Do you ever stop to think about your life, your choices, and the effect other people have on both? Like who you'd be if someone didn't appear one day. Or if you didn't make just one choice, how the world would be an entirely different place? I do. At least I have, every day for the past fourteen months.
It all started the June before senior year. Lord Tubbington came down with what I thought to be your basic feline summer cold. Only, he didn't get any better. It was a sickness unlike anything I'd ever seen, and I practically won that game show for us freshman year. Like any decent pet owner, I aced the section on animal (cat) ailments. But this...this. I couldn't put a finger on. And it terrified the hell out of me.
Santana went with me to the animal hospital. She let me sleep on her shoulder and even followed me to the bathroom when I refused to unlink our pinkies.
When the doctor muttered, "cancer", she let me cry. "I should've made him quit smoking sooner," was all I kept saying. She petted my head. "Don't worry, Britt. Tubbs isn't going anywhere."
Unfortunately, cancer caused Lord Tubbington a great deal of pain. When the doctor gave us a prescription to fill, it was more expensive than anything I could handle. Santana offered up the money she'd been saving for summer, but it still wasn't enough. I cried again. "We'll get jobs, both of us. Lord Tubbington will be better before you know it," Santana explained.
My mom, sipping her foul-smelling water, eventually added, "No sense in that. I reckon the animal's got a month left."
Whenever my mom talked funny like that, Santana would just shake her head. She didn't listen to what my mom said, and suggested I didn't either. I should've known something was wrong, though. Santana never referred to Lord Tubbington by his full name.
Sometimes I thought my mom was a psychic, but I wished Santana was, instead. It was only three weeks before Lord Tubbington was in terrible shape. Getting jobs while simultaneously doing Cheerios proved impossible, so I knew he was in always in excruciating pain.
We were in my bedroom after school when I suggested going to Dave Karofsky's party.
"Are you sure? I mean, with Tubbs's health."
Truthfully, I was completely bummed by it all. I wanted something, anything, to take my mind away from Lord Tubbington and cancer's cancerous ways. Karofsky's party was just the place.
Santana put on her skeptical face, but nodded anyway, as if she were trying to convince herself. "Whatever helps. I trust you, B."
The party wasn't anything special. Beer, music. Santana vowed to let me have fun and she'd drive us both home. So I did. After about my fourth cup of whatever it was, I knew I'd passed my personal limit.
"Santana." I poked her on the shoulder blade. "Santana." No response. "Santana. Santana. Santana." She eventually turned around and it wasn't even Santana. The girl, however, was helpful enough to point across the room, where Puck and the real Santana talked.
She immediately turned when I approached the pair. "What's wrong?" she asked before I even knew there was an issue. Puck tried to resume their conversation before she snapped, "Fuck off, Puckerman."
"Why does she drink it out of a water bottle?" Santana's eyebrows cowered in and a mist invaded her dark eyes. I continued, "I always thought it was just really hot water. But it's the same stuff we had tonight." I even felt drunk trying to escape all of that.
"She's just sad, B," is all she gave me. Then, "Kind of like you are with Lord Tubbington."
I nodded, not wanting to ask why she was so sad purely because I was afraid that I might be the cause. So I hugged Santana and used her as a balance to turn myself toward the dance floor. She grabbed my arm for a second, pleading me with her eyes. "Stay at my house tonight?"
I smiled because I loved spending the night with Santana, snuggled on her massive bed. I smiled because I loved feeling safe from nothing in particular- just safe. I smiled because I loved Santana just so, so much. She smiled because she knew.
The rest of the night's details are fuzzy, but I'll tell you what I've been told.
Apparently, I didn't go to dance. Instead, I wandered outside without telling Santana and she freaked. In fact, she cut the stereo off and blocked the door, threatening to go 'All Lima Heights' on anyone who left before I was found. Six minutes later, someone spotted me in the passenger side of Santana's Jeep, the door wide open.
