and two bridesmaids. Mercedes, of course, is the maid of honor, but she's outside showing everybody into the church while Santana and Britney help Quinn with the final touches before she walks down the aisle.
Not that Quinn needs any help. She's beautiful in the gown. She looks so pure and innocent, like some sort of saint in that white dress, her hair all done up with a few loose tendrils falling artfully and tickling the back of her neck. It's like their sophomore year never happened—she may as well be the Virgin Mary, she looks so holy and sweet.
And Santana is bitter. Her admiration of Quinn stems from her desire to be her in place and even now, on her friend's wedding day, she can't let it go.
"Santana." Quinn opens up her palm and extends the blue ribbon. "Do you mind tying this into my hair?"
She stares at the blue ribbon for a moment. "Sure," she says. Ever since she was a little girl she was great with hair. Endless cheerleading competitions had made her a master.
"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue," Quinn chants under her breath.
Santana expertly whisks the ribbon through her blonde hair. "There you go."
Quinn smiles like a pageant queen. "Perfect."
It's far from perfect, Santana knows. The sinister, dark part of her that wants all this happiness for herself longs to shatter Quinn's illusions of Puck with the truth: that he's been messing around with Santana since high school behind her back.
It's funny. She used to think that it made her special, that after all this time Puck still wanted her. To his credit, he really did straighten up for Quinn. He stopped bullying kids, quit getting smashed on the weekends, and used the extra time to get a job and pay his way through community college. He made an unexpected name for himself at an advertising firm and gained even Quinn's father's approval.
By all accounts he became the dream man, the Ken to Quinn's Barbie—on all accounts except one. Santana.
She can't remember when they started sneaking behind Quinn's back. It was sort of a seamless transition, she recalls, as if there weren't ever really a time that she and Puck weren't fooling around together before and after he and Quinn were an official item.
Sometimes she would be alone in her parents' apartment and he'd drive the four miles to her place. Occasionally she snuck into the backyards of the pools he cleaned and they locked themselves into the poolhouses. It was never formal, never planned. There was something primal and thrilling about the unpredictability of it, knowing that she could have him when she felt like it, knowing that it was their secret.
Maybe that was what made it so delicious—the secret of it. And that she knew without a doubt that she was the only one Puck ever cheated on Quinn with. That's why she felt special. Because Puck may have some sort of fairy tale tame-the-bad-boy romance with Quinn, but he still couldn't resist Santana throughout.
Still, she wishes she could have been more than that. She treasures every second she spent with him, hoards it selfishly in her heart, but she can't help but imagine things differently. When Puck was gone to places she couldn't find him, when his gaze shifted to a corner of the room and played scenes she would never be a part of, she ached to reach out to him and be where he was. She ached to share everything with him, to understand, to be . . . Quinn.
It all ended the October after she graduated college. She had moved back to Lima for a few months before her coaching job in LA started up. The door knocked—she checked the clock and when she saw it was one in the morning she had no doubt who it was.
"Puck," she said, too eagerly. In an instant she slid back into her comfort zone and smirked easily, in control of the situation.
He just stood there. Didn't grab her, press her up against anything, or slam the door behind him. She looked up at him, searched his face, and her heart fell into her stomach.
"Actually," he said, sounding embarrassed, "it's just Noah now. Everybody calls me Noah."
She snorted.
"I'm serious."
"Oh."
He shuffled awkwardly in her doorway. Something was different, as if the air around him had shifted. He seemed every bit the commanding presence he had always been, but there was something inexplicably tame and straightlaced about the way he was standing like some sort of gentleman, like he wanted her to invite him in before he'd cross the threshold.
After a few moments he lifted his hands and placed them on her shoulders. She leaned in, expecting the scene to play out the way it always did despite its rocky start, but he held her in place.
"Look, Santana."
"What?" Immediately she threw up a defense, challenging him with her eyes. She already knew where the conversation was headed so she flung her shoulders back, out of his grasp, as if his hands were burning her. "What, Puck?"
