10:58
"What's next after you flip the fraction? Anyone?" My 6th grade teacher searched around for a brave soul who would answer her question but caught my eyes glued to the clock above the whiteboard instead. "Santana? You can stop staring at the clock. No one is leaving to recess until this problem gets answered."
Annoyed groans and clickings of tongues went off around the classroom.
10:59
"So who's going to tell me what you do next?" She scanned the room, looking at all the bowed heads. Out of stupid habit, I looked up at the clock again. "It seems like you really want to get out of here, Santana. How about you answer the Math problem and give everyone their recess?"
I couldn't do that. I've always sucked at math. It makes me nervous and frustrated. And I especially can't do it under pressure. "I don't know." I answered, feeling my face instantly get hot.
11:00
"Yes, you do. Try it. We flip the second fraction and then do what?"
I stared at the board. I wasn't even trying to figure out the answer. I was way too embarrassed to think. I knew everyone was waiting and watching me. I just hoped someone would yell out the answer and save me.
I looked across my table at Quinn and frowned when I saw her staring at her notebook and pretending to write something important. I knew there was no chance my friend would help me out.
11:01 The recess bell rang annoyingly. More irritated groans.
I was seriously never going to be able to answer.
"After you flip them.." A girl started, "You cross multiply?"
I remember thinking, 'thank you teacher's pet. Could you not have said that sooner?'
"That's right!" Our teacher finished the math problem on the board and dismissed us for recess. By the time I made it out the door, Quinn was already waiting at the Volleyball court, ball in hand. The usual girls from other classrooms had gathered around her and had started splitting into the usual two teams.
"Who's team am I in?" I asked Quinn.
"Mine, obviously!"
"She's always in your team," a girl complained. "That's why we can never beat you guys. Let her be in our team today."
Quinn scowled. "No. She's my friend. She should be in my team. It's not my fault you have sucky people."
"Can I be in your team?" It was a girl; around my height, blue eyes, and her blonde hair was pulled back into a messy pony. She looked as if she had been running and the wind left her hair a mess. I had seen her around. She was in the Basketball team and she always won first place during the school's stupid "mini olympics."
Before Quinn was able to answer, the girl who wanted me on her team quickly yanked the blonde towards her. "No! You can be in my team, Brittany. They already have Santana."
This girl, Brittany, looked at me when my name was said out loud and gave me a smile.
"Fine you can have her. Can we start the game?" Quinn asked.
We played Volleyball for the entire recess and when we had our lunch break we all but inhaled our food so that we could have more time to play outside.
After the bell rang, ending our lunch, Quinn and I walked back to our classroom.
"That girl, Brittany, is kinda good. We should let her be on our team tomorrow," Quinn said.
"Yeah, she's good, but if we let her be on our team then we will have like, no competition at all."
"But I don't want to lose. She scored a lot on us today."
"Hi!" Brittany joined us at my side. "You play really good," she told me. "Are you going to join the Volleyball team?"
"I am," Quinn announced.
"Oh cool. I am too. Are you, Santana?" She was walking really close to me, like shoulder to shoulder.
I moved a little more towards Quinn's side. "I don't think so."
"Why not? You're so good!" She grabbed my forearm and gave it a squeeze.
"Santana is scared of teams," Quinn laughed.
"I'm not scared of teams. I just don't want to join. I like playing, but I don't want to be in a team."
"Oh." Brittany nodded. When we got to my classroom Brittany took turns giving me and Quinn a hug each. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!" She hurried down the yard and into a classroom a few doors down.
"She's weird," Quinn commented.
"Yeah."
Everyday after that, Brittany showed up during recess and played Volleyball with us. Quinn somehow got her on our team one day, but one day is all we got because the other team didn't score on us at all, so they forced Brittany back on their team.
She and Quinn did end up joining the Volleyball team and I did end up not joining. I still went to watch their games whenever they played at our school though. I thought maybe Quinn and Brittany would become friends, but Quinn kept thinking Brittany was weird and didn't like talking to her very much.
