Chapter 2
Santana sat on the edge of one of the chairs that faced the living room wall. She'd spent the last fifty two minutes counting the number of bricks in the wall facing her, while softly humming Another Brick in the Wall. Every time she got to about eighty her eyes went all weird and she lost count. Then she'd go back the top left corner and start again. She was trying to pinpoint exactly how she got to this point. How she got here, sitting on a lounge chair and counting bricks while trying to ignore the fact that Brittany would be here in twenty nine minutes. If every brick represented a set interval of time during the last ten days, she wondered to herself, which brick would be the one to represent the moment at which there was no more turning back? The brick that meant that she would cave in and Brittany would come here, into her home, and she would sleep here and eat here and brush her teeth and maybe chat about this and that as if she was some neighbour casually popping by for a visit.
Maybe it was the moment when she realised that Rachel had been ignoring her for a day and a half. The only other time that Rachel had ever gone this long without speaking to Santana was just after they had moved in together and a very drunk Santana had replaced her macon with bacon. And even then Rachel's silence only lasted seven and a half hours, half of which Santana had slept through. Or maybe it was when Rachel told her that she was thinking of moving back to Lima, because she simply couldn't come by in the city anymore (although, Santana thought to her own defence, this might have been PMS rather than Rachel talking). Perhaps, Santana thought while losing count on brick number seventy seven and starting from the top, it was when she called Puck to complain about the whole situation. Maybe it was after she had told him how ridiculous Rachel and Kurt were being, expecting her to let Brittany stay with her and Rachel, and Puck told her to take the stick out of her ass, act like an adult, and just let Brittany stay there for a while. But then again, Puck's other piece of advice to her had been a very casual "relax, stay calm and eat pussy," so maybe that wasn't the pivotal moment after all.
No, Santana thought as she deeply exhaled, leaned back a little and looked up. It was the very first brick. The brick that represented the very first moment. The moment when Rachel first said Brittany's name and Santana had to take moment to figure out if she had heard correctly and she felt her heart maybe give what may or may not have been an extra beat. It was at that exact moment when she knew that she would eventually go into Rachel's room on a Sunday evening and tell her that Brittany could stay with them. Just for a while. Just over weekends. That was when she knew that she would spend an entire Wednesday afternoon clearing out the closet under the stairs to make space for Brittany's stuff and that she would spend the whole of Thursday morning mopping the floor and that she would dig into the back of her own closet to find her spare sheets and a pillow and that she would lovingly, yet casually, put it on the couch just in case Brittany would need it.
"Santana," Kurt interrupted her, "I'm talking to you."
"Huh?" she said, snapping her head up to look at Kurt.
"I asked if I could borrow this?" he repeated while holding up her copy of Loving Annabelle with his eyebrows raised in question.
"Sure. But you know there are like no boys in the whole movie, right?"
"I am aware of that sad fact, my dear ignorant friend," he said, "but we have this closeted little baby dyke at work and I thought it might do her good to be introduced to a little culture, if you know what I mean."
"By showing her a movie that tells her that she might be arrested if she got her lady love on?" Santana asked annoyed.
"You're insufferable, Santana," Rachel said as the entered the living room carrying a try with a silver coffee pot (Rachel insists that coffee pots are timeless and shows off one's elegance) four cups, a small milk jug, a few sugar cubes and a plate of cookies. "If you recall," she went on, "and I'm sure that you do, since you made me sit through that movie not once, but twice; you'd surely realise that she won't be arrested for engaging in a little Sapphic romance if she ensures that the object of her affection is of legal age."
"That's just fucked up, Kurt," Santana said, completely ignoring Rachel's comment. "Just leave the girl alone. I mean, has she ever told you that she's gay? Stop acting like you are the queen of all and everything gay and glittery and quit trying to lure people out of the closet if they don't want to come out."
Santana reached to take a cookie from the plate on the tray that Rachel had just put on the coffee table. Rachel swatted her hand away so that she dropped the cookie back onto the plate.
"I'm just trying to help her," Kurt said defensively, "Maybe she needs someone to talk to and you know, it's not like I don't know what it feels like."
"How swell," Santana replied sarcastically with a fake smile while clapping her hands together in front of her, "maybe you should call up Finn and the two of you could serenade her with a disco version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun or Lay, Lady, Lay."
"You know, Santana, you're kind of mean today. Even for you. I know it's hard and you're probably feeling nervous, but it's going to be fine," Kurt said softly.
"Yea, well, whatever. I'm just saying; people should come out if and when they're ready. Not when She-man Hummel decides to smoke them out of their closets by showing them a series of made for TV LGBTI soft porn movies."
"Santana, I was just ..." he tried to protest, but she cut him off.
"Whatever, Kurt. I'm gonna go and ... uhm ... see if there's any mail."
