Two

Santana drove back to her house in silence, leaving her completely alone with her thoughts. Somewhere, deep down, she knew that that probably wasn't the brightest idea that she had ever had. Her thoughts often had a way of running away with themselves, even at the best of times. Santana had the tendency to over think and over analyse any situation that she was in. This would usually just result in her making herself an emotional wreck over even the smallest of things.

Her brain had taken to telling her that Brittany had wanted out of their relationship for a while now and that she had finally found the opportunity to end things. She couldn't help but think this way.

Santana had been having negative thoughts similar to these for a while now though, so they weren't exactly new to her, but now they seemed to be back sevenfold. She had never fully understood why someone who was so good natured, funny, caring and beautiful as Brittany would have wanted to be with someone like her, especially when she could've had her pick of people. To Santana, it just didn't add up right, she had always considered herself lucky to call Brittany hers. She tried to shake the negative thoughts from her mind, knowing that they weren't doing her any good and would only help in making her feel worse.

It's gonna be okay. It'll work out in the end.

Santana started to repeat this thought in her mind like a mantra, hoping that they would be able to prove her and her broken heart with some sort of solace.

She hadn't been crying for too long before she had managed to stop herself and pull herself back together. She didn't want to look like too much of a wreck when she got back home. From what Brittany had told her, she gathered that her mom already knew all about the move, which meant, if her mom knew then her dad and Carmen most likely did, too.

To Santana, the thought of her family knowing about it, made the situation that much worse. She knew that if she went home with her mascara and eyeliner trailed down her face, with bright red, bloodshot eyes then it would be a dead give away to how cut up she actually was about all of this. She wouldn't be able to lie her way out of this one anyway, but her current state would only make matters worse. If she went home looking like that, then she knew for sure that there would be no way to avoid her mother's sympathetic gazes. Which, right now, were something Santana just couldn't deal with.

She felt thankful that she had a mother who was as understanding and caring as her's was, she knew things could be worse, but still, Santana hated knowing that her mother was watching her closely when she was upset. If anything, seeing her mother looking at her in a sympathetic way, made her feel worse, because her being upset wasn't only affecting her. She wouldn't talk to her mom about this, she felt that she simply couldn't. It'd be far too awkward for either of them to talk about her relationship with Brittany. There was, in fact, only one person Santana actually liked going to with Brittany related dramas, that was Carmen.

Santana knew that Carmen wouldn't judge her for reacting like this, that's why she went to her. She also knew that her elder sister would listen to whatever she had to say without any interruptions. Then, when Santana was done, Carmen would set to finding a solution to help Santana through whatever had caused her sadness. Carmen's comforting techniques were usually always the same, she would run down to the kitchen to gather as much junk food as she could get her hands on, then they would sit and watch the funniest film that they could find on Netflix. Santana didn't really have any problems with this, she knew that it worked for her. But sometimes, she did wish her sister would show a little bit more compassion when she was sad, rather than just eating their way through their problems.

Santana wasn't exactly sure how she was going to cope tonight, Carmen was out at a house party for one of her old high school friends' birthday. Leaving Santana in the house alone with their mom, while their father worked the night shift at the hospital for the third time that week.

She knew she would need someone to talk to. She wouldn't have ever admitted that she needed somebody, but it didn't make it any less true.

Her eyes were still stinging slightly, small sobs racked through her body and she could only just see where she was driving through her still teary eyes. Santana had never been more thankful to only live a ten minute drive away from Brittany. She pulled her car into the driveway and took a deep, shaky breath, hoping that she would be able to calm herself down further before she stepped back into her house.

She shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes at herself, letting out a humourless laugh. She had known that crying wasn't going to get her anywhere. Her tears weren't going to change the facts. She wiped just underneath her eyes with the backs of her hands, wiping away the remaining tears. Using the pads of her thumbs she tried to remove her smudged eyeliner and mascara, only managing to smudge them further along her face. She looked at herself one last time in the rear view mirror and sighed when she realised that this was the best that she was going to look right now. She just hoped that it would be enough to convince her mom that she was actually okay.

"Fuck it." She grumbled, she got out of her car, slamming the door behind her.