I didn't think she's weird though. Well, maybe a little. She really liked to hug people and touch them, which made me uncomfortable. She didn't touch in an appropriate way, but she was a lot more touchy-feely than most people. Boys thought she was annoying and girls thought, well, that she was annoying. I never really saw her hang out with anybody because she was always playing Volleyball with us, but I started wondering if she had any friends at all.
On most days I had to walk to and from school because my mom worked most of the day and wasn't able to pick me up, so sometimes I walked with Brittany because she lived on one of the streets I had to walk through.
One day, as we walked home, an ice-cream truck drove towards us. "Do you want an ice-cream?" I asked Brittany.
She shook her head. "I don't have any money."
"I can buy you one. I have money." I pulled the change I had been saving out from my backpack and bought two ice-cream cones. Brittany thanked me with a shy smile when I handded her one.
"Hey, who were your friends last year?" I tried to sound as casual as possible. I didn't know what her deal was. Maybe I was right and she didn't have any friendsl. I didn't want to embarrass her.
She licked the dripping ice-cream from her thumb. "Um... Well, I was kind of friends with Lauren."
"Big Lauren? The one that punched some kid in the throat and wanted to stab him with her pencil?"
She nodded. "Yeah. But she doesn't talk to me anymore. She said... She said I'm annoying." She stopped eating her ice-cream and used the napkin wrapped around her cone to clean her hand.
"You're not annoying, Britt. You're just really enthis- enthusa- you're just really happy all the time. It's good that you're not friends with Lauren. She's crazy and I heard she has lice."
Her face scrunched. "Really?"
"Yeah. Quinn told me that when we had that lice check last week, the nurse parted Lauren's hair and Quinn actually saw all the nasty little lice run across her head."
She frowned. "She should shower more."
"I know."
When we reached her house she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and held me for a little. "Thank you for the ice-cream." She pulled back and surprised me with a kiss on my cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay," I said, and wiped off the stickiness she left on my skin.
I wouldn't say Brittany and I were friends. Quinn and I were friends. My relationship with Brittany was nothing like what I had with Quinn. Brittany never went over to my house and I never went over to hers. We didn't know each other's parent's names. We didn't even know if we had brothers or sisters. Well, we didn't, until one particular day.
The Volleyball team had just lost that day's game. That meant the season was over for them. Quinn was completely pissed and yelled at everyone because she was team captain, a crappy one, obviously, but captain nonetheless. After she got done throwing her tantrum and making her teammates feel even worse, her mom picked her up and she didn't bother saying bye to me. But I preferred it that way. I hated to deal with her when she got crazy like that.
I was crossing the quad to go wait for my mom, when I caught Brittany bouncing around a volleyball in the Basketball courts.
"What are you doing out here?" I asked, dropping my backpack next to her duffle bag.
She looked up from the floor and pulled a small smile. "Hi."
I held out my hands and motioned for her to pass me the ball. "Why are you here?" I tried scoring a basket but missed.
"I don't want to go home yet."
"Why? Will your parents ground you for losing the game?" I joked and passed her the ball back.
She smiled and shook her head. She would do that a lot. She liked answering yes or no with her head.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
She bounce the ball a few times then shot it clean through the basket.
"Is there any sport you're not good at?"
Her smile grew. "You're good at a lot of sports too. I saw you playing Soccer with the boys last year and when my class played Softball against your class last time, you made a home-run."
I chuckled. "Yeah, but I suck at Basketball."
"I can teach you," she offered.
"I don't think I'm going to be tall enough to play in high school, so there's no point in learning."
"But we're the same height. And my parents always say I'm really tall."
"Yeah, but I have a feeling you're going to be a lot taller than me in a few years." I took the ball from her and tried bouncing it between my legs.
She giggled when I failed.
"Do you want to go sit on the grass for while?" I asked.
"Okay." She grabbed our things from the floor and let them drop in the grass area nearby.
"So why don't you want to go home?" I asked again once we were sitting down.
She crossed her legs beneath herself and ripped a blade of grass from the ground. "I just... I kind of hate my sister."
"You hate your sister? Why?"
"Well, I don't really hate her. I don't hate anyone." She let the grass fall back on the turf and ripped another one out. "She's just really mean. And I think she might be a slut."
I laughed. "A slut?"