As Santana got up from the chair, she remembered the reason that she had been sitting in the chair in the first place and not in her usual seat on the couch. If the new and improved Santana Lopez – the one who was now in her mid-twenties and thus mostly refrained from cutting bitches – were to keep herself from reverting back into a high school Santana who thought too little and spoke too much, she had to lay down some ground rules for herself. And she first of these rules was that she could, under no circumstances, be on Brittany's bed. And while it was true that technically speaking it wasn't Brittany's bed yet and both Kurt and Rachel were sitting on the couch-that-would-soon-be-Brittany's-bed at the moment, Santana felt that she had better start enforcing this rule sooner rather than later. So as she stood up from the chair, picked up a packet of cigarettes from the coffee table and started walking towards the front door she took a few extra steps just to make sure that she didn't pass too close by the couch-that-would-soon-be-Brittany's-bed.
Rachel's widened eyes and her strict expression didn't go unnoticed by Santana as she picked up the packet of cigarettes. Under normal circumstances Santana wasn't really a smoker. Not a real, real smoker. This was why she kept her packet of cigarettes stashed away at the back of the kitchen cabinet above the microwave. Usually her smoking was limited to occasions of extreme intoxication, moments of terrible heart ache or outburst of uncontrollable rage. And as she was now no longer the impulsive high school Santana Lopez, none of these happened too often nowadays. Over the last few days, however, she had been spending an increasing amount of time standing on top of the kitchen counter, her hand reaching up to feel-feel for the packet. She also found her temper to be a little shorter than usual and her jokes to be a little meaner. Eventually Rachel had suggested that Santana just keep the damned packet of cigarettes somewhere on solid ground, because Rachel had claimed that she still wasn't completely sure that Santana wouldn't jump or fall at some stage. And so Santana had agreed that it might be best to keep the cigarettes handy just until Brittany arrived. And maybe for just a while after that until she had settled in with them. She secretly suspected that Rachel, who was usually such a staunch anti-smoker, had made this suggestion more for her own benefit than Santana's, since Santana got the feeling that Rachel had spent the last week anxiously waiting for some kind of emotional outbreak on Santana's part. That might also be, Santana thought as she walked out the front door, why Rachel had, as secretly and as silently as her Rachel Berry-ness could possibly allow her, put their more expensive glasses at the very back of the kitchen cupboard, hid some of the sharper knives behind the television set and disposed of all of the razors in the bathroom cabinet.
And even so, despite all of the general negative feelings that she had towards everything and everyone at that moment, when Santana had nearly reached the front door and Rachel yelled out for her to stop, she paused and turned her head towards the couch-that-would-soon-be-Brittany's-bed where Kurt and Rachel were sitting. Rachel quickly made her way across the living room towards Santana.
"I'm going to give you a hug," she said, "but it will just be a little one."
As Rachel put her arms around Santana's neck she whispered (softly, so that Kurt couldn't hear), "It's going to be all right. We love you and it'll be okay."
For a second, as Santana allowed herself to rest her chin in the crook of Rachel's neck, she thought to herself that, in the end, everything might just be all right after all. Then she pushed Rachel away with a "For god's sake Rachel, get the hell off," turned around and walked out the door.
Santana walked down the hallway towards the door that led to the fire escape. She opened the door and sat down on the reddish steel steps (according to mrs. Carey these steps were only to be used in case of emergency, but in spite of her fear of heights Santana sometimes came out here to sit down and think). She looked down. From three storeys up she couldn't really make out much on the street below her. She could vaguely make out some very undistinguished features of some of the passing people. She could faintly make out the hair colour of some people. She could see whether they were wearing shirts or jeans. She saw that in the distance a woman who was struggling to balance groceries while flagging down a taxi. Despite her poor and restricted vision, she nevertheless looked down the street and wondered if one of the people that she could see walking towards their building was Brittany. She wondered if she would even recognise Brittany. Would she still be blonde or had she maybe dyed her hair a darker colour of brown? Maybe her hair would be shorter. Perhaps she now wore glasses.
Santana looked at her watch. Sixteen more minutes. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke twirl into the air from its tip. If the squinted her eyes she could imagine that the cigarette was another finger; that the smoke was coming from her hand as if she were some kind of magician or mythical creature. If she were a magician, Santana thought to herself, she might have been able to go back in time. Then she'd be able to go back to a previous time when she had been sitting down this with her knees drawn close to her chest. When she had been looking at a cigarette in her hands, looking at her watch and had waited for Brittany to arrive.
It was a Monday afternoon. In the years after she could never quite remember what time it was. It had to be somewhere between three in the afternoon and seven in the evening. It had to be somewhere in that space of time, because it had been somewhere after the time that she sat down in Sue's office, the time that she ran back to the auditorium and danced and sang and slapped the crap out of Finn Hudson. But it was before the time when her parents got home from work. So it had to be somewhere between three and seven.