She started walking up the driveway to her house, she could hear a guitar being strummed quietly and a faint voice singing before it cut off and a raspy voice spoke out to her instead. This voice, would usually make Santana roll her eyes playfully while she dealt with it's owner, but today was a little different.

"Hey, sandbags." The voice said. Though Santana couldn't see her face from where she was now standing, she was sure that the owner of the voice would be wearing a playful, beaming grin; she usually was whenever she addressed Santana like this.

Santana turned slowly in the direction of the voice, her jaw had tensed slightly. She saw the shorted girl sitting on the front porch of the house next door to her own. This girl, Danielle Mitchell, had lived next door to Santana her whole life.

It was safe to say that Santana and Dani weren't exactly the best of friends. Despite that fact they they had grown up with each other and had spoken to each nearly everyday of their lives.

Santana didn't hate Dani, nor did Dani hate her. They never had hated each other, they were more frenemies than anything else.

The main reason for their lack of friendship was, they ran in different circles when they were at school, Dani had her clique; the quiet art kids who would keep to themselves. (they would usually sit outside in a small group on their lunch break and sing quietly while Dani played her guitar) and of course, Santana had her cliques; the glee club, some of the footballers and some of the cheerios. Santana had been a cheerleader but quit last year when she had finally had enough of Coach Sue's verbal abuse. Now, she only spoke to the football players and cheerios if she had a class with them. Most of the time she was sat with her glee friends.

"What do you want, Dani?" Santana asked, her voice was hoarse and tired. She sighed quietly while she waited for the other girl to answer her.

Dani was still strumming her guitar absentmindedly when she glanced up at Santana, catching a quick look at her before she turned away smirking slightly. "Well that's very attractive." She said in a teasing tone.

"I can't help it. I guess I am just a natural beauty." Santana said with a slight shrug. She wasn't in the mood for their usual banter that would be passed back and forth between the pair of them.

Dani scoffed lightly, "What no snide remark?" She asked, "nothing snarky to say to me, at all?" She stopped playing her guitar and turned back to look up at Santana with a quirked eyebrow. As she got a better look at the girl, her features started to soften slightly. She carefully placed her guitar down on the floor by her feet, her eyes never left the brunettes face. She tilted her head to the side slightly and grabbed her bottom lip between her teeth, Santana had seen Dani with this expression on her face many times in the past, it never failed to annoy her. "What's wrong?" Dani asked, her voice shifting slightly, taking on a tone that held a small amount of concern for Santana.

It was odd to say the least for Dani to see Santana acting this way; usually she would have made a passing comment about the other girl by now. Of course, Santana's comments were never malicious and Dani had never taken any of them to heart. There was no real animosity between the pair of them, nor was there any animosity in the things that they would say to each other. They both knew that. It's just the way that they were with each other, it had been that way for as long as either of them could remember. And oddly, it seemed to work just fine for both of them.

But this was a side to Santana that Dani had never seen. In the seventeen years that they had known each other, Dani had never known Santana to be so distant.

"It's nothing." Santana said through a sniffle, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her feet, avoiding eye contact with the other girl.

"That's bullshit." Dani said softly, "if something has got you feeling like this, then it's not nothing."

Santana sighed and looked up to meet Dani's eyes, "It's Brittany, okay?" Santana snapped.

"Why are you upset with Brittany?"

"I'm not upset with her." Santana clarified, "not really, anyway."

"So why are you upset? What happened between the pair of you?" Dani asked.

"We, uh, we broke up." Santana said.

"Really?" Dani said, her eyes widening slightly at the information, "did you break up with her?" Santana shook her head slowly, "wait, she broke up with you?" Dani asked furrowing her brow., slightly confused at the turn of events. Santana nodded her head. "Why?"

"Because, she's moving to Washington tomorrow." Santana said.

"Oh. Right, that." Dani said quietly nodding her head slightly.

"Wait, you know about that?" Santana asked, her jaw tensing once more, Dani nodded her head, "Well that's just fucking awesome." Santana sarcastically, "even you knew before I did... How?"

"Brittany told me." Dani said shrugging halfheartedly.

"Did everyone find about this before me?" Santana asked.

"Probably, it's a small town, news can travel pretty fast." Dani said, "can I be honest, with all of this?" Dani asked, she didn't give time for Santana to respond before she said, "I really didn't think that you and Brittany would breakup over something like this."