"Yeah." She looked up at me. "She always brings guy friends over to our house and she locks herself in her room with them while my parents are at work."
"How old is she?"
"Fifteen. She just started high school and has been a lot meaner now."
"I'm sorry, Britt. That sucks. I don't have any brothers or sisters, so I don't know what to tell you."
"It's okay."
We sat there for a few more minutes without saying anything. I felt bad for her. She seemed really sad about her sister being mean, but I couldn't really do anything about it.
"I'm gonna go," she said.
"Oh, okay." We both stood up and got our things off the grass. "Do you want a ride? My mom is picking me up today."
"No, that's okay. You know I only live a block away." She gave me her usual tight hug but held me a lot longer this time. I felt her breathing on my neck and it made me squirm out and away from her arms. "I'll see you on Monday," she said, then quickly kissed my cheek.
The following week, during lunch, Brittany got to the cafeteria a few minutes late. She never ate in the cafeteria. She always picked up her lunch and went back to her home room to eat with her teacher. I thought it was a little weird, but I had heard her teacher was really cool and Brittany didn't actually have friends so it made sense.
I had thought about inviting her to sit with us, but Quinn wouldn't have liked that, so I didn't.
I watched Brittany power walk to the lunch ladies and take her pick between the only two options left: a muffin and milk or a slice of pizza and milk. She picked the muffin.
Quinn stopped talking to me after she realized I wasn't listening and looked behind her to see what I was staring at.
"Ugh." She groaned and turned back around.
"Why do you hate her so much?"
"I don't hate her. I just don't like her. She's too touchy. And too friendly."
"How is being friendly bad?"
Brittany held her tray close to her and looked around the cafeteria.
"I think she's looking for a place to sit. I'm gonna call her over."
"No! Don't, Santana," Quinn ordered.
Brittany made eye contact with me and I waved her over.
"Santana!" Quinn growled in a low voice. "Stop!" She grabbed my wrist and pinned my hand down against the table, but it was too late. Brittany had seen me and was walking over with a bashful smile.
"Hi." She slid next to me and Quinn forced a smile.
"You're not eating with your teacher today?" I asked.
"No." She shook her head. "Her daughter is sick so she went home to check on her." She poked her straw through her milk carton's opening and took a sip.
"Do you want some of my fries?" I offered, looking at her almost empty tray.
"Oh, no." She glanced at my food. "That's okay."
"Seriously, you can have them. I'm super full already." I tilted my plate over hers and pushed my fries onto her plate with my fork.
She smiled. "Thank you."
I looked across the table at Quinn and she rolled her eyes.
Brittany didn't sit with us the day after that. I guess her teacher stayed for lunch because Brittany came into the cafeteria, grabbed her lunch, and left as she usually did. She continued to play Volleyball with us though and that was the only time Quinn tolerated her.
"Brittany is getting so good," Quinn whined as we walked back into our classroom one day after lunch break. "Those girls had never beaten us before."
"Yeah, I guess she's been practicing."
"Why are you so calm? Aren't you mad we-" Cough. "-lost."
"I'm not mad. It's just a game."
Quinn continued coughing into the arm of her sweater, then cleared her throat when she was done.
"You should have stayed home. You're super sick. You're probably going to get me sick."
"I think I'm gonna stay home tomorrow." She checked her forehead's temperature with her hand. "If my mom let's me."
Her mom did allow her to stay home. The next day she didn't show up and I was forced to sit with the girls whom we played Volleyball with. Well, just for a while.
"Hi."
I looked up from my chicken nuggets and found Brittany holding her food tray and looking down at me with a soft smile. She had the hood of her hoodie pulled up over her head and her shoulders seemed to be wet.
"Hey. It's still raining?"
"Yeah." She pulled her hood down and revealed messy, moist hair. "Where's Quinn?"
"She didn't come today. She has a cold, so she stayed home."
Brittany looked down at the spot where Quinn would have been sitting. "Can I sit with you?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry." I took my backpack down from the table top and shoved it down underneath the table. "I guess we won't get to play Volleyball today. But that's actually good because I don't want you to beat us again."