She was sitting behind the small fence that went around their pool. She sat flat on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest and took a drag of one of the cigarettes that she kept in a bundled up pair of socks in her second drawer. Brittany said that she would be over soon. Santana didn't know how exactly when soon would be. She also didn't really know how Brittany knew what was going on. She knew that she certainly didn't tell Brittany. Not because she didn't want Brittany to know, but simply she didn't really know what to say. It felt like the words that she needed to say somehow got lost somewhere inside of her and that, if it were to ever find its way out, she would burst into flames or simply drown in herself. As a matter of fact, until that day, that afternoon, she had never said out loud to anybody that she was gay. There were people who knew of course, and she had said it to herself in her head, but she had never said the words out loud. She had never spoken it into the world so that she no longer had control over where this knowledge went. She thought back to the previous year. To the uncomfortable conversation that she had had with Karofsky. Trying to convey her sexual orientation.
We play for the same team.
That's what she had said to Karofsky.
I want to be with you and I don't want Sam or Finn or any of those other guys.
That's what she had told Brittany.
She thought back to other times that she had referred to her sexuality. She had always refrained from saying it out loud. But now she would have to. It was the only thing she could do really if she wanted to keep the last shred of dignity and pride that she had left. Yet she couldn't even bring herself to tell Brittany what had happened in Sue's office. But somehow Brittany knew. Santana felt as though everybody knew by the time that she got back into the auditorium. She supposed that that was the way the rumour mill worked. Quickly without leaving any visible traces. As if though, when one looked back and tried to figure out how a rumour had spiralled to a certain point, so quickly yet so silently; all that one could see was a undecipherable genealogy of people and words and stories without any way of ever finding its origin. Without any way of retracing its steps.
So when Brittany simply hugged her after Mercedes had pulled her away from Finn Santana knew that she didn't have to say anything. She just let Brittany hold her before telling her that she needed to go home. To think. To talk to her parents. To think about how to talk to her parents. And when Brittany said that she'd just stop at her own house and would then be over to Santana's soon, she didn't ask any questions. She just reluctantly let go of Brittany's hand – the hand that she didn't even realise Brittany had been holding - and walked towards her car.
"You shouldn't smoke," Brittany had said from behind her. She wasn't sure if Brittany had been standing there for long. She wasn't sure if she'd been sitting there for long. "It's really bad for you. And it's a terribly hard habit to kick."
"Yea well, a small nicotine addiction is at the very bottom of my list of worries right now," Santana shrugged. "You should be thankful that I haven't made a little trip over to my father's liquor cabinet."
Brittany didn't say anything as she went to sit next to Santana. She took Santana's hand in her own and lightly stroked Santana's palm with her thumb.
"Honey, I'm so sorry," Brittany said after a while. "I wish that there was something that I could do for you."
"It's just not fair, Britt," Santana said softly. She didn't feel like crying and she didn't feel like yelling. She just felt a strange kind of numb emptiness.
"I know it's not fair," Brittany said and held her hand a little closer. They sat in silence again for a while.
"And you know the worst part, right?" Santana said, "The worst part is that I would have done it. I was doing well. I finally stopped being a fucking denialist bitch and I decided that I was gonna do it. I was gonna come out. I even set myself a date, did you know that?"
Brittany said nothing but shook her head slightly.
"Yea, I did. I told myself that I was going to tell everyone during winter break. I was just going to take deep breath and tell everybody and whoever didn't like it could go to hell," Santana said as she lit another cigarette. "But now I'll never get the chance. Now it's going to look as if I'm somehow ashamed of who I am. As if I've been hiding you."
Santana pulled out a piece of grass and threw it into the pool.
"Sweety ..." Brittany began.
"No," Santana replied, holding up one hand to silence Brittany, "Maybe with is my own fault. Maybe it's karma or Jesus or whoever punishing me, because I did hid you for so long. Because I was such a fucking bitch to you. Maybe that's the way it works. The deeper in the closet you hide, the harder you get pushed the fuck out."
"You know that's not true, Santana," Brittany said softly.
"Isn't it? Because it sure as hell feels true. And the worst thing, the fucking worst thing is that I've now dragged you into this. After I promised that I would never hurt you ever again I went and landed us in this mess," Santana said as she felt tears forming behind her eyelids. She really didn't want to cry. She hated crying and today, today of all days, the really didn't want to give the fucked up universe the satisfaction of seeing her crying.
"That is totally not true, Santana," Brittany said as she shifted a little closer to Santana. She put she arm around the other girl's shoulder to pull her into a side-hug. "It really isn't. Like, first of all, I don't care. I don't care who knows and what they think. I've told you this, right? I am so proud to be your girlfriend and I'll tell the world that if you want me to. And second of all, this isn't your fault. It's Sue Sylvester's and that fucking pizza prick's fault."