I vaguely remember waking up to blue lights. "Honestly, officer, I'm just trying to get my drunk friend home." It was Santana's voice.
The combination of loud voices and flashing lights caused a gurgle in my stomach, and I barely pushed the door open before vomiting everywhere. That was the last memory I have of the night at Karofsky's.
It wasn't until the next morning that I realized something was wrong. I was in my bed. Santana wasn't pressed into my back, her face nuzzled into my neck. She never let me stay alone after a party. So I struggled to find my phone and call. Once. Twice. Seventeen times. No answer.
I walked the four miles to her house. Four knocks and no answer. I threw up on the rose bush because I know how much Santana hates it. Even after I made it home and asked my mom if she'd heard from my best friend, she just cackled at me and dozed off. Santana had disappeared.
It took the rest of summer and frantic searching for any answers to surface. I'd caught Santana's mom once in the grocery store, and when she refused to speak with me, I assumed Santana wasn't dead. As for the answers to the multitudes of questions that everyone around me refused to address, something only popped up at the police station. I'd gone to turn in Lord Tubbington for trying to sell my iPod for drugs. He was a sick cat, but that's no exception.
A scruffy man approached me and asked, "Finally feeling better, boozy?"
"No, no. I'm Brittany," I tried explaining.
He smiled. "Don't remember, huh?" I shook my head. "You should be leary of the company you keep, child. A friend's bad habits become your problems."
At this point, I was thoroughly confused. The man took this as permission to recap what I'd failed to recall. (And this is to make an extremely long story short.)
When I puked, the cop came to my side to assist me. I leaned forward, revealing a bag of twenty or so pills underneath my ass. I laughed and repeated that they were for Lord Tubbington- his medicine. Upon further inspection, they turned out to be Percocet. Santana claimed them for herself. I got dropped off at home, she went to jail.
The police officer finished with, "We gave her the option to say you bought them, and claim you weren't of right mind doing so. No disrespect, but you were talking about some animal's meds. I only assumed."
I nodded, trying my best to process all of the new information without breaking down. "She just said you were too smart to do anything that stupid."
"Well, where is she?" I finally choked out.
He walked me to a desk and jotted down an address and a phone number. "Might want to call and get her information. Visitation hours."
I didn't even thank him as I sprinted outside and dialed the number.
I wasn't allowed to visit for another three weeks. (Evidently, Santana had gotten into some trouble.)
The building was terrifying. White walls. Rusted, white bars. Loud buzzers that signaled the oncoming screech of steel against steel.
Person after person filed in, clanking with shackled wrists. Santana was last in line, clad in a not-so flattering orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she didn't look up until sitting down.
"You're a hard person to find," I said, hoping to elicit a smile from the other side of the glass.
Instead, she just readjusted her connected wrists, propping onto an elbow. "I knew it wouldn't take you long."
I felt something catch in my throat; a tight knot wound in my chest. Santana knew what was about to follow, and she shook her head. I eventually choked, "I'm sorry. For all of this."
She shrugged. Every movement seemed distant. Cold. Unlike my best friend. "I need a favor," she commanded almost out-of-the-blue.
"Of course. Anything at all."
"Don't come back," she spat. It felt like my heart was being slowly, painfully removed.
She started shuffling at the metal table, as if she were about to leave. "I love you, Santana." I felt sheepish for saying it in this context. So late.
Something appeared in her features. Pain. Sorrow. Guilt. She looked ten years older, and it killed me because I was completely helpless in helping her. A glimmer of hope finally flickered across her face within a smile, right before the expression re-hardened.
"Of course," she muttered just before hanging up and shuffling out.
All of this began fourteen months ago. I haven't seen my best friend in one year. And she'll be out tomorrow. I know this because I've been marking the days on a calendar, not because he mother's been any help in the process.
I let it sink in again. Tomorrow, my best friend comes home. Tomorrow, I can begin to repair the only relationship I've ever valued. Unfortunately, I feel that after tomorrow, things will never be the same.