AN:Disclaimer I do not own any characters from Glee.


Chapter Three: Zombie Tag

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"I'm guessing you're waiting on someone? You want to wait for them to order?" Waitresses had amazing skills of deduction. If someone was sitting alone, then chances are they are waiting for someone else. Amazing.

"Uh, yeah. I just want coffee for now…" Her questions sent my finger searching for the phone on the table. My thumb pressed the button on the side lit up the screen, showing no miss called or texts only the time, 12:02.

"Alright then, I'll make you a fresh pot so give me a couple minutes." I nodded and she tucked her pen and pad into the front of her apron.

My thoughts drifted into nothingness. The bright sun filtering through the window panes were the focus of my entire body. I did make note of the people walking pass, the two old ladies in the window booth next to the door, how lifeless the empty booths seem, how everything is slow compared to the city. Muffed shouts catch my attention. A group of little boys, covered in mud and sweat, and a young girl run pass the front windows of the diner.

"Uh, look at that. If I were their mother they'd all get a good washing after a spanking." The wrinkled old woman balked at the kids.

"Hmmm, kids nowadays. And look at that girl. When I was little girl never played with my brothers." The old crow took a spoon of her soup to her lips.

"It's not proper, running around like that. Filthy." Nodding along with herself, and taking a drag off the cigarette in her hand. My own hand twitched with the want of a nicotine surge, but I had left my pack in the car. If I did have them with me I would have started my very own chain smoking event.

"Not that I had the time, with chores. And my brothers they worked out on the farm. Kids nowadays…" I knew where this was going. Kids' with no work ethic, blah blah blah.

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The sun was high in the sky, blazing down on my bare shoulders. The tall grass scraped against my skin where my cut off jeans ended just above my knees. Sweat was collecting on my brow and glistening on my forearms. André and Jacob, my older brother and younger cousin respectively, raced away from me. I gasped for breath chasing them through the unkempt open field, desperately reaching out to tag them. Jacob was slower than my brother, but after twenty minutes of running I had lost my stamina. I caught up to Jake finally and grabbed the back of his shirt pulling him to the ground to maul him, as zombies do.

Just as I was about to sink my diseased teeth into his flesh my father's voice boomed across the field and commanded us to greet our Uncle Carlos.

"You're lucky this time Jake." I released the boy and ran in stride with my brother to stand before our father and uncle. Most of our family members have already arrived at the Lopez reunion. It was being held an hour out of Lima at my Aunt Anna's house. It was a pretty big house and sat on a rather large piece of land as well. It wasn't as nice as ours, my mother always pointed out.

Carlos and my father weren't very large men, neither surpassed six feet; but the way they held themselves demanded respect. Something I was happy to give to my father, and whoever he deemed worthy of receiving it from me. Their presence seemed to fill up to the room's pitched ceilings, and I wished one day to have that kind of authority.

"Good afternoon Uncle Carlos." My brother and I chimed together. Carlos smiled in returned and the small talk began.

"Sorry Papa, I forgot the dip in the cooler." Eliza, Carlos' daughter same age as me, hopped to her father's side.

"Ah, well say hello to your Uncle and cousins."

Eliza greets first my father and brother with a warm smile, but when she turns to me all friendly offers drop from her expression. "Hey Tana…"

I looked up to my father, after he set a hand on my shoulder. He knows that I've developed quite the personality even at the young age of ten; and that Eliza and I had never really played nice with each other.

"Hey Eliza." I try my utmost to look down at her, even though we're the same age she's an inch or two taller than me. Sometimes I feel like I've never getting any taller. André was only a year and a half older than me and was already using his height against me.

My father squeezes my shoulder a bit harder than necessary, but it's not unusual. It means, be nice or else. Bringing me back to my thoughts, he probably wants me to compliment the flower in her hair that Grandma Maria picked for all the girls. I had mine for the total of five minutes before it was trampled in the beginnings of tag.

"Your flower looks nice." My father loosened his grip and stepped away from me, André, and Eliza, dragging Uncle Carlos along with him. Eliza was not so forgiving however. She twisted her face into disgust and pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Anything looks nice compared to you Santana." I quirked my eyebrow at her, challenging her to continue. Carlos and Dad may not like it, but I'd mop the floor before I let her get away with insulting me. In front of our entire family no less.

André thankfully had yet to leave my side yet. "Eliza don't be mean. You're both very pretty." My brother, the sculpted gentleman product of my mother; sometimes his sap made me sick. But he probably knew that if Eliza continued to agitate me that there would be a fight to clean up.

"Oh really André? Look at me and what do you see?" Before either André or myself could comment, and mine was much less than appropriate, she continued by making a grand gesture towards herself."The correct answer would be a blossoming young lady."