Santana gave a small smile. Although Brittany's voice was soft and steady, Santana knew that she had to be very angry, because Brittany very rarely swore.
"So don't you think for a second that this is your fault, okay?" Brittany continued. She paused for a while and bit her bottom lip before she went on. "But honey, have you thought about what you're going to do? I mean, I know this isn't fair and so incredibly messed up, but have you thought about ... you know ... your parents and stuff?"
Santana put her head down on Brittany's shoulder.
"I don't know," she said quietly, her voice shaking. "I mean it's not like I really have many options here is it? I suppose I could just say nothing and wait for my aunt Mildred to phone and tell them. Mister Shue said that he could talked to them or whatever."
She inhaled slowly to try and keep herself from crying.
"But ... but ..." she starting sobbing into Brittany's shoulder before she could finish the sentence. She shifted once more so that her head now rested on Brittany's chest. She could feel tears slowly wetting Brittany's shirt as she cried.
"I just feel," she said when she finally regained some control of her breathing, "that this is all I have, you know? Like that ad to going to run regardless of what I do. And everybody's going know that ... you know ... So the only power that I kinda have left is the power to tell the people that I want to tell on my own terms. Like to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that I'm gay," the last few words came out almost in a whisper. Then she started crying again. She was glad that she couldn't see Brittany's face. She didn't want to know what her expression looked like or if maybe she was also crying. If she, like Santana had done a while ago, was struggling to keep tears from falling.
"I'm gay," she sobbed, "I'm gay, Britt, and I've never said it out loud to anybody before and now ... now everybody's going to know. And I feel like I don't even care that everyone's gonna know. I care that I won't be the one to tell them and for the rest of my life, before people even meet me or get to know me, they're going to be like 'oh, there's that lesbian cheerleader from Ohio'. And I won't have any say in that."
"But you get a say in this, in now, in what we do now," Brittany said while stroking Santana's hair.
"I guess," Santana said, "you know the funny thing though? Sitting here now with you, I'm like, why didn't I just tell Sue and them that it was all lies? That someone was just making it all up to hurt me or steal my spot on the pyramid or whatever. Why didn't I just do that? Why did I practically admit to everything right away?"
Santana wasn't sure if she was speaking to Brittany or to herself.
"Because you're better than that," Brittany simply said as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole world. "You're better than that and you have more dignity than that."
Another moment of silence past.
"So you're going to tell your parents? Today?"
"It's not like a have much of a choice here, is it? But yea, I'm just going to come right out and say it. I don't know, maybe my dad could do something to stop the ad or something. Get a lawyer. Or something." Santana said although she was sure that, if anything could be done to stop the campaign from running, Sue would have done it already.
"You want me to come with you? You know, when you tell them? Lord Tubbington was with me when I told my folks about you and the support really helped," Brittany said. "Although I think that it also helped that my dad might have been a little high."
"No, I should just stop being such a wuss and tell them," Santana replied. "They get home at about seven, so ... I don't know. Maybe you could meet me afterwards? We could go egg Finn's car or something."
"Yea, I'll wait for you," Brittany said, bringing Santana's hand up to her lips and planting the lightest of kisses on her knuckles. "I'll wait. But, I don't know, if ... like ... if maybe you can't get away until very late ... Then ... just call me at least or something, okay? Uhm ... have you ... like ... have you thought about how your parents might react when you tell them? Like ... do you think they'll be cool and everything?"
Santana thought about her answer for a while before she replied.
"Yea, I mean, my mom can finally stop worrying about me becoming famous through an episode of Sixteen and Pregnant, right?" she nervously chuckled. "Yea, no, they'll be fine, I'm sure they'll be just fine with it," she said as she shifted her head a little and felt Brittany's heart beat, beat, beat against her ear.
Santana got up from the steel steps on which she'd been sitting and looked at her watch once again. Six minutes. Fuck. She opened the door and stepped back into the building. Slowly she walked back to their apartment, pausing for a moment to try and figure out why there was always a drilling sound coming from apartment 302 as she passed it. She opened the door to her own apartment and turned around to yell at Rachel for the fact that she hadn't removed the old record player from the lobby despite the fact that Santana had been continuously nagging about it for nearly two weeks. As she turned towards the couch-that-would-soon-be-Brittany's-bed where Rachel and Kurt had been sitting before (and drew in a long breath in order to take full advantage of this opportunity to insult Rachel) Santana saw that the couch had in fact become the couch-that-now-was-Brittany's-bed. And at very end of the couch-that-now-was-Brittany's-bed, her hands resting on her knees, there sat Brittany.
"Hi," said Brittany softly, giving Santana the smallest and most hesitant of smiles.
