You've never been to a party before, unless you count Vacation Bible School cookouts, so you feel nervous walking up to Mike's house. You're going into a world you've never even glimpsed. There are people at church who would judge you for coming to this party, for willingly stepping into an environment where you know there will be alcohol and maybe sex and maybe drugs. Do any of your friends even do drugs? Would you be able to tell if they did? Would you know weed if you smelled it?
But you can't worry about that. These are your friends, and they've been such a blessing in your life, and you have learned from them and grown with them. Quinn, and Sam, and Mercedes, and all the guys-they've taught you how to be a better Christian, they've taught you that you can follow Truth and navigate high school at the same time.
You silence the dissenting voices in your head, the ones that beckon you to think about some of the other things you've seen, the things you don't like to think about because you haven't yet decided what you believe about them.
You ring the doorbell.
Mike opens the door with a beaming smile. He shakes your hand with a "So glad you made it, man!" and you tell him that you're happy to be there, happy to have the chance to see everyone hear the music pulsing from the basement as soon as you step into the foyer. You tap your fingers against your jeans, feeling nervous again.
"Can I get you a drink?" Mike asks, leading you down the basement stairs, and you're so overwhelmed by the sight of the party that you don't reply immediately. You look around at all of your friends, absorbing their happy expressions, glancing over their red Solo cups, wondering if any of them are drunk yet, wondering how long it takes people to get drunk, wondering what you'll see when they get drunk.
"No, man, thank you, though," you manage, sweeping your hair behind your shoulder as you follow Mike blindly.
"Joe's here!" Mike shouts, directing everyone's attention to you, and then you're swept up into hugs and handshakes and back pats and "How've you been?"s and "What are you up to this summer?"s.
The music's loud and it's hard to talk to people when you have to shout to be heard, but you're so full of joy to see your friends again, even in this unfamiliar setting. They all want to give you a beer, make you a drink, but you politely say no, and they all say "Oh, right, cool," giving you that smile that means Hard path you're choosing, and deep down you agree with them, deep down you question whether it's worth it, but you bury the doubt away, knowing you'll examine it later.
Then you see Quinn, and you forget your discomfort, you forget your naiveté, you forget the moral tension in your mind, and all you know is the beat of your heart and that jump in your stomach, and you wonder, just as you did back in April, May, and June, if this is what falling in love feels like.
"Hi," you greet her.
She bites the end of her straw and smiles the smile you've been wanting to see all summer. "Hi. I was wondering if you'd be here."
"Really?" you say, hearing your voice betray your excitement.
She asks you things: How's your family? Have you gone on vacation? How's church? What are you praying for lately?
All you can think about is how you've been falling in love with her since the spring. And now it's summer-hot, quiet summer, when things are supposed to happen, when things have already come into bloom.
"Let's go up to the kitchen," she says, taking your hand, guiding you through the wild party and up toward the quiet peace above, and you're in love, surely you're in love.
She takes you into a dark hallway that juts off from the kitchen. There's a bathroom, and a high table with a vase of flowers and a bowl of fruit on it, and other than that, it's Quinn, and Quinn, and-
"I think you're really great," she says, biting her lip.
Your whole being comes alive, blooms out of the earth, rises to meet the promise of this girl. You tuck her hair back behind her ear and step closer to her. "Really?"
She smirks up at you. Her eyes dance. "Really," she says, her tone flirtatious.
"Can I kiss you?"
She answers with a breathless yes, and then you bend to kiss her, feeling her delicate, warm lips against your own, thinking about what a beautiful girl she is, more beautiful than any girl in human history. She's Girl, you're Boy, and maybe yours is an ordained love-maybe yours is the love you always heard about on Sundays, as timeless as a myth, as natural as the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Quinn kisses you back, and you take her face in your hand, keeping your eyes closed and kissing her softly and hoping you're good at it.
"Joe," she says, breathless, "you-"
She's cut off by a sudden pounding of footsteps and a loud voice renting the silence; you hear the basement door crash open, almost like it's been barreled through, and then someone storms into the kitchen. You and Quinn draw back into the shadows, feeling inexplicably like you have to hide from the intrusion, and as your heart rate resets, you hear another set of footsteps pound out of the basement and into the kitchen.
"I'm so sick of this!" the first person shouts, and you recognize the angry voice as Santana's. She enters further into the kitchen and throws herself down onto one of the stools at the counter, a mere 15 feet from you, close enough to destroy this moment between you and Quinn. You look sideways to Quinn for direction, wondering if you should take her hand and make a dash for the basement door, but she shakes her head, wide-eyed, indicating you'd better stay put.