Brittany smiled and sipped on her apple juice. "I've been practicing with my sister."
"Really? I thought you said she was mean to you."
"Not her. My other sister. She's in high school too but she's a year ahead of my mean sister. And she's not mean like her."
I laughed a little at the way she explained it. "That's good."
The following day it rained again and Quinn didn't show up... again. Also, Brittany had lunch with me again and since it was raining we stayed in the cafeteria during the entire lunch break and she helped me finish some of my Math homework that was due the next day.
"You're so lucky that you understand Math. I really suck at it. I'm only good at writing."
"I can help you with Math. Just tell me when you don't understand something and I'll help you. I'm good at Science too if you need help with that."
"Thanks, Britt." I smiled.
Most of that week turned out to be gloomy and rainy. The sun did come out a little on Friday though, so we got to go outside and play. Brittany's team beat us again.
"I don't want to play with you anymore," I joked as Brittany walked me to class. "I don't like losing."
Brittany laughed and looped her arm with mine. "I can coach you."
"I can't take pointers from the enemy!"
She laughed again and I became aware of the way she pulled me closer to her. "Do you have a boyfriend?"
I looked at her and she looked at me. My cheeks burned. "Um..." I looked down at my shoes as we kept walking. "No."
"Me neither. I liked this boy in my class, but he said he doesn't like me. It's okay though, I like someone else way more."
I swallowed and wondered why she was telling me this. I never liked talking about boys. Whenever Quinn tried it on me, I just pretend to listen because I wanted her to think I was interested in them too, but I kind of wasn't. Her boy talk bored me to death, but Brittany made me nervous with hers.
"Do you like anyone?" she asked.
I pulled my arm away from her and slipped my hands inside my hoodie's pockets. "No."
"Oh," is all she said.
We got to my class and I hurried towards the door before she was able to pull me in for a hug. "My mom is picking me up today, so I'll see you next week, okay?"
"Okay," she said in a less that excited tone.
Quinn came back the following week. She's was still coughing a little but it was nothing compared to how she had been the last time I saw her.
"You missed a lot of classwork, Quinn." I said as I washed my hands in the restroom sink.
"Ugh. I know. Thanks for dropping off my homework though. By the way, did you turn in your Math homework in time? Can I copy it? I didn't finish mine."
"I already turned it in."
"Really? You always turn it in late."
"I know but Brittany is really good with Math, so she helped me finish it early."
"Brittany?" Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "You hung out with her?"
"Um... Yeah." I grabbed a paper towel and dried my hands. "A little."
"Did you let her sit with you while I was gone?"
I gave her a guilty smile. "Yeah."
"Santana! She's going to want to sit with us all the time now!"
"Why are you freaking out?" I threw the paper towel in the trash bin. "She's really nice. You should try talking to her."
One of the bathroom stalls clicked open and out walked Brittany. Quinn and I looked at eachother then watched Brittany wash her hands and dry them with that loud box thing that blows out air.
When she finished, she walked past Quinn and smiled at me before leaving the restroom.
Brittany didn't try to sit with us during lunch that day or any other day, but she always smiled or waved at me when she came in to get her lunch and sometimes she would help me with my homework after school like she said she would.
One day, instead of giving me a hug when we walked up to her house, she turned around and offered to walk me home.
"You want to walk me?" I asked, confused.
She nodded with a smile.
"But I live like five blocks away. You're going to have to walk back alone."
"That's okay," she said and looped her arm with mine, pulling me down the street.
Brittany and I started spending a lot of time together since she was helping me with my homework and walking me home almost everyday even though I told her she didn't need to. She also started getting a lot more physical with me. I noticed she constantly wanted to somehow be touching me. She would hold my arm or sit close to me when we were doing homework on the grass area at school. Sometimes she would sit behind me and play with my hair. That felt kind of nice, so I just let her.
She would also laugh at all of my dumb jokes. There were times when I wasn't trying to be funny but she would laugh anyway.
The end of the year was nearing and that meant we would soon start rehearsing for our 6th grade promotion. It also meant that we would all go on a field trip to the middle school we would all most likely be attending.
"Are you excited about visiting our new school? Wait, you are going to that school right?" Brittany asked as she walked me home one afternoon.
