She gets home, and everything is the same.
Her mom is rolling out cookies while her sister sits at the kitchen table doing her homework. Her dad comes home and tells her about how the sports store at the mall is having a sale, and that she should come with him on the weekend for new shoes for Cheerios. He knows hers always get too dirty too quickly.
She imagines new shoes on the weekend like anyone else would imagine a bath in melted marshmallow.
She finishes her homework, because it's Wednesday night and even though Lost isn't on tv anymore, it's tradition that after dinner they watch tv together. So she finishes her biology homework, and colors in all her diagrams even though it isn't necessary. She washes her hands and wipes them on her sweats as she thuds down the stairs.
She sits at the table and she wants to tells everyone that they sang Adele today, and she wants to tell them Santana was really happy they were finally getting a chance to do that, but she doesn't, because. She puts too much salt on her potatoes. She breaks her glass putting it in the sink.
They all sit down in the lounge room, her mom and dad on the couch, her sister on the single, and her in the recliner. She gets that because she's older, but also because she spends a lot of time with ice packs on her knees and it's easier this way. Her sister is reading The Hunger Games for the fifth time, and her dad is reading the New York Times on his iPad. Her mom finally settles on a station, but Brittany isn't looking. She's scrolling through Facebook on her phone, and when she sees Jacob Ben Israel's name, with a little arrow next to it pointing to Santana Lopez, her lungs just stop.
looking forward to seeing you on tv tonite
She looks up at the television in front of her, expecting to see Santana's face in all its HD glory. Santana's face in HD would be amazing. It's just Modern Family. This show usually makes her sad, but tonight she can't even feel that through the pounding in her chest. She waits until she can move.
Nothing happens during the last five minutes of the show. Her parents are talking about the tires on the car because there is something on the news her mom had flicked over to. Her mom stands up and heads into the kitchen to clean up, calling out to continue the conversation even though no one can hear her over the running water in the sink.
She sits there as her dad gets up and flips through some paperwork at the cleared dining room table, as her sister moves to the couch her parents have vacated and flops onto her back, phone in hand and fingers working nonstop.
She sits there and just watches, unable to do anything but wait. She doesn't even know what she's waiting to see.
Her mom calls out, "Brittany, honey," and it all happens at once. Coach's face appears on screen and she knows, even as her mom is talking behind her, even as her mom's voice trails off as everything unravels before their eyes. Everyone's eyes. She's waited too long.
She stands up to go and her mom is looking at her, dish towel clutched in front of her, but she can't wait to see everything turn into a pile of yarn, because Santana is two blocks away and she doesn't even have yarn anymore. Just whatever yarn is made from. Maybe not even that.
"Brittany, wait," her mother grabs her arm, and she cries out at the touch, she needs to go, because Santana is two blocks away from her and she's two blocks away from Santana and that's too far apart when they are only their best when they can hold each other up.
She pulls her arm, but her mother won't let go. "Baby, please, wait a second." Her mom touches her back and pulls her around and her dad has stood up and her sister is looking over the back of the couch.
"It's okay, baby," her mom whispers, but it's not okay. All the yarn is at her feet, waiting to trip her up.
"Was that true?" her mom asks, and tilts her head up, ducking to meet her eyes. Her mom's hand is at her cheek, her thumb stroking back and forth, and her dad is saying, "Brittany," and he never calls her that, he always calls her Flip, because when she was small he would carry her on his shoulders, and when it was time to get down she would lean right over his head and say, "flip!" For a long time after she was too big to be carried, she would still call out "flip!" whenever it was time to go somewhere.
She tries to answer but her lungs still aren't moving, and she tries to nod but it comes out more like a spasm she has no control over. Her mom makes that 'shhhh' sound that only moms really know how to do, she doesn't need an answer anyway, and then her body decides she has no say in anything anymore, and the tears just run off her face and onto her mom's hand until her mom pulls her forward and wraps her up in her arms. Her legs are joining her body's rebellion, and they sink onto the step by the front entrance.
She wishes it all away, the floor and the tv and the arms and her sister still looking over the back of the couch, but her dad sits down on the other side of her and puts his hand on her back. She can feel it, but she wishes her body away, because it's no good to her right now. It's been good to her for eighteen years, but when she needs it most it's just no good.
"It's okay, Flip," and the sob blocking up her lungs tears loose. She body unravels and joins the yarn they are all sitting on.
Her mom is making calming noises and her lungs are realizing that even if they want to do their own thing they still need air. She presses into her knees and her parents are whispering over her head and she presses in further. She lets her lungs sort themselves out and their whispers become words, until her dad is pulling her up and asking, "how did this happen?" and she doesn't see it but surely someone slapped her, and she jerks in the arms around her.
But then her father is standing, and she has never seen him mad. Not ever, not at anyone. "How can they get away with that? She's just a girl, they have no right!" He's not mad at her, but with how her body feels right now it's still scary and she tries to curl into her knees again. But her mom won't let her, and she turns Brittany to face her. "Baby, is she okay to stay at home?" She sees the fear in her mom's eyes, and she knows that they were right, her and Santana, to have planned, to have waited, to have delayed until it would have been safe.
Because it's not safe now, but it's now anyway.
"I don't know," she gets out. She doesn't know anything at all. Eighteen years and she doesn't even know the body she's had all this time. Her legs are still rebelling.
"I need to go," is the only thing she can think, and it's enough to make her lips and tongue and lungs works. "I need to go," and her vocal cords join in. Her legs seems to understand, finally, that they really need to go, too, because they try but the person who holds her up is two blocks away needing to be held up, too.
"I need to go," she cries, and her mom wraps her arm around her shoulders.
"We'll go in a minute," her mom soothes, and Brittany thinks it's okay if someone else holds her up, so she can hold Santana up. They'll go, Brittany just needs a minute.