My brother laughed and I poked a finger down my throat with an accompanying gagging noise.

"Oh please, laugh it up now. Just wait until the summer is over and we go back to school. Momma says that I'll have to bring a club with me to keep the boys away from me." Eliza stood dignified with her hands firmly on her hips. Her deluded sense of what the sixth grade would promise for her sent me and André into hysterics.

Our laughter mingled together, sounding strangely similar. Yet, I knew she had a point. Eliza wasn't ugly. In her sun dress I could imagine if I were a boy I would be tempted to walk home with her, or try to hold her tanned hand at recess. I pushed that thought out of my mind, and focused on the conversation at hand.

"Eliza! Don't say stuff like that!" I turned to see my brother, who last I remember was laughing, with balled fists at his sides and his eyes closed. 'What did I miss?'

"What? That the only club Tana is going to need is a golf club? Or…" Eliza had a smirk plastered on her painted lips.

"Or what?" I was confused and searched for the missing puzzle piece. I didn't know why I'd be needing a golf club. But I was going to get my answer quickly as my cousin turned her attention to me.

Eliza's face for the second time twisted in disgust and looked down on me. "That you're a dyke."

The word echoed in my head. It made my blood turn cold, and my jaw clench. It wasn't as if I've never heard of it. I knew what she was calling me.

It was the same thing I heard spoken in hushed tones when my parents or my aunts didn't think I was near. It was the undertone of when my uncles asked me when I would start wearing dresses. I didn't understand the reason for it. But it was the first time I heard it said to my face; that the word was actually meant for me to hear.

I wanted to scream at her, to tell her that I'm not. That there isn't anything wrong with me and that she can go to hell. I wanted to hit her, shove her into the white concrete pillar, I wanted André to defend me, I wanted to cry. My emotions took over, and I don't have to choose between my anger or hurt. I get both. I blink away the first of my tears, and my body moves without conscious effort.

Before I had the chance to do anything of these things Sonia, my savior, stepped between me and Eliza. I didn't even realize that I had moved towards my cousin with my fist raised. My aunt's cool skin shocked me when she grabbed my fist. I barely heard her tell André to go play with Jacob and command Eliza to go upstairs.

The strength in her grip on my wrist intensified the tears in my eyes. I thought it was from pain, but I realized that it was because she heard that. She heard just as I had that someone I loved, not a stranger on the street or stupid boy at the playground, call me a terrible thing. I let her lead me into the house and towards the spare bedroom beyond the guest bath on the lower floor. She guided me to the bed and as I sat on the hard mattress I felt the tears I was holding back break through my resolve.

The door opened and closed quietly, and soon I was faced with my mother.

"Santana, why are you trying to punch your cousin? Really? I thought that I had raised a proper young lady. Not som-" I watched through water clouded vision Sonia pull my mother to the side and whisper to her. No doubt reenacting the scene that had just happened. My mother visibly flinched, while Sonia smiled sadly at me.

"Santana, stop crying, what did Eliza say to you?" My mother stood in front of me with arms crossed and an unreadable expression on her face.

"Julie you know what she said." My aunt sat at my side with an arm around my shoulder.

"Oh I know. I'd like to hear her say it. It's about time I dealt with this." My mother held my gaze. "Now you tell me what she said to you."

I blinked away the tears in my eyes, summoning the courage I needed to face my mother. When she took this stance there was no denying her. "She said something mean." I hoped that she would leave well enough alone, but she pressed me.

"What could she have called you to make you cry like a little girl?" Sonia's hand on my shoulder squeezed at the remark and I took comfort in her presence. Even with her support I dropped my gaze to the carpeted floor. Thinking how soft it looked from where I sat perched on the bed, but I bet more than anything that it was scratchy and rough.

My chin was jolted into the air, and my eyes met with an intense pair of chocolate brown that mirrored my own. "What exactly did she call you."

My voice was barely above a whisper. "A dyke."

My mother released my chin from her grip and stepped back. "So?"

I looked to my mother, who had turned away from me to stare out the window at some of younger cousins. Did she not care that I was insulted by my cousin? That hushed whisper was now thrown out into the open air for everyone to hear? Was it not as bad as I perceived it to be?

I choose a different route to test the waters of exactly what this word meant to me. "She was being mean Mom, and-"

"And what? Telling the truth? Is that not what you are saying to the world when you walk out of the house dressed like this?" My mother threw a cruel finger towards me.

I looked down at my dirty black converses. Black had always been my favorite color, though if anyone would ask I would say red. It seemed like people liked that answer better. Angry cuts where forming on my legs from running through the grass, and the strings from my cut off jeans tickled against them. My tank top was a dark green and where tiny hearts or flowers should be there was blotches of dirt from the fields. My hair was straightened, but it was my mother's doing. I would have been fine with pulling it back into a messy ponytail, but she insisted that I look somewhat presentable today.