"Yeah. I think most of us are."
"Oh, ok. Good. I want to see it already. I bet it's going to be way bigger than our school right now."
"Probably."
"Hey, San." San. She hadn't called me that before. "Do you think your mom would let you come over to my house this weekend?"
"To your house?" My brow pitched together. "For what?"
She shrugged. "Just to hang out. We can watch movies, and eat junk food. And you can meet my cat."
"Oh. Um. I don't know. I'll have to ask her."
"Okay."
As we got to the street my house was on, Brittany reached down and gently gripped my wrist. I looked down between us and saw her hand slip into mine.
I pulled my hand away. "What are you doing?"
She looked at me with panicked blue eyes. "Sorry."
When we got to my house, I distanced myself from her. "Hey, I don't think my mom will let me go to your house. She didn't let me go to Quinn's until she met her parents, so..."
"Oh, okay. That's okay. We can just hang out at school... Right?"
"Yeah. Sure."
/
The day of our field trip, Quinn and I sat together on the bus and thankfully Brittany's class had to ride in a different bus.
I liked Brittany, I thought she was nice, smart, and pretty, but she had been freaking me out with all the touching and the clinginess. I made myself start thinking of her as everyone else did; weird and annoying.
"So are you like best friends with Brittany now?" Quinn asked sounding annoyed. "I saw you guys walking the other day and it looked like you were going to your house."
"She walks me home sometimes, but I'm thinking about telling her to stop."
"Aw, are you tired of having to listen to your bestfriend's crazy talk."
"She's not my best friend and she's not crazy. I just- I need a break from her. I think she thinks we're best friends."
"Then tell her to go away. I can tell her for you."
"No. You're super bitchy. You're going to hurt her feelings."
"Boohoo. Do you want her to back off or not?"
"Don't say anything, okay?" I warned her. "I'll do it."
When we got to the school, some of the older kids at our welcomed us at the entrance and divided us into groups to take us for a tour. Brittany waved at me from a group towards the front of the crowd and I tried smiling at her.
The tour took around an hour to complete and when we were done they lead us into their cafeteria to give us a presentation.
Quinn and I took a sit on one of the rows of chairs set out and talked about the stuff we had just seen. I kept an eye out for Brittany because she had a tendency to pop out out of nowhere.
"The gym was kind of small, don't you think? I want to make sure I'm in shape when we get to high school. I'll probably make the Varsity Volleyball team my first year. You should seriously think of-"
"Hi."
Quinn looked to her right and I looked over her head. Brittany was standing there with a cheery smile. She sat down next to Quinn.
"You kinda interrupted us," Quinn told her in an unfriendly tone.
"Oh, sorry." Brittany leaned back on her chair to look at me and her smile returned.
I forced myself to smile back.
"So anyways. You should start working out with me in case you change your mind and join a sport in high school. I know you won't join anything here but it doesn't matter. High school sports are the ones that look good in your college applications."
"Quinn?"
Quinn rolled her eyes. "What, Brittany?"
"Can you switch seats with me so I can sit next to Santana?"
"Oh my god, Brittany! No! I won't switch with you! Leave her alone! She doesn't want you near her!"
My mouth gaped. I wanted to defend her. I really did. I wanted to order Quinn not to yell at her and switch seats with her, but if I did Brittany will never back off.
Quinn turned back to me and shook her head. "She's so annoying."
Brittany stood up from her chair and walked out the cafeteria.
"Quinn!" I snapped. "What the hell!"
"Someone had to do it. You should be thanking me. She'll for sure leave you alone now."
Brittany did leave me alone. Literally. She stopped helping me with my homework after school, stopped playing Volleyball with us, and she stopped walking me home. If we left school at the same time, she would linger at the exit and start walking only when I was about half a block away.
I wanted to apologize for the way Quinn yelled at her, but I knew that if I did that she would probably take it as me being okay with how she had been acting and she would go right back to it.
I thought we were better off the way we were. We were about to move to a new school and she would surely make some friends there and everything would be fine. She wouldn't need me anymore.
Everything was going to blow over and be forgotten. Things were fine.