"I didn't either," Santana admitted through yet another sniffle, "I actually wanted to try and do the whole long distance thing with her but, she wasn't really up for that..." Santana informed her.

Santana pressed the balls of her hands to her eyes trying to stop the tears.

"Well..." Dani said drawing out the word, "do you want to talk about this whole thing or...?" She asked hesitantly. She didn't exactly know what else to do. She didn't know Santana all that well. She knew the basic pieces of information about her and she knew that she walked around the halls of McKinley High like she owned the knew about Santana's reputation, but then again, most of the school knew about how 'notorious' Santana Lopez was, it was no secret that she had been around. But still Dani didn't know her. She didn't know how to handle a sad and almost crying Santana. The only Santana that Dani had ever seen was a sarcastic or angry one. Up until that point, Dani hadn't even known that the girls was capable of feeling anything else.

"What, with you?" Santana asked.

Dani looked up at the brunette and shook her head, "No with The Pope." She replied sarcastically, "yes with me." She said chuckling. Santana looked around her, Dani rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, no one's gonna see you talking to me." Dani added with a small smile, "we can even go inside the house if you want. I'm home alone."

Santana shook her head before she trudged along her yard to join Dani on the front porch. She sat down next to with a quiet sigh. Santana took a deep breath, "Okay." She said, launching into her story. "Well it started when she asked me to go over to her house and I jumped at the chance because I hadn't seen her in over three weeks, right?" Dani nodded her head slowly. "So I go over and I spend most of the time I'm there, just gushing about how great Egypt is. All the while Brittany is waiting for me to shut up so she can drop this bombshell on me."

"...Okay." Dani said nodding her head again, taking in all that Santana was saying to her.

Santana continued, "So she practically told me to shut up about it, only in a nicer way because y'know, she's Brittany and that girl doesn't have a bad bone in her body." Santana sighed, she could feel more tears threatening to make an appearance. "So I stopped talking and then she said 'we need to talk.'" Santana said holding up air quotations Dani turned her mouth down slightly when she heard those same four words that had sent panic shooting through Santana's system. "Then she broke up with me." Santana said, she blinked against the tears that burned her eyes, allowing them to fall down her face once again.

Dani sighed and held her arms out to Santana hesitantly, Santana looked from Dani's arms to her face, before she reciprocated the hug, "I am such an idiot." Santana whispered.

"I don't think you're an idiot." Dani said shaking her head, she moved out of the hug, and ran a hand though her now blonde hair, when Santana had left for her vacation, Dani's hair had been a light bubble gum pink colour.

"Well I am." Santana said quietly.

Dani rolled her eyes at the other girl, "Well I'm not gonna sit here and argue with you about it." Dani said smiling slightly. Santana lips curled up in a weak smile that didn't quite meet her eyes.

An awkward silence fell between them, Dani took the time in the silence to look down at her chipped nail polish while Santana stared out into Dani's front yard. It was Santana who broke the silence first by saying, "Anyway, I am sorry that I interrupted... Whatever it was that you were attempting to do before you saw me." Santana joked quietly. "I think you might have been trying to sing, but I'm not sure." Dani let out a light laugh.

"That was lame for you, but I'll let you off tonight." Dani said with a light laugh.

Santana rolled her eyes, "I should get going." Santana said, "I know it's only early but my mami is expecting me home and if I don't show up soon, she'll go into panic overdrive." Santana lied.

The truth being told, Santana just didn't feel like spending anymore of her time sat outside, with a girl she barely even counted as a friend. For her liking, she had already divulged to much to Dani, not to mention the hug. It was something Santana hadn't expected when sitting down with Dani. But she couldn't say that she minded it.

Dani nodded, "Okay." She said, she gave Santana a slight knowing look.

"Well thanks for listening to me tonight." Santana said quietly.

"No problem." Dani smiled at her. Santana gave her a weak smile in return before standing up and dusting off her dress. She turned on her heel, so that she was no longer facing the blonde, she started walking back in the direction of her own house. "Goodnight, Santana." She called after the taller girl.

Santana waved over her shoulder while she continued to talk across her yard. Dani picked up her guitar and began to play it once more, singing quietly as Santana walked back into her own house.


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