He sighed, all world-weary. It felt like there was acid in her stomach.
"Tomorrow I'm going to ask Quinn to marry me."
She jutted out her chin. "So?"
"So . . ." He gestured noncommittally. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm serious about her. And we can't be . . . doing those things we did."
A little gasp rose up in her chest but she suppressed it, and it felt like she was choking. On what? The rejection? The humiliation? Her first reaction was to lash out, to hurt him the way he was hurting her.
"I don't care," she spat. "I don't give a shit. I never did."
Another sigh. He leaned toward her, his face the picture of sympathy and regret. "I know that's not true. I took advantage of you. For years. I hope you can forgive me."
It took a few seconds for her to absorb the atrocity of what he had just said. That he had been taking advantage of her. As if she weren't a strong, capable woman who was fully able to make her own god damn decisions. As if she were a creature to be pitied for all the times that had once made her feel so special—for all the times she could pretend she was loved.
He was ruining everything. The rage was so fast and so immediate that it blinded here and she grit her teeth enough to make her jaw ache.
"Have a nice life," she said, and then she slammed the door in his face.
For an entire minute she just stared at her closed door. Waiting. Wondering—hoping—that he might knock again, that he might apologize for all the shit he'd just spewed at her, and that everything would be normal again.
But he didn't. It was really over. And that was when she finally slid to her knees and let herself cry until she dragged herself to the couch, curled up into a ball of devastation, and fell into a rocky, uneven sleep.
For a long time she wondered if there were something wrong with her. She moved back to LA, spending her days barking at high school cheerleaders and her nights getting plastered in different bars with strange men, and every morning she would wake up and meet her disheveled face in the mirror and wonder what on earth was wrong with her. She was pretty. She was sure of herself. She was great in bed.
So why didn't Puck love her?
Mercedes bursts into the room and Santana shakes off the hurt expression that crept on her face, erases every trace of her self-loathing.
"Everyone's seated," announces Mercedes, grinning widely. She gives Quinn a satisfied once-over. "Most beautiful bride I ever saw."
Quinn blushes and steps over to Mercedes, and they hug each other warmly. "I couldn't have put this all together without you, Mercedes. You're a lifesaver," says Quinn as they pull apart.
Mercedes shrugs and says wryly, "Girl, you'll be paying me back and then some when I get married."
"I look forward to it," Quinn laughs. The she squares her delicate shoulders and faces the open door. "Well. I suppose it's showtime."
She's so happy that Santana has the sudden urge to smack her. You gave up a baby! You lost everything! I deserve this more than you! It's irrational and boiling and threatens to snap her muscles into action, as if she can possibly take back it all back with one swoop of her fists.
It's useless. The fight is over. She picks up the bouquets and hands one of them to Britney.
"Are you okay?" Britney asks in one of her rare moments of insightfulness.
Santana squares her shoulders in a much less graceful manner than Quinn. She opens her mouth to lie, but she can't. She pulls Britney close to her, feels the confession of her agony rising up in her throat like bile, and says, "Remember to step with your right foot first when we start down the aisle."
Britney nods and doesn't press her on the matter, even as she watches Santana's quivering fingers wrapped around the stem of her bouquet. She just hugs Santana and says, "I love you," with a quick arm squeeze before they're swept out of the room and into the main entrance of the chapel.
The doors burst open and Santana feels her heart thudding over the sound of the organ. She takes a step forward, Britney at her side, and she locks eyes with him.
Puck stares at her over all the heads of the crowd, over the head of his soon-to-be wife, and for a skin-tingling, heart-stopping moment, doesn't look away. Even from this distance she can see the regret in his eyes, and it takes every fiber of her being to turn her head as callously as possible.
He will get married in this beautiful church. He will have the most beautiful girl in Lima, Ohio. He will live happily ever after. But Santana won't ever let him have the satisfaction of knowing he broke her heart.