"Santana," the second person says, and then Brittany steps into your line of sight, seeming to hold all the light in the kitchen. "Hey," she says softly, looking down at Santana. "Hey. Come on, talk to me. What's wrong?"
Your whole body sighs as you recognize the makings of a long conversation. Did they have to intrude now? Did they have to ruin your moment with Quinn?
Santana moves her dark, angry eyes from right to left before she settles them on Brittany's face. You can see tears glistening in them, making her eyes look black, even from here. "My mom just texted me," she huffs.
"Yeah?"
"You know how they're all at Abuela's house for her birthday dinner?"
"Yeah?"
"Well…" Santana squirms on the stool, crossing her arms and looking away from Brittany again.
"San?"
Brittany waits curiously, and suddenly you do, too, never having heard Santana speak about her family before. Some compartment of your brain tries to hold onto the moment with Quinn, but your senses pull you to this moment, to the scene playing out before you.
Santana returns her focus to Brittany's face. Her eyes look less angry and more helpless, the way your mom's do when she speaks to your dad about Grandpa's cancer. "I asked her," Santana says slowly, her eyes trained to Brittany's, "if Abuela had opened my card and present….And…" She falters and squeezes her eyes together; you see tears leak from them. You glance at Quinn again, feeling uncomfortable-you shouldn't be witnessing this-and you see that she too feels uncomfortable about watching this scene, but she looks at you helplessly and bites her lip.
"And what, sweetheart?" comes Brittany's voice. She touches a hand to the side of Santana's face.
"My mom just wrote me back that, um…that…" Santana takes a breath, and you feel yourself lean closer, wanting to know what troubles her. "Abuela refused to open my gift," she rushes out. "She-gave it back to my mom. She said she can't accept a gift from a granddaughter she no longer has."
Your stomach clenches in on itself. Vaguely, you hear Quinn's sharp intake of breath, feel her reach spasmodically for your arm. You watch Brittany stare at Santana. For a moment, all they are is silence and eyes. Then Brittany's shoulders fall, and she steps forward, the light in the kitchen going with her, illuminating both girls. "Oh, Santana," Brittany sighs, and it's so pained, so aching, that your stomach clenches again.
"That's really terrible, right?" Santana cries, tilting her chin up as her face crumples. "I mean-my grandmother is terrible, right?"
Brittany raises her other hand to Santana's face and tucks her hair behind her ear. She strokes her fingers down Santana's cheek and says, "That's really terrible. You don't deserve that."
"I just-I just-what else am I supposed to do?" Santana chokes out. Her body bends forward and she seems to curl up into herself. "What else can I possibly do?" she cries.
You feel panicked, desperate, like you want to help but don't know how. Families aren't supposed to work like that. Your heart aches with the need to do something, to hug her, to sing something, to join hands in prayer. Quinn's arm twitches against you; you look over at her and see pain in her eyes as she watches Santana. She half-moves like she wants to go to her. You place a gentle hand on her arm and wait for her to look at you. She checks you for something, but you're not sure what, so you move your fingers up and down her arm, reassuring her you are there.
Santana's full-on crying in the kitchen, but her sobs are muffled by Brittany's arms wrapped around her, securing her and trying to shield her from every bad thing in the world. You watch Brittany comb her fingers through Santana's long dark hair, and you can't see her face, but you imagine that her expression must mirror Santana's, that she feels Santana's pain as her pain, and you swallow against what that makes you feel.
"I'm here," Brittany's saying, running her hands through Santana's hair. "I'm here, sweetheart, I'm here. I wish so much that she would love you."
"I wish she would love both of us," Santana cries.
Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
"Shhh. Shhh. It's okay," Brittany soothes. "It's going to be okay."
"It's not going to be okay!" Santana cries into her arm.
"San," Brittany says in her gentlest, barest voice, and it seems to be all Santana needs: her body unfurls, she raises her face, her eyes lose their armor. She stares at Brittany for a moment, and Brittany holds her eyes while she brushes a hand down Santana's face.
"I'm sorry," Santana whispers.
Brittany takes both of Santana's hands into her own. "One day," she says, leaning her body into Santana's, "your grandmother is going to understand. One day, she's going to get it. I promise you."
"I just-" Santana says. She drops her head, shakes it quickly, and then picks it back up again. "What is it going to take? How long is it going to take? I mean, what if she's still like this when we're well into our twenties and ready to get married? I want her to be there. I want her to see me marry you."
You pull back in surprise; to your right, Quinn does the same. She looks at you and raises her eyebrows as if to say Didn't see that coming, and you try to keep your face neutral, unsure of how she feels, unsure of how she hopes you feel, unsure of how you do feel, the old arguments picking back up again in your head.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
"I want that too," Brittany promises. "We just have to take it one day at a time. Like I tell Lord Tubbington with his diet."
