Chapter Seven

"I fucked up."

"It can't be that bad, Amy."

"It is. You don't… you can't understand. What happened, I… I just ruined everything."

"You can't have ruined everything," Tina insists. There was a visible change in the girls' dynamic that week at school, but nothing end-of-the-world worthy.

"I did though."

"Tell me what happened."

"We slept together."

Tina falls into silence, processing this. Okay, yes, maybe things have gotten a little more complicated since the last time Santana called her number by mistake. "You and…?"

"Yeah. Me and Britt. We slept together."

"What… what happened?"

"A…" she stumbles over the word she wants to use, "a friend of ours threw this party…" Tina silently cheers. Santana just called Rachel a friend. That is an accomplishment.

But then Tina sees where this is going before Santana even gets there. She was at the party too after all.

"It was just, I don't know, a bunch of friends from our Glee Club. And there was alcohol. Lots. And lots of alcohol plus Britt and I, especially after we've been keeping our distance for so long… leads to sex. Some friends dropped her boyfriend off-"

That was us, Tina thinks. Tina's dad drove Tina, Mike, Artie and Mercedes home at the end of the night.

"-so it was just the two of us and we ended up back at my place and we just… we fell back into what we were used to doing before. It was so easy. I mean, it's been hard, staying away from her for so long. But we were drunk. Way past drunk. And she was all dazed and cute and looking at me and she told me she'd missed me and suddenly I was kissing her and then we were in my room and… it was all so familiar. And it felt so good. Being able to touch her, being able to hold her again. It… it filled something that's been empty for so long."

"Wow," is really all Tina can say.

"I feel horrible."

"I thought you said it made you feel good."

"It did," Santana sighs into the phone, "Until I wasn't hung-over anymore and I realized what it meant. I turned her into a cheater. I made her cheat on Artie. And it's different than when we used to do this before, when we used to cheat on guys with each other. Because it wasn't cheating so much as just… making each other feel better. But now… she told me. When she started dating him she told me it had to change, that we couldn't do what we usually did. Because what she had with Artie was different than what she had with her casual boyfriends from before. That she didn't want to hurt him. So I promised her I'd hold back."

She sighs again, and Tina can hear the quiet sounds of Santana beginning to cry.

She didn't know that part of the story. She thought it was mutual, the not sleeping together while Brittany and Artie were together. She didn't realize it was Brittany's decision, that it was Brittany putting the limitation on what was and wasn't acceptable between her and her best friend.

"And now she's gone and cheated on him and I know she feels even more miserable than before and it's my fault. Because I was drunk and I'm in love with her and I couldn't control it any longer. She was just there, with her eyes shining, and she didn't tell me no. I… I would have stopped. I would have made us stop, it would have been the right thing to do if she had just asked me to… and now… fuck."

Tina doesn't know if Santana really would have been able to stop if Brittany had said they needed to because of Artie. Tina thinks Santana probably would have kept going because of that, to spite him, but doesn't say so.

She also doesn't comment on how she thinks it's odd that Santana is worried about the consequences of Brittany cheating, when Santana – who is still dating Sam – would also be considered guilty of cheating.

But it's not really about Santana. It's about Brittany. It's always been about Brittany.

"Have you two talked about it?" is what she does say.

Santana snorts, "No. We are currently pretending it's never happened. We're different now, I can see it. It all changed because we were both drunk and needed each other. But I can see it now.

"When she touched my hand in the hallway yesterday it didn't burn. It felt amazing. And when I fixed her hair before we did one of our Glee performances today she didn't shy away. We're moving back towards where we were."

Tina noticed too, the subtle touches reminiscent of before all their drama started. Tina had picked up on them starting as early as Valentine's, when Brittany comforted Santana in the hallway after Rachel's wayward comment on Santana's promiscuous nature. But if these moments were becoming more frequent now, after they slept together… Tina doesn't really know what that means, if it is a good thing or a bad thing.

"Well, is that a bad thing?" she asked.

"I… I don't know if I want to go there. I don't know if I can go there again. I want to go back to where we were, when we were actual best friends, not two shells of best friends. But the sleeping together… I don't know if I can do that… knowing she's with… with… him." A tiny sob pushes its way out of her throat.

Artie doesn't know. Tina might be able to keep from saying anything if it doesn't happen again. But he's her friend. And if Brittany and Santana go back to sleeping together… that's one lie Tina isn't sure she'll be able to keep for Santana.

"I think you need to talk to her about it. Tell her how you-"

"No! No feelings! There can't be feelings!" Santana shouts into her phone.

Tina flinches at the harshness of her voice, but pushes on, "You can't keep doing this to yourself, S-Amy." Another close catch. "You either need to tell her-"

"Stop! Stop it, I don't want to hear it. I don't want your advice."

"Then why are you calling?"

"To talk to someone!" Santana spits out. "Because the one person I want to talk to this about is the one person I can't talk about it with," her words are cut short as her cries take over once again.

Tina realizes Santana is partly right. She's been hearing Santana cry for months, cry behind an anonymous helpline because the only person ever allowed to see her cry is Brittany. And Brittany is the one causing the tears, so she can't cry in front of Brittany anymore.

She waits until Santana's crying calms before she speaks, "Amy, you need to talk to her. At least about – wait, hear me out. You need to talk to her about how this is making you feel. Not your feelings for her exactly, but about how everything that is going on is making you feel. You two need to find some common ground."

"The common ground," Santana sniffs, "is that I'm going to get left behind because I'm just the best friend and he's the boyfriend, so he comes first."

"If you're her best friend, then you come before any boyfriend."

Santana's laugh is so bitter it digs right into Tina's chest and tries to rip at her flesh, "Have you not been listening about the wreck of a friendship we've had the past few months? There is no fucking way in hell I come first for her. If I came first, we wouldn't be here. She wouldn't be dating him. Or she would be but we'd still be having sex behind his back.

"But I can't come first because I'm a fucking coward who refused to sing with her. This is my punishment. I'm stuck living with it."

The one thing Tina doesn't like about Santana is how rigid she is. For Santana, there is only ever one answer. She doesn't let herself hope for an alternate possibility, because she doesn't believe it exists.

"Do you," Tina hears herself saying, her mouth moving without her mind's permission. "I mean, you blame yourself so much for what is going on. Do you… do you blame her at all?"

Santana doesn't say anything for a long time. She simply sits and breathes into the phone, her erratic breaths slowly calming down. Tina doesn't know if Santana is contemplating her answer or if she knows it and is simply refusing to give it.

"Well?" she prods.

"No," Santana finally says. "I don't blame her at all. It would be like blaming her for having blue eyes."

Tina, for the life of her, can't see the connection. All she can see is Santana being almost blinded by her love for Brittany.

"You blame yourself then, fully?"

Santana responds right away, "Yes."

"Do you love her?"

Again, the Latina replies without hesitation, "With everything I have."

Finally, Tina asks the game-wining question. "Do you love yourself?"

Santana hangs up, but all Tina hears is a loudly resounding 'no.'

Santana loves Brittany so whole-heartedly that she leaves absolutely nothing for herself.

It's probably one of the most painful things she's realized about Santana since this whole mess started.