As you cradled against the nook by your window, you watched the snowflakes fall down leaving a white trail of fluff on the small patch of your backyard. Grasping your mug and cuddling against Lord Tubbington, you thought hard about the intricacies of life and the things you would never understand. Yes, you, Brittany S. Pierce, were thinking.
No one thought you to be one who pondered about life and why things were the way they were, but of course no one ever thought you to be 'smart'. Nadie. That's what Santana said. Nadie puede entenderte pero recuerda que siempre intento. She told you that no one would understand you but to remember that she would always try. Oh how you loved the way she looked at you with those eyes whenever she would pull away after whispering those words into your ear every time you cried. It made you feel like you were worth something, like something on your mind was worth hearing. She always left herself open for you, whether it be her shoulder to cry on, her ears to listen to your quivering voice, her arm to hold, her eyes to watch you, or her heart to love. That was the past and right now, you lived in the present where Santana had opened herself to someone else.
Her words rang in your ear as they pierced your heart with every beat.
"You love him. You're with him. I can't. I can't stay the way you want me to Britt. I love you but I can't."
Those were her last words and yet you did nothing but watch her walk away from you, from your life, from your dreams, from everything you had been through. Santana enjoyed talking about love but you never really understood how someone felt love or even how to love somebody. No, not until now. It never occurred to you, not until now that your whole being could be split into two, all for the sake of love.
When she held your hand and gazed longingly into your eyes, she talked about how when you found the person you loved, you felt complete, almost as if the person filled in any spaces that were empty within you. No she didn't mean literal holes in your body, she meant the feeling of being whole as she used to say.
"When I'm with you Britt, the world doesn't matter and everything feels right. I'm finally complete. You complete me amor," she had whispered as you fell asleep wrapped in her arms. It felt odd to remember. Such a memory felt so distant when in truth it wasn't too long ago. That was the funny thing about time you guessed. People always thought that it was absolute and unchangeable but to you, it seemed that love could change everything, even the seconds ticking on the clock and the days that passed between the last time that she had held your hand.
If love completed a person, were you too complete? Was it possible to love more than one person at once? Surely your relationship with Artie was not trivial because he looked at you with the same look that Santana had on her face every time she told you she loved you. He told you he felt complete too. He held your hand through the halls as everybody smiled. You were thrust into a world that expressed an openness for love that you lacked with Santana, though as you walked the halls you searched through the crowd for the face you wanted to see the most. Hers.
To seek for someone else's hand and shoulder when you already had someone of your won…Was it bad? What exactly did it mean you had asked yourself countless times, even struggling to put it into words considering talking to Coach or Mr. Shue. Was it possible to love more than one person at once? Was that even fair? It was like being in kindergarten all over again being asked to pick which color was your favorite. What if you wanted red and blue?
Deep inside, you knew no one would have the answers that you were looking for. You searched for it in all areas of the school. No, you hadn't found it in the gazes of the Changs or their secret whispers, though they did bring you back to pining for her lips to whisper in your ear just as they had to each other. Was that love? No, it was not in the look that Quinn threw Puck from across the choir room. That, you knew, was desire. Not for Quinn to have Puck, but for her to have someone – someone that would love her. Was in the obnoxious power duo that was Rachel and Finn? Would you find the meaning of love in their struggle to power through high school and reach their own dreams? Did they love each other? Would love be found in the warm smiles exchanged by Blaine and Kurt? Perhaps, something felt a little more familiar as you watched them gaze longingly at each other.
How were you to define love for yourself when you could barely define what a ballad was? The snow outside began to trickle down harder as your heart pumped faster and faster, aching more and more with each touch of your fingertips running across window-pane tracing out her name over and over and over again. Smiling to yourself, you laughed and decided no. Love would be far easier to define than any word that Artie could throw at you. Perhaps that was it in itself.
Your relationship with Artie may have contained a safe and platonic love, almost automatic. He was the teacher and you were the student and through his own definition of love, he was determined to turn you around into a completely different person. Yes, something felt different with him. Though there seemed to be affection and love for the boy in the wheelchair, you found yourself empty still. Closing your eyes and placing your hand over your breast, you felt your heart beat slower and slower. As you followed the beat of your heart, you knew almost instantaneously what was missing. It was your other half. You had missed the passion in everything Santana had brought to you. She was your savior, an angel and devil combined into one. It was, dualistic, as she had once explained to you over the phone in her many recitals of Blake's poetry. That was how she showed you her love. She took you to the extremes.
Santana was the fire and spark that was missing in your life. Perhaps it was the reason that the snow continued to fall in the dark instead of falling against the light fading into the distance. It was hard to determine where her passion came from. Had it been from her whispers of Spanish and amor in your ear as she made love to you in the shadows and dim light of the moon? Was it in the way she held you fiercely as if there was nothing that could tear you apart? Whatever it was, the passion was as present as the drama in your relationship. Perhaps it was not as defined, not as safe, and not as open as your relationship with the boy wonder, but it certainly lit up your world with lights that no one could have shown you. She was your other half too.
Now, if you had done your math correctly and as Artie and Santana had explained countless times two halves make one whole. That is, two people that would be your other half would be a complete whole. Did they make you as whole as you made them? You wished that perhaps there could have been a way you could have risked the safety and stayed for the passion.
Perhaps it was worth it to live not completely, but simply to live and exist with your other half. Maybe you didn't have to be a whole because what fun was it to be whole when you would maintain the desire for your other half. Yes Brittany, you smart girl you. Such a complicated way simply to say,
"Santana, I miss you. I love you. I have ever since you held my hand."
Your heart decided what it wanted, but your brain dictated what was to be. You blew on your mug, only to find the heat gone, just as Santana left with the passion, and love, and promises and dreams.
"Oh Lord Tubbington, what I would do just to see my San again. Just to have her and exist. Just me and her."
Just as you were about to turn away, you watched a light make its way across your backyard as the gate swung and a figure trudged through the layers of snow, knocking on your backdoor.
"Brittany!" your mother had shouted. "You've got a visitor!"
As you were ready to turn around, the lights had gone off and as you reached for a candle, the door to your room opened with a light flashing in your face as a familiar voice said,
"Need a light?"
Perhaps Santana was missing her other half too. Your guiding light was here to save you. For now, for tonight, you would forget about safety, obligation, and all that Artie had taught you about society and people. Tonight there only existed a world that contained the love between you and Santana.
"Miss me?" you had teased quietly in your quivering voice.
"Always amor," she replied silently taking your hand and leading you under the comfort of your blanket as you both lay on your bed in silence.
"Hey San, guess what I figured out today?"