Santana laughs at that-genuinely laughs, her eyes lighting up, her face joyful in a way you've never seen it.
"Tell you what," Brittany says, bopping Santana on the nose. "How about we go back to my house, make ice cream soup, and watch TV Land in bed."
Then she ducks down and kisses Santana sweetly.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
"How does that sound, baby?"
Hey, guys! Guys! You gotta hear the questions Joey's asking me! He keeps asking about gay people!
Jeeze, Joey, everybody knows that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!
Santana smiles up at her. "I would love that, Britt Britt."
Brittany smoothes her hands over Santana's face. "I hate when you're upset. I wish all this hadn't happened to you. Sometimes I-" She falters and smiles embarrassedly at the floor.
"What?" Santana asks, running her hands over Brittany's wrists. "Tell me," she pleads softly.
"It's silly."
"Nothing you say is silly."
Brittany smiles. "We both know that's a lie," she jokes.
Santana looks at her with soft, trusting eyes. "Tell me," she asks again, in the gentlest voice you've ever heard her wear.
Male and female he created them.
Brittany is quiet. Then: "Sometimes…when I think about all this stuff that happens to you...I pray that God would make it happen to me instead."
Santana's breath hitches. "Britt-"
"San," Brittany says, calming her.
They stare at each other, and you stare at them, girl and girl, Girl and Girl, until Brittany breaks the silence again.
"I hate seeing you in pain."
Santana looks at her in wonder. "It'd be more painful for me to watch you be in pain," she says. She pulls Brittany's hands together and kisses her palms.
Male and female he created them.
"Well," Brittany smiles, "let's put an end to the pain tonight. At least temporarily. Let's go home for ice cream and old TV."
"Let's," Santana agrees, rising from her chair.
"I'll get my keys, okay?"
"Yeah," Santana says, her voice still thick. "I'm gonna wash my face. I don't want to go back downstairs. Say bye to everyone for me, please?"
"I will," Brittany says, squeezing her fingers and walking away.
Then you're yanked from your thoughts as Santana heads toward you, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. You look wildly around, hoping for another room to back into, but there is nothing other than the bathroom. You turn desperately to Quinn, but she casts you the same terrified look you must have upon your own face, and then Santana is standing three feet from you, deadly still and wide-eyed in the hallway entrance.
You stare at her for one quick second, your heart pounding in your chest, and then-
"How long have you been there!" she lashes out. She looks mad, terrified, terrifying.
You look to Quinn. She looks back to you. She looks at Santana. Then Quinn's whole body deflates, and she sighs. "The whole time," she says in a defeated voice.
"Why didn't you-? That was a private conversation!"
"I'm sorry," Quinn says, raising her hands in the air. "I wanted to tell you we were here, but you were crying and-"
"I wasn't crying," Santana snaps.
Hurried footsteps, and then Brittany reappears, drawn back by Santana's shouts. "What's going on?"
"These creep-tastic stalkers just watched our entire conversation!" Santana spits.
Brittany checks your face, check's Quinn's face. She's silent while Santana fumes next to her. She frowns, then says, tonelessly, "Why did you guys do that? You're worse than a pack of meadow trolls."
Quinn doesn't reply. Santana glares powerfully at you, her eyes large and angry and venomous.
"I'm really sorry," you finally say, rocking on your feet. "We didn't mean to overhear."
"Listen to me, Tarzan," Santana says, taking a step toward you and setting her blazing dark eyes right on yours. "First of all, the fact that you look like a Ken doll who got lost in the woods for five months and then accidentally joined up with the Occupy movement is already creepy enough. But on top of that, you've now witnessed a very delicate, supposed-to-be-private conversation between me and my girlfriend, and so if you mention this to anyone, and I mean anyone, I will take some gardening shears to that overgrown hair of yours and then twist it around your celibate God-loving balls. Do you understand?"
You step back from her and look to Quinn for help, but Quinn and Brittany are both watching Santana. Quinn stares warily at her while Brittany blinks curiously at her, like she's watching for signs of something, and when you look back to Santana, she's still hitting you with the angriest look you've ever seen on a girl's face.
"I won't tell anybody," you say. "I promise you. I'm really sorry for intruding. I didn't…I didn't mean to make myself privy to something so sacred."
All four of you are quiet for a moment, but all three girls look at you: Quinn with wonder, Santana like she's assessing, Brittany like she's seeing you for the first time.
Santana's eyes narrow and she crosses her arms, considering you. "I still can't figure you out, Bob Marley."
You hold your arms out, palms up, and shrug your shoulders. "I feel the same way about you, Santana."