My father had never made any qualms about my appearance, only my mother. I could get away with murder if he were judge and jury. Yet, thinking about what my mother had just said, there are times when his smile seemed forced. Like when I rather play with my brother and his friends than the girls on our street, or when I rather play cops and robbers than dress up.

"But I'm not... What's wrong with the way I dress?" My fingers twitch nervously in my lap. The comforting touch offered by my aunt had been removed. She moved to stand by my mother's side.

I can see the muscles in my mother's neck tighten, ready to yell at me. Sonia waves a hand in front of her and I'm grateful for being spared from my mother's voice.

"Santana, there's nothing wrong with the way you dress." I smiled despite my mother huffing. "But there's a problem with the message you send to the people around you." My aunt moved to kneel in front of my station on the bed.

I tried to grasp what my aunt had said, but I couldn't connect the dots. "I don't understand... If there's nothing wrong wit-" My mother offered a softened voice and a more direct approach.

"Santana, when you look in the mirror what do you see. A girl… or a boy."

Now this I hadn't thought of. When I stared at my reflection I saw me. The thought of 'I'm a girl' never really passed through my mind. Is that what people really think of when they look at themselves? I looked at their expecting faces, waiting for me to answer a simple question. Are you a boy or girl. This should be easy.

"A girl." I held my chin up to show confidence in my answer. I was a girl, so that had to be the answer they wanted. Both my mother and aunt's shoulders slackened.

Sonia took my hand in hers and a soft expression on her face. "Tana. You may see the little girl, and I most definitely see a pretty little girl; but other people don't. They see a little girl dressed as a boy, and they think mean things, like what Eliza said."

"All because I wear t-shirts? I don't understand." I was unconvinced that the way I dressed was anything other than a combination of what I had and what I liked.

My mother cleared her voice; patience was something she lacked, as well as empathy. "You don't need to understand why. They just do. They think you're different and will treat you differently."

"Because I dress like a boy I'm different? That doesn't make any sense." I pulled my hand from Sonia's hold. The warm feeling of anger gripped my around my chest. My mother was talking in circles, and it wasn't making any sense.

"It does, dressing like a boy means something Santana."

I think to what my father says when she commands me to change my outfit. "It means that I dress sensibly for my activities." I was happy with my wit and the rile I was able to get from my mother.

My mother balled her fists and took a step towards me, Sonia was still acting as a protective barrier between us. "It means that you like girls Santana. Do you? Tell us now: Do you like boys or" A wicked snarl surfaced on her face. "Do you like girls?"

All of the anger within me vanished. Somehow I felt scared, and I didn't know why. It was another simple question. And I knew what the right answer was, boys. But when I actually thought about liking boys, holding hands with them or kissing them like in the movies, there was a strange emptiness accompanying it. It took me less than a second to decide, and for every amount of emptiness I felt in the answer I said it that much louder. My volume could drown out any other responses or concerns. The strength of my voice would make it so.

"Boys." I looked to my mother, holding her gaze for a moment to confirm my answer. I looked away to the abstract painting hanging above the bed, swirling blues and greens, "Duh, what kind of question is that?"

Silence was the response offered by my mother, and I accepted it. I wanted to go outside or, better yet, home.

My aunt probably felt how uneasy the tension between my mother and I was. Although it was the usual, verbal spats between me and my mother, this was an argument I never wanted to have again. I'd do anything to never hear it again, or even remember it.

Sonia cleared her voice twice to get our attentions. "Well then, I dare say some may be on the verge of boy crazy." She chuckled to herself.

My mother saw no mirth in the joke, and neither did I. All I wanted was to end this and hang at my father's side.

"Perhaps a shopping spree is in order?" Sonia pulled me up from my perch on the bed and I nodded. I supposed it was. I didn't want my mother or Sonia look and act as they just had around me ever again.

And if nothing else, I never wanted to hear that word again. If it meant dressing differently, or being boy crazy; then that's what I would do.

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"One hot cup of joe, for Ms. Lopez." Cassidy apparently returned without me noticing, and I offered her a smile and a soft thank you.

"It is still Ms. Lopez, right?" Cassidy set a tall cool glass of water next to the coffee cup.

"Yeah, no freaking way I'd let that happen." I held out my ring finger to prove the point. "Nothing's going on this. Ever."

"Well, we don't share the same feelings." She flashed me her wedding ring, which was pretty but small. I smiled all the same and congratulated her. The look in her eyes could fool the most renowned jeweler on the diamond's size.

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TBC

AN:Let me know what you think about things and stuff.