"I meant what I said. Don't tell anyone about this."
You blink at her. "Sometimes sacred things are better left unshared."
She stares at you. You look straight back, trying to read past her eyes, trying to really see her.
Brittany breaks the silence. "Is he quoting Psalms or something?" she asks, deadpan, and Santana has to fight a smile as she looks at her.
"I think he's alright, Britt," she says, her voice plain and earnest.
Brittany laughs through her nose. She touches an arm to Santana's back and leans down to kiss her cheek. "I know, sweetheart. Now come on, go wash your face. I'll get my keys."
Santana looks between you and Quinn before she steps wordlessly into the bathroom. You wait for the water to start running before you turn to Quinn.
"I'm sorry," you say, not sure what you're apologizing for.
"Don't be," she says strongly, and you feel like she means more than she says.
You look at each other, sharing the expression of two people who just witnessed an incredible moment together.
Brittany returns from the basement, her cheeks flushed and her purse hanging off her shoulder. Santana comes out of the bathroom, looks straight through you and Quinn to ask Brittany if she's ready, and then walks out toward the foyer. The rest of you follow, Quinn striding forward to catch up with Santana. You pause at the front door, watching Quinn hold Santana's arm in the front yard. Brittany comes up next to you.
"Teen Jesus," she says flatly, pulling you back from the door, "I know you're not the actual Jesus, but there is something I'd like to ask you."
"Sure," you say, surprised by her approach. "Anything."
"I think you and Santana's grandmother probably pray to the same God, so do you think maybe you could pray for Abuela to love Santana again?"
Her blue eyes lock earnestly on yours. You blink once, then, "Yeah, Brittany, of course. I will absolutely pray for that."
She grins and squeezes your hand. "Thanks, Joe."
You watch her walk out to the yard to take Santana's hand. Quinn and Santana finish their conversation, and then Quinn hangs back while Brittany and Santana walk down the driveway, taking their time with their steps and their quiet words, their hands-Brittany's white in the glow of the moon, Santana's dark against the night-matched between them.
You watch Quinn watch them; you watch yourself watch them.
Brittany waves at you before she gets into her car; Santana turns around and gives a short, unpracticed wave before she ducks into the passenger seat. Brittany's car comes to life and inches away from the house, and you're surprised to see how carefully she drives.
"You were great," Quinn says as she meets you on the front stoop.
You're not sure what to say, so you duck your head, but it doesn't stop you from smiling.
"What?" Quinn laughs, touching your arm, flirting with you.
"Santana's the scariest girl I've ever met," you say.
Quinn smirks. "She likes you."
"I like her," you admit. "I like both of them."
"They're…" She pulls her lips together and nods her head. "They're pretty special."
"They really love each other."
"Yeah," Quinn says. Her eyes swivel back to meet yours. "They do."
You stand there in silence, in the company of the dark trees and the summer crickets, and look at each other. "Can I, uh-" You clear your throat. "Can I get you a water or some pop or something?"
Quinn blinks at you with her pretty, pretty eyes. "Yes," she says. "Yes."
You kiss Quinn Fabray that night, and it's the sweetest feeling you've ever known. Your stomach leaps, your heart beats above it, your lungs ask for air and your lips buzz. You kiss Quinn four more times before the party ends, and when you drive her home, she kisses you again.
You lie on your back in bed and wonder how people fall in love. You wonder if there's a tipping point. You wonder if you'll love Quinn by the end of the summer. You wonder if you could love her like Brittany loves Santana.
You close your eyes to say your prayers. You pray for mom, you pray for dad. You pray for Mr. Abernathy and his family. You pray for Grandpa. You pray for Aunt Ellie. You pray for forgiveness for the things you did wrong today. You pray for Quinn, and for her heart.
All the while, as you pray, you feel like you're warming up to the one prayer you promised you'd make tonight.
You open your eyes and blink at your ceiling. You see Brittany's face in your mind's eye. Then you see Santana's face, too. You wonder what her grandmother looks like, and you let yourself imagine her for a moment. You imagine her story. You imagine her sufferings and her sorrows. You wonder what she would be like as a mother. You think of Mary at the foot of the Cross. You think of Jesus carrying the Cross, Jesus chained to the Cross, Jesus praying on the Cross.
You think of Santana and Brittany and Crosses and crosses.
You think of nothing for a moment. You wait and hope for the clarity that came to you when you prayed about singing Santana's love song on Valentine's Day.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
You pray for Santana's Abuela. You pray for Santana. You pray for Brittany. You pray for Santana-and-Brittany. You pray for them all.
You fall into sleep with prayers still circling around your head.
But the greatest of these is love.
But the greatest of these is love.